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Civil-Military Relations in the Obama Era
This article by Jonathan Alter in Newsweek on how Obama tamed his generals is great and worth reading -- although not necessarily for the reasons the author intended. I'm going to offer up my bottom line conclusion up front and then use the article as a starting point to consider some other issues.
BLUF: President Obama has brought civil-military relations back into line in a way that would have made Samuel Huntington
Deputy national-security adviser Tom Donilon had commissioned research that backed up an astonishing historical truth: neither the Vietnam War nor the Iraq War featured any key meetings where all the issues and assumptions were discussed by policymakers. In both cases the United States was sucked into war inch by inch.
I have spent a little time recently with Paul Pillar, a man whose intellect and record of service I really respect. Paul has made a point similar to Tom Donilon's regarding the Iraq war -- that there never really was a coherent governmental decision-making process. Obama's decision-making process on Afghanistan, by contrast, is to be applauded for the way in which it differed from the "decision-making process" (if you can even call it that) of 2002 and 2003. Why?
First, do what Dick Betts does when writing about Huntington's so-called "normal theory" for civil-military relations and draw a big triangle on a sheet of paper. Now draw three horizontal lines on the triangle, dividing it into four levels -- political, strategic, operational and tactical. In the normal model, civilians have responsibility for the top section. They decide the policy aims. Then civilians and the military decide on strategic goals and resources. (Betts adds a fifth layer, actually, for ROE.) The military has responsibility for everything else under Huntington's model.
If you look at the decision-making process in 2009 on the war in Afghanistan, things more or less proceeded according to the normal theory. The president commissioned a review of policy and strategic goals in the winter of 2009, which resulted in this white paper. Gen. McChrystal then thought about how to operationalize the president's policy and strategic goals and submitted his own assessment along with a request for more resources. That assessment, combined with a corrupt Afghan presidential election, caused the administration to re-think its assumptions and prompted another strategic review. This was, on balance, a good thing that made me feel good about the president. The president then re-affirmed his policy aims, articulated new strategic goals, and committed more resources to the war in Afghanistan. (I write more about this process here.)
The good news in all of this is that whether or not you agree with the decisions made by the president and his team in 2009, the national security decision-making process more or less worked, and the civilians were in charge every step of the way. This is as both Sam Huntington and the U.S. Constitution intended.
Now for the problems...
1. Jonathan Alter allowed himself to be spun like a top for this article. Reading Alter on Obama is like reading Muhammed Hassanein Haykal on Gamal Abdul Nasser. As veteran media critics have noted, a growing number of "journalists" have exchanged ridiculously uncritical coverage of this administration for the kind of high-level access necessary to write "insider" books on the administration. This article is -- surprise! -- an excerpt from one of those insider accounts. Nothing in this article seriously challenges the administration's version of events, which leads to some humorous moments. In Alter's narrative, for example, Obama courageously stood up to his general's request for 80,000 more troops for Afghanistan. In reality, of course, Gen. McChrystal offered the president several options, and the president chose the middle path. Making it seem like Obama was fighting his generals over every infantry company, though, presumably makes the troop surge Obama authorized more palatable to his base. (It also conveniently ignores Obama's rather consistent campaign rhetoric in 2008 about how President Bush had ignored the war in Afghanistan and how he, Obama, would more fully resource the war.) In Alter's narrative as well, the generals are all media-savvy leakers trying to box in the administration, while the Obama Administration is filled with media "neophytes" (he honestly wrote that) who would presumably never leak anything to a reporter ... and just fell off the turnip truck yesterday. I shouldn't criticize Newsweek when it's run by a Chattanooga boy-turned-good who has had a bad enough week already, but Alter's "journalism" more closely resembles court stenography than a public service.*
2. We've still a long way to go before civil-military relations get as healthy as they should be. On the one hand, the U.S. military and its officer corps is seriously sick in terms of its relations with the elected civilian leadership. I subscribe to many of Richard Kohn's worries that the officer corps is overly politicized. My cousin, who serves as an officer in the Marine Corps, just returned from Iraq and reports that officers there regularly make disparaging remarks about the president in front of subordinates. Have any of these guys ever heard of George C. Marshall? (The fact that these soldiers are serving in Iraq yet spare the younger President Bush any criticism is kind of hilarious if sad.) On the other hand, it seems clear the Obama Administration thinks "us vs. them" more appropriately describes the administration's relations with the uniformed officer corps than it does the fight against the Taliban. Why, I have to ask myself, have members of this administration -- I'm looking at you, Mr. Vice President -- seemingly gone out of their way to cast the June 2011 decision as a zero-sum game between the civilians in the administration and the uniformed officers in the Department of Defense and at NATO/ISAF? Shouldn't we all be in this thing together and reconvene to assess our strategy as one team this winter? I'm encouraged the president apparently likes Stan McChrystal, because honestly, if a Democrat can't get along with Gen. McChrystal, there's not much hope he can get along with any U.S. general. But below the president I sense this paranoia in the administration's staff that the military is out to get them. And that's not healthy, because...
3. The normal theory of civil-military relations is not enough for Afghanistan. This was the theme of my most recent policy paper at CNAS. When I first read Eliot Cohen's book on civil-military relations
Anyway, I think I have succeeded in writing something in this blog post to offend nearly everyone in Washington, DC, so I'll be surfing the internet for jobs back home in Tennessee for the rest of the afternoon. To sum up my points above, though, I think the president has restored some much-needed balance between the civilians and the officer corps on national security decision-making in the past year. But the U.S. military's officer corps and the administration are both going to have to do a lot more work to repair civil-military relations back to where they need to be. And Jonathan Alter ... well, I'm sure his book will be a best-seller.
