ARGUMENT: CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONSLet’s Stop Being Cavalier About Civilian Control of the Military
The message of a remarkable open letter by former secretaries of defense and former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, published last week, is straightforward: The United States needs to review the basic principles of civilian control of the military and recommit to best practices in civil-military relations. Peter Feaver and Michèle Flournoy write that the statement dismisses what might be called the naïve theory of civilian control — the idea that every whim of the president should be immediately executed as a direct order without any further thought. “In a democracy, that can be as dangerous as rank insubordination, if a president is reckless,” they write. “It is hard not to think of President Trump and the way his impulsive, idiosyncratic approach to the commander-in-chief role made this rearticulation of first principles necessary.”
The underlying message of a remarkable open letterby former secretaries of defense and former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, published last week in War on the Rocks, is straightforward: The United States needs to review the basic principles of civilian control of the military and recommit to best practices in civil-military relations.
Peter Feaver and Michèle Flournoy write in Lawfare that this is the first time such a distinguished group—every confirmed secretary of defense serving in the Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations and the former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff covering the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations—has collectively weighed in on this bedrock foundation of the United States’ constitutional republic: what civilian control of the military does and does not mean, and how to preserve it. (Full disclosure: Peter Feaver helped the group work through the process of drafting the statement).
Feaver and Flournoy note that this extraordinary group felt the need to make this statement at this time is as newsworthy as what they said. They add:
[T]he statement dismisses what might be called the naïve theory of civilian control that has taken hold in recent years—the idea that every whim of the president should be immediately executed as a direct order without any further thought. Thankfully, the United States does not have an absolute monarch who can muse, “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?” and see it translated into an assassination. In a democracy, that can be as dangerous as rank insubordination, if a president is reckless. It is hard not to think of President Trump and the way his impulsive, idiosyncratic approach to the commander-in-chief role made this rearticulation of first principles necessary. The Trump experience shows how civil-military relations can be tested, how best practices in civil-military relations can protect the country, and how one partner in the civil-military equation can in some circumstances compensate for dangerous behavior by the other.
According to numerous insider reports and countless tweets observable to all, President Trump was given to off-the-cuff expressions of opinion and intent. He would say out loud what previous presidents would say only to themselves—the equivalent of “I wish we could do this or I wish we could accomplish that.” However, when his opinion was translated into a fully staffed option with all the risks and second-order effects spelled out, President Trump as often as not would back down from his initial expressed wish.
Some of Trump’s supporters did not like him backing off of his more reckless policies, and late in the administration the interagency policy development process had broken down so thoroughly that some of Trump’s most dangerous notions—for instance, his effort after losing the election to get all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan before Biden’s inauguration, a timeline that would have produced even greater logistical chaos and catastrophe than what happened in August 2021—came very close to fruition. In the face of this breakdown in regular order, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley and others reportedly pushed back and worked hard to persuade the president to change his mind.
For this and similar efforts, many critics have accused Milley of undermining civilian control. Yet, as the statement from the formers makes clear, Milley was in fact reinforcing civilian control, making sure President Trump was fully informed of the costs of his proposed policies and not the victim of the schemes of lower-ranking staff who were whispering in his ear but were neither in the chain of command nor statutory, Senate-confirmed advisers responsible for national security policy.
Feaver and Flournoy conclude:
Perhaps most important of all, the statement underscores that both civilians and the military are responsible for adhering to best practices. We would go further to say that we have learned in recent years that civilians can mess up civilian control and civil-military relations just as easily as the military can. This statement should become a touchstone for every civilian serving in a national security post as much as it should for military leaders.
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The formers seem to be saying: Grade civilian and military leaders according to these time-tested standards and not according to the mood of a polarized Twitter mob. If, as it did on Jan. 6, the mob mobilizes again in the real world and not just in internet flame wars, the Republic may depend on civilian and military leaders heeding the advice of these former leaders and following the best practices that have preserved effective civilian control of the military and the United States’ constitutional democracy thus far.
