Ding dong, Hagel calling! In a door-to-door push to rival the Girl Scout cookie pushers sweeping your neighborhood, Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s mildly-controversial nominee to be the next secretary of defense, is meeting with approximately 35 senators on Capitol Hill this week.

That’s more ring-kissing than Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates did before their confirmations, combined.

Hagel’s nomination has been far from usual in many respects. He’s a member of the opposition party, to start. So when his name was floated during the holiday season, the trial balloon was left out in the cold for weeks as an easy target for opponents.

By the time the president made his selection official this month, Hagel’s name was thoroughly battered and key Democratic senators threatened to withhold their support. So Hagel, a former senator, offered to meet or call on all 100 members of his former stomping grounds before his confirmation comes to a vote. An official working on his confirmation told the E-Ring on Wednesday that Hagel will meet with more than 50 members -- more than half of the entire U.S. Senate -- before his confirmation.

While the Senate holds the power of advice and consent over presidential nominees, Hagel has taken to auditioning for a role that likely already is his; by now there is no real opposition in the Senate that appears to block his confirmation. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) backed Hagel after they met last week, effectively silencing the myth that “pro-Israel” opponents would sink Hagel. That was Hagel’s only real roadblock.

Panetta never had to go through this. The current boss came directly from his post as Central Intelligence Agency director and fresh off of the mission that killed Osama bin Laden. Confirmation of his nomination was virtually preordained.  

Bob Gates? “I don't recall the exact number but it was nothing like thirty,” said Geoff Morrell, former Pentagon press secretary under Gates, in an email. “We extended offers to all [Senate Armed Services Committee] members and only a handful beyond [Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) and former Ranking Member John Warner (R-VA)] took him up on it.”

A second official close to Hagel’s confirmation process tells the E-Ring that the decision to extend offers to meet with all 100 members of the Senate was Hagel’s own, and a product of his being out of government for some time, since retiring from the Senate in 2008, and his own "due diligence."

On Tuesday, Hagel met with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who remains noncommital about his support for his fellow Vietnam War veteran. Hagel is pictured above leaving McCain's office with Marie Harf, the Obama campaign's spokeswoman for national security who previously was a Central Intelligence Agency spokeswoman under Panetta with George Little, who is now Pentagon press secretary.

If any senators haven’t booked their three cups of tea with Hagel yet, they should hurry it up. His confirmation hearing is set for January 31.

Gen. John Allen has been cleared of any wrongdoing in the investigation into whether he sent improper e-mails to Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, paving the way for the Marine four-star to be re-nominated for a promotion to the top military job in Europe, according to American officials.

Allen, the commander of ISAF in Kabul, was swept into the scandal that felled David Petraeus, then the head of CIA, after the FBI stumbled on e-mails between Allen and Kelley during their investigation of Petraeus last fall. Upon hearing of the substance of some of the e-mails, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in November called for the department's inspector general to launch an investigation into Allen.

But it soon became clear that Panetta likely acted in an abundance of caution in the wake of the Petraeus scandal and an independent push for a review of ethics of senior officers. Petraeus resigned from the CIA after the FBI discovered that he had had an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. But some American officials privately indicated the investigation of Allen was different, and they were confident Allen would be exonerated.

Allen had been deputy commander of U.S. Central Command in Tampa before being tapped to head the war in Afghanistan. The e-mail exchanges between him and Kelley spanned a few years. Initially, defense officials had said that there were as many as 30,000 pages of e-mails between the two, but the actual amount of correspondence was later deemed to be a few hundred e-mails, and of those, only several dozen that were suspect.

Still, it took DOD investigators more than two months to determine there was nothing that would disqualify Allen from further service. The length of time it took to investigate what were essentially a few dozen e-mails ­ raised questions as to whether he would be cleared. But investigators took care to avoid the perception that they rushed through an investigation of a senior officer and then mistakenly cleared him.

"The last thing you want is to go through an investigative process that clears someone only to have someone pop back up and say, 'Well, what about this?,'" one U.S. official told E-Ring.

Panetta never read the e-mails, E-Ring was told by another U.S. official, but left it to professional investigators and legal staff to determine if their content was in fact objectionable. Allen's confirmation as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and head of U.S. European Command was considered a mere formality until the White House suspended his nomination in November. Now that he has been cleared, it is expected he will be re-nominated soon, and he is not expected to face substantive opposition in the Senate.

