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Francis Conole is a former candidate for Congress in New York’s 24th District. He’s an Iraq Battle veteran, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, and a former Coverage Advisor to the Secretary of Protection. He’s additionally a Commander within the U.S. Navy Reserves the place he’s the Commanding Officer of a unit supporting one of many Service Strike Teams. The views expressed are these of the person solely and never these of the Division of Protection.
This previous week, President-elect Biden knowledgeable People that his group was encountering roadblocks from the political management of the Division of Protection in key areas of nationwide safety. In 2016, I served within the Workplace of the Secretary of Protection throughout the transition of energy between the Obama Administration and incoming Trump Administration. The sleek and orderly transition of energy is an important element of our democracy, and on the Pentagon, the method is essential to our nationwide safety.
After I arrived on the Pentagon in the midst of 2015, President Obama was within the closing 18 months of his second time period. I might be a part of an elite group of profession protection civilians, political appointees, and uniformed navy within the Workplace of the Secretary Protection for Center East Coverage. Our job was to advise the Secretary and different senior officers on insurance policies that may construct and strengthen international partnerships and advance our safety pursuits within the Center East.
By 2016, President Obama’s nationwide safety group was proud to have superior a international coverage that strengthened NATO and our alliances, had ISIS on the ropes, decimated Al Qaeda, killed Osama bin Laden, thwarted the Ebola epidemic, and left our nation stronger and safer. And but many challenges remained: Syria was unresolved, North Korea continued to launch missiles and advance its nuclear program, Russia and China continued their ascent as strategic rivals, and our navy risked falling behind and shedding the high-end battle in cyber safety and different new areas with out a vital acceleration of change and protection innovation.
Simply once I personally felt as if I used to be excelling as a protection coverage officer and our group was actually gelling, we confronted a sea change of personnel and management with the election in November of 2016.
When Donald Trump was elected President, President Obama’s political appointees on the Pentagon had been in despair to say the least. They’d poured their lives into this essential mission of nationwide protection via late nights and lengthy hours and feared the momentum in key areas might be misplaced or worse overturned by the brand new administration. Little doubt the political management on the Pentagon now confronts related emotions of despair.
And but the management I noticed in 2016 understood the sacrosanct nature of the transition of energy.
This management started on the prime. President Obama welcomed then President-elect Trump to the White Home on November 10th 2016 simply days after the election. This assembly despatched a sign to the U.S. Authorities, to all People and to individuals all over the world, and set the tone for the transition. Leaders on the Pentagon just like the then Undersecretary of Protection for Coverage Brian McKeon, an Auburn native and longtime advisor to Joe Biden, carried out the President’s steerage and established a spirit of cooperation with conferences and briefings for President-elect Trump’s incoming nationwide safety group. I keep in mind standing in Elissa Slotkin’s workplace, who was the then Assistant Secretary of Protection for Worldwide Safety Affairs and is at present the U.S. Consultant of Michigan’s eighth Congressional District, and listening to her passionately remind her group that – regardless of their emotions of despair – their dedication to the safety of our nation and their oath to the Structure had been extra necessary now than ever.
The previous group left and people of us in uniform and the profession protection civilians remained and would play a key position within the continuity of presidency. Protection Secretary Jim Mattis and his group would arrive and we may proceed the essential mission of nationwide protection.
In 2019, Jim Mattis said that the divisiveness in our nation represents the best risk to our democracy. He believed strongly that nationwide safety must be above politics and he would usually inform us to “maintain the road” till the nation will get again to some extent of respecting and understanding one another.
Trump’s group on the Pentagon now ought to heed the phrases of Jim Mattis and preserve the work of nationwide safety above the divisive nature of politics, particularly now. As evident by Russia’s latest cyber assault – the most important in our historical past – the threats to our nationwide safety don’t relaxation. There isn’t a time or place for politics within the essential work of defending the American individuals.
As we start this new period of rebuilding belief and dealing to construct a extra good union, let’s begin from the place we agree – our allegiance to the Structure that enshrines the peaceable switch of energy and guarantees liberty and justice and a union that must be perfected over time. And people serving now throughout this essential interval referred to as the transition of energy should do not forget that their allegiance is to not the particular person occupying the White Home, however to the Structure.
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