But there was something missing from Biden’s big national security rollout: A nominee for Secretary of Defense. That’s a pretty important job on the national security team, isn’t it? There was talk that Biden wasn’t completely sold on the person thought to be his leading candidate, former Obama defense official Michele Flournoy.

The delay is more than just a personnel issue. Biden is reportedly re-thinking the role of the military in the way the U.S. deals with the world. The president-elect wants to “de-emphasize the military as an instrument of national power,” Axios reported recently. Of course, being an instrument of national power is what the military does. It is why the military exists.

So Biden is apparently looking for a Defense Secretary who will want to de-emphasize the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines — and the new Space Force, too — as instruments of national power. Axios reports that Biden is now considering Lloyd Austin, a retired Army four-star general who was commander of U.S. Central Command from 2013 to 2016. Austin now serves on several corporate boards, among them the defense contractor Raytheon.