Retired Gen. Lloyd Austin, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for secretary of defense, is drawing opposition from some Democratic senators because he’s only been retired from active military duty for four years.
Austin, a respected former commander of the U.S. military effort in Iraq and a member of Raytheon’s board of directors, would make history as the first Black American to lead the Pentagon.
Biden formally announced his intention to nominate the retired general in an op-ed in The Atlantic on Tuesday afternoon.
Defense secretaries are legally required to have been retired from active duty for at least seven years. The law is meant to uphold the long-standing principle of civilian control of the military and to discourage political acts from active-duty military officers who may one day go on to lead the Pentagon.