10 U.S.C. § 134 — Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

(a) There is an Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. The President appoints this person from civilian life, with the Senate's advice and consent. As with the other Under Secretaries, someone cannot take this job until seven years have passed since they left active duty as a commissioned officer in a regular branch of the armed forces. (b)(1) The Under Secretary performs whatever duties and exercises whatever powers the Secretary of Defense assigns. (2) Acting under the Secretary's authority, the Under Secretary directs and supervises: (A) building, carrying out, and coordinating the National Defense Strategy and broader strategic policy guidance across every region and military function of the Department; (B) fitting the Department's activities into the overall National Security Strategy of the United States; (C) writing policy guidance for combatant commands' campaign and contingency plans, and reviewing those plans; (D) writing policy guidance that shapes the military's global force posture; (E) developing the Defense Planning Guidance that shapes the budget and program requests of the military departments and other parts of the Department; and (F) developing strategic policy guidance so the Department can meet the President's goals under the nuclear weapons employment guidance of the United States. (3) The Under Secretary also supervises and directs the Department's export-control activities. (4) The Under Secretary has overall direction and supervision of policy, planning, execution, and resource use for the Department's counterterrorism activities. (5) The Under Secretary works with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation to develop planning scenarios describing today's and tomorrow's strategic and operational environments, in order to judge the joint force's capabilities and readiness, and to set specific goals the joint force should be ready to meet — then assess whether it can meet them, in both capacity and readiness. (c) The Under Secretary ranks in the Department of Defense after the Secretary, the Deputy Secretary, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, and the secretaries of the military departments.