GOFO* or Go Home? Pete Hegseth's Insecurity Complex and the Non-Partisan Military

Congrats, today is now the worst day in US civil-military relations since the Civil War.  It outclasses the two previous times I used this same meme.  I will just pick on a few of the worst parts of the Hegseth's and Trump's speeches.  

*[GOFO stands for General Officer and Flag Officers: generals and admirals]

But first, for those new to civil-military relations, a couple of key points:
A) There is no single best way for a democracy to control its military BUT civilian control of the military is a key ingredient for democracy.  That the relationship requires both civilians (especially but not only those in the executive branch) and military folks to behave responsibly and that there are norms--standards of behavior--that serve as guidelines for how to mange the relationship.  
B) The presence or absence of tension is not a great indicator of the health of a country's civil-military relations.  There could be absolute peace with one side is getting rolled by the other.  So, just as it is hard to evaluate whether a military is effective, it is not easy to assess whether a particular country's civil-military relations is healthy or not.  BUT when things go really badly, it is pretty obvious to most, if not all civ-mil experts.  
Oh and C) much of the expertise about civil-military relations is in the hands of, dare I say it, civilians.  Most generals and admirals have little experience in their side of managing civil-military relations--only those who get close to the top plus some who served as aides to various players.  But, yes, many civilians either in or near the defense agency have some expertise and, yes, yes, scholars of civil-military relations have much expertise as well.  I don't consider myself as much as an expert as others because I have only spent half my career on this stuff.  

Anyhow, I can guarantee you that most civ-mil experts around the world are freaking out over today's speeches as they violated pretty much every norm, especially those aimed at keeping the military out of partisan politics--this was politicization in its most extreme and unsubtle forms.  Which calls for Homer and Bart yet again: 

 

First, I was going to go through Hegseth's speech via this source, line by line, but it would make for a really long blogpost.  So just a few consistent issues and some really awful ideas/writing: 

1. Most obviously, why the hell did all of the GOFO's need to spend a heap of time and money to get to Quantico when they fucking televised the speech? This by itself was abuse of power, a waste of resources, and extremely amateurish.
2. The speech sprinkles throughout a heap of misogyny and racism for suggesting that DEI has greatly shaped who has led and why they were fired.   Of course, Hegseth goes on to blame the "woke department" as if the US military was some kind of far left organization.  Yes, it was the most diverse organization I worked within, but woke?  Not so much. Really, if there was one theme to the speech it is his Christian nationalism animating his hostility to anyone who is not white and male.
3. One of the enduring problems of civil-military relations is that the militaries of the world see the civilians as lacking expertise and are amateurs, fostering contempt. My gen of civ-mil scholars blame Sam Huntington's book for that, but now we will always have Hegseth.  Because he is a freaking amateur (despite or because of his specific military experience) who is way out of his depth, and this speech demonstrated it. His ideas of what a military is for, what makes for a good soldier/sailor/aviator/Marine is so limited, and yet he seems so confident.  His ignorance is vast.  Indeed, he may have imposter syndrome (well, he is an imposter) so that the entire speech reeks of overcompensation.  A key example: He calls for "more AI in everything."  This shows how shallow his knowledge is, how quick he is to grab the latest trend without any serious thought. 
4. Hegseth lacks self-awareness.  He claims he wants to rip out the politics.  By having all of the GOFOs sit through his very partisan speech and then a partisan speech by the President?
5. One section really makes no sense as he said that the big litmus test is whether the conditions in the military are such that he would want his eldest son to join the military and then says, "if in any way the answer to that is no, or even yes, but, then we’re doing something wrong." So, either way, it is bad?
6. Hegseth says that he and POTUS will have the backs of the GOFO's, that they should not lose their careers for making earnest mistakes.  But then goes on to talk about his firing of senior officers and that "we all serve at the pleasure of the president every single day."  This speech is again utterly incoherent and contradictory.
7. "You are hereby liberated to be an apolitical, hard-charging, no-nonsense, constitutional leader that you joined the military to be." Yet the speech is the opposite and then Trump's even more so.
8.  The one Hegseth consistency, other than drinking and Christian nationalism, is a fondness for war crimes:  "We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement." His support for legitimating and honoring war criminals is one of his other consistencies, and which helped bring him to Trump's attention.  By itself, this should have been disqualifying, but then in Trump's bizarro world, that which makes someone utterly disqualified and, yes, deplorable, makes them perfect for the job.

Trump: 

1.  Trump was disappointed that the generals and admirals didn't cheer him (they don't cheer him during the State of the Union when he makes a political point either, so this is not new), because he sees them as his generals and admirals and not the nation's.  Their refusal to cheer in a partisan fashion definitely rankled Trump quite a bit. Trump's insults of Biden, of course, in front of this audience is an effort to drag the military into partisan politics.  One of the cardinal responsibilities of civilians in civil-military relations is to keep the military out of partisan politics, and Trump not just does not get that, but he is always trying to get the military into difficult circumstances where they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.  Such as filming a campaign ad at Arlington National Cemetery.  
2. The speech is typical Trump, incoherent, full of resentments, mischaracterizing basic stuff.  He rehashed the Gulf of America bs, for instance.  An example of incoherence: "we want war because we want to have no wars. But you have to be there. And, you know, sometimes you have to do it."
3. Trump lists Patton, Bradley and MacArthur and not Ike or Nimitz.  Which is telling--Trump's understanding of war and of history is that of a 12 year old. 
4. Words are wind: "I support you. And as President, I have your backs 100 percent. You’ll never see me even waver a little bit."  Remember when he said don't blame me, blame my generals after an early mess in his first term?  Remember what Trump has said about those who have been wounded, killed or taken prisoner? They are losers.
5. The most disturbing part of the speech was his reference to "our inner cities, which we’re going to be talking about because it’s a big part of war now. It’s a big part of war."  Trump promised to send troops to more and more American cities where the Democrats govern, claiming they are unsafe, which, of course, ignores the crime statistics. And this is where things got really disturbing: "And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war, too. It’s a war from within.... "I told Pete we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military — National Guard, but military — because we’re going into Chicago very soon."

  Trump has always been quite awful and irresponsible when it comes to managing the military, first by appointing a recently retired senior officer to be SecDef and then more recently by appointing a bitter, ignorant Christian nationalist to be SecDef. He has constantly tried to politicize the military, trying to make the military to be a MAGA military and not the country's armed forces. This will have much negative consequences including hurting recruitment, disrupting cohesion within the military as promotion becomes very partisan, and reducing the effectiveness of the military.  One of the fundamental findings of research in this area is that dragging the military into the partisan arena, by appointing via loyalty and not by merit (Pete doth protest too much about this), will make the military less able to deter and fight America's adversaries. As the US becomes an autocracy, it will find itself losing its advantages in war.  Yes, the US has not won too many wars lately, but lethality is not the problem--putting bullets, shells, missiles, bombs on target is what the US military does best.  

But war is politics by other means, so being lethal is only one ingredient for winning a war.  Again, these two disqualified and unqualified men have no clue about that. Instead, despite their assertions, Trump and Hegseth are doing their damnedest to undermine the US armed forces.  Of course, the best way to do that is to use the army against the American people, and Trump's speech promised just that.  And when that happens, if the order is given for the military to use force against the American people, that will be the worst day in US civil-military relations.