Our Ongoing Civil-Military Crisis - The Milburn Edition Posted by Michael Cohen

Over the past year or so I've been writing quite a bit here at Democracy Arsenal about the civil-military crisis in this country today. This is all a bit ironic and misplaced because I am about the furthest thing in the world from being any kind of expert on civil-military relations.

But it has become more and more difficult to ignore the evidence that our military is populated by an increasingly politicized officer corps that believes its national security judgment is on somehow equal par with that of the civilian leadership. What's worse these individuals seem willing to use allies in Congress and the news media to pressure their civilian masters to support and endorse their views on defining the national interest and even the proper use of American military force. The kerfuffle this past summer over General Stanely McChrystal's comments to a Rolling Stone reporter seemed to crystallize the problem.

Compounding the challenge is a civilian leadership that has often been complicit in this crisis: granting the military far too much power, prestige and influence in the realm of foreign policy and national security. We saw this at the tail end of the Iraq War when President Bush publicly invested General David Petraeus with unprecedented influence over decision-making regarding conduct of the war; it occurred repeatedly during the Afghan review last fall; and President Obama has aided and abetted it by consistently appointing military officers to diplomatic and policy positions traditionally held by civilians. Increasingly, the once sharp lines between civilian and military leaders are becoming dangerously blurred. 

But nothing I've seen or read about the civil-military crisis in this country quite prepared me for this most recent essay in Joint Forces Quarterly titled Breaking Ranks: Dissent and the Military Professional, by one Lieutenant Colonel, Andrew Milburn USMC. Here is a taste of what Milburn has to say:

1. The military officer belongs to a profession upon whose members are conferred great responsibility, a code of ethics, and an oath of office. These grant him moral autonomy and obligate him to disobey an order he deems immoral; that is, an order that is likely to harm the institution writ large—the Nation, military, and subordinates—in a manner not clearly outweighed by its likely benefits.

2. This obligation is not confined to effects purely military against those related to policy: the complex nature of contemporary operations no longer permits a clear distinction between the two. Indeed, the military professional's obligation to disobey is an important check and balance in the execution of policy.

3. In deciding how to dissent, the military officer must understand that this dilemma demands either acceptance of responsibility or wholehearted disobedience.

Perhaps even more disturbing than these arguments is Milburn's assertion that he is not alone. He reports on a survey of 20 senior field-grade officers who offered similar opinions:

"Without exception, they agreed that there are circumstances under which they would disobey a lawful order. Their criteria" include:

• "If the officer cannot live with obeying the order, then he must disobey and accept the consequences."
• "When I cannot look at myself in the mirror afterwards."
• "When I deem the order to be immoral."
• "When it is going to lead to mission failure."
• "When it will get someone injured or killed needlessly."
• "When it will cause military or institutional disaster."

This is for lack of a better word, appalling. And it suggests that the crisis in civil-military relations is far more severe than most Americans realize. As Richard Kohn, an actual expert on civil-military relations, argued at Tom Ricks blog Milburn's article is nothing less than an "attack on military professionalism that would unhinge the armed forces of the United States." I would even go a step further: it is a direct assault on the most basic constitutional protections against a military coup d'etat in this country. And no I don't believe that this is hyperbole.

For example, Milburn argues that "Just as civilian leaders have an obligation to challenge military leaders if the latter appear to be pursuing a strategy that undermines policy, military leaders are committed to challenge their civilian masters if the policy appears to be unconstitutional, immoral, or otherwise detrimental to the institution."

This is exactly wrong. Civilian leaders don't have an obligation to challenge military leaders; they have a responsibility and duty to lead them - and to give them direct orders in support of what they believe are the national interest. The notion, implicit in Milburn's argument that the executive branch and the military are somehow equal branches of government is dangerously misguided.

As for the second part of Milburn's argument; civilian leaders embody the Constitution and the act of disobeying an order given by any civilian leader . . . is in itself an unconstitutional act. Military officers are not granted the right to make their own decisions about what is or is not unconstitutional or what represents an immoral act.

As Kohn points out, military officers possess no actual moral autonomy. If an officer believes that an order is immoral then I suppose they can choose not to carry it out and face court martial or perhaps they could resign their commission. Obviously, if an order is illegal and violates national or international law than a soldier not only has a right to disobey, they have a responsibility to do so. But they certainly don't have any actual right to disobey it based on their own personal moral views. What Milburn is suggesting is anarchy - and that would be true of any military that allowed its soliders to act with such personal initiative.

I would recommend reading Richard Kohn's extremely important takedown of the Milburn piece and also Paul Yingling's smart entry at Small Wars Journal. But also take a few moments to read the Milburn article, if anything just to get a clearer sense of how severe our civil-military crisis actually is and the genuine threats to the civilian control of the military that not long ago would have seemed unimaginable.

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