A Republican senator’s continued hold on almost 200 senior military nominations can cause a ripple effect resulting in “profound confusion and disturbance” for service members and their families, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote in a letter last week to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who chairs the Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee.

“Long-term holds have a corrosive and cascading effect: they prevent our rising officers and their families from being able to predict promotion and rotation windows, which can increase the pressure to leave the military in favor of greater stability,” Austin wrote in the May 5 letter. “The more our normal promotion processes are jolted, the more we risk the loss of the diverse warfighting and technical expertise that America needs to confront its 21st-century security challenges.”

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), also an Armed Services Committee member, is blocking the senior nominations to protest the Pentagon’s policy of providing time off and travel reimbursement for service members who have to travel from their duty station to another state for reproductive care.

Seven former defense secretaries also criticized the holds, as On Base reported last week.

DOD photo by Chad J. McNeeley