With a prospective Bush administration looking to be chockablock with Pentagon veterans, would there be anything left for his defense secretary to do?
The lineup now begins with former defense secretary Richard B. Cheney as the GOP nominee for vice president. Another defense expert, retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is seen as the most likely Bush pick to be secretary of state. Former Pentagon policy official Paul Wolfowitz could be chosen to head the Central Intelligence Agency. And the leading candidate to be deputy defense secretary in a Bush administration is former Pentagon official Richard Armitage, known as a vigorous, hands-on manager.
Even with that crowd, the top job at the Pentagon "would still be important," argues Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution. If Bush adviser Condoleezza Rice became national security adviser, he notes, her specialty in Russia and European affairs might leave the defense secretary running room in Asia and the Third World, where much of the action has been in recent years for the U.S. military.
Defense experts such as MIT's Cindy Williams say the likely lineup points toward Bush selecting as Pentagon chief someone with solid connections on Capitol Hill, such as Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.).
CHENEY ON DEFENSE: The new Republican vice presidential candidate expressed some sharp differences with the Clinton administration's military policies in a 1996 interview with Proceedings, the professional journal of Navy officers. Most notably, he questioned the extent to which women were allowed to move into combat positions in aircraft and aboard ships. "I think we've gone further than I was comfortable with in respect to combat roles for women," Cheney said. "For example, I would not have supported putting women on aircraft carriers."
NAVAL AIR STRIKES IN FLORIDA: The Navy is scratching its collective head over how to deal with a three-week-old strike by flight simulator instructors at two naval air training facilities in Florida.
The instructors want their employer, Lockheed Martin Corp., which holds a contract to conduct the training for the Navy at Pensacola and at nearby Whiting Field, to give them more regular work schedules instead of scheduling their hours the night before they are needed. A related strike by instructors in Corpus Christi, Tex., was settled last Friday.
The Navy is officially neutral, but worries that the slowdown in training caused by the strikes could have an impact on the availability of aviators. The three facilities graduate about 1,400 pilots and flight navigators annually.
Federal mediation is set to begin next week, according to Matt Bates, a spokesman for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents the instructors. Wendy Owen, a spokeswoman for Lockheed Martin, said, "We're keeping our fingers crossed."
Paul Taibl, a defense policy expert at Business Executives for National Security, a think tank that favors "privatization" of some military support activities, said the strike is unusual but doesn't reflect well on such privatization. "The Navy should say to Lockheed Martin, 'Whatever you have to do to solve it, do it,' " he argued.
THE BOOKS OF WAR: The Army recently released for the first time a reading list officially approved by its chief of staff, unlike previous lists that were endorsed just by lower-ranking generals. The list recommends that new soldiers and West Point cadets study books such as Stephen Ambrose's "Band of Brothers," while generals read, among other tomes, Paul Kennedy's "Rise and Fall of the Great Powers," about how military spending can undercut national security.
The Marine Corps, meanwhile, updated its own long-standing list. One addition is Mark Bowden's "Blackhawk Down," which the Corps identified as a current favorite of the Marine commandant, Gen. James Jones. That book, about the firefight in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993 that left 18 Army soldiers dead, isn't on the Army list.
Over at the Navy, senior officers say that the brand-new chief of naval operations, Adm. Vern Clark, is handing out copies of "Leading Change," by John P. Kotter, a Harvard Business School expert in organizational management.
WEB WATCH: For inside views on how to command an Army company, see www.companycommand.com, a lively, well-designed Web site run privately by and for Army captains.
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