Why Do Civ-Mil Folks Yammer about the Norms?

 I read and then blueskied about this post by a former general, Mark Hertling, about the Trump Regime politicizing the military.  In the course of my skeets, I realized that folks may not get why we civil-military relations scholars talk so much about civ-mil norms.  So, a quick civ-mil norm explainer since my flight is delayed.*

First, when we speak of norms, we are basically talking about standards of appropriate behavior.  That such standards exist and that they serve us well when respected.  

Second, we need norms because laws and policies are inadequate.  The relationship between civilian officials and military officers is dynamic, chock full of gray areas, and there is a great need for some trust and respect.   But to have trust and respect, people need to have relatively clear ideas of what is good behavior--what is respectful, what is appropriate.  We cannot simply legislate civil=military behavior as it violate people's rights.  Saying that retired officers cannot speak, for instance, would violate their first amendment rights. Expecting them to speak responsibly is a norm thing.  

For instance, the piece linked above is by a retired general who is commenting on contemporary US civ-mil relations.  I tend to get uncomfortable about retired senior military officers speaking up as they can be seen as speaking for the active military, whether the active military wants them to or not, and thus gets the military a bit more involved in politics.  In this case, I don't mind so much because Hertling is explaining how officer promotion works, and what the impact of inteference in promotion would do to the army.  

It is political, of course, as all things involving the military are inherently political, and, yes, it is also partisan.  But it is partisan because the government itself is engaged in an effort to politicize promotion, a very partisan move to benefit the Trump Regime and the Republican Party, and not an effort to improve American national security.  To fight such partisan efforts may make one appear to be partisan, but to stay silent may make one appear complicit.

See, this stuff is hard to legislate.  Good civil-military relations requires both sides to have an idea of what is appropriate and what is not.  Interfering in promotions because the SecDef doesn't like one specific colonel who did his job very well but for someone the SecDef doesn't like is really problematic.  Congress can't really stop this by making a new law.  It could hold hearins that might clarify the norms and how the administration is violating them.  Two problems for that right now: the majority in the House and Senate don't care about their constitutional role AND the Trump regime revels in being inappropriate, so no education about norms will limit their behavior.  As I keep saying, a man who will lech after his daughter in public really has no shame or sense of appropriateness.

The question then becomes where do these norms come from and how do folks learn what they ought to do?  The norms generally come from past behavior--the prior restraint from Washington to Marshall to Ike help to set the model for how best to behave.  The historians and political scientists and philosophers and the like outside, and yes, inside professional military education programs, help to clarify the norms and convey them to the next generation.  

There have been lively discussions about where the lines are--when is it necessary, if ever, to resign if the civilians don't follow one's advice, should one speak out in public, when should civilians fire military officers, how best to engage in a respectful but unequal dialogue so that the military folks convey the info and recommendations as clearly as they can without publicly boxing in the politicians, and so on.  I have been told by senior Canadian military leaders about their conversations with their bosses and how they try to socialize them about what is expected.

If the next generation of the CDSN is funded, the Civil-Military Relations Network will be building a list of civ-mil norm questions for helping to foster better conversations so that both sides can navigate the gray areas.  In principal-agent parlance, all delegation relies on some level of trust--the more distrust, the less delegation, the more oversight, the more friction.  More trust can produce more delegation with adequate but not intense oversight, which can lead to flexibility and adaptation.  

To be clear, this government revels in being inappropriate and transgressive and wants to erode all institutions.  If we ever get out of this, we will need to remind folks of how one ought to behave so that the civilians listen to the military and then chose the best course of action for the country and that the military then obeys those orders. 

Doing research in this area always makes me think of Oprah and therapists--lots of talk about relationships and trust.  Because when one's life is on the line, you want to trust not just the buddy next to you to fire when you need them to do so, but also for the rest  of the actors to show up when needed and that the orders make sense and won't waste lives.   

 

*And, yes, I am not an expert on the normative side of civ-mil relations--I study what countries are doing nd why they do it when it comes to oversight.  But teaching civ-mil means reading much of the normative stuff and talking about it.

What Is History For? Not That!

