subscribe  |    email  |    print  |    continue the debate

“The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of The New York Times or on the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C., even before ... the first American units were deployed. The disaster in Vietnam was not the result of impersonal forces but a uniquely human failure, the responsibility for which was shared by President Johnson and his principal military and civilian advisers. The failings were many and reinforcing: arrogance, weakness, lying in the pursuit of self-interest and, above all, the abdication of responsibility to the American people.”

Army Col. H.R. McMaster’s powerful summation about Vietnam in “Dereliction of Duty” is hauntingly poignant today. Although comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq are largely overdone, this one may hold up as our grasp of history unfolds. If Iraq is lost, it was lost in Washington well before the first units were deployed. It was not lost by the media, despite retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez’s latest screed. It was not the result of anonymous forces but of very human failures. The responsibility for these will eventually be shared by the president, his national security advisers and his principal military advisers. History will ultimately record the assumptions and decisions and their cumulative effect. Here again, the shortfalls were myriad and cascading: hubris, ignorance, personal weakness and willful misrepresentation to the American people. When the dust settles and we can objectively evaluate the record, we will find that it was a thoroughly mutual dereliction of duty.

Before the war, scholars suggested that the military’s sense of professionalism was declining, especially as it related to long-standing traditions regarding a political advocacy role by active-duty military. One observed that “fundamental concepts of military professionalism in the United States have eroded, at times to an alarming degree.” Much of what constituted an erosion of professional standards has not affected the conduct of this war. In fact, an entirely different set of problems emerged, which could constitute a crisis down the road if not rectified. Where do we stand six years into a protracted conflict that has required our nation’s warriors to make multiple deployments and more sacrifices than anyone expected?

I will attempt to answer that question. Both parties to the civil-military relationship need to sit back and ask themselves whether current strains between civilians and our armed forces can be rewoven without further damage to the republic’s ideals and traditions.

A FRAMEWORK

Civil-military relations present more comprehensive a challenge than just the interaction between statesmen and generals. It is far more than just about control of the military; it is a set of relationships among four sectors of our society. These four groups include American political elites, the American civil society, military elites and the military writ large.

Civil-military relations can be explored through a framework that captures the four principal relationships:

å Between American society and the military.

å Between America and our political leaders.

å Between America’s military and its leadership.

å Between American political leaders and military elites.

We shall briefly address each of these relationships in their post-Operation Iraqi Freedom form.

SOCIAL/MILITARY CULTURe

Before the war, Tom Ricks’ insightful best-seller, “Making the Corps,” explored the relationship between Main Street USA and one branch of the military. “Making the Corps” depicted the remarkable transformation of Marine recruits at the famed Parris Island boot camp, while also raising concerns about the growing drift between our society and the military. The book reflected claims that a corrosive gap has emerged between mainstream America and its military culture. The military was beginning to think of itself as both distinct from and superior to the society it protects. The U.S. armed forces were allegedly becoming more insular in their attitudes, values and makeup.

What Ricks detected has not gone away, and it may have been extended. Several reports suggest the gap between an all-volunteer force and the rest of America is widening. One non-academic assessment detected “a kind of embattled alienation, and perhaps even a creeping sense of superiority” emerging in today’s military. Other reports suggest a growing degree of mistrust, misunderstanding and overt resentment. Additionally, the military’s isolation from its larger civilian component, via its professional educational system and its enclaves around the U.S., has become an issue. Such a cultural divide might weaken the long-term support the military enjoys among the body politic. But it may also negatively affect the ability to recruit and maintain a strong and effective military. An astute but sympathetic Robert Kaplan warns that “a military will not continue to fight and fight well for a society that could be losing faith in itself, even if that society doffs its cap now and again to its warrior class.”

Many returning veterans have expressed doubts that the public supports their service and noted that the public does not have to make any sacrifice of its own. Any number of OIF vets have admitted a degree of annoyance that while they were serving overseas, the American people were out shopping. “America is not at war, it’s at the mall” has become a cliché. Consider this comment from the Paul Rieckhoff, author of “Chasing Ghosts”:

“My trip to L.A. was full of fabulous and terrible contrasts. I was in my homeland, but I felt like a stranger in a foreign land. The opulence, the glamour, the detachment from reality disturbed and angered me. America was a country at war. But it sure didn’t look like it. Everywhere I went, I saw Americans living their lives entirely uninterrupted. No threat of the draft, no increase in taxes, no sacrifice whatsoever. All the benefits with none of the risks. Patriotism Lite. It was hard not to hate them all.”

One could excuse that as the post-traumatic stress ravings of a veteran, but then one has to reflect on a quotation from a serving general officer: “The U.S. as a nation — and indeed most of the U.S. government — has not gone to war since 9/11.” While the military is fighting, “the American people and most of the other institutions of national power have largely gone about their business.”