"The Secretary was pleased to learn that allegations of professional misconduct were not substantiated by the investigation," Pentagon press secretary George Little said, in a statement. "The Secretary has complete confidence in the continued leadership of General Allen, who is serving with distinction in Afghanistan."

One of the military’s rising stars just got even brighter. Maj. Gen. Michael Nagata is being assigned to command special operations forces across Central Command, the military’s geographic command stretching from the Middle East to Pakistan.

Nagata first gained attention as deputy of the U.S. military contingent in Islamabad, Pakistan, or the Office of the Defense Representative to Pakistan (ODRP). There, Nagata earned a reputation as a brighter-than-most, frank-talking officer who often impressed top brass and military reporters with his assessments of the ground situation in the region throughout the halting relationship between the U.S. and Pakistani militaries.  

From there, Nagata was brought to the Pentagon, where he is currently deputy director for special operations on the Joint Staff, earning his second star just last September in a ceremony that drew some big names, including former Gen. David Petraeus. 

One glowing review comes from retired Lt. Gen. Frank Kearney, who held the post Nagata is about to step into at Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT). Kearney later rose to deputy commander of Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and then deputy at National Counterterrorism Center. "Operating from the shadows in support of the fight against al Qaeda and affiliate's senior leaders," he told the E-Ring, "General Nagata has developed inter-agency, country team and U.S. embassy relationships throughout CENTCOM and the Horn of Africa. This unassuming and affable leader with a lethal intellect has in-depth experience with IA partners, regional international SOF and intelligence partners, and integrated with his Special Forces background make him the perfect choice to lead all theater SOF forces in a networked partnership against CENTCOM's terrorist and conventional threats.

"Nagata's experience as the deputy ODRP in Pakistan and his current assignment as the deputy director for special operations in the J-3 shop of the Joint Staff have given him key insights to U.S. policy and earned him a reputation as a direct communicator with deep knowledge of players friend and foe in the region."

Now, he will command all special operators in arguably the most important region in the world for counterterrorism. While Mali and Algeria command current headlines, the Pentagon has focused intently on the region from the Arabian Peninsula to Pakistan as a hotbed for future counterterrorism operations. Nagata undoubtedly will use his old Islamabad contacts -- including with Army chief Gen. Parvez Kayani -- to press for keeping U.S. special operations forces as involved as the president desires.

"He's a quiet warrior. There's very few people in uniform today who have his depth of knowledge about the nature of the wars we've been fighting," said another military officer who is close to Nagata, but wished to remain anonymous. "He's been there, and he's led there and he's utterly brilliant. But you'll never hear him say it. I don't know of anyone who 'gets it' more than him when it comes to understanding the geo-political complexities of that part of the world."

As commander of Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT), Nagata will operate out of MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., which houses both Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM).

He likely will still see plenty of Washington time, though. One of his superiors is SOCOM commander Adm. William McRaven who told the E-Ring at Foreign Policy’s 100 Global Thinkers Gala in November that he spends much of nearly every week working in Washington, face-to-face with President Obama and his top national security team leaders.

The Pentagon asserted on Tuesday that the terrorist organization al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was involved in the attack on an oil facility in Algeria, which so far has largely been attributed to Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the one-eyed Algerian Islamic radical who was expelled from AQIM last year.

“There are strong indications that al Qaeda [in the Islamic Maghreb] had a hand in the attack on the oil facility in Algeria,” Pentagon press secretary George Little announced, on Tuesday.

The claim immediately raised questions to what extent the group was involved since Belmokhtar claimed responsibility in a video last week. It has been widely reported, however, that the AQIM shura kicked out Belmokhtar -- who is known as “The Uncatchable,” among other nicknames.

Little would not say why military or intelligence officials believe the wider terrorist network was involved.

“I’m not going to get into the information that we have that supports that conclusion. But AQ apparently had a role to play -- AQIM,” Little said, in the morning press gaggle in his E-Ring office.

“AQIM is not necessarily a monolithic group. There are different elements, so it’s important to bear that in mind,” Little argued, later.

