Priced In Means What?

 Trump's debacle at Arlington National Cemetery.  Wow.  So, the question is whether it moves the needle or not.  I argued on bluesky:

The basic idea is that we all know that Trump is a thoroughly awful human being, and what I mean by priced in is that either one hates him and will vote against him (if one turns out) or one doesn't care/doesn't believe/loves him and vote for him (if one turns out).  We have plenty of evidence that accumulates on a daily basis.  How much more can folks with some sense of decency be repulsed by this guy?  Those who want him in power because they resent (insert group here) don't care or don't believe the crap that he does.  Or maybe they don't see it because of Fox blindness or whatever bubble they live in. 

The best counter-point I got (thanks, Marcy) is that the newer voters don't know about this stuff--they were 10 years old in 2016.  Fair point.  And the media keeps treating Trump like a new candidate rather than focusing on what he did as President--risking wars, appointing perjurious SCOTUS justices who ditched Roe v Wade, engaged in all kinds of corruption and abuse of power (remember that first impeachment trial), Muslim ban, etc. So, yes, new news about Trump's current depraved behavior may resonate some among younger voters.  

But then again, usually, there aren't that many younger voters, and they aren't the ones talking to us on social media.  So, my comments about priced in largely target most voters--that their preferences will not be altered.  Either you want democracy and personal freedom or you want power and graft.  Or one has so thoroughly been radicalized that no proof will shake their faith in Trump.  I also recognize that much of the media is invested in keeping Trump alive in this race. 

Of course, the margins may matter in this election (I am starting to think this election may not be so close--a post for another day). So additional offensive behavior, such as shitting on veterans and those who lost their lives fighting America's wars, may move the needle just a smidge and that might make all the difference. 

Will new outbursts of Trump's racism and misogyny and homophobia (he is increasing his trans bullshit) and Vance's history of abhorrent statements dripping out each day matter?  I really do hope so.  I am just so tired of all of this, and I recognize that the polarization of our times means that most people have already decided who they are going to vote for now that, well, Biden is out of the way. I hope the sharpness of the Dem campaign matters, and I hope the incompetence of the Trump campaign matters.  

Can anything happen now to shake up the race?  A bad debate performance by Harris?  Probably not as much as Biden's because it won't confirm people's fears about her being unqualified for office.  Would a Trump disaster at a debate matter?  Maybe as it could cause a cascade of people losing faith?  One of the key things Trump has got going for him is his continued menace--that people are afraid to stand up to him because his supporters engage in political violence.  Maybe if Trump displays his dementia at the debate, it might cause the rats to leave the sinking ship.  But I doubt it because cognitive closure remains pretty powerful.  People hate admitting they are wrong (except me, I admit I am wrong all the time).  So, again, I am not sure anything can happen that will shake things up unless the FBI announces they are investigating Harris a week before the election.  Of course, they would never do that....

And, yet, despite how much I think all of this is already set, I follow the Harris/Walz campaign, I think their social media game is good (I thought the same of Hillary's... oy), and I applaud friends and relatives who are knocking on doors, sending postcards, making calls.  This is inconsistent, but then why shouldn't I embrace the moment, just as "Christians" keep supporting a twice-divorced, philandering, grifting gambler.

To sum up, it comes down to this, ultimately.  Either you believe another Trump term will be catastrophic or you want him to use the power of the state to oppress large swaths of the American people.  So, how much will assaulting staff at Arlington move the needle?

Why Trump is Bad For Civil-Military Relations

I wrote a lot during the Trump Administration about how his speeches and policies and such were a frequent challenge to good civil-military relations (here, here, here) and not just me (see this and this).  He delegated too much to the military, he didn't take responsibility when things went awry, he tried to make the military an ally in his partisan activities, and on and on.

Well, deja vu.  Trump went to Arlington Cemetery, presumably to do some cleanup work after once again trashing those wounded or killed in service of their country when he talked about the Presidential Medal of Freedom being equal to or superior to the Congressional Medal of Honor.  As it turns out, there are laws prohibiting the use of Arlington Cemetery for political ads.  The staff there confronted Trump's team, saying that they could not pose for pictures.  They pushed the staffer aside, took the pics (thumbs up at a cemetery?), and now the Army, which administers the cemetery is in a difficult spot.