It is clear that despite yellow ribbons and public accolades, the U.S. military does harbor resentments about its relationship with the larger society it serves. The public’s lack of commitment, to them and to victory, leaves them confused, if not profoundly disappointed. Some have taken to the airwaves and to the op-ed pages of major newspapers to take their case for or against the war directly to the citizenry. Others have created political action groups of veterans promoting veterans for public office.

SOCIETY AND POLITICAL ELITES

This relationship centers around “who serves” in the military and who bears the risks and burdens of going to war. It is a demographic fact that fewer and fewer of our civilian elites have military service, or that their children are liable to serve in the armed forces. This reality has been with us for some time, as has the fact that civilian elites have less-favorable views of the military overall. Before the war, civilian elites were more likely to admit that they would be “disappointed” if one of their children joined the military. Of course, military commissions from elite schools are far lower than pre-Vietnam levels, which reflects both the academy’s intolerance and the better options afforded the children of our highest social class.

This discrepancy has led to calls for a return to the draft and inspired others to raise the possibility of mandatory national service as a way of reintroducing those who have benefited the most from our liberal system with a sense of duty about defending it. In one notable case, a pair of authors with relatives in the military sensed enough of the alienation to pen a book titled “AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America’s Upper Classes from Military Service — and How it Hurts Our Country.”

It appears to the military that the people who make policy have little experience or interest in gaining firsthand knowledge about military matters. Only 24 percent of today’s members of Congress have military service, and far fewer have any combat experience. Naturally, even fewer congressmen have family members serving in the armed forces. At the beginning of the war, only one member of the Senate or House had a child serving; six years later, the total stands at three. The question on many people’s minds appears to be: “Why should I join when those with the most blessings bear the least burden?” Are the volunteers being treated as mere hirelings who did not have options in the first place?

One prominent veteran suggests that failure of elites to share in the sacrifice forfeits or weakens one’s eligibility to make policy in the future. Retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, the former commander of U.S. Central Command, has given notice to today’s elites that the nation will increasingly turn away from those of privilege if they do not serve, and that veterans of this war are more worthy than those who will be tomorrow’s decision-makers. In a speech after his retirement, the general warned the graduates of Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford that those who served “display daily the skills that will make them the political and social force to be reckoned with in our country’s future. ... These veterans have earned the respect to make the decisions necessary to keep this nation great for generations to come.”

The charge has merit, but inherent to this debate is an indirect criticism of elites by the servants, questioning their fitness and legitimacy to lead. Equally troubling is the perception of politicization the administration has fostered by its over-reliance on the credibility of the military as an institution and individuals such as Army Gen. David Petraeus that lies behind the slanderous ad by MoveOn.org.

MILITARY-TO-MILITARY RELATIONS

This is not normally considered a relevant link in civil-military relations, but it is hard to ignore its influence today. Before the war, scholars had identified trend data that a majority of active-duty officers believed that senior officers should “insist” on making civilian officials accept their viewpoints. These officers believed that military advisers should go beyond advising and seek advocacy roles, inside and outside the official policy channels, on critical matters including rules of engagement, establishing political and military goals, deciding what kinds and numbers of units are employed, and on designing an exit strategy.

Younger officers who hold these views are reacting to perceived deficiencies in the military’s leadership during the Vietnam War. This perspective is captured in Colin Powell’s famous comment that when his generation rose to positions of power, they would not quietly acquiesce to bad policy decisions or half-hearted wars for half-baked reasons.

But they did acquiesce this time, and the theme has arisen again. The most potent criticism was from a courageous active Army officer who accused his own leadership of professional failure in the pages of this journal.

America’s generals have been checked by a form of war that they did not prepare for and do not understand. They spent the years following the 1991 Persian Gulf War mastering a system of war without thinking deeply about the ever-changing nature of war. They marched into Iraq having assumed, without much reflection, that the wars of the future would look much like the wars of the past.

Army Lt. Col. Paul Yingling’s indictment accused America’s generals of refighting the last war and failing to measure up in terms of professional competence. He indicted our general officers for miscalculating both the means and ways necessary to succeed, and for not accurately informing the American people and Congress. He also questioned their moral courage. “The intellectual and moral failures common to America’s general officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American generalship,” he found.

Yingling is deservedly a cult hero among junior Army officers for having spoken up. But his is not a singular voice. Another officer observed, “This is about the moral bankruptcy of general officers who lived through the Vietnam era yet refused to advise our civilian leadership properly. I can only hope that my generation does better someday.” This is quite an indictment. Junior officers perceive that the Joint Chiefs were again “Five Silent Men,” in McMaster’s memorable phrase, who allowed poorly conceived conceptions of war, badly distorted intelligence and wildly optimistic planning to go unchallenged. No wonder so many are getting out.

