4-8 Discussion

choose one of the following statements and make a 250-word written argument in support of it, citing specific examples.

(1) Civil-Military relations are worse than they have ever been in the last century and pose a threat to our democracy.

(2) Civilians fail to understand the challenges faced by the U.S. military. This results in ineffective oversight, flawed strategy, and inadequate support and resources to achieve national security objectives.

-attach turn it in report

-other sources:

https://www.militaryonesource.mil/resources/millife-guides/national-guard-employment/

U.S. Army War College, “How Does Civil-Military Relations Help Keep Our Democracy Strong,” YouTube video, 9:04, June 5, 2019, https://youtu.be/r_K_U43a1kQ.
U.S. Naval War College, “NWC Talks: Civil-Military Relations with Lindsay Cohn,” YouTube video, 19:01, March 24, 2020, https://youtu.be/04IbUf6YFqA.

U.S. civil-military tensions could raise long-term
issues

Stable civil-military relations have been a hallmark of U.S. military power. But the

country’s armed forces have recently been drawn into divisive political issues. The
prospect of further strained relations may pose a distraction for the Pentagon,

affecting military morale.

In May 2021, a class of 995 cadets graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York,
which has produced two presidents and 76 Medal of Honor recipients. © Getty Images

In a nutshell
Stable civilian relations are a pillar of the U.S. military

Recent political debates have raised tensions

Morale, performance and funding could suffer

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https://www.gisreportsonline.com/

Stable civil-military relations have long been a hallmark of American military power.

Recently, however, the armed forces have been swept up in divisive partisan political
issues in a manner not seen in the United States for decades. The prospects for

strained relations among civilians and military could spill over, hampering readiness
and operational practices in the near term.

For now, this challenge seems more a possibility than a reality. Nevertheless, the

issue of civil-military relations will unquestionably attract more media attention and
political scrutiny. The potential for these disputes to serve as a distraction for the

Pentagon and hinder morale and performance should not be discounted.

Past as prologue
The U.S. military was established with the premise that civilian military leaders

should always have the ultimate authority over the activities of the armed forces, and

that both enlisted and military personnel are bound by oath to their allegiance to the
U.S. constitution. This relationship has endured over the history of the republic,

though not always without friction. Civil-military tensions erupted periodically over
the course of the American Revolution, not only between senior commanders and the

Continental Congress but also among the ranks, most notably during the Newburgh
Conspiracy of 1783.

Nor did the establishment of the U.S. Constitution (1787) mitigate future

confrontations. In modern times, a touchstone for the debate was Samuel P.
Huntington’s “The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military

Relations” (1957). Huntington warned against drifting from a traditional model

where military leaders and civilian leaders operated in distinctly different spheres,
with the armed forces focusing strictly on military affairs. Another important work

was “The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait” by Morris Janowitz
(1960), which argued that the professional military had devolved into technical

“military managers,” as opposed to ethically driven, selfless, warrior-servants.

The greatest period of tension occurred in the wake of the Vietnam War (1973) and

protests against the military draft (mandatory conscription). Officers were accused
of being self-serving careerists, while respect for the U.S. military dropped to historic

lows. A military reform movement briefly flirted with unionizing the armed forces.
Much of the criticism implicitly drew on the influence of Huntington and Janowitz.

„
Recent strains reflect the more challenging conditions of the

post-Vietnam era.

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https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/biden-administration/

https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/newburgh-conspiracy/

In the 1980s, tensions greatly reduced and respect for the armed forces dramatically

improved. Despite occasional flare-ups, such as President Bill Clinton’s confrontation
with senior military leaders on gay people serving in uniform, confidence in the

armed forces and relations between civilian and military leaders has seen little
concerted attention.

As with many aspects of his administration, President Donald Trump elicited some

controversies, such as with the role played by military personnel during the June
2020 demonstrations outside the White House at Lafayette Square in Washington,

D.C. Such partisan disputes and controversies, however, accompany virtually every
president at one time or another. The present issue, however, is if more sustained and

systemic tensions are emerging – reflecting the more challenging and debilitating

conditions of the post-Vietnam era.

Controversies in the ranks
One issue that has persistently dogged the military for decades is sexual abuse and

violence. This has tracked the expansion of women in the ranks of the armed forces
(currently 14.4 percent in the active forces and 17.9 percent in the reserve forces),

and the increasing number of married personnel in the services (56.4 percent in the
active forces and 48.2 percent in the reserve forces).

A resulting tension is an ongoing Congressional effort to change how the U.S. military

prosecutes criminal sexual abuse cases. Proponents argue that greater safeguards
are needed to protect soldiers and families, while contend that changes to the

military justice system will undermine order and discipline and command authority.

Both sides say the issue exacerbates concerns that the officer corps is becoming risk-
averse, and less effective in ensuring the welfare of military members and their

families.

Another subject which has troubled civil-military leaders is military service by
transgender individuals. Policies have whipsawed back and forth: both the Obama

and Biden administrations considered transgender service an important equality
issue, while the Trump administration viewed the incompatibility of transgender

service as a physical and mental health and operational readiness issue. In the debate,
military leaders were caught in the middle of what is a public, highly divisive subject,

even if only a few thousand transgender persons serve in the active and reserve
forces (0.7 percent of the military).

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Debates over civil-military relations were accentuated by media reports claiming that Army General Mark

A. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had feared that former President Donald Trump was
considering a “coup” to remain in office. © Getty Images

Another concern that has received significant attention lately is the presence of
violent political extremists in the military ranks. This issue came to prominence after

the riot at the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021, when protestors disrupted
the Congressional confirmation of the presidential election results. According to a

May 22 report by the Washington Post, “[a]t least five service members face federal

charges for allegedly participating: an active-duty Marine Corps officer who was
arrested last week, two part-time soldiers in the Army Reserve and two in the

National Guard.”

In response, the White House directed that the Pentagon be included in a national
effort to combat domestic extremism, to include monitoring service members for

extremist activities. Critics argue these initiatives smack of political repression rather
than a genuine concern over public safety. U.S. media outlet Defense One reported of

one effort by two federal legislators, fielding complaints that revealed “training
sessions and regulations that service members argue paint the military as

fundamentally racist and support left-leaning groups while labeling conservative
movements as extremist.”

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Similarly, senior U.S. military commanders and officials have been mired in

controversy over “anti-racism” training. One hallmark of this dispute was a recent
Congressional hearing where senators grilled the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of

Staff over the use of critical race theory in diversity training in the armed forces. In
another case, the senior officer in the U.S. Navy was criticized for including the

scholar Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be An Antiracist” in a professional reading list for
naval officers. Similar controversies have erupted over the teaching of anti-racist

doctrines at the military service academies. Critics contend that rather than
combating racism, the teachings stigmatize individuals by race and undermine equal

rights protections.

A recent study released by one group of Congressional leaders argues that the

political controversies are distracting and undermining the readiness of the armed
forces. Published in July 2021, “A Report on the Fighting Culture of the United

States Navy Surface Fleet” concluded, “[t]here was a broad consensus across
interviewees on numerous cultural and structural issues that impact the morale and

readiness of the Navy’s surface force. These include: an insufficient focus on
warfighting skills, the perception of a zero-defect mentality accompanied by a culture

of micromanagement, and over-sensitivity and responsiveness to modern media
culture.”

The momentum of these issues has revived debates over whether civilian leaders are
being overly intrusive in injecting political issues into military culture, operations and

practices. Others ask if military leaders are intentionally or inadvertently engaged in
supporting partisan political activities to the detriment of good order and discipline

in the services. The debate was accentuated by media reports about a recently
released book by the Washington Post’s Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, “I Alone Can

Fix It,” which includes a claim that the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff feared
that former President Trump considered organizing a military coup to remain in

office. The reporting exacerbated acrimony on all sides of the political spectrum over
the appropriate behavior from military and political leaders.

There is no question that the hyper-political debates in the public sphere have spilled
over into U.S. military affairs. The issue is whether these political disputes will have a

debilitating impact on recruiting, retention, readiness and operational performance
in the future.

„
There are no signs that acrimonious partisan disputes in the

U.S. will abate.

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https://www.cotton.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/navy_report

Scenarios
A significant factor that could exacerbate the current controversies is reduced

funding for the armed forces, which could impact training and readiness. That, in
turn, could affect retention in the services.

