Chuck Hagel's sacking is a disturbing signal, though I can't say the act itself is very surprising.
As the NY Times comments, "Hagel has often had problems articulating his thoughts--or administration policy--in an effective manner." This is no recent phenomenon. His time in the Senate was most notably marked by high praise from anti-Iraq war activists, but that praise arose more from Hagel's simple opposition to an unmistakably dumb war than from his eloquence in framing that opposition. He was often halting in his expressions, and at times his disordered thoughts bordered on incoherence. Hagel's recent appearances with Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey have served only to highlight his deficiencies in extemporaneity. Frankly, I found his selection as defense secretary more surprising than his dismissal.
What's disturbing, as noted, is the signal sent by Hagel's dismissal. The Times reports that his firing comes from criticism leveled at "the government’s early response to several national security issues, including the Ebola crisis and the threat posed by the Islamic State." This, however, seems arrestingly weak compared to another explanation offered: "[administration] officials described Mr. Obama’s decision to remove Mr. Hagel, 68, as a recognition that the threat from the Islamic State would require a different kind of skills than those that Mr. Hagel was brought on to employ." Said one of those officials: "The next couple of years will demand a different kind of focus."
As in, hawkish? Consider Hagel's past non-interventionist sentiments, and then consider President Obama's recent decision to reengage American troops in Afghanistan combat, as well, of course, as our creeping reinvolvement in the selfsame sectarian hellhole from which Hagel previously advocated retreat. One can almost hear Hagel, privately, in the Oval Office: Don't do this.
That kind of foresight doesn't require eloquence; indeed the bluntness called for tends to really annoy chief executives. Off with its head.