Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller is looking forward to handing over the front door keys of the Pentagon to his successor, most likely retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin.
“I cannot wait to leave this job, believe me,” Mr. Miller said Friday during an impromptu briefing with reporters.
The biggest challenge for any Secretary of Defense is getting out from under the “Cold War” mindset of large units and high-dollar weapons systems, Mr. Miller said.
“I still think we have a hangover on a lot of that … very high tech, very expensive weapons systems,” he told the reporters while returning to Washington from a visit to U.S. Northern Command headquarters. “We need to go smaller (and) ’swarmy’ … in some cases. That was my way of thinking.”
Mr. Miller, who retired from the Army’s Special Forces before entering government service, said he had a “professional respect” for how Russia has been operate on the military front even with systemic problems such as a declining population and a single source of its primary revenue.
“I’m like, ’Wow. They’re doing pretty well,” he said. “They’re using a lot of irregular warfare concepts — information, all this stuff.”
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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