So today's letter signed by multiple former Secretaries of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff is an escalation, but it is not a surprising one. The tactic is well-known and at this point well-worn.
They lay out sixteen 'best practices' for civilian control over the military, including when and how it is appropriate for the military to challenge civilian officers. I think everyone should read what they have to say.
This is a critical topic, and one that has been much in absence of late: the Afghanistan debacle was occasioned in part by military leaders not challenging their elected leadership, but instead blithely ignoring every lesson of military strategy (along with the intelligence community lying, perhaps to itself but certainly to the rest of us, about the Taliban's evident strength).
Civilian leaders 'have the right to be wrong' the document says, and that's true: but notice that it's true about policy. Bad strategy -- abandoning Bagram, trying to run the evacuation off of Kabul's single landing strip, ceding control of Kabul to the Taliban while attempting to evacuate (now under enemy guns and mortars) -- is not outside the military's professional duty to object. If the policy objective is 'abandon Afghanistan, even if it means abandoning American citizens,' there are still right ways and wrong ways to do that. The leadership's failure to take responsibility for this is a continuing poison in our veins.
So consider what these former top leaders have to say about the situation they presided over creating. A lot of it is good insight, even if their collective records might give you reason to doubt their commitment to the principles they advocate here.
4 comments:
One has to observe that the Taliban just stood by, and watched the chaos that the US military created.
The Taliban may be closer students of strategy than the current US military senior leadership. Cf. Napoleon: "Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself."
The one demanding Milley and Austin resign isn't really a political one, is it? I think that's something about which they are entitled to, and in fact honor demands that they do, speak out on the subject.
On further thought, I'll narrow it to Milley- perhaps they should have left Austin off, as the civilian leader serving under the Commander in Chief, but I can see a reasonable argument for it too, I think.
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