In addition, as the U.S. economy recovers from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic,

the military will have to compete more vigorously with the private sector to enlist
new soldiers. If the military is funded through either continuing appropriations or at

levels proposed by the president’s budget, real spending will decline.

That would inevitably hurt morale, recruiting, retention and readiness, and intensify

concerns over the distractions of strained civil-military relations. Further, there are
no signs that acrimonious partisan political disputes in the U.S. will abate. Indeed, it is

far more likely that they will intensify and increasingly intrude into military matters.
If these conditions persist for a few years, then the most likely scenario is that both

the capabilities and the confidence in the military will decline.

View this report on the web:
https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/us-civilian-military-relations/

Report published:
August 13, 2021

Document version/created:

February 6, 2025

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https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/us-civilian-military-relations/ 6/6

ANOTHER “CRISIS” IN CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS?

ANDREW RADIN AND THOMAS SZAYNA JULY 8, 2021

COMMENTARY

What should be the role of Defense Department civilians below the secretary of

defense in policymaking? During James Mattis’s tenure as the secretary of

defense, senior civilians reported that they felt bypassed in the decision-making

process and that their responsibilities were taken over by senior military officers.

In November 2018, a Foreign Policy article quoted one former official that civilian

control of the military “was already weakening in the last administration, and I

think it basically fell off a cliff.” A congressionally mandated commission and

commentary by former Defense Department officials echoed these concerns.

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Home

https://tnsr.org/

https://warontherocks.com/author/andrew-radin/

https://warontherocks.com/author/thomas-szayna/

https://warontherocks.com/category/commentary/

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2019-09-30/how-joe-dunford-quietly-changed-the-joint-chiefs-role-in-preparing-for-war

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-04-09/national-security-crisis-command

How the Generals Are Routing the Policy Wonks at the Pentagon

https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/2018-11/providing-for-the-common-defense

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/09/two-cheers-espers-plan-reassert-civilian-control-pentagon/159716/

Post-CHAOS Homework on Civil-Military Relations

BECOME A MEMBER

To what extent are these reported changes really a problem and what to do about

them? We assess that the reports of the military’s behavior in dealing with top

civilians are — arguably — compatible with current regulations, and largely on

par with past policy processes. Civilian control over military actions, at least as

legislated by Congress, does not appear at risk. Nevertheless, declining civilian

input is a concern for good policymaking. Changes in legislation or regulation

may be needed to bolster civilian input, although before such steps are taken, the

defense community needs to understand better the evolution of defense civilian

input into policy processes since the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act.

How Is It Supposed to Work?

By civilian control of the military, we mean that a specified, politically

accountable civilian authority has the final say on national security and defense

policy. Civil-military relations refers to the wider set of interactions between

civilians and military personnel. Relevant academic literature highlights four

issues in civil-military relations: 1) curbing the political power of the military; 2)

ensuring that the military acts to protect rather than endanger the state; 3)

ensuring civilians do not use the military for partisan political goals; and, 4)

solving the puzzle of how civilians can control the military and ensure military

effectiveness even as they lack the specific knowledge and expertise of military

officers. The current debate centers on the fourth issue: Amidst the understanding

that civilians and military have a shared responsibility for the security of the

country, the tension centers on interpreting rules and procedures in a way that is

respectful of civilian and military roles and achieves military effectiveness while

preserving civilian control.

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Membership

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0095327X9902600102

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/psq.12006

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0095327X9602300203

As a component of the U.S. government, the Department of Defense is authorized

and constrained by law. Personnel within the department draw on law and

regulation, or at least their understanding of it, to determine their roles and

responsibilities. While the academic literature is useful in evaluating performance

and proposing remedies, we use the legal and regulatory framework as a baseline,

especially on the narrow question of civilian control. The degree to which

observed behavior is within or outside the legal and regulatory framework

highlights where changes may be needed.

The basic structure and functioning of the department is specified by Department

of Defense Directive 5100.01, Functions of the Department of Defense and Its Major

Components, issued by the secretary of defense and based on the last major defense

reform legislation, the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reform Act of

1986. The directive describes the components of the department. The Office of the

Secretary of Defense, led by the deputy secretary of defense, acts as the “principal

staff element of the Secretary of Defense.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff is led by the

chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and supported by the Joint Staff. The

military services are responsible for recruiting, training, and equipping military

forces. The combatant commands are regional and functional commands who

exercise “authoritative direction over all aspects of military operations, joint

training, and logistics.”

Some of the structure and functions of the department are specified in

Goldwater-Nichols, although the legislation leaves flexibility, such as by

empowering the secretary of defense to define the chairman’s role, as is done in

the directive on functions. The current version of the directive dates back to 2010

and was issued by Robert Gates, but the basic organization articulated in the

directive has not changed greatly since 1987.

As specified in Goldwater-Nichols, the directive on functions delineates that the

operational chain of command goes from the president to the secretary of defense

to the combatant commands. The secretary therefore exercises civilian control

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https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11566

https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodd/510001p

https://www.congress.gov/bill/99th-congress/house-bill/3622/text

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/163

https://cmo.defense.gov/Portals/47/Documents/PDSD/5100.01-White%20Paper_20200925 ?ver=4xvlaCAsVWwAUmshAVWDhw%3D%3D

over the military in the sense of being the only civilian other than the president

with the authority to issue orders to military personnel. The directive stipulates

that all communication between president or the secretary of defense and the

combatant commands, including military orders, is normally required to be

transmitted through the chairman. Indeed, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of

Staff is responsible for overseeing the activities of the combatant commands, and

acting as their spokesperson, “especially on the operational requirements.”

Furthermore, the directive states that communication between other

organizations and the combatant commands “normally shall be coordinated with”

the chairman.

Another statutory role for the Joint Chiefs of Staff is to provide their advice to

both the president and the secretary of defense, first as members of the Joint

Chiefs of Staffs and second as representatives of their respective services. While

recent commentary calls out the military commanders for “often preempt[ing] the

advice and analysis of civilian staff by sending their proposals straight to the

secretary of defense,” the functions directive effectively permits the chairman to

bypass civilians in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in providing military

advice. In principle, these civilians could also present their advice to the secretary

without inputs from the chairman, although standard procedures generally

require that they at least attempt to coordinate with the Joint Staff.

To look deeper at the issue of the alleged declining role of the civilians within the

Office of the Secretary of Defense, we focus in particular on the role of the Office

of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (hereafter referred to as “Policy”).

Other civilian organizations in the department are no less important, but may

have different dynamics. Policy has specified responsibilities and functions, such

as issuing guidance and reviewing campaign plans and contingency plans as well

as representing the department in interagency meetings and international

defense negotiations. But direct oversight of the management of the use of force,

setting requirements, and developing plans is executed by the military chain of

command.

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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-04-09/national-security-crisis-command

https://execsec.defense.gov/Portals/34/Documents/511004m_v1 ?ver=j79RP1dXybHX26bSFLV61w%3d%3d

https://policy.defense.gov/OUSDP-Offices/Under-Secretary-of-Defense-for-Policy/

https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodd/511101e ?ver=2020-06-23-124431-853

Indeed, while the directive on functions calls for the Office of the Secretary of

Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to “function in full coordination and

cooperation,” it also enables the Joint Staff to act as gatekeepers between Policy

and the combatant commands. In practice, officials in Policy may have routine

informal discussions with their counterparts on the Joint Staff and combatant

commands, including asking questions of military commanders and gaining

visibility on military advice as it is being formulated. But in conditions of more

antagonistic relations between Policy and the top military leadership and/or in

cases where the top military leadership resorts to hardball bureaucratic politics,

Policy civilians may not see military advice from the combatant commands until

it has been approved by the chairman, by which point it has sufficient gravitas to

make it difficult to question. As Alice Hunt Friend argues, the less information

available to civilian leaders, the more that civilian preferences tend to align with

those of the military.

It is no accident that legislation and Department of Defense regulations authorize

military officers to offer their advice with little input from civilians below the

secretary of defense. Senator Goldwater, one of the key architects of the 1986

reorganization, shared a common view that the U.S. failure in Vietnam stemmed

from civilian interference in professional military decisions. The strengthening of

the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the combatant commands ensured

that civilian officials do not prevent military leaders from providing their advice

to the secretary or the president. The real question is whether the strengthening

of the military role in the policy process in practice has evolved too far in the 35

years since the passage of Goldwater-Nichols.

How Has It Worked?

