Mac Owens on the forgotten dimensions of American civil-military relations

By
Mackubin Thomas Owens

Best
Defense department of civil-military relations

It is
fair to say that most Americans do not pay much attention to civil-military
relations (CMR) and on the rare occasions when they do, they equate the term
almost exclusively with civilian control of the military.

There
are a couple of reasons for this:

First,
U.S. CMRs appear to be fairly healthy, especially in terms of civilian control.
The U.S. military as an institution seems to have internalized a commitment to
civilian control. Second, most of those
who have written about U.S. CMR, from Sam Huntington to Richard Kohn and Peter
Feaver, have focused on civilian control.

But this is
problematic: It may
cause citizens to miss other signs of unhealthy CMR.

For
soldiers, this focus, especially as articulated by Huntington in The Soldier and the State, which
provides an "ideal" formula for maintaining civilian control while also keeping
the military strong, means that they will tend to focus on operational factors -- how to fight wars -- at the expense of
strategy, the purpose for which a war
is fought. In other words, they may fail to connect operational art, at which
the U.S. military excels, to political goals.

My own
argument is that it is necessary to take a broader perspective on CMR. Civilian
control is important but it is not the only dimension of CMR. For citizens and
soldiers to ignore the other dimensions of CMR runs the risk of placing the
Republic in peril.

What do we mean by Civil-Military
Relations?

The term
"civil-military relations" refers broadly to the interaction between
the armed forces of a state as an institution, the government, and the other
sectors of the society in which the armed force is embedded. Civil-military
relations have to do with allocating responsibilities and prerogatives between
the civil government and the military establishment. It can be seen as "two hands on the sword." The civilian hand determines when the sword is drawn. The
military hand keeps it sharp and wields it in combat, always guided by the
purposes for which the war is being fought.

It appears to me that U.S. civil-military relations constitute a bargain, regarding the
aforementioned allocation of prerogatives and responsibilities between the
civilian leadership on the one hand and the military on the other.

There
are three parties to the bargain: the American people, the government, and the
military establishment. The bargain must be periodically re-negotiated to take
account of political, social, technological, or geopolitical changes. There have been several renegotiations of the
U.S. civil-military bargain over the past 70 years, including:

World
War II, when the military becomes a "central" as opposed to a peripheral institution
in America
The Cold
War, with the rise of nuclear weapons and the central role of deterrence
Post-Cold
War, when there was a shift to constabulary operations
Post
9/11, when CMR has to cope with a time of protracted conflict, giving rise to the possibility
of praetorianism

The
central question we face today is whether another renegotiation is in the
offing.[[BREAK]]

The Bargain and Five Questions

There
are five questions that cover the domains of CMR.

1)
How
do we ensure civilian control of the military establishment?

2)
What
constitutes an acceptable level of military influence on the other spheres of
society?

3)
What
is the primary purpose of the military, e.g. will it be used primarily to deter
and defeat foreign enemies or will it be used primarily to maintain domestic
order?

4)
What
pattern of civil-military relations best ensures military success?

5)
Who
serves?

The
emphasis on civilian control can be explained as a response to the central
dilemma of CMR: A military can threaten a government by being either too strong
or too weak. Coercive power makes the military at least a potential threat to
civilian government. But a weak military also threatens the government if it is
too weak to protect it. How do we create a military establishment that is
strong enough to protect the state but not threaten it?

Patterns of Control

Sam
Huntington identified two general patterns of civilian control. The first is
"subjective" control, which maximizes the power of the civilians -- authority, influence, and ideology -- at the expense of the military. It can be done by means
of government institutions: In Great Britain, there was a struggle for control
of the military between Crown and Parliament. In the United States, the
president and congress vie for control.

In many
countries, civilian control was achieved by means of social class, especially
the aristocracy. Civilian control may be by constitutional form. Many argue
that democracy is the best way to control a military but totalitarian regimes
have done well by pitting one part against another, e.g. Hitler's use of the
Waffen SS and the Soviet use of political officers in the Red Army.

The
danger with subjective control is that maximizing civilian power at the expense
of the military may weaken the latter to the extent that it fails on the
battlefield. For example, Hitler cowed his generals so completely that his
strategic mistakes trumped the operational excellence of the Wehrmacht.

In The Soldier and the State, Huntington
proposed an approach he called "objective" control, which maximize military
professionalism. As he wrote, "On the one hand, civilian authorities grant a
professional officer corps autonomy in the realm of military affairs." On the
other, "a highly professional officer corps stands ready to carry out the
wishes of any civilian group which secures legitimate authority within the
state."

