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A Fairly Awful Model for Civilian-Military Relations
Peter Beinart, hailing the Israeli system:
Every time I get depressed about politics in Israel, I try to remember one salient fact: their political system still sometimes functions better than ours. ...
Why is their system working when ours did not? In Israel, as in the United States, military and intelligence officials are generally more cautious than civilian leaders when it comes to war, largely because they know firsthand how crude and unpredictable an instrument war is. But the Israeli system is less hierarchical. The military and intelligence agencies in the United States certainly leak to the press, and use bureaucratic tactics to box in their civilian overlords. At the end of the day, however, soldiers and intelligence analysts are trained to give their professional advice and then get out of the way. In Israel, the lines are more blurred, and bureaucrats are more freewheeling in speaking to the press. This has its disadvantages, but in a case like this, it gives the antiwar generals and spies greater leverage to fight back.
If anyone noticed Sam Huntington spinning in his grave, that's because Beinart is arguing that in a democracy, a military that actively resists the policy preferences of its elected leaders is a more responsible military than one that faithfully executes those same policy preferences.
Needless to say, this is a model of civilian-military relations that few political scientists would endorse.
It is fine to think the decision to invade Iraq -- which Beinart loudly supported, if memory serves -- was a poor decision. And it is also fine to think that a decision to attack Iran in order to retard the development of the Iranian nuclear program would be a similarly poor decision. We can have debates about either, of course, but the positions are ones reasonable people can get behind.
But endorsing a system of government in which military officers get to pick and choose which policy preferences of their elected leaders to carry out is not a prescription for better policy-making. It is instead a prescription for turning yourself into Pakistan.
It's perfectly
It's perfectly reasonable--indeed, expected--that the Joint Chiefs and the relevant combatant commander would voice their objections to proposed missions if the goals are unlikely achievable by the proposed means. Similarly, they ought to point out second and third order effects that might not have occurred to the civilian leadership.
But, once they've done that, their options are 1) carry out the decisions of the civilian authorities and 2) resign their posts and take their case to the public.
Let's not forget many of
Let's not forget many of these same Israeli military and intelligence leaders take these positions with an eye toward a future career in politics.
But endorsing a system of
But endorsing a system of government in which military officers get to pick and choose which policy preferences of their elected leaders to carry out is not a prescription for better policy-making. It is instead a prescription for turning yourself into Pakistan.
Exum, as the US gets more into the "conflict of the day" mode and Americans are pushed more into accepting humanitarian wars making our military look more like the Peace Corps than a fighting army, our commanders will become more political. That goes true for the citizenship too. Our reasons for war must be the right reason or people get confused. The confusion is what makes for unstable politics. Tea Party on the right, Occupy on the left and here we are stuck in the middle.
Then there is the spending to support it all, that is politics in itself.
Guess I am still stuck on a few posts back, its regional so it applies here too.
You have to love budgets; they are an art form.
If you wanted to make an argument that SOFA was an excuse to leave Iraq, this http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/156214.pdf is good place to start. The cover letter of State’s Budget is date February 11, 2011. The whole document is secured so you cannot print or copy individual text. Page 133 begins the detailed discussion for “ Overseas Contingency Operations Overview “, Paragraph 3 talks about Iraq. Most of the budget increase for State in Iraq is contained; not limited to, the OCO spending. Almost $4B dollars is being allocated for State to ramp up in Iraq. What you do not see clearly is the overlap of other monies that are pigeon holed elsewhere in the State Department budget and within USAID for Iraq and operations outside of Iraq. The increased OCO $8.7B spending at State is sold as a “savings” as compared to $45B of current OCO DOD spending. All this was known and written on February 11, 2011. Mix in the Administration’s 2008 campaign promise of taking “combat” troops out of Iraq. We know the intent, what is left is timing. The timing is obvious in State’s budget.
CIA and DOD ramped up spending in the rest of N. Africa and the gulf region. We know that DOD has plans to increase troop levels in the gulf region and the CIA is building and staffing drone bases. Think we know where the $45B DOD money went to, THERE ARE NO SAVINGS, only budget magic!
This administration is an artist! Only to be out done by the UN. If you ever got into the UN's budget system, you know what I mean. There is a hint of how the UN budget are set up in the break up of the funding that State supplies to the UN (pages 40 and 42).
The State’s budget will tell you about funding for AMISOM in Somalia, page 108. Again it is hard to see overlapping funding in other pigeonholes like monies for advisers, equipment, and aid packages to countries like Kenya, which are all in separate budgets under the State Department umbrella.
