Gen. Charles Q Brown, Air Force Chief of StaffSusan Walsh (APN)
General Charles Q Brown, head of the US Air Force, is President Joe Biden's choice to be the country's top military commander. If confirmed by the Senate, the pilot will be the first black chief of staff since Colin Powell held that position three decades ago. The tandem of Brown and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would mean that for the first time in history the Pentagon will have an entirely African-American leadership at the helm.
The former pilot will take over from Gen. Mark Milley, who will move to the reserve in September. The candidate for military leadership "has a unique knowledge of our operations and areas of operation, and a strategic vision to understand how to collaborate to ensure the security of Americans," Biden said when introducing Brown at an event in the gardens of the White House.
The soldier, nicknamed "CQ" among his acquaintances, has an impeccable record of service. His extensive experience includes, before leading the General Staff of the Air Force, the command of US air power in the Pacific, an area of great geostrategic interest for Washington and where the rivalry between the United States and China reaches its greatest intensity. He has also been stationed in Europe and the Middle East.
As the highest-level military officer in the military hierarchy, Brown will have among his tasks to advise Biden on all kinds of defense issues, from the war in Ukraine to the rise of China in the Indo-Pacific region. His experience there, where he has seen firsthand the extensive modernization of Beijing's military force, is considered particularly valuable in the eyes of the White House.
"It is in the management, and response, of China's territorial and geopolitical aspirations that General Brown's appointment can truly shape the future of U.S. defense," said Thom Shanker of the Atlantic Council think-tank. "In any complicated approach involving the South China Sea or any attempt to wrest territory from Taiwan ... General Brown offers a whole range of fundamental and widely practiced skills."
Brown's proposal is also intended to send a message in divided U.S. domestic politics, with representatives of the Republican Party accusing the military commanders of excessive progressive leanings. A senator from that party, Tom Tuberville of Alabama, has been blocking all the candidacies of military commanders proposed by the Biden Administration since February. The legislator believes that the army uses funds from its budget to improperly finance the displacement of its female soldiers who need them to undergo an abortion.
Where Milley has been an extroverted military man, lover of history, who has never shied away from speaking in public or spared his time to explain the links between current situations and his relationship with events of the past – his wife has once asked him, after an extensive talk of his, if "he had used all the words he knew"-, Brown defines himself as an introvert.
According to Thom, the selection of the African-American military to command the U.S. forces "will rightly be welcomed as a milestone in shaping the image that our Armed Forces present to the world, and to themselves, for years to come." The expert recalls that, although about 40% of active US soldiers are not white, "very often the most prestigious leadership positions have been awarded to whites."
Despite his professed laconism, Brown himself has spoken eloquently about this situation and his personal experience. During the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020, he narrated in a video the discrimination he had suffered throughout his life, including within the military. The video, posted while his confirmation as head of the Air Force was still pending, went viral, especially among U.S. troops.
"I think of the protests in my country ... the equality expressed in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that I have sworn to support and defend throughout my adult life. I think of a history of racial problems and my own experiences, which did not always overflow with freedom and equality," he explained in that video after a mass fury erupted after the death of George Floyd, an African-American citizen, suffocated by police officers in Minneapolis.
In his own case, he "was the only African-American in my squad and, as a senior officer, the only African-American in the room," he recalled then. Brown also recalled how he had to "work twice as hard" as his white peers "to show that the expectations and perceptions (by his superiors and comrades) about African Americans were baseless."
Brown is also an advocate for the need for changes in the Air Force and, by extension, the entire U.S. military to bolster its capability and respond to the modernization of its rivals. In 2020 he published a strategic memorandum under the title "Accelerate Change or Lose", in which he warns against complacency and the idea that US air superiority is guaranteed in the event of a conflict.
In the document, the general "underscores that America's adversaries are actively developing their own capabilities to respond directly and to reverse supposed American strengths," recalls Delharty Manson, also of the Atlantic Council. "He's always thinking about the theater of operations of the future."
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