POLICY AND MILITARY ELITES

With respect to the policy decision-making process before the war, where ends, ways and means should have been integrated by senior civilian and military leaders, there are clear problems. The Iraq Study Group found that the discourse between policymakers and military advisers was “frayed” and required repair. More importantly, the military is beginning to evidence a nuanced stab-in-the-back thesis that places the blame entirely on the backs of Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. According to this thesis, civilian policy masters meddled tirelessly to frame the justification, planning and execution of the war but have not taken responsibility for any of their decisions. This lack of accountability rankles the military, as did the defense secretary’s style and demeanor.

But this overlooks the joint community’s failure for what Ricks has called “the worst war plan in American history, ... a campaign for a few battles, not a plan to prevail and secure victory.” It failed to serve as a strategic bridge between policy and the actions on the ground, focused as it was on mere war fighting. The sprint to Baghdad reflects a warped understanding of campaigning and definitely contributed to the difficult occupation that followed. The fact that the profession is not seriously exploring its own deficiencies, and that participants like Sanchez want to blame the media, confirms Ricks’ conclusion that our armed forces have entered a “post-professional” phase. Only Gen. Eric Shinseki seems to have understood the complexity of the political objective, reflecting well on his competence and character.

Given the panic that most experts in the field of civil-military relations were expressing before 9/11, you would have thought we were becoming a garrison state led by a junta. But instead of overstepping their bounds, too many flag officers went along with the program. Rather than unleashed, they were too tame and caged within a rigid conception of their duty. The hand-wringing by academics every time a retired general officer exercises his constitutional and earned right to speak is misplaced. It’s one thing to neuter the Joint Chiefs, but to contend that all retired flag officers have to be mute until death is bizarre. This merely leaves the field of ideas free to talking heads and pundits.

Instead of railing about generals “in revolt,” we should be gravely concerned with those serving admirals and generals who knew better and were silent. Their adherence to the principle of civilian control is obligatory, but it must be matched by an equal show of moral character. I sincerely hope that tomorrow’s generals realize that respect for the office of those elected and appointed to oversee the military does not override their obligations to express themselves clearly and candidly at all times. If more would speak up while in office, fewer would need to speak out later. An all-too-narrow conception of civilian control and personal loyalty to civilian executives has overridden moral obligations to the American people, the Congress and the military profession.

POST-OIF BASELINE

We now have a new baseline of civil-military relations. All four of the critical relationships show very unhealthy indicators. Some within the military resent the lack of national support for their sacrifice in multiple deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. Their devotion to the nation’s call has been nothing less than superb, but the strategy behind the summons is suspect. Others resent the fact that those who make policy rarely serve themselves, or that the sons and daughters of the elite and privileged rarely share the burden of defending the country. Junior officers, the next generation of uniformed leaders, are disappointed in the moral courage and competence of their seniors. Military professor Don Snider refers to this as the “trust gap.” Some will vote with their feet and depart. Others feel they have a right and a need to politically organize and communicate directly to the American people because their superiors will not.

You can expect more political groups of military veterans and serving officers to arise, and to see more writing about policy issues in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. The downstream implications of how the American people will perceive an institution filled with policy advocates who are comfortable with intrusions in the policy domain appear to have escaped those who have inadvertently crossed the line so far. The military remains a widely respected profession, but the seeds of disaster are being planted. The profession of arms and its ethical obligations are becoming misunderstood by all parties, including the military. It is well past time for serious contemplation and re-education.

Instead of seeking to place blame or wonder whether a sequel to McMaster’s “Dereliction of Duty” is warranted, we need to repair what has been rent. There is enough fault to go around regarding shoddy planning and unexamined assumptions. It is hoped that both senior policymakers and military leaders now grasp the true meaning and purpose of effective civil-military interaction. One senses that the current secretary of defense recognizes his responsibilities for the climate and tenor of discourse with his advisers. His decision to establish a new team at the Pentagon served notice that a higher standard than simply “salute and obey” is expected of the president’s highest advisers. Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold’s example and challenge to those still serving, that they “give voice to those who can’t speak,” has, it is hoped, been heard by those charged with giving advice in counsel. Rather than a crisis that undercut civilian control, the retired general officers reflected a moral obligation and commitment to the nation reflective of the profession’s best qualities and its ideals.

War tests institutions and leaders, and can produce fissures between them. It is clear that fissures extant before the war have been expanded, and it is also clear that professional standards, ethical guidelines and apolitical behavior are not well-understood. Leaders and future leaders from both sides of the civil-military dialogue must attend to the contours of civil-military relationships before another conflict arises.