Let the Generals Speak
KAGAN, FREDERICK W.
Let the Generals Speak It's not a problem for civil-military relations. by FREDERICK W. KAGAN TIMES OF great national stress can create tensions between the senior civilian leaders of the nation...
...Once we decide the retired generals can say some things and not others, the door is open to assail them for saying anything at all...
...There is no danger to the republic in a handful of retired generals speaking their minds...
...When Rumsfeld testifies before Congress on Iraq or the defense budget, a general sits beside him, in his dress uniform, his stars gleaming under the lights...
...For those in this camp, the demand of several generals that Rumsfeld step down—even though these generals are retired— represents a severe blow to good civil-military relations and a usurpation of power that should rest in the hands of the civilian leadership...
...McMaster has pointed out so eloquently in his book Dereliction of Duty...
...No one is under any obligation to follow their advice, or even to take it serious-ly—generals are human, after all, and just as prone to mistakes of judgment as anyone else...
...Retired officers are not subject to the UCMJ...
...Above all, disputes must be kept in-house...
...The substance of the criticisms made by retired generals John Batiste, Charles Swannack, Anthony Zinni, and others is neither novel, nor entirely accurate, nor in every case very constructive...
...The current crisis comes from the fact that these officers have not merely condemned Rumsfeld's policies, but called for his resignation...
...They should on no account be stripped of any of those rights, however wisely or foolishly they use them...
...And it is true that sitting generals (and civilian leaders) frequently seek the advice of their retired predecessors...
...Loyalty of officers to their superiors is not and cannot be unconditional...
...In truth, nothing so destroys the impartiality of advice essential to wise decision-making as the notion that senior officers must be first and foremost loyal to their civilian bosses...
...The recent spate of retired generals calling for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to step down has raised the red flag once again...
...The claim that retired generals must not involve themselves in "partisan political" questions is even more problematic today than usual, because President Bush and Rumsfeld have repeatedly deflected criticism of their policies in Iraq onto the generals themselves...
...And that would be a grave error, because, in the third place, we need their thoughts...
...An officer charged with executing a policy cannot publicly criticize that policy...
...Another places them on a spectrum that leads to the sort of military factions one finds in "places such as Hussein's Iraq, Pinochet's Chile or your run-of-the-mill banana republic...
...There is another way to look at this issue...
...In the second place, as we have learned many times in other contexts, free speech is not partable...
...officer corps has internalized that lesson very deeply...
...But it is a complicated and confusing war...
...some claim this might lead to the creation of the sorts of military cliques and factions that can lead to coups...
...The U.S...
...They have tended to focus on blaming Rumsfeld for past actions, rather than discussing current operations or offering concrete suggestions for improving American strategy in Iraq...
...No one will be pleased with everything retired generals have to say...
...Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the numbers of congressmen with military experience is rapidly dwindling...
...and the "revolt of the admirals" in 1949...
...There is great danger in making vital decisions about an ongoing armed struggle without hearing the views of all available experts...
...Neither fear is convincing...
...It is no doubt also true that retired generals who enter the field of politics, either by siding with political candidates or by calling for the resignations of senior officials, reduce their impartiality and even, perhaps, their credibility for participating in subsequent policy discussions...
...The Joint Chiefs of Staff in the 1960s prioritized their loyalty to President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara to such an extent that they allowed their own views to be distorted, in their presence, before congressional committees...
...That solution to this nonproblem, in fact, can hurt us all...
...Increasingly these days, only the uniformed military, a few senior civilian leaders, and a small number of civilian experts have made the study of war (as opposed to military bureaucracy) their primary occupation...
...But the quality of these statements is not really what is at issue...
...That demand, some say, crosses the line...
...Even Donald Rumsfeld, despite two tours as secretary of defense, has infinitely more expertise managing a large and complex bureaucratic corporation than he does planning or executing military operations...
...Does that mean that after they retire they shouldn't criticize policies with which they had been involved—but are no longer...
...Some go so far as to intimate that it may be wrong for officers to vote in elections—such voting makes them "partisans" and therefore restricts their ability to give impartial advice...
...There is considerable evidence, furthermore—as anyone who has spent a lot of time talking with military officers privately knows—that disagreements, arguments, and strong feelings about the worthiness of the current civilian leadership long predated the public comments of a handful of retired generals...
...others recognize the need for honest testimony when sought by Congress, but claim that officers should not put their views before the American people in any other fashion...
...Harsh words, indeed...
...Truman and MacArthur...
...Confusion in this matter helped lead to the disasters of the Vietnam war, as H.R...
...Some argue that retired generals remain part of the corporate body of generals— that, one critic writes, is why we still call them "general...
...Debates about strategy and policy in the global war on terror and in Iraq cannot be confined to polite discussions in the halls of the Pentagon...
...No active-duty general, it goes without saying, would ever be allowed publicly to demand the resignation of his superior officer—and any who did would likely be court-martialed...