Western officials are now eyeing Belmokhtar and his band of fighters, known as the Mulathameen brigade, which reportedly has broken off from al Qaeda. The terrorist-slash-smuggler who lost his eye, it is believed, in Afghanistan has become an instant global celebrity since the attack.

According to reports and public comments by Algerian officials, attackers from seven different countries drove in from Mali and across Algeria to the oil site near the Libyan border. The messy composition of the fighters and the fight has Pentagon officials now arguing that the growth of North African terrorism should be concern for more than Washington and Paris.

The assault -- and Algeria’s heavy-handed response that left dozens of hostages dead -- has raised questions about the Pentagon’s ability to get open North African countries to welcome American assistance. While the standoff was ongoing, last week, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta did not criticize the Algerian assault on the facility, but said in London the U.S. would not let up their pursuit of any al Qaeda affiliates, leaning on Algeria and Mali to work with the West.

“Every one of these countries has their approach to dealing with terrorism,” Panetta said, on Saturday. “And I'm not going to make judgments about what's good or bad. What I care about is that they do everything they can to make sure that AQIM does not establish a base of operations in that area. That's what I care about.”

Just back from Afghanistan, two top Senate Democrats are objecting to President Obama’s plans to dramatically scale back the originally planned size of the Afghan National Security Forces.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) in a letter to National Security Advisor Tom Donilon on Friday argued that Afghan forces, including local police forces, are performing admirably enough to warrant continued full support from the White House. The Obama administration has endorsed a plan to reduce the cap on Afghan troop totals from 352,000 to 230,000.

“We are convinced that it will be necessary for the success of the mission…to reconsider the current plan,” the senators wrote.

Levin and Reed said the savings from reducing the U.S. presence should be enough to pay for the full contingent of ANSF forces. The senators also said they support “a small number” of troops for a post-2014 presence.

Levin has long focused on the American mission to train Afghans as the key to getting out of the war quickly and successfully. This was his first visit since last May and included trips south and east. The senators wrote, “In general, we were very impressed with the progress that has been made in the short time.” They praised the transition strategy overall, claiming that public deadlines for withdrawing American surge forces spurned Afghan leaders to take the lead on their own security “with real energy.” They also called the Afghan Local Police program “extraordinarily successful, highly feared by the Taliban.”

But the size of the ANSF remained their focus. Levin and Reed called on Obama to revisit that issue, when the president does make his announcement on post-2014 U.S. troop presence, which is expected later this year.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon issued a strong new call for global nuclear disarmament on Friday in California, criticizing the size of modern military budgets and the arms industries they support.  

The secretary general has been an early-and-often advocate for nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, predating his term in office. But in a sweeping review, Ban described his efforts and the disarmament movement at large in bleak terms.

“As I look at the disarmament landscape, my feelings are mixed,” Ban said, at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. “Nuclear disarmament progress is off track.”

Without citing Iran or other countries, Ban said world leaders have become too focused on the spread of nuclear weapons instead of their dismantling.

“Our aim must be more than keeping the deadliest of weapons from ‘falling into the wrong hands.’ There are no right hands for wrong weapons.”

Ban also pressed military strategists to reconsider the purpose of keeping their stockpiles.

“I urge all nuclear-armed States to reconsider their national nuclear posture. Nuclear deterrence is not a solution to international peace and stability. It is an obstacle.”

In the U.S., arms control watchers hope the Obama administration, with support from Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, will enter into new talks with Russia on reductions. Conservatives in Congress have expressed their fear that Hagel would back so-called unilateral nuclear reductions -- meaning the U.S. would cut its stocks without a commitment from Russia to do the same.

“I was surprised to see him be fairly blunt,” said Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director at the institute and former special advisor to Vice President Joe Biden for nuclear security. Wolfsthal said Ban’s speech may not necessarily help or hurt Obama’s efforts with opponents in Congress, but certainly reflects a want to see progress soon.

“I think there is a pent up desire to see more aggressive action,” he said, and the hope among arms control community is that the Obama administration is ready to take on disarmament.

Without mentioning either country, Ban on Friday argued that nuclear states should take their own initiative to reduce their arsenals. “My advice, my appeal to all, is this: Be a first mover. Don’t look to others or to your neighbors to start disarmament and arms control measures. If you take the lead, others will follow.”

