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United States Secretary of Defense

The United States secretary of defense (SecDef) is the head of the United States Department of Defense, the executive department of the U.S. Armed Forces, and is a high-ranking member of the federal cabinet.[5][6][7] The secretary of defense's position of command and authority over the military is second only to that of the president of the United States, who is the commander-in-chief. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a defense minister in many other countries.[8] The secretary of defense is appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate, and is by custom a member of the Cabinet and by law a member of the National Security Council.[9]

United States Secretary of Defense

Mr. Secretary (informal)
The Honorable (formal)

SecDef

No fixed term

September 17, 1947 (1947-09-17)

To ensure civilian control of the military, U.S. law provides that the secretary of defense cannot have served as an active-duty commissioned officer in the military in the preceding seven years, increased to ten years in the case of a general. Congress can grant waivers in such cases.[10]


Subject only to the orders of the president, the secretary of defense is in the chain of command and exercises command and control, for both operational and administrative purposes, over all service branches administered by the Department of Defense – the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force – as well as the Coast Guard when its command and control is transferred to the Department of Defense.[11][12][13][14][15] Only the secretary of defense (or the president or Congress) can authorize the transfer of operational control of forces between the three military departments (Department of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force) and the eleven Unified Combatant Commands.[11] Because the secretary of defense is vested with legal powers that exceed those of any commissioned officer, and is second only to the president in the military hierarchy, its incumbent has sometimes unofficially been referred to as "deputy commander-in-chief".[16][17][18] The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the principal military adviser to the secretary of defense and the president; while the chairman may assist the secretary and president in their command functions, the chairman is not in the chain of command.[19]


The secretary of state, the secretary of the treasury, the secretary of defense, and the attorney general are generally regarded as the four most important (and are officially the four most senior and oldest) cabinet officials because of the size and importance of their respective departments.[20]


The current secretary of defense is retired general Lloyd Austin, who is the first African-American to serve in the position.[21]

Salary

Secretary of Defense is a Level I position in the Executive Schedule,[4] thus earning a salary of US$221,400, as of January 2021.[29]

Succession

Presidential succession

The secretary of defense is sixth in the presidential line of succession, following the secretary of the treasury and preceding the attorney general.[66]

Secretary succession

On December 10, 2020, President Donald Trump modified the order of succession for the office of Secretary of Defense in Executive Order 13963. The order of succession is:[67]

Title 10 of the United States Code

Title 50 of the United States Code

(2003). Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen and Leadership in Wartime. New York: Anchor Books. ISBN 978-1-4000-3404-8.

Cohen, Eliot A.

Cole, Alice C.; Goldberg, Alfred; Tucker, Samuel A.; et al., eds. (1978). (PDF). Washington, D.C.: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense/U.S. Government Printing Office. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 14, 2014.

The Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization 1944–1978

(PDF). Washington, D.C.: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense. January 30, 2019.

Department of Defense Key Officials September 1947 – February 2019

(1957). The Soldier and the State. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-81736-2.

Huntington, Samuel P.

King, Archibald (1960) [1949]. (PDF). Military Affairs. Charlottesville, Virginia: The Judge Advocate General's School, U.S. Army. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 31, 2008.

Command of the Army

Mahan, Erin R., and Jeffrey A. Larsen, eds. (2012). , Cold War Foreign Policy Series: Special Study 3 (September 2012), vii–41.

"Evolution of the Secretary of Defense in the Era of Massive Retaliation: Charles Wilson, Neil McElroy, and Thomas Gates, 1953–1961"

Stevenson, Charles A. (2006). SECDEF: The Nearly Impossible Job of Secretary of Defense. Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books.  1-57488-794-7.

ISBN

Trask, Roger R.; Goldberg, Alfred (1997). (PDF). Washington, D.C.: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense/U.S. Government Printing Office. ISBN 0-16-049163-0. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 14, 2014.

The Department of Defense 1997–1947: Organization and Leaders

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Official website