*If Jon Meacham had gone to Baylor instead of McCallie, of course, I wouldn't even think twice about giving him grief.
This post offends me. I
This post offends me. I think you're being a jerk.
"My cousin, who serves as an
"My cousin, who serves as an officer in the Marine Corps, just returned from Iraq and reports that officers there regularly make disparaging remarks about the president in front of subordinates."
I can't speak for the military, but it seems as if every aspect of American life is politicized, or more accurately, "snarkified." We are awash in public bad behavior (and here I must do a sort of blog penance: sorry for my sometimes,um, lively comments here in the past.)
Also: process is not the same thing as results.This is something our mandarin class, right and left both, can't seem to grasp. So all that stuff about process is great, as long as the process leads to something meaningful. If not, well, what have we gained?
And right there I go back to snark. See? Bad behavior abounds.
Take care, all.
It's a very good piece. It
It's a very good piece. It is interesting, though, that back in October, amid, whatever the reality, was most certainly the appearance of some pretty stiff pressure on the president from his general corps, you were making no such concessions that civil-military relations were so far from where they need to be, to my recollection at least.
1) I think David Elliott
1) I think David Elliott (much beloved by Colonel Gentile of late), at a talk given at Stanford in the not-too-distant past, stated that if the "Best and Brightest" made poor decisions with respect to Vietnam, it was not for lack of debate and introspection (he contrasted this with the principals in Woodward, "Plan of Attack"). This contradicts Donilon's research.* From what I know - see, for example, Yuen Foong Khong's superb "Analogies at War," IIRC its content correctly - I pick Elliott over Donilon.
2) I concur, from what little I know - some familiarity with the military, including but certainly not limited to friendship with reservist officers (both serving and retired) - that the military participates in disparagement of the President. I don't know what the boundaries of that disparagement are, or should be (personal email? personal conversation? or something more official?), though.
ADTS
* Maybe I'm not interpreting the statement of a "key [meeting]" properly? Then again, is most foreign policy "made" incrementally, and if so, then, perhaps the better question should be, how big (or small) are the increments in which foreign policy is made? If there were enough "major" rather than key meetings regarding Vietnam, would that be enough to exculpate Vietnam policymakers from charges of insufficient contemplation of options?
"...you were making no such
"...you were making no such concessions that civil-military relations were so far from where they need to be, to my recollection at least." - Mike D.
LOL. I remember that, too. Where is Dr. Finel when you need him?
(For the record, I never thought things were that bad and never understood the whole McChrystal speech flap, except as DC hyperventilating.)
1. I actually first linked
1. I actually first linked approvingly to the Kohn article exactly 12 months ago: http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2009/05/random-bits.html 2. Where I pushed back on the whole "crisis in civil-military relations" meme was when it was employed vis a vis Mike Flynn's intelligence report. That, I thought, was silly: http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2010/01/crisis-what-crisis.htmlFrom a macro-perspective,
From a macro-perspective, many security studies people (Eliot Cohen, Dick Betts, Richard Kohn (though he's a historian by training), Stephen P. Rosen) and military theorists (Clausewitz) come out on the side that since war is an inherently political enterprise, it is appropriate for political involvement in the operational level of war.
Think about Lincoln and McClellan. McClellan, the military expert, was trying to preserve his army at all costs and, in the process, had gotten the center of gravity of the Confederacy wrong. It's Lincoln who fires him and then searches for generals that will implement his preferred strategy, which we now consider the right now.
Lincoln is clearly a canonical example in some ways, both for Cohen and in general in this literature, but Abu raises a very interesting point about COIN and the "normal theory." I wonder whether there is something about third party COIN, or even strictly internal COIN (a government dealing with an insurgency without external assistance), that makes political intervention into the operational level of war more 1. likely and/or 2. appropriate. Thoughts?
I think that the
I think that the politicization you describe in the military is a feedback loop to how the servicemen perceive their treatment at the hands of the political class in general, and the Commander in Chief in specific. If they feel they are being treated with respect, that their missions represent a serious undertaking worthy of their lives, and that the decisions made in Washington reflect this level of seriousness with appropriate gravitas in decision making, then they react with professionalism. But if they feel they are being manipulated for political gain, the sarcasm begins (well, "escalates" would be more accurate). In this vein, the reason they enthusiastically supported Bush the younger, was because he was first enthusiastic in supporting the military and its accomplishments, political correctness be damned.
As for Alter, he has long been a Democratic lapdog. He and Meacham (and really--Ezra Klein?!?!?) were primary reasons for cancelling my Newsweek subscription. Me and more than 50% of their readers since Meacham took over and tried to recreate the magazine as a liberal "thought leader"....
'Alter's "journalism" more
'Alter's "journalism" more closely resembles court stenography than a public service.*'
Coming from a CNAS voice, that's rich. Perhaps CENTCOM might get him to join a Joint Strategic Assessment Team or pen books while serving fellowships at the think tank.
That will cure his ethical ailments.
Are you serious?
Huntington should just
Huntington should just invent a way to militarize USAID. Hippies with Guns and lots of MONEY, enough to corrupt and destroy the most difficult adversary. Perhaps arming them with these Lego Coin Guns will win the war in Afghanistan? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVC7RzF_Bk4
"But if they feel they are
"But if they feel they are being manipulated for political gain, the sarcasm begins (well, "escalates" would be more accurate). In this vein, the reason they enthusiastically supported Bush the younger, was because he was first enthusiastic in supporting the military and its accomplishments, political correctness be damned."