Since Goldwater-Nichols, the influence of civilians appears to have ebbed and

flowed, although an accounting is challenging with available data. Ultimately, the

details of these relationships are adjudicated in non-public internal Defense

Department processes: who attended which meeting and what was discussed?

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Why “Best Military Advice” is Bad for the Military—and Worse for Civilians

https://dra.american.edu/islandora/search/mods_name_personal_namePart_mt%3A%22Friend%2C%5C%20Alice%5C%20Hunt%22

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Victory_On_The_Potomac/hV5pZyTgVNUC?hl=en&gbpv=0

Who did or did not see or coordinate on memoranda at a particular time?

Accounts of the recent civil-military relations in the department rely primarily

on journalistic narratives, heavy on unnamed sources, and offering broad

generalizations of staffing processes, making it impossible to reach an objective

assessment.

One example where there is a relatively detailed account is the 2009 debate about

troop levels in Afghanistan. The events of this account are telling because the key

protagonists — Secretary Gates and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Michèle Flournoy — are identified as good practitioners of civil-military

relations.

During the process that Gates describes, Policy officials, especially Flournoy,

played an important role. But the military advice about troop numbers — the

heart of the future policy in Afghanistan — was carried up through the military

chain of command, with apparently limited debate by civilians until it reached

Gates and the president. For example, in 2009, Gen. Stanley McChrystal was

appointed as the new NATO commander in Afghanistan. Following a request for

increased force levels above and beyond what President Barack Obama had

reluctantly approved, Gates directed McChrystal to conduct a 60-day review of

the situation in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s assessment, once complete, initially

was provided only to his military superiors — Gen. David Petraeus and admirals

Michael Mullen and James Stavridis. Petraeus endorsed McChrystal’s

recommendations and then Gates describes how Flournoy became involved by

discussing the process for considering the assessment within the National

Security Council.

When Obama received McChrystal’s assessment, it had already been endorsed by

McChrystal’s higher headquarters. Gates provided his opinion only in an “eyes

only” memo to the president, rather than for internal defense department

discussion. In the midst of a series of interagency meetings about McChrystal’s

assessment, a copy was leaked to the press, and McChrystal made public

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https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Promised_Land/hvr4DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Duty/lYzZAAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=gates+duty+%22leaked+the+assessment+out+of+impatience%22&pg=PA368&printsec=frontcover

comments that the White House interpreted as limiting the president’s freedom

of action. Effectively, the military advice of the commanders set the stage for the

president’s decision, with only the secretary of defense, rather than subordinate

civilians, providing the primary feedback, and the key debate about the policy

taking place above the level of the Defense Department, within the National

Security Council.

Few participants in the policy process on Afghanistan are likely to cite it as a high

point in U.S. civil-military relations. Even so, the process Gates describes

provided for a greater role for civilians below the secretary, including through

Flournoy’s participation and a greater deliberative process, than what is described

to have transpired under Trump. The episode nevertheless indicates that limited

defense civilian inputs to military recommendations are not a new phenomenon.

Looking Ahead

Contrary to the idea that an apparent increase in military roles inside the

Department of Defense represents a break with prior patterns or a crisis in civil-

military relations, an independent military role that sometimes excludes input

from civilian officials below the secretary seems consistent with the letter if not

the spirit of existing regulations and not far outside of past patterns of behavior.

This is not to say that recent observations of an expanded military role are of no

concern. In the 2009 debate, questioning by civilians in the National Security

Council might have improved the policy outcome on Afghanistan, and defense

policymaking would probably be better served by incorporating civilian opinions

earlier in the process.

While personalities are no doubt important, if a greater role for Policy or other

civilians is desired over the long term, a change in law or regulations is required.

The current secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, faced questions about the decline

in civilian inputs during his confirmation, and pledged to strengthen civilians’

roles. He has emphasized a return to “professionalism and normal order and good

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Biden Inherits a Challenging Civil-Military Legacy

https://slotkin.house.gov/media/press-releases/members-send-letter-secretary-defense-designee-lloyd-austin

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/09/lloyd-austin-pentagon-467725

https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/2598964/secretary-of-defense-austin-and-chairman-of-the-joint-chiefs-of-staff-gen-mille/

process.” While Austin’s tenure could lead to a shift back to greater civilian input,

it could be context-dependent and it may not persist unless it is institutionalized

with changes in regulations.

One potential change could be to amend the defense department directive on the

functions of its major components. A revised version could require that

information copies of military advice provided by the combatant commands to

the Joint Chiefs of Staff also be provided to Policy. Another change could be to

permit Policy to communicate with the combatant commands without first

coordinating with the chairman or Joint Staff, so long as the Joint Staff is aware

and the communication is appropriately caveated. Offices in Policy may already

regularly communicate with the combatant commands with the awareness of

their counterparts in the Joint Staff. In those cases, a change to the formal rules

toward more information-sharing would pose little challenge and it would

prevent civilians from being cut out in the future.

But caution is in order, as any change in the department’s organization could have

unintended consequences. Despite all of the writings on U.S. civil-military

relations, there is little broad assessment of the typical interactions between

senior officers and civilians. Judgements in the current debate seem to focus on a

few incidents based on partial views from anecdotes and memoirs. There are also

additional factors that are worthy of further study prior to any reform.

First, there is a need to understand to what degree Policy civilians have weighed in

on different issues over time. Ideally, this would involve a review of documents,

supplemented with interviews with a wide range of participants in these

processes. Important questions include the frequency with which military advice

is developed and presented to the secretary without inputs from Policy, and the

extent to which there is a collaborative relationship between Policy and the

combatant commands. Such an analysis would need to go hand-in-hand with an

evaluation of why past practices evolved. Current practices are likely the result of

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https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/2598964/secretary-of-defense-austin-and-chairman-of-the-joint-chiefs-of-staff-gen-mille/

changes in the functions directive and other formal rules, as well as shifts in

informal, widely understood practices.

Second, there is a highly normative question of what should be the proper role of

Policy civilians vis-à-vis top military leadership. Karlin and Schulman observe

that civilian input can help to provide “collaborative friction” — “Departmental

debate is healthy, and if one portion of the building stovepipes their advice on the

way to Secretary, such debate is stifled.” Karlin also writes that “Without a capable

and informed staff, no individual has the wherewithal to do the job decently,

much less effectively.” The question is, to what degree is civilian control or

policymaking by the secretary weakened by an unempowered civilian staff if the

secretary still has an empowered military staff.

Answering this question must consider the unique contributions of civilians in

the Department of Defense. Political appointees play a role in communicating the

policy of the elected administration and ensuring that military actions are linked

with and commensurate to political goals. Civilians in the civil service do not

rotate as frequently as their military counterparts and consequently provide

institutional memory. Defense civilians also may have advantages in

engagements with civilian organizations, including Congress, State Department,

and civilian components of the intelligence community. Finally, civilians are not

obligated by the military chain of command. Once a senior officer in the chain of

command has decided on a recommendation, other officers may be reluctant to

openly question such decisions. Civilians may have an easier time asking hard

questions to the combatant commanders or other senior officers.

Recognizing the potential for civilian contributions, a third issue is how to

improve the quality of Policy’s inputs. Given greater power, civilians have a

greater responsibility to provide good advice. As with any organization, a key

challenge is staffing. If Policy is to present a civilian perspective, one criticism of

current procedures is that a preference for hiring veterans may interfere with the

2/6/25, 2:48 PM Another “Crisis” in Civil-Military Relations? – War on the Rocks

https://warontherocks.com/2021/07/another-crisis-in-civil-military-relations/ 9/12

Keeping Up Civ-Mil Relations

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Reconsidering_American_Civil_Military_Re/zy8DEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=reconsidering+us+civil+military+relations&printsec=frontcover

Is Veterans’ Preference Bad for the National Security Workforce?

ability of Policy to recruit qualified civilians. Improving the diversity of Policy

may also strengthen its impact.

A fourth consideration is tradeoffs on secrecy. One potential justification for

excluding civilians during high-profile deliberations is concern about leaks.

However, staff within military organizations could leak information as well —

Gates relays an account that McChrystal’s assessment was leaked by his staff.

Limiting the number of individuals involved in sensitive deliberations may be

necessary. At the same time, senior leaders within Policy and some of their staff

members must be read into sensitive deliberations to enable them to fully

participate.

