https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/18/pentagon-policy-chief-john-rood-under-fire-senior-officials-leave/

Despite Esper’s efforts, the departures keep piling up. Six senior officials have tendered their resignations in the past month, including four who require Senate confirmation to replace: Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Affairs Randy Schriver, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs James Stewart, and Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Kari Bingen. Steven Walker, the director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and Tina Kaidanow, the senior advisor for international cooperation in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, are also stepping down.

Of 59 Senate-confirmed positions, 15 are currently vacant, according to a department spokesperson–and that number will rise to 18 when Schriver, Stewart and Bingen depart. Adding to the strain on the senior leadership, multiple officials, including Stewart, are serving in two senior roles at once.

Here is the full list of current 15 presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed vacancies on the Department of Defense’s staff:

Chief management officer

Undersecretary of defense (Comptroller)

Undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness

Deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness

Assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense

Assistant secretary of defense for sustainment

Assistant secretary of defense for special operations/low-intensity conflict

Assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs

DoD inspector general

Director of cost assessment and program evaluation

Undersecretary of the army

Secretary of the navy

Assistant secretary of the navy for energy, installations, and environment

Navy general counsel

https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2019/12/18/kari-bingen-top-dod-intelligence-official-to-depart-pentagon/

The apparent Defense Department exodus has opened the Trump administration up to a new avenue of criticism. the Senate Armed Services Committee’s ranking member, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in an interview Wednesday that it reflects a broader “dysfunction” and “hollowing out” of the nation’s national security apparatus.

Poor morale and the departures of staffers at the State Department has been widely reported, amid budget cuts and Trump’s firing of Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. But at the Pentagon ― now overseen by the Trump administration’s third national security adviser ― is suffering its own malaise, he said.

“It’s more obvious at the State Department, the criticism that career officials have been taking for doing their jobs, firing of ambassadors,” Reed said. “In [the] Defense [Department], there’s a carry over ― the notion of not only not being appreciated, but ignored [by the White House]."

Are these resignations related to the Marie Yovanovitch firing