How Trump may shake up DOD: an insider’s view
An interview with Christopher Miller, the acting SecDef-turned-Project 2025 co-author.
Patrick Tucker | November 7, 2024
Few people, if any, have a better window into Donald Trump’s plans for the Pentagon than Christopher Miller, the final acting defense secretary of Trump’s first term and architect of the defense chapter of the Project 2025 document.
Two people with knowledge of the Trump campaign’s internal deliberations told Defense One that Miller is well-placed to play a key role in the next White House’s national security apparatus. And while Trump sought to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation document after its many controversial elements rose to public attention, it was written largely by his former appointees and staff and mirrors many of his policy proposals.
Although he has acted as one, Chris Miller is no one’s idea of a defense secretary—not even Chris Miller’s. A retired Army Special Forces colonel who later ran the National Counterterrorism Center, he lacks the defining qualities of a Washington political operator. He shows no enthusiasm for delivering talking points or speeches; takes no joy in commanding large budgets; expresses no interest in waging culture-war battles in front of cameras. He shares Trump’s extemporaneous, unscripted speaking style but none of his former boss’s vindictiveness. Miller is far more likely to extend praise to those in the security space whose work he admires than complain about people. (Although he is quick to find colorful language to condemn what he sees as bad ideas and failures, particularly the 2021 Afghanistan pullout.) In a town that runs on political ambition, Miller displays annoyance both at the question of what role he might play in a future Trump administration and, it seemed, at the very possibility. There is no private version of Miller that contrasts with a public persona. He’s most at home in the attire of a man about to go fishing for the day and many, especially Miller himself, consider him too unpolished (read: free with his opinions) to make it through a Senate confirmation hearing. But given Trump’s expressed preference for acting cabinet secretaries rather than confirmed ones, that is not the barrier it once was. And Miller’s low-ego personality could serve him well in an Oval Office run by a man with ego to spare.
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2024/11/how-trump-may-shake-dod-insiders-view/400911/?oref=d1-homepage-top-story