With these inputs, and ideally an ability to link possible changes to military

effectiveness, more persuasive arguments about reforming Department of

Defense procedures can be made. Decision rights theory provides one way to

proceed. Applied to the defense department, the theory recognizes that having the

right to participate in all steps of the policy process does not mean that civilians

will actually choose to participate in all the steps. For reasons of efficiency, they

may delegate many aspects of policymaking — especially the initiation and

implementation of policies — to the military, although they would retain the

rights of ratifying policies and then monitoring their implementation. Some

senior military officers may be skeptical of the need for the civilians to have a

greater role, but understanding how civilian input can lead to better policy

outcomes, as well as socialization of a new cohort of military leaders, may change

their perspective.

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Is Veterans’ Preference Bad for the National Security Workforce?

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/555991-a-more-diverse-public-service-is-a-national-security-imperative

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Andrew Radin is a political scientist at the RAND Corporation. From December 2018 to

December 2020, he was detailed from RAND to serve as a country director for Afghanistan in

the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. He is the author of Institution

Building in Weak States: The Primacy of Local Politics, published by Georgetown

University Press.

Thomas Szayna is a senior political scientist at RAND. His research has focused on strategic

planning for the U.S. armed forces, the future security environment, and coalition

interoperability. He is the lead author of the RAND report The Civil-military Gap in the

United States: Does It Exist, Why, and Does it Matter?

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IDEAS

US Civil-Military Relations Are
Complicated, But Not Broken

Through the sturm und drang, it is possible to see four core truths.

JOSEPH J. COLLINS | JUNE 18, 2021

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President Joe Biden walks with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, left, Army Gen. Mark A.
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Feb. 10. LISA FERDINANDO, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE PUBLIC AFFAIRS

COMMENTARY WHITE HOUSE PENTAGON

A recent article in Foreign Affairs carried this shocking title: “Crisis of Command: America’s Broken Civil-Military Relationship

Imperils National Security.” The piece explored the relationship between the American people and its military on many levels,

citing serious problems in every area. Without “robust civilian oversight of the military,” the piece concluded, democracy and

the U.S. status as a world power will be in peril. Its authors, Risa Brooks, Jim Golby, and Heidi Urben, are among the best and

most prolific authors on the subject. Their thoughtful effort deserves a critical look.

Crises come in many forms, but like the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cuban missile crisis, or the Iran-hostage saga, we

generally know one when we see one. There is no crisis of command, though the civil-military relationship, fraught with

friction, is often stressed. And through the sturm und drang, it is possible to see four core truths.

The first is the heavy influence of the policy environment in which civil-military relations take place. There is the perennial

Article 1-Article 2 struggle between Congress and the president over the management of military affairs. Inside the

Pentagon, the tides of interservice rivalry affect policy. Legal and organizational reforms can help or hinder decision-making.

For example, in 1986, a decade after the end of the Vietnam War, scholars and legislators came to see the Joint Chiefs as an

ineffective committee. Then-Maj. H.R. McMaster in his book, Dereliction of Duty, famously characterized them as the “five

silent men” of Vietnam decision-making. In response to Vietnam and other failures, Congress passed the Goldwater-Nichols

Act of 1986. Among other things, it mandated a strong Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and a vigorous Joint Staff to improve

military advice to the Defense Secretary and input to national security decision-making. From U.S. law, high levels of friction

in civil-military decision-making are not an anomaly, but a design characteristic.

2/6/25, 2:48 PM US Civil-Military Relations Are Complicated, But Not Broken – Defense One

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Compounding all of this, we have been at war for 20 years. The long war has stressed our small, volunteer armed services

and forced civilian and military leaders to make decisions measured in blood and treasure. Neither senior civilians nor high-

ranking military participants are perfect. Both work where behavioral norms are often unclear. Both represent complex

bureaucracies that are at odds with other parts of the government. Senior military officers are often blind to political nuance;

senior civilians, often unaware of the complexities of the military planning process. Some civilian officials are not sure about

where they fit into the concept of civilian control of the military. Some military officers are often wary of interacting with

Washington civilians, even for routine exchanges of information.

Adding to the complexity, national security decisions today take place in an age of mass telecommunications and powerful

social media. Soldiers and citizens alike are bombarded by tidal waves of information and disinformation. Scrutiny of civilian

and military officials is intense and often dysfunctional. Off-the-record comments go on the record. Confidential information

becomes public immediately, the most sensitive often a few days later. Executive-branch civilians and military seniors often

grumble about the other leaking information, and both complain about the Congress, whose members return the favor.

The second, related truth is that the most important aspect of civil-military relations is where presidents, cabinet officers,

and the senior-most military officers come together to make the most critical decisions. The authors of “Crisis of

Command” have overstated the military’s aggressiveness and power in these decisions. The article says, for example, that

the officers boxed in Presidents Trump and Obama and “forced them to grudgingly accept troop surges they did not

support.”

Actually, after a contentious decision-making process, President Obama dictated the exact terms of the Afghanistan surge.

He defined his decision, put it in a memorandum, and ordered his principals to accept the document. Less than 18 months

later, he rejected the recommendation of his commanding general to extend the surge and began to methodically drawdown

U.S. forces from 100,000 troops to 8,400 by the end of his second term. The military here can be faulted for initially

providing an inadequate set of options, but in the end, President Obama sorted it out and shaped the policy he wanted.

The authors noted that President Trump promised in his campaign to withdraw from Afghanistan and Syria “but backed off

when military leaders told him that they couldn’t be done and that the policies would harm national security.” That reads like

a president taking prudent military advice, not coercion. Sadly, President Trump later ordered a precipitous withdrawal from

Syria with little coordination with the cabinet or the Joint Chiefs.

As Eliot Cohen noted in Supreme Command, the civil-military conversation is an “unequal dialogue,” in which presidents

should ask hard questions and have the final word. The notion of haughty, brass-hatted, senior officers demanding

autonomy in military strategy or operations does not match the record of the last few decades. Presidents rightfully draw

the lines between executive authority and the military’s strategic and operational freedom of action. They decide whether to

grant wide freedom of action, as President George H.W. Bush did during the first Gulf War, or whether they should approve

individual bombing targets, as President Lyndon B. Johnson did during the Vietnam War.

Two more examples further support this conclusion. In 2006, President Bush overruled every senior officer in the chain of

command when he insisted on the surge in Iraq, a highly successful move that helped to turn the tide of the war and

facilitated U.S. withdrawal four years later. In recent months, President Joe Biden matched Bush’s decisiveness and directed

the full withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, again over considerable opposition from various defense, diplomatic,

and intelligence officials.

The third core truth in contemporary civil-military relations is that the relationship depends on the quality of the senior

military and civilian players. Poor behavior by ignorant civilian or military leaders can throw the whole civil-military

relationship into disequilibrium and distrust. For example, there is no exaggerating the damage done by President Trump

who trashed norms across both the domestic and foreign aspects of national security affairs. He chose James Mattis, a

recently retired Marine general, to run the Pentagon. Compounding matters, Secretary Mattis reportedly favored the Joint

Staff, led by his former comrade, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, over his own Policy staff.

Secretary Mattis and later his successor, Mark Esper also entered into sustained bureaucratic conflict with the White House.

The White House attempted on many occasions to use the armed forces for partisan political purposes. For their part,

Trump’s two confirmed defense secretaries, Mattis and Esper, tried to slow-roll or game the White House to prevent damage

to traditional policies, especially in regard to U.S. allies. Both were forced to resign after resisting Trump initiatives at home

or abroad.

Late in his administration, many former senior officers who were close to Trump were also nominated for senior civilian

positions. One retired Army brigadier general, Anthony Tata, who was nominated to be the Under Secretary for Policy, had

his nomination pulled by the White House when his intemperate statements, unsupportable opinions, and alleged personal

2/6/25, 2:48 PM US Civil-Military Relations Are Complicated, But Not Broken – Defense One

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/06/us-civil-military-relations-are-complicated-not-broken/174826/ 2/6

How the Generals Are Routing the Policy Wonks at the Pentagon

https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2020/11/anthony-tata-named-undersecretary-policy/169926/

indiscretions came to light. Compounding his regrettable nomination, Tata was later kept on in the Pentagon in a senior

civilian position in OSD Policy that did not require confirmation. Indeed, much of the current angst on civil-military issues

appears to be baggage from the Trump years.