The other day, I was at a dinner with a number of folks, and the conversation turned to how to build Canadian resilience to the US/Trump and how to foster greater unity and Canadian nationalism.  It was a perfectly fine conversation, but then it went there.  One of the participants claimed that all of history today is grievance history--focusing on the groups that were harmed along the way.  The idea, I think, was that historians should focus more on what... what makes Canada great?  

This, of course, misconceives the job description of historians.*  The job of historians is not to be cheerleaders for the country.  Their job, as far as I can tell, is to understand the past--what has happened, why it has happened.  That's it.  What do they focus on?  Mostly that depends on the curiosity of individual historians, but, of course, there are systemic dynamics: what gets funding, what kinds of stuff department desire in the next generation of job candidates (as if there are tenure track positions for historians these days), and so forth.  

The idea that all historians are doing niche stuff focusing on the historical plight of women, of ethnic groups, of Indigenous people is mostly confirmation bias run amok.  That is, folks notice the history focused on those who have mostly been left out of the histories, and they don't notice the standard historical work focused on the Canadian government, the men (yes, conventional histories focus on the dudes) who led the country, and so forth.  It is apparently the case that there are few spots in history departments for military historians and diplomatic historians.  Still, there is all kinds of history being done, but folks tend to focus on the stuff that they see as strange.  Well, there's a reason for that--historically excluded groups tend to be excluded from the histories, so when they are the focus, that is new and different.  And folks tend to get freaked out by that which is different.

So, part of this is that history as a field is trying to catch up and cover the history that has been mostly omitted (one way to do original research is to study that which is understudied).  And that will mean bad news--that is, the history of excluded groups is going to be a history of exclusion and discrimination.  Which might not make white straight men feel good--that the folks who held the monopoly of power may not feel great about being reminded how they ruled.  Too bad, so sad.  Again, the job of historians is to figure out what happened, and that often means discussing bad stuff.

This tendency to think that historians should be telling Canadians stuff that makes them feel good is not that different from how many of our government partners think that the job of academia is to help them tell their story.  Nope, our job is to foster better understanding, which is not always a good news story.  

 *  I am not an historian, and historians probably dislike much of my work for not going back far enough or for not relying more on primary documents.  But when I see an academic field near mine be wildly mischaracterized/understand, I spew.   

Is It a Civil War? Not Yet

 Things are truly awful in the US, so is this the time to get pedantic?  Well, maybe.  I posted on bluesky that I was more worried about events in Minnesota than in/re Greenland.

 

In the ensuing discussion, I got some pushback--that the US is already in a civil war and any suggestion that it isn't means that I am minimizing what is going on here.  This is giving me flashbacks to the Jan 6 is a coup or not a coup arguments.  In the aftermath, I argued that the events of January 6th were an insurrection and, yes, an autogolpe (self-coup) and not a coup d'etat.  The latter has two dynamics that were not present that day--the involvement of significant elements of the coercive arms of the state (military, secret police, etc) and an effort to change who is in power.  I argued that this put the attention in the wrong places as the focus should have been on the White House and Congress, not the military.

This time?  Why is this not a civil war?  Again, two key ingredients are not yet present with one more important than the other.  First and not quite as important: scale.  Thus far, the violence is quite limited even as it is appalling and awful.  Civil wars are large scale things, and, yes, we social scientists usually use numbers to distinguish between categories of events.  For inter-state wars, we tend to use 1000 battle deaths.  For civil wars, we use all kinds of numbers, but even if we set it as low as 25, I am not sure we are there yet.  Second, and most importantly, civil wars are two-way affairs (or more so, as we saw in Bosnia and Syria and elsewhere), and the violence in the US has been an entirely one-sided thing--the state is engaging in much violence against protestors, but the other side of this, the anti-Trump, anti-ICE forces are not using any significant violence against the government's forces .... thus far.  

Which makes what is happening in Minnesota, Chicago, Portland, Washington, DC, and elsewhere state repression (you can call it state terrorism). And that is truly awful and part of the US becoming an autocracy (although democracies repress as well).  Again, this is important for both social science reasons and accountability reasons.  For political scientists, it allows us to compare this to similar events in the American history and around the world (Tianamen Square?) to note key dynamics and make predictions and policy recommendations.  For accountability, calling it a civil war suggests there are two sides that may have some responsibility here.  And, damn it, we know that this is being entirely driven by Trump and his regime.  The violence is very one-sided, with all of the responsibility for the bloodshed in the hands of Trump, ICE/DHS, and the Republicans (as they hold power in the House, Senate, White House, and Supreme Court).  

