page_title: Mark Esper
section_title: Tenure
hierarchical_section_title: Mark Esper / Secretary of Defense / Tenure
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. Secretary of Defense Dr. Mark T. Esper hosts Saudi Vice Minister of Defense His Highness Prince Khalid bin Salman at the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., Aug., 29, 2019. (DoD photo by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Nicole Mejia)
context_page_description: Mark Thomas Esper is the 27th and current United States secretary of defense, and a former U.S. Army officer and defense contractor lobbyist. He previously served as the 23rd United States secretary of the Army from 2017 to 2019.
  President Donald Trump announced on June 18, 2019, that Esper would become acting secretary of defense, succeeding acting secretary Patrick M. Shanahan. Before Shanahan withdrew his name from consideration for the position, Esper had been considered a leading candidate for the nomination had the Senate declined to confirm Shanahan. Esper assumed the office of acting secretary on June 24, and was confirmed as 27th secretary of defense by the United States Senate with a vote of 90–8 on July 23, 2019.
  A West Point graduate, Esper formerly served as a U.S. Army officer. After leaving military service, he was a Senate staffer, chief of staff at the Heritage Foundation, and Vice President for Government Relations at Raytheon.
context_section_description: Esper has said that his operating positions as Secretary of Defense would be apolitical, in keeping with the National Defense Strategy formulated in 2018 by his predecessor Jim Mattis.
  On November 24, 2019, during a dispute regarding whether Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher would be stripped of his Trident pin, Esper fired the United States secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer. The Department of Defense attributed the firing to Spencer privately proposing to the White House (without informing Esper, and contrary to Spencer's public position) an arrangement to let Gallagher retire while keeping his Trident pin. On November 25, Esper stated that Trump had ordered him to stop the Navy from conducting a peer review regarding Gallagher's right to wear the pin. Esper said he previously supported the peer review, but followed Trump's order. Meanwhile, Trump cited the Gallagher case as the primary reason for Esper's firing of Spencer, while also citing "large cost overruns" in the Navy.
  Esper met with his European counterparts in February 2020 to discuss basing options for a new United States Army headquarters in Europe, bearing the name "V Corps" that had originally been established in World War I but was inactivated while stationed in Germany in 2013.  Esper stated the new headquarters was needed to improve military coordination among NATO partners.
  In response to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, which included $738 billion in defense spending, Esper said: "I’m good with those dollars. No complaints."
caption: Esper hosts Saudi Prince Khalid bin Salman at the Pentagon, August 29, 2019
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