President Biden also annoyed civil-military relations experts by choosing a recently retired general, Lloyd Austin, to be

Defense Secretary. Biden and Austin, however, have not repeated Trump’s violations of civil-military norms. Biden appointees

are a diverse group of civilians, all with vast experience in the Pentagon. The neglect of civilians in OSD Policy has

apparently come to an end. Three former Policy officials have been appointed to the highest billets: Deputy Defense

Secretary Kathleen Hicks, Under Secretary for Policy Colin Kahl, and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth. President Biden has

also restored regular order to the national security decision-making process that under Trump was more honored in the

breach than in the observance. Much of the frantic atmosphere in national security policy has disappeared under President

Biden’s leadership.

The dramatic rise in dysfunctional partisanship in our society has created a fourth core truth in contemporary civil-military

relations. When society suffers from maladies such as racism, drug abuse, and hyper-partisanship, those ills will be

reflected in and around the armed forces despite the need for good order and discipline. Good civil-military relations require

effective congressional oversight and for the normally conservative military to stay above partisan politics. In recent years,

some members of congress and retired officers, following President Trump’s lead, have clearly attempted to politicize the

military in different ways.

Some military veterans lead this forlorn effort, stressing their uniformed service, all in an attempt to capitalize on the

relatively high approval ratings of the Armed Forces. Among the most obvious is Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, whose

campaign commercials and printed materials stress his status as a combat-wounded Navy SEAL. Crenshaw’s latest target

is what he calls the “woke military,” the one devoted to diversity and fair treatment of all military personnel. Candidates from

both parties stress their military background, and proclaim a devotion to the troops and high levels of military spending.

Effective congressional oversight is drowned in partisan politics, and senior officer accountability has suffered in last two

decades.

In a similar vein, the authors of “Crisis in Command” highlighted the decades-old problem of retired officers openly

participating in electoral politics. Despite high levels of partisanship, they recommend that retired senior officers should

behave like active duty officers, restraining their constitutional rights and refraining from political activities that “damage the

military’s non-partisan ethic.” Since the 1980s, hundreds of retired senior military officers have disagreed. They have advised

and publicly endorsed candidates of both parties.

In 2016, partisan antics at party conventions reached an absurd level with Michael Flynn, a retired Army three-star, leading a

chant to “lock up” Hillary Clinton. In recent days, more than 120 retired, pro-Trump, one- to three-star generals and admirals

—- with an average age of 80 years of age —- signed a bitter letter criticizing President Biden over a wide, mostly non-military

set of partisan political issues.

The area of retiree behaviors needs high-level attention, but not a heavy hand. The military’s bipartisan ethic must be

balanced by common-sense and careful handling of the civil rights of all concerned. To help fix this problem, however, the

authors of “Crisis of Command” endorse the idea that active duty officers should levy public criticism against retired officers

associated with campaigns. It is not clear how intra-military bickering would support the non-partisan ethic, but the next

step they recommend would be a greater mistake. The authors also recommend—apparently setting aside the First

Amendment—a law that would “institute a four-year cooling off period that would prohibit generals and admirals from

making partisan endorsements immediately after retiring—similar to what it did with the lobbying efforts.”

The antics of Flynn and company aside, it is difficult to document harm to the nation done by the participation of retired

senior officers on the margins of electoral politics. Would we better off if the experience and wisdom of retired senior

officers were kept from candidates vying to become the next president? Surely, there must be ways that retired officers can

participate in electoral campaigns without damaging the non-partisan ethic of the current force. In my view, responsible

citizenship demands sensible participation by retired military personnel in civic affairs.

There are any number of sane policies that can improve civil-military relations without violating the Constitution. As noted in

“Crisis of Command,” the participation by active and retired service members —- from admirals and generals to junior

enlisted personnel —- in social media and political affairs is crying out for better guidance. On higher-level concerns, this

guidance could come in the form of a Joint Chiefs of Staff publication on professionalism, essential values, civilian control

of the military, and the non-partisan ethic. A code of conduct might be too strong of a characterization for this document,

but an authoritative paper defining the non-partisan ethic and behavioral recommendations would be helpful, especially for

those at the top of the profession. The use of social media by active duty personnel can raise problems and merits separate

guidance documents.

2/6/25, 2:48 PM US Civil-Military Relations Are Complicated, But Not Broken – Defense One

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The Military Revolt Against Joe Biden

https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2021/06/hundreds-troops-complain-about-woke-racism-extremism-training-cotton-claims/174672/

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/05/should-we-care-about-letter/174041/

https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/Article/1188723/like-comment-retweet-the-state-of-the-militarys-nonpartisan-ethic-in-the-world/

IDEAS

U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopters from the 4th Infantry Division’s 4th Combat Aviation Brigade
used Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, as a stopover May 20, 2020. TYLER GREENLEES/US

ARMY

In the end, these policy recommendations will help civil and military participants define expectations and refine behaviors.

They will not change, however, the nature of civil-military relations at the highest levels of the government. Those relations

will continue to be complex and contentious. This was true under the last three presidents, and it will remain so, even in the

calmer policy atmosphere fostered by President Biden.

For serving and retired officers, there may be no better civil-military advice than Elihu Root gave at the dedication of the

Army War College in 1908: “Do not cease to be citizens of the United States. The conditions of Army life are such as to

narrow your views. Strive to broaden your sympathies by mingling with those outside of the service and learning from them

the things they can teach you. As you are good soldiers, be good citizens.”

Joseph J. Collins is a retired Army officer with over 25 years in Washington, including service on the Army staff, in the Office of

the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and two tours in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Policy. From 2001-04, he served

as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability Operations. He has taught strategy and international relations at West

Point, the National War College, and Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. A life member of the Council on Foreign

Relations, he holds a doctorate in political science from Columbia University.

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Crisis of Command
America’s Broken Civil-Military
Relationship Imperils National Security
Risa Brooks, Jim Golby, and Heidi Urben

May/June 2021 Published on April 9, 2021

Joe Biden and Lloyd Austin at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, April 2008
Gerry Broome / Reuters

RISA BROOKS is Allis Chalmers Associate Professor of Political Science at Marquette University, a
Nonresident Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and an Adjunct
Scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute.

JIM GOLBY is a Senior Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at
Austin, an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and a co-host of the podcast
Thank You for Your Service. He is a retired U.S. Army officer.

2/6/25, 2:48 PM America’s Broken Civil-Military Relationship Imperils National Security | Foreign Affairs

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-04-09/national-security-crisis-command 2/16

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/issues/2021/100/3

HEIDI URBEN is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program,
a Nonresident Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and an Adjunct
Scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute. She is a retired U.S. Army officer.

More by Risa Brooks

More by Jim Golby

More by Heidi Urben

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W hen U.S. President Donald Trump left office on January 20, many of
those concerned about the state of civil-military relations in the
United States breathed a deep sigh of relief. They shouldn’t have. Yes,
Trump used the military as a political prop, referred to some of its

leaders as “my generals,” and faced a Pentagon that slow-rolled his attempts to withdraw
troops from battlefields around the world. But problems in the relationship between
military officers and elected officials did not begin with Trump, and they did not end
when Joe Biden took office.

Civilian control over the military is deeply embedded in the U.S. Constitution; the
armed forces answer to the president and legislature. Starting in 1947, Congress built
robust institutions designed to maintain this relationship. But over the past three
decades, civilian control has quietly but steadily degraded. Senior military officers may
still follow orders and avoid overt insubordination, but their influence has grown, while
oversight and accountability mechanisms have faltered. Today, presidents worry about
military opposition to their policies and must reckon with an institution that selectively
implements executive guidance. Too often, unelected military leaders limit or engineer
civilians’ options so that generals can run wars as they see fit.

Civilian control is therefore about more than whether military leaders openly defy orders
or want to overthrow the government. It’s about the extent to which political leaders can
realize the goals the American people elected them to accomplish. Here, civilian control
is not binary; it is measured in degrees. Because the military filters information that
civilians need and implements the orders that civilians give, it can wield great influence
over civilian decision-making. Even if elected officials still get the final say, they may

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have little practical control if generals dictate all the options or slow their
implementation—as they often do now.

Resetting this broken relationship is a tall order. It demands that Congress doggedly
pursue its oversight role and hold the military accountable, regardless of who occupies
the White House. It requires that defense secretaries hire skilled civilian staffs composed
of political appointees and civil servants. But most important, it requires an attentive
public that is willing to hold both civilian leaders and the military to account.

