US Air Force Chief
Biden to name U.S. Air Force chief to top military post, officials say
WASHINGTON – U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to announce soon that he has chosen Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the Air Force chief of staff, to become the country’s most senior military officer, according to two U.S. officials.
If he is formally nominated and approved by the Senate, Brown will succeed Gen. Mark Milley, whose term as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff expires at the end of September.
Brown would be only the second Black man to become chair, following Colin Powell, who served in that position during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Brown’s appointment and confirmation would also mean that along with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the top two Pentagon leadership positions would be held by African American men for the first time in U.S. history. It would be a singular step for minorities in a military whose leadership has long been dominated by white men.
Brown and Austin would advise Biden on national security matters from the war in Ukraine to China’s military expansionism in the Asia-Pacific region. The two would represent the Pentagon at congressional hearings, before often hostile Republican lawmakers who have recently been complaining that the Defense Department has become too “woke.”
In appointing another African American man to a senior Pentagon position, Biden may be setting up a contentious period on Capitol Hill. But the president is also symbolically ripping apart the message telegraphed in a photograph of his predecessor, President Donald Trump, surrounded by Pentagon leaders who were exclusively white.
Some 43% of the 1.3 million men and women on active duty in the U.S. military are people of color. But for decades, most of the people making crucial decisions were white and male.
That appears to be changing.
And at time when a conflict with China looms, Brown’s experience in Asia was also a key factor, one U.S. official said of Biden’s decision, which was reported earlier by Politico.
Nothing is final until Biden announces his pick, and it is unclear when he might do so. But the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity before an announcement, said Brown, a fighter pilot, won out over his closest competitor, the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. David H. Berger. Lire la suite »
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