Does this mean this is not serious, that I am minimizing the event?  I sure as hell don't think so--when the power of the state is being used to kill and kidnap and deport without any due process, so very capriciously and so much by one ethnic group aimed at others, it is very, very serious indeed.

If people want to use "civil war" for rhetorical purposes, go right ahead.  It is not my job to tell people how they should resist these abuses of power, this persecution, and, yes, these massacres (are massacres a scale thing? I am not sure).  I am not going to tone police folks, but I am also not going to change how I talk about this stuff online.  I seek to analyze, to explain, to compare, and to contrast.  And being consistent with the usual scholarly use of terms is helpful in those efforts. 

The Real Burden-Sharing: The Allies and Afghanistan

 I have always hated the 2% metric--that NATO allies are good ones if they spend the equivalent of 2% of their gross domestic product on their own armed forces.  Input measures always problematic, it was a measure that made bad allies (Greece) look good, and, most importantly, it says nothing of what allies are willing to do with each other.

 What is an alternative metric?  Blood.  And it is very relevant this week as Donald Trump insulted the allies by saying that the US did all of the fighting in Afghanistan while the allies stayed away from the front lines (um, insurgency/counter-insurgency doesn't have front lines like conventional wars, Donnie).  Au contraire, as the allies did much of the fighting in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2009, when the US was distracted by its war of choice in Iraq.  When Obama sent more troops in 2009, then the burden shifted but did not really end until 2014 when NATO essentially pulled out of combat.

Yes, it is true that allies varied in what they were willing to do.  Dave and I literally wrote the book (ebook is on sale) on this as this was our sole focus, unlike other books on NATO and Afghanistan.  I say this not to boast, but just to say that I know whereof I speak on this (ok, a little boastful).  Of course, the facts tell the tale themselves.  This is page four of the Dave and Steve book: 

As you can see, the top five countries, by per capital killed in action from start to 2009, are Estonia (tiny country means tiny denominator means bigger %), Denmark (you know, the folks who own Greenland), Canada (ye olde 51st state), UK, and then .... the US. No accident as Denmark and the UK fought mostly in Helmand, the one of the most dangerous spots in the country (ask the Marines), and Canada fought in Kandahar, one of the other most dangerous places.

Someone else can dig up the post 2009 numbers (see http://www.icasualties.org/App/AfghanFatalities), but the basic pattern will hold--many allies did sacrifice much for America's war.  None of these countries had deep interests in Afghanistan--this was their contribution to the alliance (aside from most staffing AWACS planes over the US in 2001-2) in the aftermath of 9/11 and after the alliance invoked Article V.

But Trump sucks at math and at history (and also has no sense of honor or obligation), so, of course, he gets this wrong.  But we shouldn't.  Oh, and Trump was quite toxic in most of these countries before this week.  Veterans in these, who tend to be right of the center, will absolutely flip on Trump over this.  Which means that it will be very difficult or impossible for politicians in these places to bargain with Trump and to give in to him.

So, the recent past matters, and it is going to bite Donnie on his big behind.
 

Canadian Troops, American Orders, Bad Headlines

 So, the Economist's headline is creating some noise in Canada: "Canadian soldiers are subject to Donald Trump's Orders."  The article focuses on the many Canadian military personnel who are seconded to the American military, just as they are seconded to the British, Australian, and other armed forces.  It gets right the key nugget--that while operating as if they are American or British or whatever soldiers, sailors, or aviators, they are still subject to Canadian laws and orders.  The big question is what orders they are receiving.