The politicization has been going on for a long time. When I got out in '93, the officer corps was largely committed to right wing ideology. Looking at where the volunteer force comes from, it is not surprising. Powers documents in her holocaust book the attempts to undercut Clinton initiatives. From my POV, Bush II was embraced because he was a Republican, not because he did anything special for the troops. Indeed, if you look at the early mismanagement of the Iraq war, the troops were not well served at all.
Steve
@ Carl Prine: 'Alter's
@ Carl Prine:
'Alter's "journalism" more closely resembles court stenography than a public service.' Coming from a CNAS voice, that's rich. "Perhaps CENTCOM might get him to join a Joint Strategic Assessment Team or pen books while serving fellowships at the think tank"
. . .
NIce, subtle poke at AM and the NYT's Thom Shanker.
"Perhaps CENTCOM might get him to join a Joint Strategic Assessment Team" refers to AM's field trip last summer ("'This [Afghan War Assessment] was written with about a dozen talented and good-natured co-authors (and the world's most intense lead author [General McChrystal]) who put up with my smart-assery -- often in enclosed spaces-- for a whole month".)
Does "... or pen books while serving fellowships at the think tank" refer to NYT's Pentagon Reporter Thom Shanker? Last fall, Shanker worked on his book while a "writer in residence" at CNAS. Last year, he wrote a piece clearing McChrystal of all wrongdoing in the aftermath of Tillman's death. ("May 26, 2009 "Nomination of U.S. Afghan Commander Revives Questions in Tillman Case") despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. There's some stenography for you!
You can find details of the NYT's whitewash of Gen. McCrystal at http://feralfirefighter.blogspot.com/2010/01/new.html or
http://feralfirefighter.blogspot.com/2009/11/lies-borne-out-by-facts-if-...
@AM: Back to censorship
@AM: Back to censorship again? Do you reserve the right to delete comments that disclose information embarassing to yourself or your bosses at CNAS? If so, why not update your "Add Your Comment" policy?
As an active duty Army
As an active duty Army officer, I have been a little surprised at the resentment towards Obama in the military, and I voted for McCain.
Abu's comments certainly ring true. Before he was elected, I was thoroughly abused for reading his autobiography in my tent. Now, it's more: he's incompetent, he wants to screw over the military with a 1.9% pay raise, etc.
I honestly don't get it. I've looked at him objectively, and think he's doing a pretty damn good job. Others, perhaps, see what they want to see from a Democrat and hate it. But it is absolutely true from what I've seen.
I hadn't heard any real
I hadn't heard any real Obama backlash as of yet. There was some in the few months after the election, but not much. Then again, I tend to hang out with more centrist and/or liberal officers, which are more prevalent in the LT-CPT range. The older generation still automatically equates the Republican Party with more money, and that's the end of their political analysis.
Believe it or not, Andrew, Fort Drum is actually the UC-Berkely of US Army bases, it seems.
Exum wrote on this
Exum wrote on this thread...
"On the one hand, the U.S. military and its officer corps is seriously sick in terms of its relations with the elected civilian leadership. I subscribe to many of Richard Kohn's worries that the officer corps is overly politicized. My cousin, who serves as an officer in the Marine Corps, just returned from Iraq and reports that officers there regularly make disparaging remarks about the president in front of subordinates. Have any of these guys ever heard of George C. Marshall?"
Exum wrote in a WashPo book review...
"I am no fan of many of the Bush administration's decisions. I did not vote for the former president in either 2000 or 2004 and was so cynical about the U.S. invasion of Iraq that my platoon went so far as to engrave my judgment of the war -- "This is (expletive, gerund) ( expletive, noun)" -- on my going-away plaque. All of this would surprise Krakauer, who, among other things, labors under the misimpression that U.S. military officers are mainly political conservatives better at following orders than thinking critically. In reality, the men and women who serve in the U.S. military are as diverse as the people they defend."
@Visitor 10:06: I can
@Visitor 10:06: I can actually have my cake and eat it too here. Check out Jason Dempsey's "Our Army." The officer corps of the U.S. Army is more conservative than the general public, and the officer corps of the USMC even *more* conservative than they are, which might explain my cousin's experience. That said, the enlisted picture is more nuanced and tends to better reflect society. It's no more conservative or liberal than America at large. http://www.amazon.com/Our-Army-Soldiers-Civil-Military-Relations/dp/0691142254/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274149771&sr=8-1 @Carl Prine: Ah, death, taxes, and Carl Prine's self-righteousness... When you can demonstrate how I have tempered or amended my views based on my employer or its donor base, Carl, call me. You better have actual hard evidence before you start slinging accusations of intellectual dishonesty.@AM: "You better have
@AM: "You better have actual hard evidence before you start slinging accusations of intellectual dishonesty."
Really? Do you still stand by your Washington Post book review, "He Didn't Come Home", of Krakauer's book "Where Men Win Glory"? Or your November 2nd blog post: “On Martial Virtue … and Selling Jon Krakauer’s Crappy New Book”?
“ Krakauer wrote a crappy book, and now he has to market it. And how is he doing that? By going after Stan McChrystal, who is probably the least culpable guy in Tillman's chain of command ... who sent a memorandum up through the chain of command at the time of Tillman’s death warning his commanders … Stan McChrystal stands out as one of the guys who made mistakes but ultimately did the right thing. ... Stan McChrystal is one of the finest men I have ever known, and I hope I have sons who serve under men like him."
McChrystal was hardly "the least culpable guy" in the Tillman case. He personally led the Army's handling of Tillman's friendly-fire death (false Silver Star, etc.)
