President-elect Joe Biden has announced plans to nominate Kathleen Hicks, former deputy undersecretary of defense for strategy, plans and forces during the Obama administration, as deputy secretary of defense.
If confirmed, Hicks will work with Lloyd Austin, a retired U.S. Army general and Biden’s nominee for the role of secretary of the Department of Defense, to advance the incoming administration’s defense strategy, implement the logistics associated with the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, restore alliances and modernize the armed forces, among others, the presidential transition team said Wednesday.
Hicks serves as senior vice president and director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and leads the presidential transition’s defense agency review team. During her more than 10-year career at the Pentagon, she served as principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy and received the DOD Senior Professional Women’s Association Excellence in Leadership Award.
Biden also intends to nominate Colin Kahl, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, as undersecretary of defense for policy.
Kahl is a professor of political science at Stanford University, a Steven C. Hazy Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a strategic adviser at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. He was national security adviser to Biden between 2014 and 2017 and deputy assistant to Obama. He served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East from 2009 to 2011 and was a recipient of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.