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PA RA D I S E LO S T

Evidence of the decline in civilian control over the military isn’t hard to find. Over the
last few decades, senior military leaders have regularly thwarted or delayed presidential
decisions on military policy. In 1993, Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, helped block President Bill Clinton from ending the policy that banned gays from
the military, resulting in the now defunct “don’t ask, don’t tell” compromise. Both
President Barack Obama and Trump complained that officers boxed them in—limiting
military options and leaking information—and forced them to grudgingly accept troop
surges they did not support. Obama’s generals signaled that they would accept nothing
less than an aggressive counterinsurgency in Afghanistan—despite White House
opposition. Obama later fired Stanley McChrystal, then commander of U.S. forces in
Afghanistan, after members of the general’s staff disparaged White House officials in
remarks to a reporter. Trump, for his part, saw senior military leaders push back against
his orders to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and Syria. Although these moves were
signature campaign promises, Trump eventually backed off when military leaders told
him they couldn’t be done and that the policies would harm national security.

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Of course, senior military leaders do not always get everything they want, but they often
get more than they should. Their power also extends beyond headline-grabbing decisions
about overseas deployments or troop reductions. The military’s influence manifests
hundreds of times a day through bureaucratic maneuvers inside the Pentagon, in policy
discussions in the White House, and during testimony on Capitol Hill. These mundane
interactions, perhaps more than anything else, steer decision-making away from civilians
in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and toward uniformed personnel. Inside the
Pentagon, for instance, military leaders often preempt the advice and analysis of civilian
staff by sending their proposals straight to the secretary of defense, bypassing the
byzantine clearance process that non-uniformed staffers must navigate.

There are signs of the erosion of civilian control outside the Pentagon, as well. Congress
too rarely demands that the military bow to civilian authority, instead weighing in
selectively and for partisan reasons. During the Obama administration, for example,
some commentators and at least one member of Congress suggested that Martin
Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should resign in protest over the
president’s management of the campaign to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.
The goal was to use Dempsey’s role as the president’s chief military adviser as leverage in
a partisan battle over Obama’s foreign policy. Under Trump, many Democrats cheered
on the retired and active-duty generals who pushed back against the president’s
decisions. These “adults in the room” included James Mattis (the secretary of defense),
John Kelly (the secretary of homeland security and then White House chief of staff ),
and H. R. McMaster (Trump’s national security adviser). At the extreme, some of
Trump’s opponents even urged senior military leaders to contemplate removing Trump
from office. In August 2020, two well-known retired army officers, John Nagl and Paul
Yingling, penned an open letter to Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, telling him to do just that if the president refused to leave office after losing the
2020 election. Although these efforts may have comforted those concerned about
Trump’s erratic policies, they undermined civilian control by suggesting that it was the
military’s job to keep the executive in check. When politicians endorse military
insubordination that serves their interests, they do long-term damage to the principle of
civilian primacy.

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Oversight itself has also become politicized. Politicians increasingly turn to those with
military experience to run the Pentagon. Trump decided to appoint a former general,
Mattis, as secretary of defense, and Biden did the same, putting Lloyd Austin in the post.
In both cases, Congress had to waive a requirement that officers be retired for at least
seven years before serving in the department’s top job. The rule, which had been broken
only once before, is designed to prioritize leaders with distance from the mindset and
social networks associated with military service. Ideally, defense secretaries should be
comfortable operating as civilians—not soldiers. Mattis’s and Austin’s nominations, and
subsequent confirmations, therefore represent a break with over seven decades of law and
tradition, beginning with the 1947 reforms, stipulating that the secretary of defense
cannot be a recently retired general.

There is no obvious reason to think that those with military experience are better suited
to controlling the military on behalf of Congress or the president—and plenty of reasons
to suspect the opposite. In the military, soldiers are taught to follow orders, not scrutinize
their implications, as a cabinet official should. Military personnel, moreover, are ideally
taught to stay out of partisan debates, whereas the secretary’s job demands well-honed
political skill and experience. Yet as Mattis’s and Austin’s appointments show, military
service is becoming a litmus test for Pentagon policy jobs traditionally held by civilians,
and this is true even at lower levels.

Meanwhile, the public is failing to insist that elected leaders hold the military to account.
Many Americans would rather put troops on a pedestal and admire the military from
afar. Repeating the mantra “Support our troops” has become a substitute for the patriotic
duty of questioning the institution those troops serve. Large numbers of citizens are now
reluctant to even offer their opinions in response to survey questions about the military,
let alone to criticize military leaders. In a 2013 YouGov survey, for instance, 25 to 30
percent of the nonveterans asked consistently chose “I don’t know” or “no opinion” in
response to questions about the military.

At best, these trends immunize the military from scrutiny; at worst, they give it a pass to
behave with impunity. An October 2017 White House press conference epitomized this

Civilian control over the military is deeply
embedded in the U.S. Constitution.

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exceptionalism: during a discussion of Trump’s condolence call to the widow of a slain
soldier, Kelly, who had served in the military for more than four decades and whose own
son was killed fighting in Afghanistan, refused to call on journalists who didn’t know
someone who had had a family member killed in combat. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the
White House press secretary, later admonished journalists for daring to question Kelly.
Debating “a four-star Marine general,” she said, was “highly inappropriate.”

O RI G I N S TO RY

Part of the decline in civil-military relations can be blamed on institutional changes. As
the United States became a global power, elected leaders developed a bureaucratic
structure to manage the military on a day-to-day basis. When it became clear at the start
of the Cold War that the U.S. defense establishment had become too large for the
president and the legislature to control on their own, Congress passed the National
Security Act of 1947. The law established what would eventually become the
Department of Defense and placed at its head a civilian secretary of defense, who would
bring experience managing bureaucratic and domestic politics. That person would have
the exclusive job of ensuring that the military’s activities aligned with the nation’s goals
as determined by its elected political leaders. And Congress granted the secretary a
civilian staff composed of individuals who could draw on their experiences in
government, business, and academia.

But in 1986, Congress unintentionally undid much of this work. That year, it overhauled
the 1947 law by passing the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization
Act, which shifted power and resources away from civilian leaders and to their military
counterparts. Since that law passed, large, well-resourced military staffs have displaced
civilians in the Pentagon and across the rest of the government. Today, for example,
ambassadors and other civilian officials frequently depend on the military’s regional
combatant commands for resources, including planes and logistical support, necessary to
do their jobs. Regional combatant commanders also have responsibilities that cross
national boundaries, giving them de facto diplomatic authority and frequent contact not
only with their military counterparts overseas but also with foreign government leaders.
The military officials who govern security assistance and cooperation programs have also

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grown in number and influence, further sidelining their civilian counterparts in the State
Department.

It is a truism in national security discourse that diplomats are underfunded relative to
the military. Even former defense secretaries, including Mattis and Robert Gates, have
warned Congress of the risks of underfunding the State Department. But no one ever
does much about it. Without a serious attempt at rebalancing, the military’s personnel
and resource advantages will only further undermine civilian control, giving the military
extra speed and capacity that it can leverage during bureaucratic fights to make and
implement policy.

The Pentagon City metro stop in Washington, D.C., October 2013
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

At the same time, there has also been a hollowing out of the processes of civilian control
within the Department of Defense itself. In recent years, the Pentagon has faced
immense difficulties recruiting, retaining, and managing the civilian professional staff

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responsible for overseeing the uniformed military. These challenges are the result of
underinvestment in the civilian workplace. There is little systematic training to prepare
civilian officials for their responsibilities, and they are often thrown into the deep end of
the Pentagon and left to sink or swim. In contrast, service members benefit from
thorough professional military education programs and other developmental
opportunities throughout their careers.

By 2018, this situation had deteriorated to a point where the bipartisan National
Defense Strategy Commission, a congressionally appointed panel, concluded that a lack
of civilian voices in national security decision-making was “undermining the concept of
civilian control.” To be sure, these problems became more acute during the Trump
administration, when the Pentagon was littered with acting officials and unfilled
positions. But the civilian bench was shallow long before Trump took over.

P LAY I N G P O LI T I C S

Partisan polarization has also undermined civilian control. After 9/11, the public’s
esteem for the military spiked, and politicians noticed. Elected leaders became
increasingly willing to disregard civil-military norms, avoid serious oversight and
accountability, and encourage military insubordination to score political points against
their political opponents.