...some have no military experience at all...
...In truth, it is not likely at all, except in two cases: that the civilian leaders promote only those they know to agree with them, or that the military officers prioritize loyalty to their civilian masters above giving them honest and impartial advice...
...Many experts in the field of civil-military relations think harmony is the goal...
...In such a circumstance, it is the height of arrogance and folly to assume that the handful of military and civilian leaders who happen to be at the top of the power pyramid for the moment have all the answers...
...They can only make informed decisions if they understand the issues...
...Uniformed military should offer advice when it is sought, and do what it is told without demur whether or not that advice is accepted...
...Few of the senior civilian leaders in the Pentagon have experience at high levels of military command...
...There is no disease to treat here...
...The United States is at war, as the president and the secretary of defense never tire of reminding us...
...The presence of that general next to the secretary goes beyond tacit support...
...Presidents and secretaries of defense always want their generals to be loyal to them...
...But no one benefits from silencing them in the name of civilian control of the military...
...Officers are not even permitted to make derogatory comments about their superiors, according to statutes of the Uniform Code of Military Justice...
...American officers do understand this fact...
...by FREDERICK W. KAGAN TIMES OF great national stress can create tensions between the senior civilian leaders of the nation and the general officers who serve them...
...There is no evidence whatsoever that these feelings of officers at any level have led to failures to offer honest advice, failures to execute orders faithfully, or problems of any sort...
...Rumsfeld himself has argued forcefully that traditional approaches will not solve the unique problems we face...
...Generals frequently feel that they should be loyal to their civilian leaders in the same way that they expect their military subordinates to show them loyalty...
...They have stated over and over that troop levels in Iraq and the strategies being pursued there are those recommended by the generals, and that more troops would be forthcoming and different strategies would be approved if the generals requested or offered them...
...Not in a democracy...
...there are not even any symptoms...
...If this compartmentaliza-tion of expertise in war is combined with efforts to stifle the speech even of retired officers, it runs the serious risk of depriving the American people and their leaders of the critical advice and information they need to make sound decisions...
...Some argue that officers should not even speak freely before Congress...
...He is expected to offer verbal support to the secretary's policies as well, in the guise of impartial, professional advice...
...that the people of a democracy are sufficiently well informed to make sound decisions about their leaders in a time of war...
...Truman fired MacArthur precisely because MacArthur had begun a campaign to undermine a decision Truman had already taken and which MacArthur was under orders to execute...
...But the oath of office of an American officer is to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," not to "be loyal to the present occupants of the executive branch...
...America's senior civilian leaders are rarely experts in the art of war...
...The question of loyalty becomes critical here...
...They reflect an incorrect understanding of healthy civil-military relations, one that draws too heavily on traditional American fears of a standing army and too little on the need to ensure Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the forthcoming book, The End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 18011805 (Da Capo...
...Even junior officers, moreover, are required to show discretion in their loyalty...
...They are perfectly capable of distinguishing between the statements of their active-duty superiors and retired generals...
...Military officers at all levels are deeply indoctrinated with the primacy of civilian control...
...The American people and their elected representatives—not only the president and his subordinates—must be directly involved in these debates...
...He or she must understand that, after advice has been rendered and a decision is taken, the only options that remain are to "salute and move out smartly" and to resign...
...Many of the critics of the outspoken retired generals today do blame them for disloyalty, even as those generals and other critics assert that Rumsfeld's Pentagon has been characterized by excessive groupthink and selective promotions...
...In the first place, retired generals are citizens in good standing with all the rights of their fellow citizens—rights that they have laid their lives on the line to protect...
...But what advice in such a situation could really be impartial and professional, unless the secretary and his general were in complete agreement...
...Regrettable as it might seem from this second perspective, it remains essential to curtail the speech of serving officers...
...Critics of today's outspoken retired generals argue that their example of taking sides in political debates encourages their active-duty comrades to do the same...
...But should there not be some customary inhibition that restricts their advice to the bounds of their own professional expertise...
...Such interventions may therefore be imprudent from a personal perspective, but they do not harm good order and discipline within the military or civil-military relations...
...They can only understand the issues if those with the most expertise, knowledge, and experience share their wisdom freely...
...one calls their actions "wrong, destructive of good order and discipline in the armed forces, and prejudicial to functional civil-military relations...
...This tension sometimes leads to open conflict, as between Lincoln and McClellan...
...there is no statutory restriction on their speech...
...These attacks on the outspoken generals are misguided...
...The answer is no...
...Critics of these generals have called them "fools," "disloyal," and self-serving careerists...
...When Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell publicly criticized Bill Clinton's determination to open the military ranks to homosexuals, a cottage industry sprang up warning of the imminent demise of civilian control over the military...
...And how likely is it that there will be no serious disagreements between civilian leaders and generals...
...They are forbidden, for instance, to carry out orders that they believe to be unlawful...
...That case is harder to see...
Vol. 11 • May 2006 • No. 32
