Spare a moment of pity for Chuck Hagel. Beginning with his humiliating confirmation hearings to be secretary of defense last year through last week's embarrassing revelations about the state of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, the ex-sergeant and senator always seemed in over his head.
That said, Hagel was as much a victim of the White House's contradictory military policies as of his own weaknesses. Last week's report that the Pentagon will have a more active role in Afghanistan next year than had been planned--including stepped-up use of ground troops, jets, drones and night missions--was a manifestation of a tension that is threatening to overwhelm Barack Obama's foreign policy in the last two years of his presidency: how to fight Islamic extremism in Afghanistan and Iraq while also fulfilling his vow to end both wars.
Getting rid of Hagel may not change much--he wasn't really opposed to any significant part of the Obama agenda.
In the Obama administration, military and national-security strategy has increasingly been set by a group of confidantes in the White House and National Security Council. There is nothing inherently wrong with this sort of concentration of decision-making; the important thing is getting the strategy right.
The question is whether, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama administration has the strategy right. One answer is no, because it has failed to resolve the inconsistency between its strategic and political goals. And another answer might as well be no, because it has failed so spectacularly in elucidating its goals to begin with.
It's silly to pretend that Hagel's replacement will bring about a change in policy or wholesale reform of the Pentagon. But the new secretary of defense will need to better articulate the administration's policies--and, not incidentally, push the president to clarify his intentions.
Editorial on 11/25/2014