The Army could have remained silent, which would have been a way to duck the controversy but would have made the Army look as if it were complicit.  Instead, the Army issued a "rebuke" as the journalists put it.  The Army stood behind the staffer who would not press charges for fear of being subject to Trumpist political violence.  So, instead of being viewed as complicit, the army will be viewed as being too woke and siding with the Democrats.

This is the politicization that folks (me, among others) have been yammering about.  Michael Robinson, in his book, argues that even if an actor stands still, it can be seen as moving towards or away from other political actors as those others move and take positions that change the perspectives on where the first actor stands.  The Army was damned either way, as the reality around it shifted, putting it either closer to Trump or closer to his adversaries, even if the Army did not move at all.

This cemetery-gate is just the latest example of this.  And, yes, if Trump becomes President, he would likely sack the Army Chief of Staff for letting the Army issue this statement and try to put into that position and the other key military spots supplicants who would be more inclined to support Trump even if he breaks laws and traditions and norms.

To be absolutely clear, the US military has no role in deciding who wins the election.  It is our job to vote against Trump to prevent further challenges to the norms of civil-military relations that largely keep the military out of partisan battles. While there are many reasons to vote against Trump and for Kamala Harris, including the fact that Trump has no sense of decency as this episode reminds us, taking civil-military relations off of the front page is a good one, even if that were not as helpful for us civ-mil scholars who seek grant money.

And, yes, this whole episode makes Kamala Harris's convention speech all the more on target:

Summer Institute Days Drifting Away But Ah Oh Those Summer Institute Nights

I asked for a silly pose.  This was the last day
(yes, they are wearing CDSN SI t-shirts)
during the lunch break--they all went
together across the new bridge to the park
for a picnic rather than heading off in
different directions.

 Once again, I am energized by an amazing week of Summer Instituting.  This year is our third in-person SI, and it coincides with the start of efforts to re-apply for another seven years of CDSN.  Why do we put so much effort into this application?  In part because realizing this part of the grant, the Summer Institute, hits all the sweet spots--it helps engage our (my) curiosity as we learn all kinds of stuff, we meet people--participants and speakers--from all across the Canadian defence and security community, it is simply fun, and it feels good to foster the professional development of others and to break down the barriers between the different pieces of the community.

I write each year about the SI (see here for last year's post), and yes, each year is more effusive than the last.  Why? Simply because it keeps getting better.  We learn what panels work, and we learn how to tweak the simulation to make it work better.  Last year's participants finally hit what we had imagined this thing to be--one third emerging academics, one third policy folks from govt, one third military officers and senior enlisted types. This year, we had that and also one or two folks from the private sector who added an additional perspective.  The only thing missing in terms of participants is we would love to get some journalists involved.

Once again, our speakers nicely matched the participants as we had folks from academia (Canadian and American), from key partner organizations like Bridging the Gap and Out in National Security, from the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, and the like.  We had a new panel on Whole of Government that brought in sharp folks from Privvy Council Office (nothing like it in the US) and Global Affairs Canada (State).  That panel worked great, even before I tossed in a grenade--why are the political advisors to missions these days mostly coming from inside DND rather than GAC?  Good times.  Our day at DND HQ was even better than last year's (with one caveat) as we extended from just three speakers in one morning to five over the course of the day.  We heard from Army, Navy, Cyber, military intel, and the Associate Deputy Minister.  The one caveat is that the prior two years, the Deputy Minister had a wide ranging Q&A with us, and that was pretty terrific.  We didn't have that this year, alas.

Above, I mentioned the we--it is very much a team sport.  Melissa, Sherry, and Racheal did most of the work, Morad kicked in some help as well.  All I did was smile and wave. Ok, I did more than that--I served as MC and I got to present some of my stuff in a couple of panels--one on civ-mil and one on public attitudes about the military (which is also civ-mil).  I am so very grateful to Team CDSN for pulling this off.  The SI is the hardest thing we do, and it is most important thing we do.  It helps foster generations of sharp defence folks who are better connected and better informed.  We once again had a very diverse crew along lots of dimensions--gender, region, occupation, ethnicity, etc, so this is very much a key part of one of the CDSN's key objectives--to foster a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable next generation of defence and security scholars, scientists, policy officers, and military officers.  

If you are interested in the Summer Institute, we will be putting out ads and accepting applications in early 2024, and you can check out more info at our website: https://www.cdsn-rcds.com/summerinstitute 

Below are a variety of pictures from the week that I took.  Racheal took better ones that will be on the CDSN website eventually.

