To the National Security Professionals, It Doesn't Really Matter Who Wins
I attended a Washington conference last week on "Civil-Military Relations in a Post-9/11 World," sponsored by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and the U.S. Army War College's Center for Strategic Leadership. Like many conferences I've attended over the years, it was as interesting for who was there as for who was not, as much for what wasn't said as for what was.
Though the title of the conference suggests that some change in civil-military relations occurred after 9/11, no one particularly made this case or mentioned the events of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks as a watershed. I conclude therefore that the title of the conference suited this particular middle-of-the-road group and that it would have been impolitic to say "Civil-Military Relations After the Bush Administration" or "After Rumsfeld" or even "After the Iraq War," the latter of course because that title might suggest that the conference organizers and attendees believe that there is an "after the Iraq war," a proposition that many are agnostic about.
Though there seems a consensus that there is some kind a "crisis" in civil-military relations today, the historians and the veterans in the group offered sage reassurances that the situation today is less severe than the days of Truman or even Lincoln, that there has always been a healthy tension in the American system between our civilian way of government and the American military and that the health of our nation is confirmed in that we do not fear a Latin American coup -- in other words, that not only do our generals ultimately understand their place and their role in our society, but that our civilians (and here I mean a particular profession of national security civilians) really do understand theirs.
Yet as I sat listening to these national security insiders -- practitioners and academics -- speak about the state of relations between civilians and our military, there was something that made me uneasy. I had to listen carefully to code because so much wasn't being said and though much of the conversation was given over to the coming electoral "transition" and a new administration's task, there was never a mention of John McCain or Barack Obama. Indeed, though the next secretary of Defense was probably someone in the room (or someone just like someone in the room), to the professionals, it didn't really matter who the next president was. There was a kind of Washington-insider undercurrent that the task of successfully "managing" national security just needed to follow a generic template, and in that it doesn't really matter who is president.
National security professionals agree: The Iraq war is burning all of the oxygen in Washington. The professionals don't need to place blame as to who is responsible for the mess, they don't need to declare timetables for withdrawal or victory, and they don't need to lobby for a particular strategy for the future. They just recognize that the flame needs to be extinguished or at least be brought under control.
It seemed to me that to the professionals in the room it didn't really matter who was the next president. It didn't matter whether it was John McCain with his goal of "victory" by 2013 or Barack Obama with his pledge of withdrawal in 2009. All that matters is how the transition is managed: how the new secretary of Defense communicates with the uniformed military and reaches out to them as his "trusted advisers"; how the secretary selects his team and how that team expeditiously gets cleared and confirmed by the Senate; how the new team comes in and is respectful of yet not bowled over by the permanent class; how the department establishes good congressional, "interagency" and public relations; how consensus is built about the immediate tasks and a common future; and, above all else, how crisis is averted, first with our enemies and adversaries, then with Congress and the other agencies, then with our allies and with international institutions, and with pundits and the media, and finally with the pesky electorate.
I detect in this very narcissistic Washington view of what the rest of us would think of as the biggest election of our lifetimes and potentially the most radical and significant changes ahead is a certainty that competent national security professionals working correctly with the armed services and with the bureaucracy can avoid crisis and smooth a transition, creating the space for change regardless of who is president and regardless of what that president wants to do.
I could take this to mean that indeed there is no crisis in civil-military relations, that the "professionals" will do whatever it is that a new president will want to do and that ultimately the military will salute and follow orders as the Constitution intends. Instead, though, I get the stinking feeling that the attitude, though it is unspoken and would be denied by these ultimately partisan competitors, is that what the president wants is ultimately secondary to what the national security professionals think is reasonable and doable. There is a crisis: God help the new president
By William M. Arkin |
May 19, 2008; 11:35 AM ET
Election 2008
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Posted by: Eric Yendall | May 22, 2008 5:42 PM
To:
Peter Coates formally Spooky Pete
I agree that the US has a need for keeping its energy sources under guard. It would be outright foolishness if we did nothing at all.
The motivation for my comment was based upon the fact that Arkin has come to the conclusion/revelation that newly briefed president will be more than pleasantly surprised with the real circumstances that cannot all be told - for the reasons of national security.
This is a point that I have been attempting to make abundantly clear to those readers -whom I call 'friends'- for a very long time now. Seems they aren't too hip to the message - or have vapor lock and cannot accept the message because they are too liberal for their own good. And the good of others - I might add...
Posted by: Plainfacto | May 21, 2008 11:24 AM
Plainfacto and P J Casey
Touching on what you two have said.
I'd say if Obama or Clinton become President they will be quickly briefed by intelligence officials about the importance of energy security to the US. This may not be a revelation but it will be sufficient to suggest to them that bailing out of Iraq is not an option for the US.
Republicans and others will criticize them for their change of heart. But it is in the interests of their country and my little country (Australia) that the oil from the huge Iraq venture does not leave Western control.
The Army has done much of the dying to secure this oil which may explain much of the feeling of legitimacy mixed with cynicism that Mr Arkin witnessed.
Peter Coates
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com
Posted by: Peter Coates formally Spooky Pete | May 21, 2008 3:33 AM
What were they saying about the Carlyle Group buying Booz Allen?
Posted by: SamEllison | May 20, 2008 12:52 AM
...and what would drive a nation to such global madness?
Why, self-delusion of course!
The American Character
A historian argues that self-deception is a constant in U.S. history.
