Right from the start of his stint as defense secretary, Chuck Hagel's appointment to the post was viewed by security and defense experts as an indicator of U.S. President Barack Obama's alleged weak judgment. The experts cited Hagel's lack of familiarity with the national security bureaucracy and Hagel's "lesser" military stature when compared to his predecessors, Bob Gates and Leon Panetta.

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Before Hagel was confirmed by the Senate Armed Services Committee, headed by Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.), he was asked difficult questions that slowed down his confirmation in January 2013.

It is therefore not a surprise to political experts that the Hagel and Obama jointly announced on Monday that the secretary would step down from his post since the buzz in September was that he would soon be axed because of the secretary's weak relations with the White House.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest shared that after four months into the airstrikes against the IS, both Obama and Hagel agreed "another secretary might be better suited to meet those challenges," quotes the Wall Street Journal.

One other explanation is that Hagel was viewed as the mouthpiece of military leaders in the department who are frustrated with the perceived "incoherent responses" of Obama, especially in the threat coming from the Islamic State, wrote Foreign Policy Group CEO and editor David Rothkopf.

In defense of the just-resigned defense secretary, Rothkopf pointed out that Hagel is not the problem but is an indicator of the way Obama and the National Security Council (NSC) operate. Their frustration was over "false starts, half-measures, and micromanagement" that characterized the government's campaign to battle the extremist groups in Iraq and Syria.

Rothkopf believes that while the president has good choices for Hagel's replacement, replacing him is not the solution to the "deeper problems" of the Obama administration. He said that the nominees for the defense post should only accept the job if the White House would give him or her more elbow area to perform the challenging job and to remove the overconcentration of power in the NSC.

Washington Post lists three strong candidates to replace Hagel. They are former Defense Undersecretary for Policy Michele Flournoy who served from February 2009 through February 2012, current Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work and ex-Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. Flournoy is said to be the front-runner.

TagsChuck Hagel, Barack Obama, defense department