After Hagel

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was reportedly eased out of the Pentagon because President Barack Obama did not think he was the right man for the job. But finding the right person to replace him will require clear thinking from the White House on the dangerous state of the world.

When Hagel assumed defense leadership in February 2013, his job was to bring a declining department in for a soft landing. He was to oversee the end of the war in Afghanistan, make smart cuts in the defense budget, downside overall force levels, cancel unnecessary weapons contracts and reduce American force commitments overseas. From the vantage point of the beginning of Obama's second term, defense was to play a secondary role; the emphasis would be on domestic policy.

Hagel was the right man for that job. Though nominally a Republican, he shared many of the president's policy preferences and general worldview. He opposed vigorous action against Iran, including preemptive military actions and meaningful sanctions. He supported negotiations with Iranian-sponsored terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah, and was skeptical (to put it mildly) of the special relationship between the United States and Israel. He backed Obama's idealistic vision of "global zero" nuclear weapons and oversaw the U.S. unilateral nuclear build-down. Moreover, he faithfully wove the administration's social agenda into every facet of department policies, and echoed fanciful sentiments like placing global warming at the center of national security concerns.

Hagel was ideal for the world that Obama wanted and expected. But he was not the best leader for the world as it actually is. As America's power has waned, the global environment has predictably become less stable and more dangerous. Russia has invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea and is flirting with a renewed nuclear arms race. Leaders in Beijing probably agreed with Hagel's assessment during an Asian trip in May 2013 when he called the global retrenchment of American power a "good thing." Since then they have made aggressive moves to claim vast areas of the South China Sea, and are increasing and modernizing their conventional and nuclear offensive forces.

The Middle East, meanwhile, is increasingly hazardous, with Iran stubbornly refusing to scale back its nuclear program and the civil war in Syria still raging. The most critical development has been the rise of the Islamic State group, which Obama once derided as the "JV team" of terrorism.

On that score, Hagel seems not to have been the war leader Obama needed to implement the limited strikes against the terror group. This is ironic, since Hagel was actually ahead of the White House in identifying the Islamic State group as a threat. Last summer, he called the group "an imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it's in Iraq or anywhere else" and "beyond anything we’ve seen." The White House had to walk back this dramatic assessment, but when the Islamic State group was at the gates of Baghdad the administration finally took action. In recent weeks, the Islamic State group offensive has been blunted, but the group has not been driven from Iraq, and Hagel is widely viewed as the scapegoat for this perceived failure. Naturally, therefore, after his resignation was announced, the Islamic State group claimed to have "toppled" Hagel.

Now Obama must find a new defense secretary to cope with a world decidedly not of his making. The final two years of a presidential administration is generally not the time for greatness; late-term appointees tend to be caretakers. Michele Flournoy, a former undersecretary of defense for policy with a distinguished track record in the Pentagon, is most often mentioned as a potential replacement. The unrelenting emphasis on the potential symbolism of her appointment as the first female secretary of defense unfortunately downplays her substantive career achievements. Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is also in contention, as is current Deputy Secretary Robert O. Work, a leading defense intellectual and former Marine Corps colonel. Other candidates will no doubt emerge in coming weeks. And assuming the president does not try to sneak in a recess appointment, he will have to find someone confirmable by the new Republican-led Senate.

The most important question is whether the White House understands that the world is not heading in the direction Obama thought it would. The new defense secretary will face a dangerous strategic environment which is likely to become more treacherous as the Obama years wind down. He will need someone tough, experienced and with a worldview appropriate to these perilous times. The nomination will be a test of whether Obama can admit that he has not brought the world to the brink of peace, and that the decline of American power is in fact not a "good thing."