The Pentagon on Tuesday released a list of new officials sworn in this week to run the Defense Department — the most comprehensive look yet at its new team of leaders under the Trump administration.
The 32 positions include advisers and deputy assistant secretaries, none of which require Senate confirmation, meaning they can immediately take office. President Donald Trump’s top nominees to run the department are still awaiting approval from Capitol Hill, and these officials will help steer the department in the interim.
Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News personality and Army officer, will likely be confirmed as defense secretary this week after a contentious confirmation hearing. Those tapped for the No. 2 and No. 3 civilian positions — billionaire investor Stephen Feinberg and former Pentagon policy official Bridge Colby, respectively — do not yet have scheduled hearings.
Among the list are officials who will help run the Pentagon’s offices for Asia and the Middle East, two of its most important regions over the last four years. Others include the secretary’s chief of staff, former Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security official Joe Kasper, and his deputy, Michael Duffey, who previously held the same position during Trump’s first term.
Duffey, Trump said in a December social media post, is the nominee to run the Pentagon’s office for acquisition and sustainment, its chief weapons buyer.
Two of the officials tapped for Pentagon policy are proteges of Colby, the nominee to lead the office. Austin Dahmer, the deputy assistant secretary for strategy, worked as national security adviser to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Alex Velez-Green, a senior policy adviser, is a longtime Washington think tanker most recently at the Heritage Foundation. Both, like Colby, have argued that the United States should spend less on support for Ukraine and prioritize the defense of Taiwan, which is under threat from China.
In his inaugural address Monday, Trump pledged to reinstate those in the military once fired for refusing to get the coronavirus vaccine and to use the armed forces to shut down the southern border.
This week, Pentagon employees also removed the recently hung picture of retired Gen. Mark Milley, the country’s highest-ranking military officer while Trump was last in office. Milley has since called Trump “fascist to the core” and was preemptively pardoned Monday by outgoing President Joe Biden, fearing the general might face retaliation by the Trump administration.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
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