It appears that you were either being intellectually dishonest or willfully ignorant in your exoneration of McChrystal. You want "actual hard evidence"? Watch the Sundance documentary "The Tillman Story" later this summer. Or take a look at my docs posted at http://www.feralfirefighter.blogspot.com Or read Mary Tillman's book "Boots on the Ground by Dusk."
Barack Obama has
Barack Obama has consistently modeled himself on Lincoln. He is dealing with an officer corps largely sympathetic with the "Confederacy" in national politics.
He has selected and, I think, bonded with particular commanders who he can understand and motivate strategically while deferring to them tactically. These are matters that Jefferson Davis got the other way around.
The President's main problems in domestic and foreign affairs will come from his own party in Congress.
"The good news in all of
"The good news in all of this is that whether or not you agree with the decisions made by the president and his team in 2009, the national security decision-making process more or less worked, and the civilians were in charge every step of the way."
Right.
That's why they went into a strategic review. Decided on a strategy. And then months later panicked when they realized they were actually expected to carry out the strategy...going into another frenetic in-house review. Only to find out they hadn't even accounted strategically for something as basic as an upcoming national election in-country.
To this day, it is clear to
To this day, it is clear to those who aren't wishing for unicorns that the Administration has no intention of following through with that strategy. The Afghan security forces will be in no condition to even begin taking on heavy security responsibilities 14 months from now. Everyone knows this. It's a fake deadline that will provide a politically manageable pivot point. Meanwhile people will be dying so that the Administration can look tough for 14 months and pretend they tried before doing what they planned to do in any case.
AM, if you think the
AM, if you think the uniformed military had too much influence before Obama, for example under Rumsfeld, I have some really great property and a bridge I would like to talk to you about investing in.
Props for b@lls at speaking
Props for b@lls at speaking truth to power here..really.
Well you'd kind of expect that volunteer soldiers might tend more towards a generally conservative viewpoint rather than Liberal wouldn't you? And that the Officer Corps - many Officers looking at a long term service as opposed to doing their bit as enlisted service - might tend more that way as well? There is a lot of institutional Liberal bias towards the military still in general, in particular in academe. In recent years it's tended less towards overt hostility towards uniformed personnel and more of the general anti-war bias of the last several decades. Conservatives on the other hand are and have been consistently military supporters, even cheerleaders.
I still think this entire crisis of civil-military relations is way overblown and a lot of media hype, and frankly Left wing paranoia about the military.
But when AM can you point to a period in history when civil/military relations were "where they're supposed to be?"
(quotes mine). People are people and are going to disagree about things, the media as a matter of earning their daily bread will confabulate and conflate all disagreements into a "crisis".
But to restate the question, when exactly was the Golden Age of American Civil/Military relations? You know of course if you point to any period fifty commentators will blast holes in it here - but point away anyway while you're being daring.
It should be educational as always.
I can't point to such an era really - from General and then President Washington on. I might say that if you compare us to other countries our entire Republic's history might be seen as the world's Golden Age of Civil/Military relations.
But I remain a sucker for the Republic.
It's hardly self-righteous
It's hardly self-righteous for my profession to take a hard look at CNAS, the role it plays in wooing journalists to the think tank and the echo chamber it has become with its blogs, product placement in all the media and other trappings of Beltway bluster.
As for whether you "have tempered or amended (your) views based on (your) employer or its donor base," I confess that I can't seem to discover what your views might be. One reads the debacle of "Triage" and then finds less than a year later something of a mea culpa from you for the policies it prescribed but not the way they were sold, a process in which you played some role on the JSAT.
One finds cryptic Twitter messages that seem to call for a putsch of Eikenberry and a weird WAPO book review of dubious disclosure about obvious biases, but really it all seems to boil down to a constant defense of a few messianic personalities, -- McChrystal, Petraeus and Kilcullen especially -- without any real ability to ask harder questions about them and their policies.
The problem, Andrew, isn't that you're bought or sold. It's that you're callow and becoming unfortunately more servile to these sacred cows just when previous strategic and operational assumptions deteriorate in the face of the cold, hard ground truth.
As a long-time fan of yours, I do NOT enjoy watching this. I wish you the best, but I fear you're harming your own young reputation for reasons I can't fathom.
I don't know why ROE rates
I don't know why ROE rates its own category. It follows the law, which is codification of shared political norms and values and is adjusted for the the strategic, operational and tactical. Which is why ROE can change quite a bit between different conflicts, even within the same war. It's also why don't ever get spun up on any kind of "permanent" ROE, because it'll change with every conflict, administration and changing political and moral values of the issuing actor.
Not too surprising that the
Not too surprising that the biggest issue is avoided here - military officers (as well as civilian government employees) ditching their jobs (or retiring) and going right to work for private sector interests that rely heavily on government contracts to survive.
The only solution is to institute a ten-year 'cooling off' period, during which time retired officers and civilian employees are banned from working for any government contractor.
That would clean up a lot of things, wouldn't it?
