Michelle Flournoy May Not Be a Shoo-In For U.S. Defense Secretary After All

Then Under Defense Secretary for Policy Michele Flournoy briefs the press at the Pentagon on January 5, 2012. (DoD/Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo) 

Defense News: No SecDef pick from Biden as Flournoy hits resistance from progressives

WASHINGTON ― When President-elect Joe Biden announced the core of his national security team on Monday, there was one glaring omission: his choice for defense secretary. 

That absence is leading to questions about whether Michèle Flournoy, a politically moderate Pentagon veteran whose confirmation would give the Defense Department its first woman leader, remains the odds-on favorite for the role. 

The doubts came as Flournoy has been under pressure from the left over her defense industry ties and relatively hawkish views. Flournoy joined Booz Allen Hamilton’s board and co-founded defense consulting firm WestExec Advisors in 2018, and, in 2007, co-founded the Center for a New American Security think tank, which relies on support from defense firms. 

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WNU Editor: I also expected a position would be named for Susan Rice .... but that has not happened (yet). So why the pushback to Michele Flournoy's appointment after two weeks of nothing but news that she was going to be nominated as Defense Secretary? She does carry a lot of luggage, but so does everyone else on Biden's team. My guess is that Biden just does not get along with her as well as he does with others, and is now looking at other possibilities. 

 More News On Reports That Michelle Flournoy May Not Be The Next U.S. Defense Secretary After All 

Biden mum on defense secretary pick as progressives push against top contender Flournoy -- FOX News 

Flournoy May Not Be a Shoo-In for Defense After All -- Newser 

Biden’s choice for secretary of Defense still in flux -- Politico

Michèle Flournoy Will Be Joe Biden's Nominee For U.S. Secretary Of Defense

© Provided by Washington Examiner 

VOX: Michèle Flournoy is ready for the spotlight 

Flournoy is expected to become the first woman secretary of defense. She’s ready. 

Not pictured in the famous photo of Obama administration officials watching the raid to kill Osama bin Laden, but standing just out of frame, was Michèle Flournoy. The Pentagon’s policy chief and third-highest civilian at the time, Flournoy played a pivotal but behind-the-scenes role to greenlight the operation. Yet her name is unknown to most outside the Washington foreign policy community. 

Flournoy may soon step out of obscurity and into the proverbial picture. That’s because President-elect Biden is expected to nominate her to be his secretary of defense. If confirmed, the 59-year-old would become the first woman ever to lead the Pentagon. 

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WNU Editor: I have lost count since the weekend on the number of puff pieces that I have been reading from the media on the soon to be nominated US Defense Secretary Michèle Flournoy. The above post from VOX is a typical one. I expect her nomination will be overwhelmingly approved by the US Senate.

Is Michele Flournoy The Right Person To Be U.S. Secretary Of Defense?

Michele Flournoy. © Provided by Washington Examiner 

Spencer Ackerman, Daily Beast: She Helped Escalate an Endless War. Will She End It? 

Michele Flournoy is a revered member of the defense establishment and practically a lock to run a Biden Pentagon. Her path there ran through ramping up the Afghanistan war. 

There are uncertainties around many of Joe Biden’s Cabinet selections, but not around one. Barring a shocking change in the coming weeks, Michele Flournoy, a senior Pentagon official during Bill Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s presidencies, will be the next secretary of defense and the first woman to run the Pentagon in its 73-year history. 

Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth is also under consideration, per a source familiar. So is Jeh Johnson, the former Department of Homeland Security secretary. But Flournoy is the clear frontrunner for the job. 

A centrist, and perhaps the Democratic Party’s foremost defense expert, she has a well of bipartisan respect from the defense world. Part of how she earned her current prestige, however, was in helping craft Obama’s Afghanistan war strategy, which paved the way for a futile escalation. The surge of troops up to a 2010 high of 100,000, which was opposed by then-Vice President Joe Biden, yielded little durable achievement in return for the lives of hundreds of troops, and of even more Afghans. 

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WNU Editor: She is far away the probable choice for US Secretary of Defense. The other two are not. One is a retired military officer, and the other is 82 years old .... Michele Flournoy, in line to be first female defense secretary, may be forced by Biden to shrink DOD (Washington Examiner). And as for her record. The above author focuses on her role in escalating the Afghan war, but she also helped craft US policy on Libya that eventually ended with that country broken and facing continuing strife. But if the recent "puff pieces" in the media are any indication, the US military establishment clearly wants her, and that is a constituency that Joe Biden does want to satisfy.

Michèle Flournoy Will Probably Be Biden's Choice To Be His U.S. Defense Secretary

(Erin Scott/Center for a New American Security) 

Defense News: Michèle Flournoy could become the first woman to run the Pentagon. Here’s what would change. 

WASHINGTON — On June 20, 2016, then-Vice President Joe Biden delivered keynote remarks at an event hosted by the Center for a New American Security, the think tank founded and, at that point, led by Michèle Flournoy. 

Flournoy introduced Biden, praising him as a national security thinker and noting the ties between his staff at the White House and CNAS. 

Biden, in turn, acknowledged the little-kept secret of the defense world: that Flournoy was in line to become the first woman to serve as defense secretary under President Hillary Clinton. “Well, madam secretary,” Biden said with a laugh as the crowd applauded. “I’m writing a recommendation for her, you know.” 

The Clinton administration never materialized, following the election of President Donald Trump. But four years later, president-elect Biden is widely expected to fulfill his promise and tap Flournoy to lead the U.S. military. 

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Update #1: Biden’s likely secretary of defense Michèle Flournoy and Israel - Analysis -- Jerusalem Post 

Update #2: Michele Flournoy Poised To Be Biden's New SECDEF -- SOFREP 

WNU Editor: If she is Biden's choice to be his US Secretary of Defense, the progressives within the Democrat party are going to be livid .... Will Michele Flournoy Be the Angel of Death for the American Empire? (Common Dreams).