Michèle Flournoy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michèle Angelique Flournoy (born December 14, 1960) is the former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy who served as a principal advisor to U.S. Secretaries of Defense Robert Gates and Leon Panetta from February 2009 to February 2012.[1] When the U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination on February 9, 2009, she was at the time the highest-ranking woman at the Pentagon in the department's history.[2]
In 2007, Flournoy co-founded the Center for a New American Security,[3] a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that specializes in U.S. national security issues. After leaving the Obama White House, Flournoy joined the Boston Consulting Group as a senior advisor.[4] In 2018, she joined the board of Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm with military contracts and cyber security expertise.[5] She is currently the co-founder and managing partner of West Exec Advisors,[6] and a Senior Fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.[7]
Career
Clinton administration[edit]
Flournoy served as a political appointee under the Clinton administration in the U.S. Department of Defense, where she was dual-hatted as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Threat Reduction and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy. In that capacity, she was responsible for three policy offices in the Office of the Secretary of Defense:
Flournoy was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 1996, the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service in 1998 and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award in 2000.[9]
While serving under the Clinton Administration as a deputy assistant secretary of defense, Flournoy assisted in drafting the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, which in a post Cold War era "determined U.S. forces must be capable of fighting and winning two major theater wars nearly simultaneously."[10]
Public policy research[edit]
She then joined the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University (NDU) as a research professor, founding and leading NDU's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) working group, which had been chartered by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop intellectual capital in preparation for the Defense Department’s upcoming QDR in 2001.
She then moved to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where she was a Senior Advisor working on a range of defense policy and international security issues before co-founding the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), to which she was named President, in 2007 with Kurt M. Campbell.[2] Flournoy and CNAS co-founder Kurt Campbell wrote a 2007 policy paper called "The Inheritance and the Way Forward" that advocated for a U.S. foreign policy "grounded in a common-sense pragmatism rather than ideology".[2][11] Specifically, the paper recommended U.S. phased withdrawal from Iraq but rejection of isolationist impulses.[12]
In 2020, Flournoy was in line to become Joe Biden's Secretary of Defense, should the presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee defeat Donald Trump.[13] At that time, Flournoy turned her attention to China in "How to Prevent a War in Asia; The Erosion of American Deterrence Raises the Risk of Chinese Miscalculation."[14] In this essay, Flournoy argued the US must invest in new military technologies, such as prototypes for artificial intelligence, as well as more long range missiles, escalate U.S. troop deployment to the South China Sea area, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, and step up roving war games in Asia to show China the US has the modern technology, might and will to deter Chinese aggression. Without such ramped up U.S. military activity in the waters off China and absent the technology to ward off a Chinese cyber attack on U.S. navigation systems, Flournoy asserted the U.S. could stumble into a nuclear confrontation with China over Taiwan sovereignty.[15]
Obama administration[edit]
After the 2008 presidential election, she was selected as one of the Review Team Leads for the Obama transition at the Department of Defense. On January 8, 2009, President-elect Obama announced that he was nominating her as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, to serve under Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.[16] In his memoirs, Secretary Gates wrote that he had "developed high respect for" Flournoy, whom he characterized as "clear-thinking and strong".[17]
In 2009, Flournoy told the New York Times she had spent much of her adult life steeped in the practice of war. “We’re trying to recognize that warfare may come in a lot of different flavors in the future,” she told the newspaper.[18]
Libya[edit]
In 2011, in the midst of the Arab Spring and popular street uprisings, Flournoy, then Undersecretary of Defense, helped persuade President Obama to intervene militarily in Libya, despite opposition from members of Congress and key White House advisors, such as Joe Biden, Vice President; Tom Donilon, National Security Advisor; and Robert Gates, Defense Secretary.[19]. Flournoy supported the NATO-led imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya to oust resistant leader Muammar Gaddafi, accused of ordering the killing of demonstrators and promising to "hunt the rebels down and show no mercy."[19] Flournoy said imposition of a no-fly zone necessitated first destroying Libya's air defenses with U.S. and British cruise missiles targeting the Libyan missile defense system, and U.S. B-2 bombers attacking Libyan airfields.[1] In a 2013 conversation with the Council on Foreign Relations, Flournoy said she had supported US military intervention on humanitarian grounds.[20] Critics who disagreed with Flournoy described the war on Libya as "disastrous" in its destabilization of entire regions in the Middle East and North Africa,[21] facilitating the transfer of arms to extremists across countries. Two years after the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi, Flournoy defended the U.S. military intervention in Libya, telling the Council on Foreign Relations: “I think we were right to do it.”[21]
|
Michèle Flournoy
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Under Secretary of Defense for Policy | |
| In office February 9, 2009 – February 8, 2012 |
|
| President | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | Eric Edelman |
| Succeeded by | James Miller |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Michèle Angelique Flournoy
December 14, 1960 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Scott Gould |
| Children | 3 |
| Education | Harvard University (BA) Balliol College, Oxford (MLitt) |
No wonder George likes her. She'd have troops running around all over the world.