'A very loyal soldier'

The New York Times was the first to spread the news, mere hours before the president made his announcement. The resignation of US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was imminent.

The Times wrote that Hagel had been "under pressure," the first high-level victim after the Democrats' devastating defeat in the midterm elections earlier this month. But then, the newspaper quoted unnamed White House sources who provided details that were obviously intended to damage Hagel's image as a competent crisis manager: Hagel never really fit in his job, had no real access to the president and had problems articulating his thoughts.

A short time later came the bittersweet farewell in the White House. Hagel stood next to Obama, stone-faced as the president praised his management of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the fight against the "Islamic State" (IS) terrorist militia. But it's precisely these major issues that caused increasing tensions between the two men, said Larry Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, in an interview with DW.

They disagreed, for example, about the number of ground troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and "whether we should reduce the combat mission completely. Now the president seems to have changed that, so maybe that was a final thing [Hagel] got done," said Korb.

Growing frustration

These differences had been increasingly obvious for some time, according to Heather Conley of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). "The Defense Department has been setting a different tone on the crisis in Iraq and Syria, perhaps sometimes contradicting the White House message," she said.

Hagel was memorably clear in his opinion of the rapid rise of the IS, when he said at a press conference that its brutal dynamics had gone beyond what we have seen to date. At the time Obama was still equating IS with a junior varsity basketball team. Hagel's choice of words had not been "helpful," according to the Times' unnamed source close to Obama.

Conley also saw a "growing frustration" from Hagel, "recognition that his views and positions on the ongoing efforts to repel the 'Islamic State' were not going in the right direction." He "obviously felt that his advice was not being taken in a lot of areas, and so I think he felt it was better for everybody to step aside," added Korb.

Even Republican Senator John McCain confirmed that Hagel had been "very, very frustrated." With Hagel's resignation, McCain and the Republicans now feel justified in their substantive criticism of Obama's Middle East strategy.

It seems as if Hagel never really recovered from a weak performance at his confirmation hearing in the Senate in 2012. Had people known how weak Hagel was at the beginning of his time in office, said Korb, then the resignation would not have been much a surprise.

In addition, Hagel inherited serious problems from his predecessors, according to Korb: Obama's budget cuts, along with additional cuts by Congress, which would have required a profound reorganization of the military.

'A very loyal soldier'

On Monday, the media and politicians from both parties accused Hagel of simply being content to execute Obama's orders. But it was precisely this restraint that led Obama to select him for the job. After Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, the president was looking for someone much less independent to head the Pentagon.

Hail was "a very loyal soldier," said Korb. "If you take a look at what he brought to the job, he brought more than all of his predecessors combined. He's a wounded war veteran, a two-term senator and a successful businessman." He was the most qualified, "but he came in at a very difficult time."

But if American media reports are to be believed, the president's confidence in Hagel's management and communication skills was in the end quite limited. "Certainly Hagel was the more quiet of the national security team," said Conley. "And there were comments in the Western press that when the secretary did speak, there was not great clarity on his policies."

New foreign, security policy

But according to Conley, this was not the deciding factor for Hagel's resignation. Instead, it was a change in Obama's political management. "Analysts and other opinion leaders have suggested that the White House is very strongly in control, and making even the most minute decisions on the execution of the war and perhaps that did run into conflict with the secretary of defense and other military leaders," she said.

Korb agrees, seeing in Hagel's resignation a connection with "the fact that the White House in the second term has become more and more controlling with foreign policy."

Washington insiders, therefore, aren't expecting a fundamental change in the US foreign and security policy with Hagel's replacement. What is certain, however, is that the resurgent Republicans are expected to give his successor a hard time in the Senate confirmation hearings.

As to Hagel's replacement, there's a chance the US might follow the German example and nominate a woman to take up the job, with defense expert Michèle Flournoy one of the top contenders. "This administration, given its equal opportunity emphasis, will want to have the first woman as secretary of defense," said Korb.