Talking Civ-Mil With the CAF

 The past two days I had the honor/honour to talk civil-military relations (some in the room called political-mil or mil-pol) with pretty much all Canadian generals and admirals (day 1) and a hunk of colonels and captains (N) (day 2).  I don't which was more intimidating--the audiences each day (that was a heap of leafs on shoulders that first day) or the other speakers.  I was joined on the panel by Peter Feaver, the biggest name in the study of Civil-Military Relations, former US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers (day 2), retired 4 star general John Allen, retired CDS Wayne Eyre, and retired Deputy Minister and National Security Adviser Jody Thomas.  The soundtrack in my head was very Sesame Street.

The first event was part of an annual symposium of the senior officer corps of the Canadian military, and the second day was taken advantage of us being around.  I had never done anything like this before.  I had met a few of the GOFOs before yesterday, so I had some folks to chat with before the event kicked off.  And I had met and chatted with Jody and, um, Wayne? (feels weird to call him by his first name) on multiple occasions including when we had them both on our podcast.  

It was a very cool event for a variety of reasons--I learned much from the other presentations, I really enjoyed listening to Eyre, Thomas and CDS Carignan talk over lunch, and I also learned much from the other officers I spoke with, including the rounds of "knowledge cafe" which followed our talks on the first day, where we would speed-date/chat.  For 10-15 minutes, each SME (subject matter expert, pronounced smee) would sit with a group and chat about whatever civ-mil questions/thoughts they had and then rotate. 

I was chosen to speak at the event in part because there aren't that many civ-mil scholars in Canada (Peter couldn't really speak to the Canadian case) and because I tend to be, um, blunt.  I don't think I can say what the others said, but I can discuss what I presented. 

I started by arguing that some of the foundations of civ-mil that they have been exposed to are wrong.  That Sam Huntington was wrong to argue that there are two worlds--political and military (yes, some civ-mil pedants will contradict me, but I was there and they weren't).  This has caused a variety of problems as Risa Brooks identified quite well, but I focused mostly on the notion at the military is apolitical.  Nope, Clausewitz rightly argued that war is politics by other means, which means essentially that everything a military does or does not do is inherently political.  What we want the military to be is not ignorant of politics but to try as hard as they can to stay out of partisan politics.  I explained that politicization refers not to the military doing political things, but getting involved in partisan politics, mostly by getting dragged into it by one party/politician or another.  I didn't get deep into Michael Robinson's stuff, but it did inform what I had to say--that a military can stand still but be seen as moving closer to or further away from one party or another due to the other actors moving. I had another analogy in the Q&A (see below).

I then discussed how the conception of civilian involvement in military stuff in Canada is often seen as an intervention or a series of interventions, which is inherently problematic since interventions are episodic, temporary, unwelcome, and unnatural.  That it sets up expectations in a very bad way--civilian control should be continuous, dynamic, and expected.  

My third opening point was referring to a reading that they were assigned--former Chairman Martin Dempsey's take on civil-military relations, where he talks about two cultures.  I referred to an important omission--that military folks tend to think that expertise is only gained through experience where as academics and other civilians tend to think expertise can be gained through analysis/research.  Oh, and that perceived expertise gaps play a big role in creating tensions in civil-military relations.

Yes, I used this moment to plug the
forthcoming book.

In my next slide, I went through the various civilians in Canadian civ-mil and argued that most fall short of what is required.  The PM has many jobs to do so they can't be focused on overseeing the military.  It should be the Minister of National Defence's job, but we have had a mixed record there. I should have talked about the Prime Minister's Office, but I really don't understand it so much.  Something I should figure out one of these days. I talked about how one didn't know what is job was and said so in parliament and should have been fired.  I then discussed what we (me, Phil, Dave) had learned about defence committees and legislatures--that the Canadian case inspired the book project because I was so profoundly surprised by what the Canadian Defence Committee (NDDN) does not know, what it isn't interested in, and what little power it has.  I then moved onto DND, which was fun since that spoke directly to Jody Thomas's former bailiwick.  I argued that since DND sees itself as a supporter of the military, that limits its ability/interest to engage in oversight.  I then argued that in 2021, a few journalists--Mercedes Stephenson, Amanda Connolly, and their team were the only real overseers over the CAF as they tenaciously broke the sexual misconduct story.  But I also noted that we have only two full time defence journalists and one of them is seen as not so legit. I did suggest that we shaggy academics have a role to play since we are critical and we are, dare I say it, experts on some of this stuff.  Finally, the public is the ultimate principal and thus the ultimate overseer, but they don't focus much on who is doing good oversight. Because I talked my slides but didn't actually present them, I didn't really hit hard enough the conclusion that the CAF actually faces much less oversight than most other militaries except when it comes to procurement.

