Trump fired the head of the National Security Agency General Timothy Haugh, who is also double hatted as head of Cyber Command. I went on a long rant on bluesky, which I will mostly replicate here. As military folks like to BLUF--bottom line up front--just like every other institution in the US, the military is being broken. Making fealty to the mad king will undermine effectiveness in a number of ways.
First, some basics: to be clear, the military is always a political actor and subject to the political dynamics of a country. It goes back to Clausewitz--that war is politics by other means--and the basic definition of politics which focuses on any kind of decision-making that affects the public, especially the allocation of money and other stuff. Being partisan is something else entirely. We used to have American generals refuse to vote because that they wanted to be neutral. In the past 30 years, some of that has broken down as retired admirals and generals began to endorse candidates, playing upon the perception that they were speaking for the active forces. But it was not inevitable that we would get here.
During Trump 1.0, many norms (standards of appropriate behavior), were violated repeatedly.
- Trump announced the Muslim ban from the part of the Pentagon paying tribute to various heroes
- Trump kept referring to the senior officers as "my generals"
- Trump blamed the generals and admirals if things went awry rather than owning things--the buck never stopped with him
- Trump used the military to deal with protestors and wanted to do it more violently--"Can't they shoot the protestors in the leg?"
- Trump pardoned war criminals
It got to the point where scholars of civil-military relations, who usually try to avoid advocating for any military disobedience, were tempted to root for some. In the aftermath of Charlottesville, the senior leadership spoke out in favor of a diverse force and for tolerance. This was seen as being partisan--because it could be viewed as an implicit critique of Trump's take on the event. But not speaking up would have been seen as complicit.
This is where Michael Robinson's work fits in--he wrote a great book that argues that even if the military stands still, if the observers are moving, the military will be seen as moving either towards or away--that they will be dragged into partisan politics--politicization--even if they resist it.
As I discussed a few weeks ago, when Milley retired and spoke out about how the military serves the country and not a wannabe dictator, it was pretty clear that what might otherwise be a banal statement was a criticism of Trump.
The firing of Haugh is yet another dead canary in the coalmine (that coalmine must be packed with dead canaries at this point). A few things stand out. He is a white man, so the previous purge was perhaps just racist and misogynist (note I am not approving--I am incredibly angry) as Trump fired one Black general and two women four star officers. One could argue (foolishly) that this was not aimed at creating a submissive class of officers. By firing Haugh, it is abundantly clear loyalty to Trump is the only criteria that matters.
And who decides? Laura Loomer, who is a far right agitator. She was briefly banned by social media for being racist. It is quite notable that this firing happened basically at the same time as several people were purged from the National Security Council for not being sufficiently Trumpian.
It will not stop here as Trump's fundamental insecurity produces an unquenchable thirst for loyalists. He won't ever be confident in the loyalty of whichever people he promotes to admiral or general. His own disloyalty gets projected in every direction.
And this happens as we have already seen many disturbances in the force--banning books at the Naval Academy, the commandant of the US Air Force Academy pondering firing civilian profs, civ-mil conferences cancelled at the Army War College.
This will produce a less effective force. Those who get promoted will be seen as less qualified, less meritorious, as they will be viewed as moving up due to their partisan loyalty. The civ-mil literature shows quote clearly that when you promote on the basis of loyalty, you get bad results-Talmadge, Roessler, etc. This will create dissension and friction within as unit cohesion will break. [Any time a military seeks to include the previously excluded--Black Americans, gays and lesbians, trans people, the intolerant argue that this is bad for unit cohesion, and a coherent unit is necessary for battlefield success. It turns out that the real problem are the intolerant people, as the diverse armed forces of the world have proven to be most effective.]
An officer corps of yes-men (and yes, I do mean men) may make it easier to issue orders to invade Mexico or shoot at Americans, but with disrupted unit cohesion, it will be more likely that the military will not engage in such efforts in unison--and those divides might become violent.
The only winners in all of this are those countries seen by normal people as America's adversaries--China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, ISIS, etc.
Just like the tariffs, this is all so unnecessary, so destructive, so costly to so many individuals as well as to the country and to those who used to be America's allies.
So that is my angry civ-mil riff du jour as another general is tossed for appearing to be not sufficiently loyal to the mad king.