Kathleen Hicks

Kathleen Anne Holland Hicks (born September 25, 1970) is an American government official who has served as the United States deputy secretary of defense since 2021.

She is the first Senate-confirmed woman in this role and is the highest ranking woman currently serving in the United States Department of Defense.

Hicks previously served as the principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy during the Obama administration.

Hicks completed a B.A. in history and politics at Mount Holyoke College in 1991, where she graduated with magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors.

In 1993, she earned an M.P.A. in national security studies at University of Maryland, College Park.

From 1993 to 2006, Hicks was a career civil servant in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, rising from Presidential Management Intern to the Senior Executive Service.

She was a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) from 2006 to 2009, leading a variety of national security research projects.

During the Obama administration in 2009, Hicks was appointed deputy undersecretary of defense for strategy, plans, and forces.

Hicks completed a Ph.D. in political science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010.

Her dissertation was titled Change Agents: Who Leads and Why in the Execution of U.S. National Security Policy.

Charles Stewart III was Hicks' doctoral advisor.

In that role, she was a liaison for the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review and oversaw the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance.

Hicks was a presidentially appointed commissioner for the National Commission on the Future of the Army.

She is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the boards of advisors for the Truman National Security Project and SoldierStrong.

Hicks formerly served as a senior vice president, Henry A. Kissinger Chair, and director of the international security program at CSIS.

She concurrently served as the Donald Marron scholar at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

In 2012, Hicks was the principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy during the Obama administration.

By 2020 Hicks was an academic and national security advisor working as a senior vice president and director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In October 2020, she also served on the CSIS-LSHTM High-Level Panel on Vaccine Confidence and Misinformation amid the COVID-19 pandemic, co-chaired by Heidi Larson and J. Stephen Morrison.

On December 30, 2020, Hicks was announced as then U.S. President-elect Joe Biden's nominee for the United States deputy secretary of defense.

She appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 2, 2021.

She was confirmed by voice vote by the full Senate on February 8, 2021 and sworn into office on February 9, 2021.

She is the first Senate-confirmed woman in this role.

Hicks is the highest ranking woman currently serving in the United States Department of Defense.

Hicks was tasked with leading the modernization of the U.S.' nuclear triad.

In January 2024, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin temporarily delegated his authority to Hicks while he was hospitalized.

Hicks performed the role of Secretary of Defense "on and off" while vacationing in Puerto Rico, but was left unaware of the reason why for three days.

In February 2024, Austin again delegated his authority to Hicks while being hospitalized.

In April 2023, Hicks sat down with comedian Jon Stewart for a wide ranging interview at the War Horse Symposium in Chicago.

Stewart addressed questions to her regarding military spending and the failures to help veterans.

He described the failure to pass annual audits as evidence of "waste, fraud, and abuse" adding, "Congress gave [the military] billions of dollars to go to war, every year, for a lot of years, and then the veterans have to fight for money on the back end".

Hicks acknowledged that those issues did "play into recruiting and retention challenges for defense officials".

The exchange went viral online with many praising Stewart for highlighting the issue, while Hicks was criticized for laughing at Stewart's concerns and making condescending comments such as asking Stewart if he knew what an audit was.

Laura Seligman of Politico wrote of the exchange, "One potential hurdle for Hicks is the bad press from an interview with Jon Stewart, [who] ripped military spending as “corruption” and Hicks came off looking defensive".