My last slide focused on what the military can/should do about this. I argued that the norms, what is standard, expected, correct conduct is not always clear.  That "Fighting Spirit" which is the military's latest document about professionalism is a good statement, but is just something on paper.  The hard part is figuring out what it means and how to live it.  General Eyre did ask me as I talked about this whether I noticed the language about retired officers speaking out, as well, he and others know quite well my, um, relationship with a certain retired LGen.  I had.  I argued that the military needs to speak truth to power but behind closed doors. Eyre did get that I was criticizing him a bit as he was a bit too vocal about defence spending.  I didn't remark that his fondness of Eliot Cohen's Supreme Command book and its conceptualization of the Unequal Dialogue is interesting because the book tends to focus on leaders, such as Lincoln, firing generals until they found one that followed their intent.  I argued that the military needs to be more transparent and welcome oversight, as one of the themes of the two days was about trust as a lubricant reducing friction in the relationship.  Being transparent helps build trust.  While the military folks kept saying that it was their job to educate the civilians about civil-military relations, I argued that the responsibility lies more in civilian hands since, yes, the civilians are the bosses.  We live in a time where some civilians are trying to drag the military into politics in a variety of ways (Trump), and putting the military into difficult spots where saying something is seen as being partisan, such as when Trump filmed a campaign ad in Arlington National Cemetery, breaking the rules, but staying silent can be seen as being partisan and complicit.  It is on the civilians to try not to put the military in such spots.

The Q&A for both days went in a variety of directions.  One of the questions was about whether there was a crisis not in Canadian civ-mil but in Canada's international relations.  Folks argued that the mil-to-mil relationship is still strong.  Of course, I got to play the role of doomsayer by suggesting that the CAF needs to re-think damned near everything as the foundation of Canadian defence policy is the relationship with the US.  Who will provide medevac if things get hot in Latvia?  Who will provide air defence or deep strikes?  That with Trump as President, we simply cannot count on the US to show up when needed, so plan accordingly.

The organizer, Dr. David Emelifeonwu, asked about the realities of being attuned to politics but being non-partisan suggesting that they are not two coats that one can choose to wear one or the other.  I think that was the question, so it led me to a different metaphor.  That partisan dynamics are like someone spinning a can of paint that is spewing paint in all kinds of directions. If one is aware of the political dynamics of the moment, they can dodge and weave and avoid some or most of the paint, but that some might end up getting some stains along the way.... but if one is not aware, one is very likely to step into big puddles of paint or get splattered in a big way.  And once stained by the paint, it is hard to get off.  I used the example of  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley making the mistake of walking in Lafayette Park in combat dress (more or less) after the park had been forcefully cleared of protestors. This made Milley seem like the US military supported the suppression of free speech, and he spent much of the rest of his term trying to remove that stain.  Instead, his efforts ended up leading him to being covered by more and more partisan paint.  I wish I had shown this video because he is saying the right stuff, but how we says it makes it clear he is being anti-Trump rather than just pro-Constitution. 

Again, I learned a lot.  Having these conversations with sharp people on the other side of the civ-mil relationship forces me to think harder about this stuff, how to communicate it better, and to nuance my views (ok, sometimes.  Nuance and me are acquaintances at best).  I am very grateful to have had this opportunity, and I am very glad that these folks are taking very seriously the challenges facing Canada (and not just Canada).