At a moment when most second-term presidents have long since bid adieu to their campaign staffers and have focused on governing, Obama is drawing his closer, providing him more of a security blanket than an effective national security team. They have stayed tactical as campaign teams do, viewing many of the international options they have considered primarily through a domestic political lens, and thus have been at the heart of the errors that have plagued the Obama team — from divisions between the White House and Defense or State, to the play fake on attacking Syria last year, to mishandling the NSA scandal, to the underwhelming response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Crimea, and to the current situation in Iraq.

As Obama looks to replace Hagel, anyone who is offered the job ought to think long and hard about accepting it without assurances that the White House will give him or her (and the top military brass) the latitude needed to fulfill the missions being assigned.

And frankly, the appointee ought to ask what changes will be made within the NSC process to ensure that the overconcentration of power within that bloated staff will be reversed and whether this administration that talks so much about “whole-of-government solutions” will start actually seeking them.

If the move to swap out Hagel (apparently after a rather contentious tug of war about whether he should depart) is as it appears to be — a gesture designed to avoid addressing the real problems within the Obama team — then it is worse than empty. It is a further sign that this is a president resistant to growth or to finding a way to effectively advance the national security interests of the United States.