I co-wrote a whole book about this (ebook is on sale!), seeking to understand why the countries operating as part of a NATO mission behaved differently.  They were all under the same commander (an American--the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe--SACEUR), but they followed different rules.  Why?  Because anytime, ANYTIME, a country transfers an individual or a unit to operate in someone else's chain of command, that individual or unit wears two hats--the national hat and the other hat (American or British or multinational such as NATO or UN).  And which hat matters more?  The national one as the individual or unit is ultimately responsible to the national command authority--that the promotion of that individual, the resources of that unit all depend on their homeland.  Any officer obeying a multilateral or other national command in contradiction to their own nation is putting their career, and, yes, their freedom in jeopardy.  This all makes multilateral war difficult (and fun to research).  

So, the good news is that these individuals working in various military jobs within the US military are subject to Canadian laws and orders--that those will always, sorry, trump the American orders.  The bad news is that I am pretty doubtful that the civilians in the Canadian government are playing much of a role in all of this.  The Minister of Defence absolutely can, as he can give orders to the Chief of Defence Staff, and the Chief can then give orders to those below her.  But will the MinDef do that?  Alas, many Canadian MinDefs see their role mostly as cheerleader or supporter of the CAF, not as overseer.  We had one MinDef tell a parliamentary committee that he could not oversee the CDS as that would politicize things--dude, you had one job.  I don't know much about the current MinDef, David McGuinty and his attitude.

What I do know is that the military doesn't think it is the Department of National Defence's job to do oversight--just the Minister's.  I do know Parliament doesn't think it is their job--their lack of interest in oversight inspired this book. So, the Economist article gets a lot of no comments from government.  Not great.  The responses were kind of like Stephen Harper's during the detainee stuff in Afghanistan--sure, prisoners are being beaten, but none of the ones we handed over were.  Sure, sure.  So, the Canadian media should be asking the PM, the MinDef, the CDS, and pretty much everyone else: what instructions are there to prevent Canadians from participating in operations against the American people?

I am guessing they won't get any answers but, as Nemik said, try. 

Fearing an American Invasion?

 Oh my, what I would give to live in less interesting times.  I am writing this as Trump rants at Davos, in the aftermath of a truly remarkable speech by Prime Minister Carney (which I will write about later).  I was asked yesterday by a contact on Linkedin to write about the G&M story about the Canadian Armed Forces [CAF] running models regarding a US invasion... and well, yowza.  Today, the same paper had an editorial on that topic.

Yes, US-Canadian relations are in the worst place in living memory.  No, the US is not invading.  FFS.  Sure, the Canadian military modeled this a bit.  Why?  Because that is what militaries do--they plan and they model.  If the US invaded, the CAF would not be able to stop them.  But the US is not up to occupying Canada indefinitely.  Our country is big and it is often quite cold.  An American occupation would not require occupying the entire country--just the major cities and the LOCs (lines of communication).  Both of those present tremendous challenges.

First, Canada has 37 or so million people, which would require an occupation force of ... 3.7 million or so.  The traditional ratio for successful counterinsurgency is 10 to 1.  Of course, the Canadians would not be the Taliban or the various players in Iraq--there would be little suicide terrorism.  Still, managing a large population indefinitely is not easy.  

Second, if the Americans wanted to have access to Canadian resources, it would need to protect the LOCs: roads, the rails, the powerlines connecting the two countries.  Which means a lot more personnel out there. There is only so much drones can do (and drones can be brought down).   

There is a third thing that is even more important: getting the military to do this would be hard.  It is oen thing to knock over a South American country and another to attack a very reliable ally with which the US has much in common and much history.  While the US military has obeyed illegal orders, this might be one step too far.  Of course, it takes a somewhat self-aware politician to realize this....

The big threat is not American invasion--that is a dark fantasy.  The big threat is here and real--American coercion.  Trump has used tariffs and has threatened tariffs, making Canadian goods more expensive in the US, hurting Canadian industry and costing people their jobs.  Trump has threatened to pull out of NAFTA 2.0 (also called USMCA and CUSMA).  He will push Canada via economic threats and via real policies that hurt the Canadian economy, hoping that Canada caves.  The Canadians may not be used to this pain, but Trump has activated Canadian nationalism like nothing else.  While he could try to pick at the seams via Albertan and Quebec separatism, that would require more nuance, consistency, and good policy-makers than Trump can summon.  Indeed, the separatists will be seen as allies or abetters of Trumpism, which will make a big dent in their popularity.  