First off, Carl, it is not
First off, Carl, it is not my job to defend CNAS as an institution, but let me be clear that I am honored to work here under Nate and John. Joining the organization after Kurt and Michelle left, it has been rewarding to watch as our production and profile has only grown over the past 12 months. If you measure us in terms of our production, downloads of publications, media mentions, influence and web traffic, we've grown by orders of magnitude from 2008 to 2009 and into 2010. If you're accusing me of being part of a successful think tank ... uh, guilty as charged? Because that's what CNAS is: a successful defense policy think tank, and I stand by our work and our leadership, who were both friends long before they became my bosses. Second, I appreciate your experiences as a veteran and your informed perspective as a long-time and exceptionally well-read defense journalist, but in your criticisms you most certainly come off as self-righteous and acidic. Bottom line: you're a jerk. Whatever you might have useful to say, it gets lost in your tone. If you really wanted to criticize me in a constructive manner, you might think about adopting a more humble voice that doesn't feel the need to question my integrity -- intellectual and moral -- at every step along the way and admits that just maybe Carl Prine doesn't have it all figured out either. The tone with which you criticize both me and CNAS doesn't make me want to listen to you; instead, it reinforces a suspicion that Carl Prine is just as intellectually arrogant as he would accuse others of being. The whole "I am criticizing you because I admire you but now I'm going to launch into an ad hominem assault on your work and your motives" shtick has worn thin."It also conveniently
"It also conveniently ignores Obama's rather consistent campaign rhetoric in 2008 about how President Bush had ignored the war in Afghanistan and how he, Obama, would more fully resource the war."
I'd like to see you compare the maximum number of troops President Obama publicly contemplated sending to Afghanistan during the campaign to the actual number he sent just in the first year.
You're doing some convenient ignoring of your own here.
I might very well be a jerk,
I might very well be a jerk, but I'm not callow. Neither, I suspect, is the author of the Newsweek piece.
And unlike some, I don't arrogate unto myself an expertise later proven to be woefully inadequate. I ask questions, sometimes uncomfortable ones, but I don't recall very often telling others what policy they should elect, much less sell in all those media mentions, publications and whatnot.
Asking hard questions, questioning motives and reviewing assumptions might be skills some could profitably learn, but this is your forum and I don't wish to eat up your bandwidth highlighting the obvious. It's poor manners and it solves nothing.
Good luck, Andrew.
I want to know what SNLII
I want to know what SNLII thinks about this.
Andrew, you seem to be a bit
Andrew, you seem to be a bit too defensive about your intellectual and moral "integrity." I certainly don't believe you've exhibited either with your WAPO book review of "Where Men Win Glory" or your exoneration of Gen. McChrystal and the Ranger RGT officers for their role in the whitewash of Pat Tillman's friendly-fire death.
I don't see how you could defend McChrystal's role if you actually bothered to take a look at Mary Tillman's book "Boots on the Ground by Dusk" or my http://www.feralfirefighter.blogspot.com You've displayed self-righteous hypocrisy or willful ignorance on this matter. Perhaps you should reconsider before casting stones in Carl Prine's direction?
"Believe it or not, Andrew,
"Believe it or not, Andrew, Fort Drum is actually the UC-Berkeley of US Army bases, it seems"
Starbuck,
Actually, Andrew discussed this way back in 2004 in his first book. I agree with your assessment. I think it has to do with the self-selection of officers and senior NCOs who want to go to Drum. In other word, it is very heavily Northeastern in the ranks that influence policy and set command climate. I look back on my LT time there and I had Company Commanders from: Connecticut, Queens, Buffalo and Chicago. My Battalion Commanders were from Elizabeth, NJ; Buffalo and Philadelphia.
Looking back, I'm glad for the experience and I certainly missed the "bible belt" Army experience - thank God.
We need more places like Ft. Drum. Short of that, we need to seriously reallocate our officer recruiting effort and ROTC footprint proportionally to the population centers where American college students live and go to school. No Navy ROTC in NJ, CT, NJ and NH; 2 Army ROTC programs in NYC to serve a population of 8.2 million (vice 10 programs for less than 5 million Alabamans; 3 Army ROTC units in NJ, a state larger than VA (served by 12 Army ROTCs) - with recruiting pipeline disparities like this, should anyone even wonder why our officer corps is the way it is?
Mr. Exum, Long time reader,
Mr. Exum,
Long time reader, but can not say I've read all your posts. First and last post. I have considered writing something for awhile, with this thread today, your commentary and replies, it's time for me to say goodbye but I wanted to let you know why. I am a 20+ active and reserve officer, service in Iraq and when I found your site, was genuinely interested in your perspective and commentary but the snark and your clearly left to far left bias crept or was thrust in on way too many occasions. I thought this was a blog on COIN and national security but too often, I felt you were clearly burnishing your bona fides to join the Obama Administration as an Assistant or Principle Deputy Asst Secretary in USD Policy.
The Alter column (from a book which I shall not read) was such a tongue bath for the President that it could have been written by Chris Matthews. But what sent me over the top was your discussion of the report from your cousin, saying that Marine officers were verbally making disparaging comments about the President. I agree that was completely out of line, but then the post you wrote where you expressed your disgust with the Iraq war so much, that your soldiers put it on your going away plaque?? The only thing that's worse than you undermining the Commander in Chief in that fashion was for you to now carry it as a badge of courage or some other testament to your liberal bias and disdain for President Bush.
Mr. Exum, I won’t patronize you with platitudes but I’m old school in that you only take the time to give counsel to someone you really like or think has great potential. I’m also not against a person leaning, or being, left, right or center. But just as you lament the story from your cousin, you appear to be guilty of the same. The bias you show, the adulation you show for all things President Obama, detracts from your messages.
