{"id":19886,"date":"2022-02-10T18:25:45","date_gmt":"2022-02-10T18:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2022\/02\/10\/gop-senator-blocks-russia-pro-from-joining-pentagon-drawing-fiery-rebuke\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:00:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:00:38","slug":"gop-senator-blocks-russia-pro-from-joining-pentagon-drawing-fiery-rebuke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2022\/02\/10\/gop-senator-blocks-russia-pro-from-joining-pentagon-drawing-fiery-rebuke\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP senator blocks Russia pro from joining Pentagon, drawing fiery rebuke"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2015 A key Russia expert and two other defense experts are being blocked from joining the Pentagon by GOP Sen. Josh Hawley<\/a>, as the Biden administration struggles to solve the deepening Russia-Ukraine crisis<\/a> and deploys thousands of U.S. troops<\/a> to bolster European allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hawley\u2019s move on Thursday drags out the confirmation process for the National Security Council\u2019s former Russia director and former U.S. Russia Foundation CEO Celeste Wallander<\/a>, who is President Joe Biden\u2019s nominee for assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. Hawley\u2019s objection to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen<\/a>\u2019s request to confirm Wallander sparked Senate floor drama, as Shaheen hammered Hawley\u2019s tactics for \u201cmaking us less secure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The delay for Wallander leaves a key Pentagon role unfilled amid heightened alarm about the prospect of Russia, which has amassed 100,000 troops near Ukraine, launching an invasion. A tripwire force of roughly 3,000 American troops is deploying to NATO countries to reassure allies, with another 8,500 on high alert to deploy if NATO\u2019s 40,000-person response force is activated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s been bipartisan criticism over Hawley blocking swaths of Biden\u2019s foreign policy picks in recent months<\/a>. After saying for weeks his blockade is aimed at pressing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin<\/a> and other top officials to resign over the administration\u2019s chaotic Afghanistan exit last year, Hawley said Thursday he would relent if there are further public hearings on the withdrawal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At about 11:30 a.m., Shaheen, D-N.H., requested unanimous consent to confirm Wallander; Melissa Dalton, who is the nominee for assistant secretary for homeland defense and global security; and David Honey, the nominee for deputy undersecretary for research and engineering. Shaheen argued that Dalton\u2019s confirmation would be key to fighting cyberattacks, while Honey would aid in the Pentagon\u2019s technology race with China<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hawley objected, pointing to a U.S. Army probe of the Afghanistan withdrawal, reported by The Washington Post<\/a>, that found the White House and State Department were too late in reacting to the Taliban\u2019s final offensive. He also criticized the Biden administration\u2019s objections to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany as too weak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe answer is there\u2019s been no accountability, no one has been relieved of duty, no one has been shown the door,\u201d said Hawley, of Missouri. \u201cNow this administration has bumbled to the brink of another foreign policy crisis that they have helped create, having denied Ukraine military aid, lethal aid when it asked for it last spring, having stuffed dollars in [Russian President] Vladimir Putin\u2019s pockets by greenlighting the Nord Stream 2 energy pipeline.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany \u2013 Dr. Celeste Wallander, president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Russia Foundation, talks about “Us and Them, Washington D.C. View, and Them and Us, Moscow’s View” during the European Security Seminar-East June 10 at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. (DOD photo by Karl-Heinz Wedhorn\/RELEASED)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In response, Shaheen accused Hawley, who is said to be eyeing a 2024 presidential bid, of \u201ctrying to use the Senate process for his own personal ambitions\u201d and in the process, \u201cmaking us less secure.\u201d She objected to Biden\u2019s Afghanistan withdrawal plans and backed a commission to study the Afghanistan War, she said, but that was beside the point with the Ukraine crisis looming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s complaining about the problems we have with Russia-Ukraine, and he\u2019s making it worse because he\u2019s not willing to allow those nominees who can help with that problem to go forward,\u201d she said. \u201cHe sits on the Armed Services Committee with me where he has access to the same information about our pressing national security challenges. And yet he\u2019s holding up these nominees, he\u2019s disregarding the threats that we face because he\u2019d rather stand here and grandstand on Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hawley has supported sending U.S. aid to Ukraine but argued that focusing on Russia detracts from a more pressing challenge from China. After he called on the Biden administration to abandon support for Ukraine\u2019s eventual admission to NATO, White House press secretary Jen Psaki last week accused him and likeminded conservatives of \u201cparroting Russian talking points.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along similar lines, Shaheen said Hawley\u2019s view that Russia poses more of a threat to Europe than the U.S. is \u201cdisturbing and shockingly uninformed\u201d given Russia\u2019s attempts to subvert democratic institutions in the U.S., and she said Hawley\u2019s \u201cstated sentiments are just what Vladimir Putin wants.\u201d Shaheen also noted that America\u2019s NATO allies came to its aid after Sept. 11, 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen the United States got attacked in 2001 \u2015 and maybe he doesn\u2019t remember 9\/11 because he was too young \u2015 the countries that came to our aid were our NATO allies,\u201d Shaheen, who is 75, said of Hawley, who is 42.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was some foreshadowing at Wallander\u2019s Jan. 13 confirmation hearing, where Hawley voiced disagreement with her support for sending U.S. troops to bolster NATO\u2019s eastern border and her support for Ukraine\u2019s eventual NATO membership. To Hawley\u2019s suggestion that cutting U.S. force levels in Europe would spur NATO allies to invest more in their own defense, Wallander seemed skeptical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs we face a heightened threat from Russia, this would not be the moment to put a reduction in American commitment to NATO on the table,\u201d Wallander said at the time. \u201cWhat I would favor, if confirmed, is looking at how the United States can provide some of its advantages in enablers and weapons systems in security cooperation with allies to ensure that we are properly resourcing the requirements in the Indo-Pacific, as you rightly point to, and yet sustaining defense and deterrence against Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the holds, the Senate has confirmed several otherwise noncontroversial Biden nominees to the Pentagon in recent days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, the Senate confirmed Douglas Bush, a former lead House Armed Services Committee staffer, to be the Army\u2019s acquisition chief; Sasha Baker, a former adviser to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., to be deputy undersecretary of defense for policy; and John Coffey to be the the Navy\u2019s general counsel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week earlier, the Senate confirmed Andrew Hunter, a former director of the Pentagon\u2019s Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell, to be Air Force acquisition chief, and Gabriel Camarillo to be Army undersecretary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A key Russia expert and two other defense experts are being blocked from joining the Pentagon by GOP Sen. 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