WASHINGTON \u2014\u00a0In his career, Stephen Hadley has\u00a0served as national security advisor for president George. W. Bush, an assistant secretary of defense for international security policy under president George. H. W. Bush, and part of the National Security Council under president Gerald Ford. He is also one of the most prominent names Washington insiders have floated for a potential Donald Trump administration position.
Still, establishment Republicans continue to hold out hope that Hadley will find his way into the administration, with the idea that he could help bring some real-world experience to the Trump team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to a source who has advised the Trump transition team, Hadley had been a strong candidate for a spot in part because his experience, gravitas, familiarity and mainstream Republican views will be reassuring to foreign allies\u2014and in part because he has never publicly repudiated Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“He\u2019s been in the building,” the source said of Hadley. “Another thing that puts him a notch above is that he is an internationally known figure. Every leader across the world knows who Steve Hadley is and has dealt with Steve Hadley. He is a notch above any other candidate.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In October, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) hosted a forum on how the transition process for a new administration should work. At the time, the focus was on Hadley\u2019s fellow panelist, CNAS head Michele Flournoy, widely agreed to be Hillary Clinton\u2019s choice for Secretary of Defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hadley, however, had interesting things to say, starting with the interagency process. Drawing from his own experiences as national security advisor, Hadley warned that the current process, developed in the 1960s, is “not adequate” for the challenges of today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There are so many issues, and there are only so many hours in the day and days of the week for that group of people, who are at the senior level interagency process, to deal with them,” Hadley said. “Things tend to get on the agenda when you are elate in the crisis, and when you are late in the crisis, most of the long term options that really take a long time- some of your diplomatic options, your economic options \u2013 are in the rear view mirror. There\u2019s not enough time. So there is a tendency to get caught in a situation where you either do nothing or sending troops.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To try and fix that, Hadley recommended that the senior level individuals need to delegate the implementation and execution aspects to empowered officials at the senior diplomat or assistant secretary of defense level. That is in line with broad criticisms from former State and DoD officials that the Obama administration has seen too much control centralized at the National Security Council level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To make sure the interagency principals have a broad view, Hadley recommended that a cell be created at the White House to focus just on policy planning. He also recommended that a group of two or three historians be brought in to advise decision makers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I think that and the strategy focus would really enrich the deliberations and get the senior people out of the weeds thinking about tactics,” Hadley told the audience. “I\u2019ve been in too many interagency meetings on the docket for 50 minutes and they start in the tactics, and about 40 minutes in somebody says \u2018wait what are we trying to do here?\u2019 That the question you need to start with.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Learn From the Past<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The former Bush official also pleaded with the next administration to listen to those who came before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Every new administration comes in thinking that they have been vindicated, the folks going out have been discredited, and they are going to write history on a blank sheet of paper,” Hadley said. “A little reminder there will be a lot more continuity in the policies and you\u2019ll be building own what was left before, done before, is an importent reminder.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In line with that, Hadley believes a new administration should consider keeping at least one of the key national security officials from the previous administration, in order to ensure some continuity of policies as the next president gets to his feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“And future president-elect ought to think about whether they want to extend a secretary of defense, particularly in the middle of active military operations. And I think they also want to think about extending either their director of national intelligence or, more appropriate, your director of central intelligence,” Hadley said. “At a time when we have an awful lot of operations, I think there is a case to be made for continuity for a matter of time.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One key thread of continuity between administrations has always come from the military, whose officers are supposed to operate outside the political realm to provide clear, unbiased opinion to the president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In that realm, Hadley expressed serious concerns about the increasing politicization of uniformed officials, including the increasingly common tactic of having retired general officers endorse a candidate. Hadley also raised alarms over comments made by then-candidate Trump that he would consider firing generals who had prosecuted the war against the Islamic State group under the Obama administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If you suddenly said that a new president comes in [and] suddenly reviewed the military, you\u2019re very quickly going to end up with political generals. And you\u2019re also going to have, quite frankly, people under the old administration covering up and positioning themselves to have a higher position in the new demonstration,” Hadley explained. “I think it\u2019s been a very important principal that promotions in the military are basically run by the military, with approval of the secretary of defense based, on experience and professionalism and competence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“And boy, I think that is terribly important. And i would worry the more you align this with the political election cycle, the more you politicize your military.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eric Edelman, who spent four years under the Bush administration as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and has been a staunch anti-Trump voice from the Republican community, was also on the panel with Hadley. He, too raised alarms over Trump\u2019s comments on the possibility of removing generals, calling it “incredibly destructive,” and concurred with Hadley that the politicization of generals on the campaign is bad for the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I\u2019ve seen what happens as a result, which is there is a lot of hostility towards the uniformed military in the [George H.W. Bush] to Clinton transition,” Edelman said. \u00a0“I heard a lot of discussion about \u2018Clinton generals,\u2019 I heard a lot of that in 2009 with \u2018Bush generals,\u2019 this is very, very dangerous bad trend.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then Edelman took a swipe at retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, reportedly Trump\u2019s pick for national security advisor who generated controversy at the Republican National Convention when he joined a crowd in calling for the arrest of Clinton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“And we get a retired general in front of a national political convention leading people in a chant of \u2018let\u2019s lock up our political opponents\u2019 — I used to be an ambassador of a country where they are locking up their political opponents, and it\u2019s not a place you want to go,” Edelman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Joe Gould in Washington contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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