US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has finally checked out of hospital two weeks after his emergency admission. Apparently, the doctors have been satisfied with the state of his health, although the general will have to spend a few more days at home. But there are still military and political questions left.
The US Secretary of Defense’s several-day fall off the map earlier in the year has generated rumors about what's up with the Pentagon. It's not even the minister's disease, but everyone else’s durable lack of knowledge about it, including President Biden. First, the global system is collapsing, in which the United States used to act simultaneously as prosecutor and policeman to the world. And second and most important, the United States has obvious problems in the decision-making chain concerning vital national security issues, namely the nuclear use procedure.
How did things develop? US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was literally missing for several days. After a long and incomprehensible silence, the Pentagon "cut through the air," reporting that Austin was in hospital — without specifications. A week later, the department released new details about the Secretary's ongoing hospitalization, referring to a December 22 medical procedure, following which he returned home but was taken to the intensive care unit on January 1 because of severe pain. Even later, CNN reported that Austin was diagnosed with prostate cancer, referring to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC). The tumor was discovered in early December, bringing the minister to hospital on December 22 for a "minimally invasive surgical procedure" — a prostatectomy. And re-hospitalization occurred on January 1 due to its complications.
This information came after members of both parties in Congress expressed sharp concern about the secrecy of Austin's stay in the hospital and the fact that the president and other leaders of the country had been kept in the dark about it.
Defense Department spokesman Patrick Ryder said the National Security Council and Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks were not notified until Thursday, January 4. Austin’s chief of staff Kelly Magsamen, Ryder said, was also ill and could not let anyone know in time — this only happened on Thursday, January 4.
On top of that, Deputy Minister Kathleen Hicks was not in Washington either, enjoying her vacation in Puerto Rico and reported to have taken some special equipment with her to stay in touch with the department. But when contacted and informed of the force majeure, Hicks decided to keep taking her rest as she was told that "Austin would resume full control on Friday," January 5. Apparently, Hicks thought nothing terrible would happen to the United States or its defense throughout these few days of her and Austin's absence.
The President and the Congress knew nothing of the beheaded DoD. And for four whole days (or even more) there was anarchy in the Pentagon, or rather, a mess, which someone will have to answer for. Thus, the key ministry of the US government system in charge of the country's security and engaged in "operational management" of many conflicts of the world has turned out to have been run by no one. But the main thing is that the Secretary of Defense is the third person in the US government system after the president and vice president, who has access to the so-called" nuclear briefcase", American media reports claim.
Given that President Biden himself gives reason to doubt his adequacy, the question arises as to whether anyone was in charge of the button to launch nuclear missiles? In general, all this gloom over Austin's disappearance may conceal lack of nuclear use coordination both at the DoD and presidential levels.
This very circumstance has become the focus of US conservative press. "The president — the civilian head of government in America, the leader of the free world — went three days without knowing the whereabouts of the official through whom he controls the military," The American Conservative’s Jude Russo writes. "Even the administration’s trustiest boosters — the Washington Post editorial board, for example — seem taken aback. While the United States is not formally at war, it is funding and supplying a conflict with a nuclear-armed power in the Ukraine–Russia war, and it is involved as a reluctant supplier-cum-referee in Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza." The author hints that without Austin, the United States was actually unarmed and helpless in the face of a nuclear power like Russia.
However, it's not just that alone. The obviously self-governing Pentagon does not consider itself accountable to any civilian leader. Recall how Trump administration’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley reassured Western leaders that the US military would never let Trump start a nuclear war, because it is them, not the president, to hold all the decision-making levers. "Who is in charge of this democratic republic, anyway? It doesn’t seem to be the democratically elected representatives. The arrogance of the American defense establishment is the only match for the arrogance of the federal law enforcement apparatus," Jude Russo goes on to say in his piece.
Occasions of the kind are nothing new, when a US Defense Secretary turns out incapacitated. The Time magazine compares the current situation to hospitalization of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld twenty years ago. In 2006, Rumsfeld was forced to undergo a two-hour surgery under local anesthesia, though before that he temporarily delegated the authority to respond to a possible foreign aircraft enter into US airspace to his deputy. Rumsfeld regained the right to order the downing of a potentially hostile aircraft shortly after he began a recovery. A comparison hardly favorable to Austin.
Meanwhile, the United States House Committee on Armed Services has launched an investigation into Defense Secretary Austin’s unannounced hospitalization. Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Al), this refers to official willingness to find out reasons behind his failure to inform the country's leadership about his temporary inability to proceed with his duties. In a letter addressed to the Pentagon, the lawmaker demanded that documents relating to the minister's hospitalization, copies of orders given by him, and correspondence between the Pentagon and the White House from January 1 to 9 be provided at the earliest possible juncture. Notably, some observers even with the pro-government media have been broaching Austin's resignation, without waiting for the investigation to come to a close.
Austin has admitted failure to "ensure the public was appropriately informed. I commit to doing better." Meanwhile, the scandal surrounding his "disappearance" points to both the arrogance of the American defense establishment, and the entire government system’s degradation. And this is dangerous to the rest of the world.
