Strauss Center Director Bobby Chesney, and Distinguished Scholar Jeremi Suri recently shared their perspectives in TIME’s “Behind the 1947 Law That Could Block Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pick.”

The article discusses the law that prevents retired members of the military taking the position of Secretary of Defense within seven years of leaving the military. Although the law passed in 1947 as part of the National Security Act required a ten-year gap, the law was modified in 2008 to reduce that gap to seven years. Dr. Suri explains that, prior to 1947, the way that the founders kept military and civilian leadership separate was through the existence of separate war-related departments (as opposed to a unified Department of Defense). Suri concludes that, while the National Security Act was designed to unify the national security establishment and increase American preparedness for conflict, the inclusion of the ten-year window was integral in assuring that whoever would run the new Department of Defense would not have loyalties to the military. The result was a statute in U.S. Code that has been reformed recently. But, Professor Chesney argues, for recently-retired General Mattis there are two options: A change in statute or a one-time waiver approving Mattis’ appointment. Both options have precedent, but as Dr. Suri concludes, the waiver rests on the idea that, like General George Marshall to President Truman, General Mattis’s leadership would be seen as indispensable for an inexperienced president.