For Bush’s Pick to Run the Pentagon, Many See an Uphill Battle

Through most of the modern era, a strong-willed secretary of State has been balanced in the Cabinet by a forceful and experienced Defense chief.

When George P. Shultz was in charge at the State Department during the Reagan administration, the president’s old friend Caspar W. Weinberger was at the Pentagon. When Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger oversaw foreign policy in the Richard Nixon years, the tenacious Melvin R. Laird had the top job at Defense.

But President-elect George W. Bush appears ready to break with tradition by installing a Defense chief with less star power than his national security luminaries: Vice President-elect Dick Cheney, a former Defense secretary, and retired Army Gen. Colin L. Powell, Bush’s apparent choice for secretary of State. And in the view of some defense experts, this could make it tougher for the new administration to carry out a variety of Pentagon missions, from reforming the services, spending money more wisely and making sure that troops abroad are put to the best use.

Presidents have found that the system works best when the Pentagon chief is an equal or a “near peer,” said Jeffrey Record, a military scholar and former congressional aide. “If you’re going to change that building, you’re going to need somebody who knows the building well. . . . You need somebody who can get down and dirty on the organizational issues.”

Most prominently mentioned to lead the Bush Pentagon have been former Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), an Army veteran who served on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Gov. Thomas J. Ridge (R-Pa.), a Marine veteran and a former congressman. Bush aides have signaled that they may strengthen this team by giving the No. 2 Defense job to Richard L. Armitage, a former Defense official and Bush campaign advisor.

In the Bush team’s view, the new administration will begin with real depth on defense issues, beginning with Cheney and Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who both led U.S. troops to victory in the Persian Gulf War. By adding Coats or Ridge, they would gain team players who could build good relations with Congress and, as veterans, presumably would help lift morale in the ranks.

But some analysts argued that Powell and Cheney would not look out for the Pentagon in the same way from the State Department and the White House, where they would have other agendas.

They said that the Pentagon might lose out when top national security officials got together to decide how to use the tools of diplomacy and force abroad and how to allocate resources.

Experts said they fear that, unless the new Defense secretary has near-peer status within the administration, he may not be able to force the Pentagon to swallow tough decisions to shake up Defense bureaucracies, kill weapons and introduce new strategies.

Lower-ranking Defense officials may calculate that the lesser star power of the Defense chief might mean that the White House is not really committed to sweeping change--and might try to resist or simply wait until more favorable management arrives.

Coats, a onetime insurance company lawyer, is well known in Defense circles and is supported strongly by some Senate Republicans, starting with Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi. A former aide to Vice President Dan Quayle, he was appointed in 1989 to fill the Indiana Senate seat left vacant when Quayle went to the White House. He was reelected in 1992.

He has been a strong advocate of reshaping the military for the modern era--called “transformation”--an idea that Bush has embraced. Coats worked closely with Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), the former Democratic vice presidential candidate, on military reform and has been praised by some congressional Democrats who work on military affairs issues.

The choice of Coats also likely would please social conservatives. In 1993, Coats led the GOP fight against a controversial new policy that officially permitted gays to serve in the military if they did not commit homosexual acts or identify themselves as gay.

(Nonetheless, as Defense secretary, he probably would not try to overturn the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, as Bush has declared his support for it.)

Ridge, a Vietnam combat veteran, has won support from Powell for the job. As Pennsylvania’s governor, he has had experience wrestling with a huge state government.

But Ridge has been blasted by some conservative Republicans, who contend that he has not been enthusiastic about efforts to build an antimissile defense system and other weapon projects. They also fault him for his support of abortion rights.

“His record suggests he would be a better choice for Al Gore’s Pentagon than one in a Republican administration,” Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan defense official, wrote in the conservative National Review.

Ridge has given mixed signals about his willingness to take the job. But aides suggested again last week that he would be open to an offer from Bush.

Another possible Bush choice is Paul Wolfowitz, a defense policy expert and top Pentagon official during the George Bush administration of 1989 to 1993.

Some Defense hands with Pentagon experience praised Bush’s top candidates yet foresee tough challenges for each.

Daniel Goure, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a Pentagon veteran, said that, with his brains and congressional experience, Coats is “not a bad choice.”

Even so, Coats lacks management experience at the Pentagon, Goure said, and “you have to wonder if he could go one-on-one with Powell” on a national security issue.