1. "Former Visitor", thanks
1. "Former Visitor", thanks for reading, and I am sorry -- I actually thought this last post was relatively critical of the Obama Team, but if you did not think it was even-handed enough, okay. I would encourage you to keep reading and commenting. This blog could use more conservative voices such as yours, and again, I thank you for having been a reader. 2. Carl, congrats on being in the question-asking business, which indeed sounds fun. I too am in the question-asking business, but I am also expected to suggest answers in the form of policy prescriptions from time to time. (Seriously, I get paid to do this in the same way you get paid to write newspaper stories.) Maybe someday I will have a job where I can lob criticisms at the policy suggestions of others without having to suggest those of my own, but that's not the job I have right now. My suggestion to you is that instead of pointing out all the ways in which I am "callow" and compromised, you might yourself seek a forum where you can sketch out alternative policy recommendations of your own rather than seeking a feeling of superiority in your criticisms of others. I may disagree with Bernard Finel and his writings (and the tone with which he approaches those with whom he disagrees), but I certainly respect the way in which he has not shied away from offering policy alternatives. You, by contrast, at once claim a lack of sufficient expertise to offer policy advice but do not hesitate to criticize those who do.why are you stil blogging?
why are you stil blogging? is your goal to alienate everyone in the think tank community except your buddies John and Nate?
Whoa dude. Too serious.
Whoa dude. Too serious. May I humbly suggest you go back to couching criticism and policy prescriptions in Ninja/Pirate metaphors, debates about drinking, and your ALTER EGO .
And to negate my own advice and get serious for a second: He does have integrity, he has challenged the current administration on numerous occasions, it's a blog and you are allowed to be snarky (it's the fuggin internet folks).
Criticizing the CINC/POTUS: what fuggin soldier, Marine, sailor, airman hasn't done that? You're allowed to say shit when it is in your mouth.
And BTW Iraq WAS A CLUSTERF*CK for nearly all of PH IV until Petreaus and Mr Clean, and some WH skirts round Bush pulled it together. I'll bear witness to 06/07 being a goat screw without direction where I was, and I was an interested observer of the rest of it. That doesn't mean perfection during the surge but at least they got on one game plan, instead of it being different based on sector, CDR, what was on the News, readings of goat entrails, what JAGO was on shift...etc, etc, etc, etc. If your going to go off a cliff you should do so in proper good order and together rather than in a confused disorderly rout. Turns out we marched away from the cliff. Even Officers compasses work sometimes. ====EOM Serious======
Still waiting to see if anyone can point to the Golden Age of American Civil/Military relations.
Iraq may have been a cluster
Iraq may have been a cluster fuck, but can anyone seriously deny that Iraq and Afghan wars haven't been a good thing for CNAS? Would any of the main pundits at CNAS be better known if the Iraq and Afghanistan wars hadn't happened?
1. Think you are pretty
1. Think you are pretty much on the mark on the loyalty issue.
2. During the Iraq Invasion in early 2003, heard a lot of low level, pessimistic static that had to have been caused by leaks from the Pentagon.
3. The CIA had one instance after another of behaviors disloyal to President Bush.
4. In my experience, field and company grade officers commonly engage in speech that is disloyal to the CIC and his administration.
5. This disloyalty is on par with the currently fashionable policy of laying blame on one's subordinates.
6. I don't expect more of the CIA crowd or DOD civilians. Expect military professionals (#'s 2 & 4) to adhere to the tenets established by their honorable predecessors.
7. Dishonorable conduct translates into a green light for more of same. The ultimate end to this is defeat of our military forces.
8. Agree with close civilian supervision of our military actions.
9. Am worried that we are getting run by a raftload of scoundrels playing on our PC sensibilities.
10. Doubt the consequences of #9 are more serious than #7.
11. The relativists are wrong. We really are better than the other guys.
V/R JWest
Visitor 10:04, the wars in
Visitor 10:04, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been a "good thing" for a guy like Nate Fick in the same way that the war in Vietnam was a "good thing" for Tim O'Brien and the First World War was a "good thing" for Siegfried Sassoon. Andrew Bacevich's public profile has been also greatly enhanced by his writings on Iraq and Afghanistan. Tell me: has the war in Iraq been a "good thing" for him? To write that the wars have been a "good thing" for some of us at CNAS assumes the wars have not carried with them some costs. There is not a single veteran at CNAS, for example, who has not attended more military funerals than anyone should attend in his lifetime.AM, What you're saying is:
AM,
What you're saying is: "the Ring couldn't possibly have made us that evil." Oh, yes it could. Evil is a result, not an emotion.
The COINdinistas do not get up in the morning and cackle like Sith Lords about the scores of fine young American men who have been killed or maimed in the service of Harvard faculty-lounge PC liberalism, walking around the rectum of nowhere to hand out Bibles, candy and $20s until they got their dicks blown off by a pound of fertilizer. Oh, no! The tears of the COINdinista are perfectly genuine. And so is his paycheck. The two, indeed, become inseparable.
Abu, what the hell is
Abu, what the hell is this?
"First, do what Dick Betts does when writing about Huntington's so-called "normal theory" for civil-military relations and draw a big triangle on a sheet of paper. Now draw three horizontal lines on the triangle, dividing it into four levels -- political, strategic, operational and tactical. In the normal model, civilians have responsibility for the top section. They decide the policy aims. Then civilians and the military decide on strategic goals and resources. (Betts adds a fifth layer, actually, for ROE.) The military has responsibility for everything else under Huntington's model."
What about the private sector? I assume you are talking about the government's civilian and military divisions, not the difference between a civilian and a soldier, correct? Attempting to port themes from one topic to the other doesn't work.
Here are the three points of the real triangle - the Iron Triange - that runs the U.S. military industrial complex and determines most of the foreign policy goals.
At one corner is government - including BOTH military officers (DOD) and civilian employees (State, etc.).
At another corner is private industry and finance - Wall Street, the major defense contractors, the major oil companies, etc.
The third corner is your corner, Abu - academic institutions and think tanks, which serve mostly as window dressing. The perversion of academic and scientific institutions - the loss of independence, and the expectation of servile interest to "national goals" - has a near-exact analogy in the Soviet Union. They had the VPK - their military-industrial commission - and the Soviet Academy of Sciences was supposed to support the VKD. Take a look at the U.S. Defense Policy Board and the Defense Science Boards for analogies.