Today, politicians on both sides of the aisle capitalize on the military’s prestige to shield
themselves from criticism and attack their rivals—often a cost-free strategy, given the
military’s popularity. During campaigns, candidates often claim that troops prefer them
over their opponent; in 2020, a Trump ad featured the tagline “Support our troops,” and
Biden cited a Military Times poll to suggest that it was he who enjoyed their support.
Candidates regularly seek the endorsement of retired generals and even use them as
partisan attack dogs. At the 2016 Republican National Convention, the Trump adviser
Michael Flynn, who had then been out of the military for just two years, criticized
Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, and encouraged the crowd to chant “Lock her up!”
As president, Trump repeatedly delivered partisan speeches in front of uniformed
audiences, once telling officers at MacDill Air Force Base, “We had a wonderful election,
didn’t we? And I saw those numbers—and you like me, and I like you.” In over-the-top

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campaign videos, some post-9/11 veterans running for office use their experience as a
means of dividing those who served from those who did not. In 2020, the Republican
Texas congressman and former Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw released an Avengers-
themed ad entitled “Texas Reloaded” that featured attack helicopters, fighter jets, and
Crenshaw himself parachuting out of a plane.

More frequently ignored, however, are the less egregious moments of politicization, such
as presidents donning bomber jackets and flight suits in public speeches to military
audiences or venturing to West Point to make major foreign policy addresses rather than
to a civilian university. All these actions reinforce the belief that military service is
superior to other kinds of public service.

Even though politicians try to gain electoral advantage through such behavior, what they
are ultimately doing is damaging their own authority. By lionizing the armed forces,
politicians teach the public to expect elected officials to make concessions to military
leaders or defer to them on important decisions. This same dynamic motivates civilian
leaders to encourage officers to serve as “the adults in the room,” resist or oppose their
partisan opponents’ policies, or resign in protest against a lawful order from an elected
president. Although there may be short-term advantages to such behavior (assuming, of
course, that the military leaders are correct), it subverts the broader principle that
civilians get to pursue the policies they were elected to carry out.

The military has also played a role in the degradation of civilian control. For one thing,
its nonpartisan ethic is in decay. Whereas the majority of senior military officers did not
identify with a political party as late as 1976, nearly three-quarters do so today, according
to surveys of senior officers attending various war colleges conducted between 2017 and
2020. Many service members are comfortable airing their partisan political commentary
on social media to wide audiences, an outspokenness that would have made past
generations of soldiers blush. Retired generals involved in politics—especially through
campaign endorsements—reinforce to those in uniform that the military is riven by

Politicians on both sides of the aisle stand
to benefit from better civilian oversight.

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partisan divides. Senior military leaders have largely failed to address this behavior, either
looking the other way or attributing it to a few bad apples. Their silence, however,
normalizes partisanship in the military, with those in uniform concluding that it is
acceptable to openly pick political sides. Recent surveys of senior active-duty officers
found that roughly one-third had observed their colleagues make or share disparaging
comments about elected officials on social media.

Service members also make civilian control that much harder when they act as if they are
superior to their civilian counterparts. Research consistently shows that many in the
military believe that their decision to serve in uniform makes them morally superior to
those Americans who did not make that choice. According to a 2020 survey by the
research institution NORC, this sense of superiority extends even to their views of those
Americans whose jobs also entail significant risks—including doctors fighting the
pandemic and diplomats serving in combat zones or in hardship assignments. At the
extreme, military personnel question the legitimacy of the civilians who oversee them,
especially if they suspect that those leaders don’t share their partisan views.

Another factor undermining civilian authority is the military’s attachment to the notion
that it should have exclusive control over what it views as its own affairs. This concept,
endorsed by the political scientist Samuel Huntington, contends that the military has a
right to push back when civilians attempt to interfere in military matters. According to
this view, autonomy is a right, not a privilege. But military and political affairs are not as
distinct as many officers have been led to believe, and the experience of other countries
suggests that alternative models are just as plausible: throughout Europe, for example,
military leaders are accustomed to much more intrusive oversight than their U.S.
counterparts.

H O LLY WO O D T RE AT M EN T

Trends in American culture underpin many of these problems. Americans increasingly
fetishize the armed forces and believe that the only true patriots are those in uniform.
According to Gallup polling, the public consistently has more confidence in the military
than in any other national institution. That admiration, coupled with declining trust and

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https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/44/4/7/12253/Paradoxes-of-Professionalism-Rethinking-Civil

confidence in civilian organizations, means that large segments of the population think
that those in uniform should run the military, and maybe even the country itself.

This adoration has grown in part out of efforts to bring the military out of its post-
Vietnam malaise. In 1980, Edward Meyer, the army chief of staff, declared his force a
“hollow army,” and that same year, an operation intended to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran
ended in disaster, showing the public just how depleted its armed forces had become.
While Congress attempted to rectify the situation by ramping up military spending, the
military cannily worked to rehabilitate its image through popular culture. In the 1980s,
the Pentagon cooperated with big-budget movies such as Top Gun, a practice it has
continued to the present with such superhero films as Captain Marvel. By conditioning
its cooperation and provision of equipment on approval of the script, the military learned
that it could influence storylines and enhance its brand.

Another contributing problem is the military’s tendency to recruit heavily from
particular subsections of American society. With few calls for shared sacrifice or national
mobilization during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the majority of the public had
little to do besides thank the troops for their service. The military, meanwhile went to
great lengths to honor soldiers with patriotic displays centered on the nobility of military
service, notably during college and professional sporting events. These trends all
reinforced the notion that military service members were truly exceptional—better,
different, and more selfless than the civilians who cheered them on.

REF O R M O R P ERI S H

Together, these pressures have weakened the institutional processes, nonpartisan
practices, and societal values that have historically served to keep the principle of civilian
control of the military strong in its mundane and often unglamorous daily practice. But
the damage can be repaired. Institutional reforms have the greatest chance of success.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle stand to benefit from better civilian oversight.

Congress could start by rebalancing power in the Department of Defense away from the
Joint Staff and the combatant commands (the 11 military commands with specific
geographic or functional responsibilities) and toward civilians in the Office of the
Secretary of Defense. Legislators can do this by resisting calls to further cut the

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Pentagon’s civilian workforce and by eliminating duplicate efforts among the Joint

Staff

and the combatant commands, which together account for an estimated 40,000
positions. A parallel program to train, retrain, and prepare a civilian workforce would
help deepen the Pentagon’s civilian bench.

Congress should also rethink efforts to give the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the
mission of “global integration” of U.S. military capabilities—an initiative that took root
when Joseph Dunford filled the role, from 2015 to 2019. The idea was that the Joint
Chiefs could adjudicate the military’s competing geographic requirements, curb the
power of the combatant commands, and prioritize resources. But that role is best played
by civilians in the defense secretary’s office, not by a sprawling military staff.

The uniformed military must also address its role in undermining civilian control. A
hallmark of any profession is its ability to enforce standards of conduct, and yet the
military has at times struggled to ensure that its members refrain from partisan activity.
To address this, active-duty officers should publicly disavow retired senior officers who
damage the military’s nonpartisan ethic through campaign endorsements and other
political pronouncements. Retired officers should also use peer pressure to curb partisan
campaign endorsements among their colleagues. If that fails, Congress should consider
instituting a four-year cooling-off period that would prohibit generals and admirals from
making partisan endorsements immediately after retiring—similar to what it did with
lobbying efforts.

Finally, military leaders must do a better job of educating service members about the
importance of nonpartisanship, including on social media. This will require clear
regulations and consistent enforcement. The same leaders should also rethink their view
of military professionalism, abandoning the notion that they have an exclusive domain
and embracing an approach that accepts the need for civilian oversight.

Other areas in need of reform, including among civilian elected leaders, are less likely to
see change. Politicians today face few repercussions for politicizing the military, and they

Politicians must stop propagating the myth that serving
in the military is a prerequisite for overseeing it.

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Topics & Regions: United States North America Security War & Military Strategy Politics
& Society U.S. Foreign Policy

have considerable incentives to continue to do so. Still, elected leaders could start to deal
with the problem by ending the practice of soliciting endorsements from retired generals.
They could also stop using the uniformed military as a backdrop for partisan political
speeches and stop running campaign advertisements that insinuate that they enjoy more
military support than their opponents. Veterans and active reservists or members of the
National Guard should also stop weaponizing their service for electoral gain. That would
mean an end to cashing in on public support for the military through campaign ads that
suggest their military service makes them superior citizens.

