How to assess a nominee to be deputy secretary of Defense

Several recent commentators have pointed out that President-elect Donald Trump has designated Steve Feinberg for the position of deputy secretary of Defense to compensate for Pete Hegseth’s lack of managerial experience. Feinberg certainly does bring considerable experience to the position for which Trump has named him. He is co-chairman of Cerberus Capital, which has invested in defense firms, most notably Dyncorp, which it acquired in 2010 and sold a decade later. Cerberus has also acquired a variety of smaller companies that are developing cutting-edge technologies that could have defense applications.

Yet the notion that Trump chose Feinberg because of Hegseth’s lack of managerial expertise fails to recognize the differing roles of the secretary of Defense and his deputy. The secretary is the Defense Department’s chief executive officer. He (until now there has only been a “he”) is also the department’s most senior outward-looking “face.” The secretary has the lead in dealing with his Cabinet-level counterparts in the National Security Council, as well as interacting directly with the president. He meets on a frequent basis with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the service chiefs, as well as the combatant commanders.

The secretary also interfaces with his defense ministerial counterparts from other nations, as well as foreign ministers and even prime ministers. Most important, the secretary is in the military chain of command, reporting directly to the president, most notably during crises or actual conflict. The deputy can and does fill all of the aforementioned roles, but only as the occasional substitute when the secretary is unavailable, usually because he is traveling abroad.

The deputy secretary, on the other hand, is the Pentagon’s chief operating officer. He or she (Kathleen Hicks is the incumbent, and the first woman to serve as deputy) has overall responsibility for the planning, programming, budgeting and execution system, as well as oversight over all other defense operations, including human resources, research, acquisition and the activities of the defense agencies. The deputy’s military counterpart is the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs but also regularly interacts with the service chiefs and the combatant commanders.

The deputy, at times partnering with the vice chairman, often is responsible for leading specialized projects and offices. For example, Deputy Secretary John Hamre led the Defense Department’s Y2K project, which was meant to ensure that Pentagon activities would not be disrupted by potential errors in computer storage and calendar data arising from the advent of the new millennium. Robert Work, deputy secretary during the second Obama administration, took the lead in developing closer military relations with Finland and Sweden, which ultimately proved critical when those two countries recently joined NATO. And Hicks has led the department’s Replicator project to develop a series of small, cheap, expendable drones. She also is charged with direct oversight of the department’s new Strategic Capabilities Office.

Business experience tends to be a necessary condition for success as a deputy secretary, though not all deputies had that experience and some had quite successful tenures. On the other hand, it is not necessary for a deputy to have had any prior government experience.

David Packard, perhaps the most capable deputy since the position was created after World War II, had never served in government when President Richard Nixon chose him for the position. Yet his years as founder and leader of Hewlett-Packard enabled him to initiate a series of departmental management reforms, including the creation of the Defense Systems Management College, now a part of the Defense Acquisition University. In contrast, there have been a number of deputy secretaries with considerable government experience whose tenure was far from successful because their talents did not extend to management.

Feinberg actually has some government experience, having chaired the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. Yet it is his business background that matters most. And it matters not in order to offset Hegseth; their roles should not be confused. Indeed, when those roles were confused, as at times has been the case, the management of the department suffered greatly.

Despite the yeoman-like efforts of several of his predecessors, Feinberg would enter a Pentagon that continues to be in need of strong management. Hopefully he would successfully transform the department into a 21st-century operation — some of its activities are still relics of the past that go back several decades, if not longer. Should he do so, he would no doubt be counted among the more illustrious individuals who held the office of deputy secretary, not least of whom was that great reformer, David Packard.

Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy undersecretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.