To get an idea of the overall structure, interested readers should get their hands on books like The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group
Think tanks and academics who break from the mold and start doing honest analysis are inevitably shunned and kicked out the system - those who toady along find berths in various positions within the system - again, remarkably similar to conditions in the old Soviet Union (although they were more liable to disappear their critics to the gulag, 'tis true). Why? Well, who pays the salaries at your typical think tank? Usually, it's through cutout foundations financed by defense contractors and Wall Street cohorts. Are they gonna pay you to undermine their interests? That's how the real world works, dontcha know?
This can lead to a certain degree of cognitive dissonace - the kind of internal mental struggle that takes place when one tries to hold contradictory beliefs (in which one has great emotional investment) at the same time. The typical result is mental compartmentalization - but what if that part you tried to bury in the mud insists on making itself heard at inconvenient moments? Hammer that voice down - Prozac time! Gotta wonder how many think tank employees are in treatment for depression. Even schizophrenia can result - that's when cognitive dissonance-induced compartmentalization becomes severe, and you start hearing voices in your head from the disconnected parts of your various selves... You may have noticed these symptoms in some of your colleagues.
In analysis of situations, one must give up emotional attachment to ideologies - but often, a think tank's sole purpose is to promote a given ideology - and if the facts on the ground conflict with the ideology? Prozac time!
A government should not mobilize an army out of anger, military leaders should not provoke war out of wrath. Act when it is beneficial, desist if it is not. Anger can revert to joy, wrath can revert to delight, but a nation destroyed cannot be restored to existence, and the dead cannot be restored to life. Therefore an enlightened government is careful about this, a good military leadership is alert to this.
That Dick Betts triangle,
That Dick Betts triangle, upon consideration, is even worse that it seems. In reality, the neat separation of strategy and tactics is not possible in the real world. All the civilian role in strategy means is that civilians with no real experience (like Rummy) ended up dictating what kind of strategy and tactics to use in Afghanistan in 2001, correct? Hence, either deliberately or through gross incompetence, Osama bin Laden escaped into Pakistan - and a lot of those funerals veterans have to attend are a direct consequence of that fact.
This was justified, however, in that Rummy and Cheney considered Iraq to be the real strategic threat. They lined up support in the military by political maneuvering (consider Rummy's total control over the Defense Intelligence Agency at the time, for example) - again, a perversion of military command structure - and they got the third leg of the triangle, the think tanks and academics, to bolster their position.
Recall Ken Pollack of the Brookings Institute in 2002?
Examining all sides of the debate and bringing a keen eye to the military and geopolitical forces at work, Pollack ultimately comes to this controversial conclusion: through our own mistakes, the perfidy of others, and Saddam’s cunning, the United States is left with few good policy options regarding Iraq. Increasingly, the option that makes the most sense is for the United States to launch a full-scale invasion, eradicate Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, and rebuild Iraq as a prosperous and stable society—for the good of the United States, the Iraqi people, and the entire region.
Yes, says the blurb, his book (Threatening Storm) offers "...a view of the region that has the authority and force of an intelligence report."
That's some funny shit! This guy still has a job? Yup, the Director of the Saban Institute for Middle East Policy! A psychiatric work-up on Ken Pollack might be interesting... I bet he doesn't like to talk about Iraqi weapons programs any more. Yes, the good and noble cause in Iraq - nobody wants to talk about that anymore, it seems. Down the memory hole! Unfortunately, no memory hole is perfect - something always comes crawling back up in the dead of night. Prozac time!
This issue has been described before - over two thousand years ago, actually...
So there are three ways in which a civil leadership causes the military trouble. When a civil leadership unaware of the facts tells it armies to advance when it should not, or tells its armies to retreat when it should not, this is called tying up the armies. When the civil leadership is ignorant of military affairs but shares equally in the government of the armies, the soldiers get confused. When the civil leadership is ignorant of military maneuvers but shares equally in the command of the armies, the soldiers hesitate. Once the armies are confused and hesitant, trouble comes from competitors. This is called taking away victory by deranging the military.
You can chalk up the vast majority of soldier and civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan to violation of the above principles. The 2001 failure in Afghanistan? Check. The insufficient numbers of troops in Iraq in 2003? Check. Corruption in military contacting and reconstruction contracts, leading to broken promises and a loss of crucial local support? Double check on that one, huh?
Now, here's something sure to shock the civilian leadership:
There are routes not to be followed, armies not to be attacked, citadels not to be besieged, territory not to be fought over, orders of civilian governments not to be obeyed.
What! Well, it is true. Case in point: When the Secretary of Defense and the Vice President ordered the military to torture prisoners to extract information, that order should have been disobeyed, regardless of consequences. It was a moral failure on the part of the civil leaders, but there is no morality in war - rather, it was a strategic and tactical failure by the military commanders involved, one that actually strengthened the Baathist, Iranian, and Al Qaeda-backed insurgencies in Iraq due primarily to a serious loss of local support (and how many of those suicide bombers had previously been processed at Abu Ghraib?).
JWest, Bitching is
JWest,
Bitching is dishonorable? Or only if it's about POTUS or the CINC? Soldiers aren't allowed to have opinions? I missed the part about the oath of loyalty to the Leader. I bitched about (at least) Clinton, Bush II, and Obama. Went to war under the first two (and Bush I). I may have bitched about Bush I too. I just didn't do it to the media or appear at political functions in uniform (actually not at all). I thought that was the standard?
Actually that is the standard. You must have been/are an Officer. You want slaves. Try elsewhere.
