Crisis Looms As Tommy Tuberville’s Hold On Military Promotions Enters 3rd Month

At the Pentagon, high-level officer nominations continue to stack up as first-term Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) continues his lonely hold, halting all high-level military promotions over concerns that military policies ensuring service members’ access to reproductive care may potentially facilitate abortions.

As the hold enters the third month, Tuberville’s blanket block on military promotions is unprecedented, and, with no sign of Tuberville looking for a face-saving climb-down, Mitch McConnell and other Republican Party leaders must start answering for the damage this ambitious rookie legislator is deliberately inflicting upon America’s military. In short, they, along with big Alabama employers and other defense industry stakeholders, need to school this self-styled college “coach” before the insurgent, self-described “100% MAGA” Senator ends up doing real harm to the country.

A high-profile temporary protest action is a manageable thing, but, as the military costs of the hold inexorably rise, the risk of a national security crisis increases as well.

To address NATO concerns over increased Russian naval surface and submarine activity in the North Atlantic, the Biden Administration nominated two seasoned submariners to serve as America’s next Navy submarine force commander and lead the Atlantic-facing Second Fleet. Delaying the orderly transfer of command in the Atlantic only improves Russia’s ability to threaten the United States from the sea.

While subordinates can often step in for displaced senior officers, vacancies loom for key roles. With the current Naval Reactors chief, four-star Admiral Frank Caldwell expected to retire soon, President Biden tapped Vice Admiral William Houston for the critical post, overseeing all aspects of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear force. With the critical Australia/United Kingdom/U.S. (AUKUS) alliance getting underway, aiming to transfer several Virginia class nuclear attack submarines to Australia, the Nuclear Reactors role cannot go unfilled for long.

Bipartisan concern is growing. Seven former Secretaries of Defense, including from the Donald Trump and George W. Bush Administrations, warned in a letter that “if this blanket hold is not lifted, nearly 80 three- and four-star commanders who are ending their terms in the coming months will not be able to be replaced.” Detailing the “real-world impacts on families” of senior officers, the former Defense Secretaries blistered Tuberville’s action, writing, “we can think of few things as irresponsible and uncaring as harming the families of those who serve our nation in uniform.”

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin joined the chorus of concern, writing in a May 5 letter to Senator Elizabeth Warren, obtained by USNI News, that the hold, “unprecedented in scale and scope”, poses a “clear risk to U.S. military readiness”.

No end is in sight. In the face of Tuberville’s stubborn hold, high-level military nominations continue to pile up. In the past eight days, the Administration has named six new Admirals and Generals, on track to request Senate confirmation of some 650 general and flag officers this year.

Tuberville’s Stand Is An Exercise In Destructive Obstruction

As Alabama constituents begin to voice concerns and GOP Senators begin to edge away from him, Tuberville is busy portraying his three-month hold as a harmless, almost symbolic stand against both the Senate’s leisurely, nearly obsolete work practices as well as the Biden Administration’s perceived overreach on reproductive care policy.

On 3 May, addressing Al.com readers, the Senator reassured Alabamans that nominees “can still be confirmed—but the Senate has to actually vote. That’s not too much to ask.”

But Tuberville has a very different message for Republican partisans. On April 19, speaking on Newt’s World Podcast, Tuberville admitted to his host, former House Speaker and Republican firebrand Newt Gingrich, that his hold was procedurally impossible to overcome, saying “you’re not going to be able to get them through unless we go through regular order—which would take forever.” Tuberville knows that the Senate, via an operating agreement negotiated between the two parties, has limited time set aside for nomination votes.

Tuberville has begun portraying his stand as a tightly targeted effort, only hindering high-ranking officers that are well-prepared for fiscal or career disruption. After claiming that Flag and General officers earn approximately $244,000 a year in base wages and housing allowances, Tuberville quipped that senior officers have “got plenty of grocery money. And when they do get promoted, they’ll all get back pay—and they know it.”

Tuberville, however, has yet to address lower-ranking officers who are paid far less—and now must wait for the hold to end to fill an open billet—a work assignment that may require a cross-country move or family disruption. A Lieutenant Junior Grade in the Navy makes, on average, $97,644.60 a year, but since Navy Captains, due to Tuberville’s hold, cannot move up to become Admirals, lower-ranking officers are now stuck as well, unable to progress into an open job.

While Tuberville, in an effort to reframe the narrative, celebrated that twelve Alabama students accepted appointments at U.S. Service Academies, the Senator did not discuss how his hold may impact the career of those future ensigns. Secretary Austin, in his letter, noted that “extended holds increase the time from selection to promotion, which could further delay promotion timelines by 12 to 24 months. This impedes not only the current cadre of officers, but those in groups behind them as well.”

Tuberville also wrote that officers denied promotion will “retire with a pension equivalent to having $6 million in a 401k.” Again, Tuberville had nothing to say to lower-ranking officers who may, for want of an open officer billet and the military’s “up and out” policies, be forced to retire before they can qualify for a government pension.

The parade of contradictions and oratorical oversights suggest Tuberville’s defense of his hold is either poorly thought out, or, worse, that the Senator’s hold is designed to do real damage the U.S. military.

What Is The Endgame?

With the hold now extending into a third month, Tuberville’s path towards a resolution remains unclear. In their letter, the former Defense Secretaries reminded Senators that, beyond damaging holds, they had several options to change policy, including “introducing legislation, conducting oversight hearings, or amending the annual National Defense Authorization Act.”

For his part, Tuberville has repeatedly claimed that he only wants a vote on the issue. To get it, the National Defense Authorization Act process appears to be the best way forward. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Tuberville can, essentially, force a Senate vote on the Pentagon’s policy of allowing servicemembers to seek reproductive healthcare outside of states that have limited options. Such a path might allow Tuberville to, in essence, declare victory and move on.

But that may no longer be enough. While Tuberville has moved away from discussing the ratio of officers and enlisted servicemembers, he has continued to pepper any discussion of his hold with a grab-bag of unrelated military issues. He regularly claims the “real crisis” rests in low military recruitment numbers, and that the military should focus on building “a strong, hard-nosed, killing machine,” staying away from social issues altogether.

Tuberville has also started lacing his hold-related interviews with concerns that the military is targeting white nationalists for removal. In a recent discussion on Alabama Public Radio, Tuberville responded to a question on if he believed the Biden administration should allow white nationalists in the military, the Senator responded “Well, they call them that. I call them Americans.”

Tuberville’s office, aside from making unmeetable demands before deigning to respond to a request for comment, was unresponsive to subsequent, repeated requests for clarification of Tuberville’s recent comments.

As the standoff continues, Tuberville’s hold on high-level military promotions is entering dangerous territory. Relations with both Russia and China are under enormous strain. At a time when the U.S. military desperately needs experienced personnel and clear, well-defined chains of command, the line between a legislator’s principled protest over policy and something far, far worse is getting progressively smaller.