Civilian
control is assured but military effectiveness is simultaneously maximized.

Eliot
Cohen calls this the "normal" theory of civil-military relations. In theory it is
superior to subjective control, but it is flawed in practice. The line between
military and civilian is not impermeable. Success in national security requires
that civilians have an ongoing say in military affairs and that the military
have a seat at the policy table.

Why is Objective Control
Problematic?

First,
it is by no means the norm in American history, even in recent times. As Eliot
Cohen has shown in Supreme Command,
successful democratic war leaders have always "interfered" in the military
realm. In addition, attempts to achieve the Holy Grail of objective control can
remove the military from debates over strategy and policy. Thus it can create a
"strategy deficit." For example, Richard
Kohn has written that "In effect, in the most important area of professional
expertise-the connecting of war to policy, of operations to achieving the
objectives of the nation-the American military has been found wanting. The
excellence of the American military in operations, logistics, tactics,
weaponry, and battle has been manifest for a generation or more. Not so with
strategy." He is echoed by Colin Gray
who observed that: "All too often, there is a black hole where American
strategy ought to reside."

The
problem here is that objective control focuses the military on the operational
level of war and not on strategy. As Hew Strachan has observed, "The
operational level of war appeals to armies: it functions in a politics-free
zone and it puts primacy on professional skills."

Herein
lies the problem for U.S. strategy making: Strict adherence to objective control
creates a disjunction between operational excellence in combat and policy,
which determines the reasons for which a particular war is to be fought. The
combination of the dominant position of the normal theory of civil-military
relations in the United States and the U.S. military's focus on the non-political
operational level of war means that all too often the conduct of a war is
disconnected from the goals of the war.

As two
writers recently observed, "rather than meeting its original purpose of
contributing to the attainment of campaign objectives laid down by strategy,
operational art-practiced as a ‘level of war'-assumed responsibility for
campaign planning. This reduced political leadership to the role of "strategic
sponsors," quite specifically widening the gap between politics and warfare.
The result has been a well-demonstrated ability to win battles that have not
always contributed to strategic success, producing ‘a way of battle' rather
than a way of war."

They
continue: "[T]he political leadership of a country cannot simply set objectives
for a war, provide the requisite materiel, then stand back and await victory.
Nor should the nation or its military be seduced by this prospect. Politicians
should be involved in the minute-to-minute conduct of war; as Clausewitz
reminds us, political considerations are ‘influential in the planning of war,
of the campaign, and often even of the battle.'"

The
reverse is true as well. The military has to be at the policy and strategy
table in order to ensure that its advice regarding options and risk are being
heard.

In this
regard, it is important to recognize that there is a difference between being
"political" and being "partisan." Military officers must be "political" in the
sense of understanding the political environment and being able to navigate its
currents. But they must be non-partisan and resist becoming an adjunct of a
political party.

U.S. CMR are complicated by the
reality of the separation of powers. Civilian control of the U.S. military
involves not only the Executive Branch but Congress as well.

The two
branches vie for dominance in the military realm (a species of subjective
control) but the decentralized nature of Congress gives the president and the executive
branch an advantage. The separation of powers also means that U.S. civil-military
disputes usually do not per se pit civilians against the military, but
involve one civilian-military faction against another.

For example:

--The
post-World War II debate over air power vs. the Navy: Truman, Secretary of
Defense Johnson, and members of Congress teed off against the Navy and its civilian
supporters regarding the B-36 strategic bomber and the "super-carrier" USS United States as the Air Force attempted to gain control of naval aviation.

--The
firing of MacArthur (Marshall and Eisenhower urged Truman to fire him,
while Republicans in Congress supported MacArthur)

--The
Marines and the Osprey.

As
budgets decline, this is likely to be the main arena of civil-military discord.

History Teaches other Lessons
about U.S. CMR

Civil-military
tensions are not new & the absence of a coup does not necessarily mean that
civil-military relations are healthy. Past examples include:

Washington
at Newburgh
Federalist
vs. Republicans re a Military Establishment

Andrew
Jackson and Spanish Florida
Mexican
War: Whig generals and a Democratic
president

Civil
War: Lincoln and McClellan
Reconstruction:
Johnson Urged to Use the Military to Suppress Congress
Preparedness
Movement

Election
of 1920: Leonard Wood runs for the Republican nomination for president while
still on active duty and indeed, in uniform.