What else? If I use obscene if accurate descriptive language am I guilty of spreading pornography?
Gee we're gonna need some bigger prisons.
Without the "disloyalty" what was going wrong wouldn't have gotten fixed. We can use some more constructive criticism, the kind we have been encouraged to engage in since the Vietnam debacle. As far as Pentagon leaks, I'm on record for saying close it. The Regional Commands have the Ball anyway. Pentagonista's are the ultimate Fobbits.
Civilians need to provide guidance and direction, and give us the goals and strategy (LOL on the last point). They don't need to supervise us. That's an NCO's job. They can stick to their myriad of scams great and small, from Bagram to Balad to shining tawdry DC. Hope the Republic holds scumbags. Because I'd gladly hang ya. After my homies robbed you of your ill gotten gains. They get their crime, I get mine.
Have a nice day.
ELF: 1. Went to war
ELF:
1. Went to war enlisted, 1st time. Bitched about everything. Vision limited to horizon. Big arrow stuff was not on my radar. Was told CIC was off limits -no matter.
2. Instruction at The Officer's Basic School was quite specific about the loyalty issue -but directed at the chain of command.
3. To the extent we were warned off politics in general, was to avoid using our rank to influence subordinates. (Remember General Walker?)
4. Personally, find active duty officers declaiming on the current CIC to be disturbing. Wonder what other break downs in the rigid, to my mind necessary, military code of behavior this might presage.
5. Military operations under civilian leadership are often screwed up. The price we pay for having military subordinate to those folks. Find it preferable to other alternatives.
6. At least, in our society, if our disagreement is extreme, we can take the blue or green suit off and protest to our heart's content.
7. We were slaves, kinda sorta.
8. If the difference in outlook is generational, so be it.
9. Am learning about other generational differences that bother me. Why not in the military as well?
V/R JWest
Each generation is tabula
Each generation is tabula rasa. In that case we can partly blame parents, teachers....
I don't really think the military is going to completely change who a person is, so who you are will come out. And you will to a certain extent reflect the values of the society, which is usually quite critical of Presidents (from Washington on).
I don't recall OBC prohibiting criticism of the CIC unless it was public . I wouldn't think it was healthy to suppress in any case. In any case it certainly happened. Also consider we are a deeply politicized society for the last few decades, and to a certain extent polarized (although I believe we are narrowly but sharply divided...for most of us the positions are not all that far apart). People watch politics quite closely now - you'll notice our entertainment/news has it as an entire market. That's a change.
I don't know about your generation, or what generation that would be...but I think in most wars people speak out about incompetence, floundering, a leader saying on TV that which you know to be nonsense from your own eyes. Had it happened more and earlier in Vietnam the result might have been different. Of course we're all volunteer's - so discipline may not need to be as draconian as in a part conscript Army. We may have more latitude to speak in fact (whether or not the Law or reg has changed).
If we hadn't pointed out in Iraq that we, the Nation, the Iraqi's and the Commander in Chief as well were being ill served, THAT would have made defeat and disgraceful withdrawal certain. Of course much of the criticism was pointed within the military itself. And it's been quite healthy. It's not likely it would have been acted on as policy changes without criticism and pressure on the policy makers.
"We are slaves in a way.."
Fondest Regards JWest , no I am not, no we're not either....not yet.
I'm just wondering who the
I'm just wondering who the next Les Aspin will be after the current SecDef has left the building...
I respect Obama a lot and his
I respect Obama a lot and his work. Reading this article I have discovered many interesting aspects of his work did not know. Obviously it would be easy to comment but, I live in Italy and in America, I prefer to avoid. Thank you, good job.
Stefano - Prestiti
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Mr. Exum, Lengthy period
Mr. Exum,
Lengthy period readers, however can't say I've examine all of your posts. Very first and last publish. We have considered writing a thing for some time, with this thread right now, your own comments and replies, it can be period for me to state farewell but I desired in order to let you understand the reason why. I am the 20+ active and book official, support within Irak so when I observed your website, had been truly serious about your own perspective and commentary but the snark as well as your clearly remaining to way left prejudice crept or was forced in on way a lot of situations. I assumed this was a blog upon COIN and national safety but as well normally, I experienced a person had been clearly burnishing your own bona fides to become listed on the actual Obama Administration being an Helper or even Principle Deputy Asst Secretary within USD Plan.
The actual Alter column (from a book that we will not really read) was such a language bath for the President that it could are composed through Chris Matthews. But exactly what delivered me personally above the top rated was your own discussion from the statement from your relative, declaring that Marine officers have been vocally earning disparaging comments concerning the Leader. We agree that was fully from Expedia Coupons collection, however the submit a person authored the place a person indicated your own dislike with the Iraq war so much, that the soldiers set it in your going absent oral plaque buildup?? The only real matter that is even worse than a person undermining the Leader within Chief for the reason that vogue had been for you personally to right now have this like a logo of bravery or even another testomony to your liberal bias as well as disdain for Leader Bush.
Mr. Exum, I will not patronize you along with platitudes but I’m outdated college within that you only take some time to provide counsel to someone you really like or feel has fantastic possible. I’m additionally not really against an individual inclined, or even becoming, remaining, suitable or middle. However just as you lament the story out of your relative, you look for being responsible of the exact same. The actual prejudice you demonstrate, the actual adulation a person display for those elements President barack obama, detracts from the messages.
The President of the USA
The President of the USA certainly does hold some honest behaviors and unlike many in history appears to lead by example. His intregrity and belief in a balanced approach to the issues facing the USA is refreshing as it appears truthful to his political stance.
Stan
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