I love a good meta picture as I caught them taking
pics after their picnic.

Last bits of simulation scheming

Phil had a wonderful procurement rant or two

Our reception brings together co-directors, participants, 

n

Stef vH and Anna repped WIIS-C which
co-organizes our midweek reception

We probably need a better backdrop for our
annual NDHQ picture.  But we had a great day

a theme across the week--the CAF is really challenged

Murray Brewster and Col Paul Doucette talk
defence and the media.

Al Okros, who is not very good at retiring, and 
Kristine Ennis-Heise of DND talk policy process

Thomas, Erik, and Luke talk bridging the gap

More simulation scheming

the view from the speakers' end of the table

We met at the hotel bar the night before the
event to break the ice. Bridgers Erik and Luke at
the kids' table (we had more folks show up than
could fit at the main table) hang with participant Husnain

The cool kids table at the closing reception

The folks who arrived early sat at this table. 
Hence not the cool kids

I was quoted in the simulation post-brief. I had no
idea... but then again, this happens in two years.

The sim took place in the future, so it has a
guess at who is in office down the road. 
I am guessing they will be half right.

Legislative Oversight is Overrated? Coming to a Bookstore Near You

 Today, Dave, Phil, and I got the great news that Stanford University Press is going to publish our book:

Overseen or Overlooked?

Legislatures, Armed Forces and Democratic Accountability

 

Woot!  For those who follow this blog or me on social media, you have seen my talk about this book for a long, long time, as this book sets my personal record for length from start to finish: nine or ten years depending on how long it takes for our pals in Palo Alto to publish it. 

The book started by accident, as I was surprised by a response to a question I asked a member of Canada's House of Commons defence committee--that he didn't know what the rules were for Canadian troops as he didn't have a security clearance.  This is where being a foreigner pays off, because this flummoxed me.  When I had the chance to ask a former Prime Minister, Paul Martin, when I was interviewing him about Afghanistan, to ask about this, he said "don't compare us to the US, compare us to Australia and the UK."  Great idea!  But we went further, comparing 15 countries, pretty much evenly divided 5 a piece.  I asked Dave to join me as we had much success in the previous book and he has published much on the US Congress, which shapes much of my imagination about this stuff and also that case seems to shape the civ-mil convo, even though our new book demonstrates that it is an outlier, not the norm.  I asked Phil to join us as he is super sharp on Westminster countries and he also could do interviews en francais.  

It was the hardest book to write, partly because it doubled essentially the number of cases I had done in any of my other books, and partly because three is more than two, so managing to keep the three of us on the same page was a challenge, especially during a pandemic.  Luckily, we had done most of our fieldwork before the pandemic hit.  

We are very pleased to have Stanford UP publish it as it has published many excellent civ-mil books. I am currently reading Alice Hunt Friend's Mightier than the Sword, which is a sharp book about the civilian side of the civ-mil relationship.  Risa Brooks and Elizabeth Stanley published their great comparative civ-mil edited volume, Creating Military Power, there as well.  Glad to be in such terrific company.

No cover yet although I have many pics of me in front of legislative houses.

Of course, the key step for book promotion was to come up with a soundtrack to go along with the book, as has become my habit.

The TOC:

Chapter 1       Are Legislators Watching the Armed Forces?

Chapter 2       Explaining Legislative Oversight Over the Armed Forces

Chapter 3       Westminster in the Atlantic: the United Kingdom and Canada

Chapter 4        Westminster in Pacific: Australia, New Zealand, and Japan

Chapter 5        Consensus Democracies in the Heart of Europe: Germany and Belgium

Chapter 6        Consensual Democracies in the High North: Finland, Norway and Sweden

Chapter 7        Not All Congresses: Brazil, Chile, and South Korea 

Chapter 8       Older Presidential Systems: France and the United States

Chapter 9       Conclusion:  Comparisons, Implications, and Lessons

We have a lot of people and agencies to thank, and we will do so in our acknowledgement section, of course.  But thanks to all the folks who follow me here--the conversations online over the years greatly informed what we studied, how we studied it, who we talked to, what we asked, what we inferred, and then how we put it all together.  I am tempted to thank you in each of the languages of the cases we studied, but I am not sure how to spell some of them ;)