Why the Hagel Nomination Matters

President Obama on Monday nominated former GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel as the next Secretary of Defense, replacing the retiring Leon Panetta. Neoconservatives are in an uproar over the selection. Cato scholar Justin Logan suggests that the pending battle over Hagel’s nomination could be a “perestroika moment” in the American foreign and defense policy debate. “If Hagel survives this process,” argues Logan, “it will show that you can stare down the neocons and live to tell the tale.”