Politicians should also stop propagating the myth that serving in the military is a
prerequisite for overseeing it. This belief not only diminishes the important role civilians
play but also symbolically raises the military above its civilian superiors in the minds of
service members and the public. Instituting a ten-year waiting period—or at least
adhering to the existing seven-year requirement—before a retired officer can serve as
secretary of defense is a necessary step. So is valuing and investing in the contributions
of civilian expertise at all echelons in the Pentagon.

Finally, those who continue to mythologize the military in popular culture should
rebalance their portrayals. A little more M*A*S*H—the darkly comedic 1970s television
series about a U.S. Army medical unit during the Korean War—and a little less
righteous soldiering might humanize military personnel and chip away at the public’s
distorted view of the armed services. Bringing the military back down to earth and a bit
closer to the society it serves would help politicians in their effort to scrutinize military
affairs and encourage Americans to see accountability as a healthy practice in a
democratic society.

If Americans do not recognize the rot lurking beneath their idyllic vision of civilian
control, the United States’ civil-military crisis will only get worse. More than most
citizens realize, the country’s democratic traditions and national security both depend on
this delicate relationship. Without robust civilian oversight of the military, the United
States will not remain a democracy or a global power for long.

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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/united-states

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/russia

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/china

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/asia

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/europe

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/middle-east

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/tags/latin-america

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/africa

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/private-sector-frontline

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/price-trumps-power-politics

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/limits-madman-theory

http://www.cfr.org/blog/growth-hit-trumps-tariffs

http://www.cfr.org/blog/americas-disastrous-foreign-aid-withdrawal

http://www.cfr.org/article/trump-floats-us-control-gaza-and-other-headlines-day

Overview

As a member of the National Guard, you have a foot in both the military and the civilian worlds.

The information and resources in this guide can help you navigate your roles with the Guard and

in the civilian workplace.

The Uniformed Services Employment and

Reemployment Rights Act

IN THIS MILLIFE GUIDE

Overview

The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act

Civilian Employment Information

Employment limitations and employer rights

Ways to navigate civilian employment and

military service

THIS MILLIFE GUIDE IS FOR

National Guard, Service Member

EXPAND TO SEE MORE DETAILS 

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The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act  provides that an employer

must give you time off to perform military service and reemploy you following the service with

status, seniority and rate of pay as though you never left.

How does USERRA protect me?

The law ensures that you are:

Not disadvantaged in your civilian career because of your service

Promptly reemployed in your civilian job upon your return from duty

Not discriminated against in employment based on past, present or future military service

Who is eligible for protection under USERRA?

Protection applies to employees who are full time, part time or probationary. If you’ve been absent

from your civilian job due to serving in the National Guard, you need to meet the following criteria

to be eligible for protection:

Your employer had advance notice of your service.

You have five years or less of cumulative service in the uniformed services in your employment
relationship with your employer.

You return to work or apply for reemployment in a timely manner after your service is ended.

You have not been separated from service with a disqualifying discharge or under other than
honorable conditions.

Which employers does USERRA cover?

USERRA applies to all public and private employers in the United States, regardless of size. USERRA

also applies to foreign employers doing business in the United States and American companies

operating in foreign countries, unless compliance would violate the law of the foreign country in

which the workplace is located.

Independent contractors are not protected by USERRA.

What kind of discrimination does USERRA protect against?

USERRA protects service members from being denied initial employment, reemployment,

retention in employment, promotion or any employment benefit because of their relationship

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https://www.dol.gov/agencies/vets/programs/userra/aboutuserra

with the military.

Learn more about USERRA, including your rights as an employee and how to file a complaint by

visiting the U.S. Office of Special Counsel .

See Frequently Asked Questions About the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment

Rights Act for more answers to your questions.

Civilian Employment Information

Members of the Guard and reserve are required to submit information about their civilian

employer and job skills each year. This allows the Defense Department to:

Give consideration to civilian employment necessary to maintain national health, safety and

interest when considering members for recall.

Ensure that members with critical civilian skills are not retained in numbers beyond those

needed for those skills.

Inform employers of reservists of their rights and responsibilities under the Uniformed Services

Employment and Reemployment Rights Act.

You can submit your CEI annually during readiness processing or records reviews. Failing to

provide the required information could subject you to administrative or punitive action and

adversely impact your local community.

Employment limitations and employer rights

Your employer should always treat you fairly, but there are certain limitations you should be aware

of, especially with regard to your absence from the workplace.

Know your rights under federal law

Federal law guarantees you the right to take time off from work to attend to your military

responsibilities. The more that you, your boss and your personnel office know about the federal

laws and legal precedents that spell out laws protecting reserve reemployment rights, the less

chance there is for misunderstanding.

Handling your timesheet

If you miss work while you perform military service, your employer is not obligated to reschedule

you to make up the time lost. However, if employees who miss work for nonmilitary reasons are

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https://www.militaryonesource.mil/transition-retirement/national-guard-reserves/uniformed-services-employment-and-reemployment-rights-act-faqs/#questions

afforded opportunities to make up the time lost, you must be treated in the same manner. You

cannot be required to find a replacement worker for the shifts you will miss as a condition of being

given the time off by your employer to perform military service.

Using your vacation leave

Federal law allows you the option to use earned vacation while performing military service, but you

cannot be required to do so. The only case where you could be required to use your vacation would

be if your company has a planned shutdown period when everyone must take vacation, and your

military service coincides with that period of time.

Accruing vacation leave

Your employer is not required to provide for vacation accrual while you are absent from work

performing military service unless accrual is permitted for employees on nonmilitary leave of

absence of similar length.

Tracking your pay

Although some private and government employers provide full or partial civilian pay to employees

absent on military duty — usually for a limited period of time — the law requires only an unpaid

leave of absence.

Earning paid military leave as a federal employee

Federal employees are entitled to time off at full pay for certain types of active or inactive duty in

the National Guard or as a reserve of the armed forces. More information is available from the

Office of Personnel Management .

Ways to navigate civilian employment and

military service

In addition to knowing your and your employer’s rights, balancing your civilian and military

careers requires open communication and insight into how your military experiences affect you,

your employer and your coworkers. Keep the following tips in mind:

1. Be open with your boss about your National Guard service.

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https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/pay-administration/fact-sheets/military-leave/

2. Give advance notice of any drills, trainings and extra time-off requirements that may interfere

with your civilian job.

3. When schedule changes occur, notify your employer as soon as you know about them so your

boss can make plans to accommodate your absence.

4. Anticipate changes in yourself after deployment or serving in a disaster relief mission. You may

notice the following after returning to your civilian job:

The pace of work may seem slower in comparison to your military duties. It is easy to

misinterpret this as your coworkers being lazy or not caring. Remember, it is probably you

who has changed, not them. Try not to judge, criticize or make assumptions.

You may feel fatigued, even with what seems like sufficient sleep. This may be a result of

chronic stress or needing more rest than you realize. See a doctor if chronic fatigue persists.

You may feel cynical by what you witnessed during duty, or dissatisfied with the routine of

work. Most work does not provide the dramatic and immediate reinforcement, of say,

responding to a disaster. Work may seem to lack meaning and satisfaction. Counter these

feelings by incorporating the positive things you learned during your deployment into your

personal and professional life.

You may be emotional. Sometimes the combination of intense experiences, fatigue and stress

leaves you especially vulnerable to unexpected emotions. You may cry easily, be quick to

anger, or experience dramatic mood swings. These are normal reactions that typically

subside over time. In the meantime, be aware of your reactions, discuss your experiences, and

avoid making comments that might be hurtful or upsetting to others.

Coworkers and supervisors may resent that they had to take on more work because of your

absence. Let them know you appreciate their support during your deployment.

If you are experiencing distress or other employment difficulties, there are programs and services

to help you cope.

Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program

The Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program  is a Defense Department-wide effort to promote the

well-being of National Guard and reserve members, their families and communities, by

connecting them with resources throughout the deployment cycle.

Military OneSource non-medical counseling

Free and confidential non-medical counseling is available from Military OneSource. Call 800-342-

9647 or live chat to speak with a consultant.

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https://www.militaryonesource.mil/benefits/confidential-non-medical-counseling/

https://livechat.militaryonesourceconnect.org/webchat/

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