Other CMR Lessons and
Implications: Advice and Dissent

U.S.
military history illustrates that the military is not always right, even regarding
strictly military affairs. The military has an obligation to forcefully present
its best advice but does not have the right to insist that its advice be
followed.

Dissent
is not disobedience: tTere must be a "calculus of dissent" that extends beyond
the stark choice of "salute and obey" and "exit." This is a function of
professionalism.

Dissent
raises the question: Is the uniformed military just one more obedient
bureaucracy in the Executive Branch or is it a profession granted significant
autonomy and a unique role in its relationship with civilian policy makers due
to its expert knowledge and expertise? What options does an officer have when
he/she disagrees with policies/orders, etc.?

During the "Revolt of the Generals," Lt. Gen.
Greg Newbold, USMC (ret) wrote: "I offer a challenge to those still in uniform: A leader's responsibility is to
give voice to those who can't -- or don't have the opportunity -- to speak...It is time
for some military leaders to discard caution in expressing their views and ensure
that the president hears them clearly." Many believed that his dissent would
have carried more weight had he offered it while he was still on active duty.

Nonetheless,
the issue of dissent has suggested to some that resignation or retirement is
the only option for those officers who disagree with policy. But as Kohn
argues, "Personal and professional honor do not require a request for
reassignment or retirement if civilians order one's service, command, or unit
to act in some manner an officer finds distasteful, disastrous, or even
immoral. The military's job is to advise and then execute lawful orders...If
officers at various levels measure policies, decisions, orders, and operations
against personal moral and ethical systems, and act thereon, the good order and
discipline of the military would collapse."

I have
argued that this belief on the part of officers is the result of a serious
misreading of Dereliction of Duty. "Many serving officers believe that H.R.
McMaster's Dereliction of Duty effectively makes the case that the Joint
Chiefs of Staff should have more openly voiced their opposition to the Johnson
administration's strategy of gradualism [during the Vietnam war], and then
resigned rather than carry out the policy.

"But the
book says no such thing. While McMaster convincingly argues that the chiefs
failed to present their views frankly and forcefully to their civilian
superiors, including members of Congress when asked for their views, he neither
says nor implies that the chiefs should have obstructed President Lyndon
Johnson's orders and policies by leaks, public statements, or by resignation.

Future U.S. Civil-Military
Relations

What
factors will influence U.S. CMR in the future? They include:

The
character of the wars we will fight in the future. For instance, protracted
wars often create the danger of praetorianism: France after Indochina and
Algeria; the "Team America" conceit on the part of Gen. McChrystal's staff in
the Rolling Stone article that led to the general's resignation.
Declining
defense budgets that may lead to the end of "jointness" and the emergence of
civilian-military faction fighting over resources and missions.
New
circumstances, e.g. cyber and oversight of special operations may create new
tensions.
The participation gap: The "other one percent"
Domestic politics, the truly "forgotten aspect" of U.S. Civil-Military Relations: How
society treats its soldiers and veterans and vice versa
Future
debate over the Iraq and Afghanistan "narratives." Copperheads and Vietnam.
Will
PTSD, a "disease model" prevail, or might it be supplanted by what Gen. James
Mattis has called "positive traumatic growth" as the best way to look
at the impact of close combat/intimate killing on soldiers? In other words, do
we see our soldiers and veterans as victims or as men and women who served
honorably under difficult circumstances? Here we need to look to the
problematic legacy of the Vietnam War. Karl Marlantes, with whom I served in
the same Marine infantry battalion in Vietnam has addressed these questions in
a recent book: What it is Like to Go to
War (he is also the author of the
remarkable Vietnam War novel, Matterhorn).
The psychological "split" in the soldier at war is captured in a passage from
Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzifal.
"Shame and honor clash where the courage of a steadfast man is motley like
the magpie. But such a man may yet make merry, for Heaven and Hell have equal
part in him."

What Constitutes "Healthy" CMR?

Comity
and a low number of disagreements between civilian and military decision makers
Success
in war and peace and the absence of policy-strategy "mismatches"

But in the end, the
key to healthy CMR can be summed up in four words: TRUST. TRUST. TRUST. TRUST.

Mackubin Thomas Owens is professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College and editor of Orbis. He is the recipient of the 2012 Andrew Goodpaster Prize awarded by the American Veterans Center for excellence in military-related research for his 2011 book, U.S. Civil-Military Relations Since 9/11: Renegotiating the Civil-Military Bargain. These remarks are from his Goodpaster Lecture of June 12.