“I think there’s a very good chance the administration is going to set our requirement for nuclear weapons lower than it currently stands,” Wolfsthal said, and take that number to the Russians to see if they’ll meet the U.S. at lower levels.

Ban has a long personal history on disarmament. He was vice-chair of the South-North Korea Joint Nuclear Control Commission in 1992, and he chaired a 1999 panel on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization. “As United Nations Secretary-General, one of my first decisions was to restructure our disarmament office and re-energize its work,” he said.

Ban laid the nuclear dilemma at the feet of national security planners, roughly less than one month before the president typically releases the annual federal budget request to Congress.

“The world spends more on the military in one month than it does on development all year,” he argued. “And four hours of military spending is equal to the total budgets of all international disarmament and non-proliferation organizations combined. The world is over-armed. Peace is under-funded. Bloated military budgets promote proliferation, derail arms control, doom disarmament and detract from social and economic development. The profits of the arms industry are built on the suffering of ordinary people -- in Mali, Syria, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“At the foot of the pyramid lie small arms. At the top are nuclear weapons. I will continue to use my moral authority and convening power to advocate for disarmament, non-proliferation and nuclear security.”

With tensions between Moscow and Washington at higher-than-usual levels, the top military officers of the United States and Russia met for the first time in person this week while attending a NATO meeting of military chiefs in Brussels, diving right into a discussion of “irritants” between the two powers.

The meeting comes at the cusp of President Obama’s second term and when many arms control watchers expect the U.S., with the help of the president’s incoming defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, to press Russia for further nuclear reductions.

In the meeting between Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Cheifs of Staff, met Russian Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the new chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, Dempsey “discussed issues the Russian Federation considers irritants to the relationship,” his spokesman, Col. David Lapan, told the E-Ring.

"We had a productive and candid discussion on a variety of subjects," Dempsey said, on his Facebook page.

The chiefs also discussed “areas of cooperation," including Afghanistan, where Gerasimov served, the so-called Northern Distribution Network of war supplies into Afghanistan, as well as counter-piracy and other issues.

The men previously held an introductory video teleconference in December and plan for regular video meetings about every 90 days, Lapan said.

The U.S. conducts dozens of military exercises and other engagements directly with Russian counterparts each year. Dempsey and Gerasimov discussed holding fewer but better quality events.

While political relations remain cold -- Russian lawmakers recently voted to ban Americans from adopting Russian children, and the GOP presidential nominee painted Russia as America’s “number one geopolitical foe” last year -- military-to-military interactions have increased in number and depth over recent years.  In October, Rear Admiral Mark C. Montgomery, who was deputy director for plans, policy, and strategy at U.S. European Command, said the friendly, near-daily interactions between American and Russian militaries carried on as “all business.”

Long from the Cold War, the thaw continues.

“Gerasimov invited Gen Dempsey to visit Russia in the spring,” Lapan said.

The U.S. is preparing to enter into the conflict in Mali, a White House official said on Thursday, by preparing to help move French troops and their equipment nearly one week after the fighting began.

“We have some unique airlift capability and we are working with the French to provide them support in moving troops and equipment,” spokesman Jay Carney said at the White House press briefing. “As we've said previously, we are also providing intelligence support.”

Until Thursday, U.S. officials had only said there were considering French requests ƒor more direct logistics assistance in conducting air and ground operations against Islamist militias that U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, have identified as being affiliated with al Qeada.

“As you know, the government of France has asked for some additional intelligence and logistics support from the United States. And as I said the other day, we're considering those requests,” Carney said.

There are now 1,400 French troops in Mali, France’s defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, announced on Thursday.

Traveling in Europe, Panetta on Wednesday said, “This is an al Qaeda operation, and it is for that reason that we have always been concerned about their presence in Mali.” Panetta was speaking specifically of militants considered part of al Qaeda on the Islamic Maghreb.

Panetta had said that as Europe decided what to do, the goal remained to get African forces to ultimately “play a key role” in Mali.

“I believe that there is a consensus that France took the right step here to try to deter AQIM from taking even further action there and that there will be an effort to try to bring the European community together,” he said.”