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A brief civ mil journey, or, why Congress, the president elect, and Lloyd Austin should care about the norm-breaking precedent they are setting by again appointing a recently retired general officer to lead the Department of Defense. 1/
A few years ago, as part of a policy round table @TXNatSecReview, retired Major General Paul Eaton made an eloquent case on general officers’ mismatch of experience and expertise for senior political roles, politicization of the military, and foreign policy politicization.
This essay collection, which has a lot excellent, nuanced takes by @jblankshain @lindsaypcohn @LaurenFishDC and others, is here.
3/ https://tnsr.org/roundtable/policy-roundtable-civil-military-relations-now-tomorrow/
3/ https://tnsr.org/roundtable/policy-roundtable-civil-military-relations-now-tomorrow/
This week, the same retired two star made a case for Lloyd Austin as SecDef. The shift in opinion might be worthy of raising eyebrows, but that’s not what drew my attention (he perhaps views Austin as the “rare exception,” terminology used for James Mattis four years ago) 4
It was how Eaton made this case as noted here. Accusing respondents asking about civilian control of being Russians, sharing false views of Flounoy, and suggesting only military can effectively steward the department. 5
Again, I don’t know what changed Eaton’s view. But having now seen a range of retired senior officers use their support of Austin to condemn tenets of civilian control, I feel like it’s fair to say that civ mil scholars might have a point that appointment is worrisome. (7?)
Coming on the heels of reports Democrats wanted to sneak in the law allowing Austin’s nomination, this is a problem. Congress: do not hide this debate. Biden team: quadruple down on defending the principle of civ control and bolstering civ mil relations https://www.axios.com/democrats-pentagon-waiver-government-funding-bill-b762c995-1b63-4c06-a795-5fcecdb07ccb.html?utm_campaign=organic&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=twitter
A larger issue I take away from this is the defense community’s total avoidance of coming to grips with both policy and operational choices, wins, and failures of last two decades. There is a bottomless pit of mutual grievance in policy and military officials and no outlet.
(Confidential to dear friend: finish your book)
I didn’t have space in my tweet above, but Eaton’s generalization of uniform views on Iraq, Syria, etc is also false. https://twitter.com/dburbach/status/1340296707876282369
I also didn’t get at Eaton’s implication that Flournoy’s views are unworthy because she is civilian. As a civ woman, I hear this a lot. Civilian’s choices and decisions always merit scrutiny. But the suggestion civilians can’t do defense policy is hugely problematic. And common.
