October 04, 2017
Worries about Trump’s Generals Are Overblown
It seems that President Trump’s reliance upon retired and active-duty generals in staffing the upper echelons of his administration has raised concerns among a large number of well-informed people.
With retired Marine general John Kelly serving as White House chief of staff, retired Marine general James Mattis serving as secretary of defense, and Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster serving as national-security adviser, charges are being levied that the nation has embarked down a dangerous path. Some feel that the abundance of retired military officers in high-level government positions undermines the “non-partisan nature of the military” and decreases the public’s trust in its armed forces. Others are of the opinion that Trump’s reliance on military men will “throw off the balance of a system that for good reason favors civilian leadership.” These criticisms are relatively mild in comparison with those levied in the Boston Globe by journalist and academic Stephen Kinzer, who charges that Kelly, Mattis, and McMaster make up a modern military junta in the halls of the White House.
Read the full op-ed in National Review.
More from CNAS
-
The Enduring Relevance of Reagan’s Westminster Speech
Commentary
Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of three essays, commissioned by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, examining the legacy of Reagan’s Westmin...
By Richard Fontaine
-
Friday Roundtable
Podcast
On the Roundtable episode of the Defense & Aerospace Podcast, Robert F. Hale joins Todd Harrison, the director of defense budget analysis and the Aerospace Security Project at...
By Robert F. Hale
-
National Security Is Made of People
Commentary
For several years, members of Congress and senior defense officials have worried, dramatically and out loud, about the state of military readiness, devoting bipartisan harangu...
By Loren DeJonge Schulman
-
Small Satellites in the Emerging Space Environment
Reports
Steven Kosiak assesses the advantages and risks of widespread networks of smaller satellites versus consolidated networks of larger satellites....
By Steven Kosiak