Further in to page 108 “Africa Conflict Stabilization and Border Security” gives us a hint on February 11, 2011 that monies will be allocated to go after the Lord’s Resistance in Africa (aka Uganda got 100 advisers recently to hunt for one man (Kony). Uganda supplies troops for AMISOM! Think that is a hint.).
I can keep going; I will let you find your own treasure. Personally, I think the areas where spending has increase from 2010 levels are the most telling. Somalia falls into this category.
It all tells you that Obama may have met a campaign promise to pull “combat” troops out of Iraq, he never promised to pull out State’s contractors! The war and spending has only spread.
Mission accomplished on getting combat troops out of Iraq, end of story.
You should be pissed.
Yeah, if anti-war generals
Yeah, if anti-war generals and spies had more leverage to speak out, we'd be much, much more like Pakistan, where highly vocal anti-war generals and spies practically never shut up.
So, the maneuvering Mullen,
So, the maneuvering Mullen, Petraeus and other celebrity GOs managed to box the administration and a nation that mostly doesn't serve in uniform into an unworkable COIN plan for Afghanistan is vastly superior to the open posturing by generals serving a nation with universal male conscription and who believe they have a moral duty to speak out over the possibility of a disastrous policy?
The reality is that Israeli generals will faithfully carry out the orders that they're given by their civilian overseers, just as they drove their tanks into south Lebanon after a strategically-challenged cabinet told them to do so in 2006.
They merely want a larger debate about a looming war. In a political culture that drafts its manpower and relies on the reserves to win battles, does this really seem all that terrible?
Democracies should have those debates in public, not forced on them by scheming generals toiling behind the scenes, men with neither accountability to the larger electorate nor the troops they shall toss into the bloodletting.
Ideally, yes, we should hope that every democracy -- ours and others -- would create honorable officers who privately caution their elected leaders on prudent military options. And, when called upon by lawmakers to give public counsel, that they also shall relate truthful testimony without obfuscation or untidy careerist motives.
But in this age of Petraeus and McChrystal, how can we lecture Israel on a potential crisis in civil-military affairs?
O, American healer, heal thyself.
Carl, you're just 100% wrong
Carl, you're just 100% wrong on this one. Although the uniformed officer corps should have provided the administration with alternatives to full-scale COIN in Afghanistan, the administration wasn't rolled. Not at all. An elected president doesn't get to complain that the military forced him into doing something. He is the commander-in-chief, not the military. Gen. Petraeus was apparently such a headache for his civilian minders that they ... named him commander in Afghanistan following McChrystal ... and then appointed him to the CIA. As for McChrystal, well, Hew Strachan put it better than I ever will (Survival 52:5), but I think the comportment of the general following his relief and the fact that the White House subsequently appointed him to lead a high-profile veterans initiative argues against your case. The bottom line is, I keep hearing you guys scream about a crisis in U.S. civilian-military relations, but whenever you trot out the examples of Petraeus and McChrystal, your argument falls apart because the Obama Administration's ACTUAL BEHAVIOR regarding both men suggests something very different than the portrait you paint. (As for Israel, I do not think things are as bad/good as Beinart suggests.)
Actually, naming Petraeus to
Actually, naming Petraeus to fail in Afghanistan and then fail further at CIA are two perfectly good responses to a man who seemingly is always aiming for something higher.
Tough to win in New Hampshire when you can't even win in Marjah.
And the Obama adminstration
And the Obama adminstration was so happy with McChrystal's toxic command and diffident attitude to civilian control of the military that they gave him a quite different job assignment: Holding court at S-1 while they prepared his DD214.
But don't get me wrong. This
But don't get me wrong. This administration deserves the celebrity generals just as surely as our democracy has earned them.
We didn't take seriously earlier warnings about the gap in civilian and military realms and this late Baby Boomer generation of politicos, warriors, wonks and wannabes certainly has made us pay for it.
Our civilian overseers outsourced strategy to our generals. And our generals outsourced competence and scruples. All of them outsourced accountability.
And none of them paid for these sins. Indeed, as you pointed out, McChrystal landed on his ever-jogging feet just as Petraeus made the move to Langley; Obama got him some bin Laden and, if he's truly fortunate, might get a beatable Republican in the fall.
In the meantime, we can lecture the Israelis (who won their last war, I suppose) on their path to future ones. If for no other reason than we can prove that we haven't outsourced hypocrisy.