So, let's not fear an American invasion and fantasize about Canadian IEDs covered in moose poop or maple syrup.  Instead, plan for and become resilient in the face of a trade war, recession, and diminished quality of living.  It will suck, but we can get through it.  My bet is more Americans get killed by ICE than Canadians get killed by the American military.  

Wow, these are dark times.  Just let's not imagine them to be darker still. 

 

 

We Have Left the Dodgeball Phase of Trump's World Order: Allies Are Now Acting

 For the entire first Trump term and the second term's first year, America's allies have basically engaged in the five d's of dodgeball: dodge, dip, duck, dive, and dodge.  They have tried to avoid a major break with US, seeking mostly to soothe Trump's ego.  This week may mark the end of that.  First, there is the news of a number of European countries loudly participating in a Danish military exercise in and near Greenland.  Second, Canada just made a deal with China over electric vehicles and canola oil.  These are, as the literature I read long ago and am far from an expert in would say, costly signals.  Let me explain.

In international relations, talk is mostly cheap (although folks do argue cheap talk also matters).  How do we know a country is really committing to a course of action?  They engage in a costly signal--they do something that hurts themselves or risks real costs.  Economic sanctions are often not very costly signals because they signal precisely that a country is not willing to put their own people on the line.  Drone strikes do the same kind of thing, which is why boots on the ground is always seen as so important--they are credible signals.

In these two cases, the actors are risking seriously Trump reactions--they aren't disguising what they are doing.  They may have other interests as well, but they are clearly sticking it to Trump.  

First, let's discuss Greenland.  Sure, most of the Euro troops heading there for exercises may be part of decisions made long before Trump's latest threats, so this may not be a deliberate step this week to create a tripwire to deter American aggression.  But it sure looks like that, doesn't it?  That these countries are loudly sending these troops, that they are signalling that they are putting their troops bodies in the way is a very loud signal that they don't mind offending Trump.  Given all the work done previously to avoid so openly defying and seeking to deny Trump (see the five para NATO summit communique last summer as key example and the 5% bullshit), this is a huge turn for the Europeans.  

Why now?  Maybe they are looking at the US domestic stuff and Venezuela and realizing that Trump is actually serious about Greenland despite the utter stupidity of it all.  Maybe the Danes are terrific diplomats who have used every means at their disposal to get the Europeans on side.  Maybe the 1938 resonance is getting too strong.   Maybe the constant references in the US involvement in Ukraine negotiations of NATO and the US as two separate actors flipped a switch. I am guessing it is because they understand that the moment has come--if Trump aggresses against a NATO member's territory, the alliance is done.  Best to avert that outcome for however long, and maybe NATO's fate will be determined a bit further down the road. 

Second, let's get to Canada-China.  People have been critical of Mark Carney betraying his Elbow's Up campaign promise to fight hard against Trump's coercive tactics and bombastic threats that challenge Canada's very identity.  Well, there are few things that are more Elbow's Up than making a deal with China over EVs.  One key component of the very undisciplined, hardly a doctrine Donald Doctrine is to keep China out of North American markets.  So, this is very much in the face of Trump.  And it is a risky as hell step because the Chinese are shitty trading partners* with whom Canada has had a very fraught relationship.  But diversifying markets when the biggest trading partner is threatening to throw away the key trade agreement becomes more than just a priority but a mission.  Some will say that this will force Trump to toss away NAFTA 2.0 (USMCA or CUSMA or whatever you want to call it).  My take: if someone is punching you in the face whether you accede to their demands or not, then you might as well take the pain and do what is best for yourself.  

The other side of costly signals is restraint.  For coercive diplomacy to work, you have to keep both sides of your promises--to do the painful thing if the other side doesn't do what you want AND to refrain from doing that thing if the other side does what you want.  Trump's behavior was going to lead to these kinds of responses because he never restrained, only escalated.  Kept punching the Europeans and Canadians in the face even as they tried to go along with his unnecessary and unreasonable demands.  

That apparently ended this week.

Next steps?  Oh my.  I am just glad I closed most of my US dollar accounts... 

 

 

 

* I worry about giving into China's coercive diplomacy as well, but at least China is likely to keep a promise for more than a few hours.