A well-known geopolitical expert thinks Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel didn’t have all the tools he needed to do his job well before he resigned on Monday morning.
“Senior defense officials,” told NBC News that Hagel was “forced to resign” because “the White House has lost faith in Hagel’s ability to do his job at the Pentagon.” “He wasn’t up to the job,” said one official about Hagel.
The president of Eurasia Group, Ian Bremmer, gave Business Insider a different point of view.
Bremmer said that Hagel wasn’t a “good fit” for the administration of President Barack Obama. But he also said that the White House might blame Hagel’s decision to leave because it didn’t give him a clear plan for foreign policy.
“Once the secretary of defense job became mostly about policy (rather than managing the bureaucracy and keeping the budget in check),” Bremmer wrote in an email, “Hagel became a problem for the Obama administration.” “It’s true that he wasn’t a good fit for that job, but he also wasn’t given a chance. They needed clear policy alignment, so they pushed him out.”
Bremmer said that the White House “drives” military policy. He said this might have been why Hagel was having trouble at the Pentagon.
Bremmer said that Hagel’s departure won’t have a big effect on how the US deals with the Middle East, where conflicts are raging over the Islamic State, Israel, and nuclear talks with Iran. Bremmer thinks that the White House isn’t looking for a secretary of defense to set its military policy.
Bremmer said, “I don’t think it has much of an effect on Middle East policy, which has been and will continue to be set by the White House.” “Political, not military, decisions have been made about what to do and, more importantly, what not to do in Syria and Iraq.”
Bremmer said that the secretary of defence has to follow the White House’s policy decisions, but he said that losing Hagel will hurt one of the Obama administration’s biggest plans. The White House’s foreign policy is centred on a “pivot” to Asia. Bremmer said that Hagel is now in charge of this project because other officials have left.