It is a bit icky to have your
It is a bit icky to have your military professional wading into the press, and certainly not a good system to follow if you want to have a long-term, functioning country.
Also important to note that stupid political leadership can sink a country too, and if nobody is pushing back on world-historically idiotic ideas coming from the prime minister's office, then the selfsame generals and intel leaders will be the ones who try to hold back the maelstrom that Typhoon Bibi seems intent on unleashing on his long-suffering people.
So: here's a fun dilemma for us to argue about....How do the professional make their point, in a professional and democracy-supporting way, when they confront less than optimal political leadership?
Mr. Exum, please give us some
Mr. Exum, please give us some more good words about the superiority of the current American system. I'm sure you'll have a number of splendid examples. Perhaps you'll cite a certain op ed in the Wash Post a couple of months before the 2004 elections. You know, that honest piece by a certain very honest general that told the adoring public just how swimmingly things were going in Iraq. Given those closeness of that election, John Kerry and the millions of Americans who voted for him might not agree with you about how OUR generals stay above the fray vice those dastardly Israelis.
Would it be fair to say that it's your position that lying to the American people is OK, just so long as the military or intelligence officer obeys orders?
Bottom line. The Israeli
Bottom line. The Israeli Generals are true patriots who, unlike the theorists , are acutely aware of the utter vulnerabilities of their people and infrastructure.
They're speaking up in order to spare their beloved country a nightmare.
As a citizen army, Israelis
As a citizen army, Israelis (as I understand it) have a specific social contract: that the IDF is to be used by the civilian government as a defensive force, and not to be an instrument to achieve whatever the civilian command determines is best. Obviously this raises all sorts of eye-of-the-beholder questions (as well as whether the Israelis really behave this way), but it seems legitimate to me at least that hypothetically if executive desire and the social contract collide, then the military may pre-emptively and publicly air their concerns.
If you'll remember your Zev Schiff, one of the ways Sharon led Israel into a totally forseeable disaster in Lebanon was to disrupt the normal communication lines between the military and the cabinet (Sharon, was by then a civilian official), and concentrate all the decision making and planning around himself. Also, it was not just protesters but an internal military revolt that forced Begin to remove Sharon as defense minister.
Maybe what we need is a clearer, more public doctrine (or "discussion") that draws red lines as to when we'll risk troops' lives, and then give the military a public say (not decision) about whether the latest mission in Central Africa or wherever is directly protecting American lives.
Isn't this supposed great way
Isn't this supposed great way the Israeli system works a main complaint of critics of the CIA? I am not asserting my opinion I am asking isn't that kind of leaking etc that was alleged the CIA did to undermine Pres. W Bush and his policies? Whether you agree or not with his policies I can't imagine if that is the case this is something positive here or in Israel.
@AM: "I think the
@AM: "I think the comportment of the general [McChrystal] following his relief and the fact that the White House subsequently appointed him to lead a high-profile veterans initiative argues against your case."
Mary Tillman, Pat Tillman's Mom, protested McChrystal's appointment to head up the "Joining Forces" program this past April by President Obama. She objected to the hypocrisy of having the man who directed much of the Army's cover-up of her son's 2004 friendly-fire death (e.g. fraudulent Silver Star citation with altered witness statements, having his JAGs block the ME from learning about the FF, etc.) to head up this program to "support" veteran's families. AM neglected to mention that CNAS is running "Joining Forces" which appears to have been the kickoff to Obama's relection campaign and helped burnish his wife Michelle's patriotic image.
(More on the subject at "Jon Krakauer's Credibility Problem" at http://www.feralfirefighter.blogspot.com)
Pat Tillman's birthday would have been tomorrow. A good time to view "The Tillman Story" or to read his brother Kevin's (who served in the same platoon with the 2nd RGR BN) 2006 letter "After Pat's Birthday."
"Beinart is arguing that in a
"Beinart is arguing that in a democracy, a military that actively resists the policy preferences of its elected leaders is a more responsible military than one that faithfully executes those same policy preferences. "
Whoa, whoa, no he isn't.
He's saying that a military that _publicly expresses its misgivings_ about policy is more responsible than one that keeps its mouth shut. Maybe that's true and maybe it isn't, but it's not the same as saying the military should not obey orders.
(And, of course, the military has the explicit _duty_ to resist the policy of its elected leaders under various circumstances which I don't have to list.)
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