Yesterday, I was on an APSA roundtable with the sharpest minds on US civil-military relations (I did feel like playing the old Sesame street song): Peter Feaver, Heidi Urben, Risa Brooks, Carrie Lee, with Lindsay Cohn serving as moderator (she chimed in during the Q&A). We all know each other as civ-mil is a great community of very generous scholars. As a johnny-come-lately (I switched from doing the IR of ethnic conflict to civ-mil after my 2nd book/time in the Pentagon), I greatly appreciate this community. To be sure, my switch nearly 20 years ago, but I forever felt behind. Anyhow, I wanted to sum up what these folks said as the consensus was bleak--American civil-military relations is in deep crisis, and whatever problems there were before pale in comparison to what the Trump govt is doing these days.
I took good but not great notes so I may be getting the views of the panelists wrong--blame me, not them.
Feaver said:
- this is our moment--that our work and our voices are very relevant now
- what was implicit is now explicit--our understanding of norms of civ-mil depend on assumptions that are now being violated
- the dubious actions of the Trump government are officially legal (more on that below), which presents real challenges
- Chairman Caine made a speech that was a bit out of context but still had the wrong tone---that should just advise the civilians on whether something can be done, not whether it should be done--that there might be consequences (say, bombing Iran?)
- Trump/Hegseth are an overcorrection to the failure to criticize civ-mil under the Dems
- this is a low information environment, produced both deliberately and via incompetence and Congressional failure to do their role
Urben focused on tangible actions to repair US civ-mil, mostly by civilians--building or rebuilding:
- repeal the various authorizations to use military force that allow presidents to use the military in questionable ways without Congressional blessing
- narrow the criteria for domestic deployment so that the insurrection act does not give a government a relatively easy pathway to using troops at home against protestors
- Congress should constrain executive action, more scrutiny through oversight powers, withhold $, investigate the military advise that has been provided on things like the boat strikes
- Reinstate those admirals and generals Hegseth has fired with backpay (if good enough for those who refused vaccines....), stop doing voice votes for approvals of promotion lists. [apparently 10% of GOFOs have been fired]
- Create a commission to reinvigorate the military profession.
- damage too deep for military to do it--restoring Judge Advocate General role, greater protections o senior JAGS, rebuilding institutions that prevent civilian harm, strengthening investigative procedures, improve Professional Military Education, go back to non-awful base names
- work on recruiting and retaining women and minorities
Brooks:
- biggest concern how homeland security missions undermine civil-military relations/civilian control
- JTF West Hemisphere striking small boats/counternarc missions
- Deployments to city streets
- Northcom 's ops JTF South border
- effects
- hurts society relations with military--military becomes unpopular
- morale tensions in units
- changes in military's understanding of its appropriate missions. Hegseth views border as greater threat than China
Saideman:
- The old discussions of whether x moment was a crisis in civ-mil are quant as we now know what a real crisis looks like
- The focus of principal-agent theory will turn to the principals..
- I discussed how my effort to develop a list of the incidents where Trump/Hegseth violated the norms of civ-mil led to an effort by four (at least) distinct groups coming together
- Who is doing oversight now? Not Congress? OSD (SecDef and his people) are overseeing pushups and gender/race of promotions but not usage of missiles, not rotation of aircraft carriers, etc. American exceptionalism in how it did oversight over the armed forces is gone.
- that civ-mil crisis in US is going to cause civ-mil crises elsewhere as allied militaries will still focus on working with US military as that becomes toxic in the domestic politics of most democracies.
Lee:
- blatant norm breaking first time since civil war with President thinking about using military to mess with elections, American military engaging in war crimes (summary executions in Caribbean), tis a 5 alarm emergency
- long term, generational harm with massive selection effect--GOFOs leaving at rapid pace, responding to extraordinarily rapid changes in incentive structures.
- rapid deprofessionalization, compliance with unlawful orders that violate law of armed confict
- officer corp wants to return to normal, to snap back, but we need a full reckoning
- norms need to be legislated by bipartisan action
- criminal prosecution needed for mil and civs
A few general points from this roundtable and conversations this week:
- the whole idea that troops can disobey patently unlawful orders is problematic as the lawyers will generally say something is lawful or questionable but not patently lawful AND the law does not say that patently unlawful is the standard
- lawyer shopping--you can always find a lawyer who says something is ok
- one reason ICE is expanded and military is not doing domestic stuff much is that the military does retain some sense of profession, of professional ethics. ICE people are not professionals in any sense
Some differences in the panel:
- can you legislate norms?
- what will military think of Dems when they return
- can a future Dem administration cut the military budget?
The big question is what can we as civil-military scholars do? We need to inform the public and the legislators about what is happening and what is at risk. We need to make it clear that the consequences of bad civil-military relations will ultimately have electoral consequences (lost wars, excessive casualties, use of military in our streets). Our community has not been silent, but it also hasn't been that influential. Much work left to do, but listening to these folks taught me a lot.
We received great questions, but I have to run and explore Boston.
congress