Walter A. McDougall
Harper. 787 pp. $34.95
What is the essential character of a nation that embraces both equality and enormous disparities in wealth, evangelical religion and a secular state, democracy and imperialism?
In Throes of Democracy, Walter A. McDougall has a simple answer: Americans are liars, especially to themselves.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/15/AR2008051503903.html
Posted by: Da' Buffalo Amongst Wolves | May 19, 2008 6:27 PM
"To the National Security Professionals, It Doesn't Really Matter Who Wins"... as long as Dick Cheney's buddies make bank.
Even Rumseld, who during his infamous handshake with Saddam Hussein as U.S. Special Envoy was a director of a major pharm-chem company... Now, a series of drugs previously almost unknown in the Middle East, Diazepam, SSRIs, Tranquilizers, mood elevators etc, are quite popular, and causing shortages in the Western industrialized nations.
Seriously, these people are war criminals and what they have in mind for profit is the destruction as a whole, with assistance, of Middle Eastern and Persian culture... societal structure, family adherences... to be replaces by westernized Iraqis, Iranians, rinse-lather-repeat, with western marketplace demands, Western morality, and due to the mayhem, even Western non-functional allopathic medications such as Zoloft.
"Back when Eisenhower was the President,
Golf courses was where most of his time was spent.
So I never really listened to what the President said,
Because in general I believed that the General was politically dead.
But he always seemed to know when the muscles were about to be flexed,
Because I remember him saying something, mumbling something about a Military
Industrial Complex.
Americans no longer fight to keep their shores safe,
Just to keep the jobs going in the arms making workplace.
Then they pretend to be gripped by some sort of political reflex,
But all they're doing is paying dues to the Military Industrial Complex.
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary.
The Military and the Monetary,
get together whenever they think its necessary,
They turn our brothers and sisters into mercenaries, they are turning the
planet into a cemetery.
The Military and the Monetary, use the media as intermediaries,
they are determined to keep the citizens secondary, they make so many
decisions that are arbitrary.
Now EVERYBODY Sing Along: http://www.houseoflyrics.com/lyrics/gil_scott_heron/work_for_peace.html
Posted by: Da' Buffalo Amongst Wolves | May 19, 2008 4:18 PM
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Posted by: che | May 19, 2008 4:13 PM
Trust is earned, and it should not be automatically given. Everybody in the beltway bubble, military officers or civilians officials, have proved themselves incompetent, and can't find their rear ends with both hands. Only a complete idiot would trust them. However, with the three leading candidates for president, it may a case of blind leading the blind. Two of these idiots voted for the Iraq War. Any former member of the military who voted for this war is obviously not competent enough to to direct or clean house at the Pentagon.
Truman fired MacArthur, but he had some knowledge of the military having been an a Captain in the Artillery during World War I. Now that was a war that would have destroyed any automatic trust in the military. The Iraq War is in the same category.
The new President will need somebody as Secretary of defense who is not in awe of Generals or not afraid to kick some rear end. Senator Webb was Secretary for the Navy, and he has a take no prisoners personality that is needed for the job.
Posted by: P. J. Casey | May 19, 2008 3:37 PM
//Instead, though, I get the stinking feeling that the attitude, though it is unspoken and would be denied by these ultimately partisan competitors, is that what the president wants is ultimately secondary to what the national security professionals think is reasonable and doable. There is a crisis: God help the new president\\ -Arkin
I can see that we can now both agree that the neo-lib candidates aren't going to do as they say they will. ie 'pull the troops out of Iraq'. That ship has sailed. Oh, they will put on a fine show all the way through the elections, you can bet on that too. And it will piss off and alienate a great number of the neo-lib faithfuls that their dear candidates have been knowingly lying to them just to get into 'the big chair'.
Perhaps it is better at this point to get the idea that the mechanics of Washington know that it will take a lot more to finish this conflict with Muslim extremist nations (eg Iran), and that even a reinstatement of the draft may well be pending.
Can you imagine the outright humilliation of Barak or Hillary when this about-face has to be done on camera in front of the nation as they explain -without the "I told you so's" of the Repubicans just out of earshot? That will be historic - but the tragedy that led it to this point will all but drown it out. It might take that much drama to put dems and repubs on the same field of play against a common enemy.
Yes; 'God help the new President' and 'God help the US of A'...
Posted by: Plainfacto | May 19, 2008 1:04 PM
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Plainfacto said: "newly briefed president will be more than pleasantly surprised with the real circumstances that cannot all be told - for the reasons of national security."
This is complete nonsense as is your mention of guarding energy supplies. Get real: there is no country threatening US access to energy markets. Any "threat" would be a country refusing to export to the US; ie. an embargo. There is no feasible military response to such a scenario. If Saudi Arabia, or Canada, cut off energy supplies to the US, what are you going to do about it? Invade both countries? The solution to the "energy crisis" lies at home: the American life-style is not sustainable. You are consuming too much and now the chickens are coming home to roost in the form of escalating energy prices. The remedy is to reduce demand. If energy supplies were truly a national security issue rather than a simple economic one then all sectors of American society should have to bear the burden through higher energy taxation to discourage demand, constraints on gas-guzzler vehicles through regulation and taxation, serious energy conservation incentives and penalties, carbon taxes, the list goes on. What people want is to continue with an energy profligate lifestyle: that is not a national crisis, that is a failure of national leadership.