Generals and politics.
I have a couple of comments to add to Dave's take on the article by Paul Yingling in Armed Forces Journal blasting the state of U.S. generalship.
Without calling anybody out (e.g. Tommy Franks) Yingling argues that the failure of the U.S. generalship to plan for and to adequately advise civilian leadership on the risks and difficulties of invading Iraq and managing the aftermath. And, under the heading "The Generals We Need" he says the problem is institutional: the U.S. procedure for promoting generals is broken:
Neither the executive branch nor the services themselves are likely to remedy the shortcomings in America's general officer corps. Indeed, the tendency of the executive branch to seek out mild-mannered team players to serve as senior generals is part of the problem. The services themselves are equally to blame. The system that produces our generals does little to reward creativity and moral courage. Officers rise to flag rank by following remarkably similar career patterns. Senior generals, both active and retired, are the most important figures in determining an officer's potential for flag rank. The views of subordinates and peers play no role in an officer's advancement; to move up he must only please his superiors. In a system in which senior officers select for promotion those like themselves, there are powerful incentives for conformity. It is unreasonable to expect that an officer who spends 25 years conforming to institutional expectations will emerge as an innovator in his late forties.
Yingling says the responsibility for fixing the way generals are selected, promoted, protected and held accountable goes to Congress. He thinks Congress should force the armed services to focus more on the view of subordinates and peers, rather than just superiors, in evaluating and promoting generals; that the Senate in their confirmation process and evaluation should pay more attention to their academic and non-military credentials in subjects like languages and humanities; and (of course), both Houses should force the generals to speak more candidly in hearings about the costs and complexities of war. Maybe more interesting, he suggests that Congress burnish more liberally its already existent right to strip or demote rank from retiring three- or four-star generals whose performance was obviously poor or scandalous.
The bit about generals and the Executive, though, made me think about Lawrence Kaplan's article from three years ago on the politicization of the office corps:
...If the pattern of senior officers retiring and endorsing candidates becomes the norm, it won't be long before generals find themselves promoted on the basis of political affiliation rather than expertise. What president, after all, would want advice from an officer who, a year from now, might be denouncing him on the Today show? (The Clinton team didn't; in at least one instance, it asked a candidate for promotion what party he belonged to.) Politicization, then, creates the danger that presidents will end up with yes-men rather than military professionals, a phenomenon whose downsides became famously apparent when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell Taylor surrendered his critical faculties during the run-up to the war in Vietnam.
The politicization also may have a longer-term pernicious effect. There is a reason--beyond the Constitution--that political neutrality and military professionalism go hand in hand: As the nonpartisan ethos of the Armed Forces weakens, so, too, can traditional measures of military effectiveness. "Politicization erodes the cohesion, morale, and professional dedication of the officer corps," says Kohn, who points to a hemorrhage of officers during the Clinton era as evidence of what follows when the military adopts partisan views and expectations. And it has: According to a survey taken by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies before the 2000 election, 64 percent of officers identify with the Republican Party, twice the percentage who did two decades before, and only 8 percent list themselves as Democrats. Given recent history, this may stand to reason. But, now more than ever, the Armed Forces need to be able to retain officers, maintain morale, and operate effectively, regardless of the party in the White House.
A couple of things. First, that 64-8 ratio had likely changed considerably by the 2004 election and certainly by the advent of the post-Rumsfeld era. Second, Kaplan (a neocon) traces the seeking of partisan help within the military mainly to the past fifteen years and the Clinton Administration's need to create at least some allies in the officer corps, which doesn't jibe entirely with Yingling's argument that the failures in Iraq more or less perfectly shadow those in Vietnam. Third, the generals in question are retired -- though the ability to become a political player in retirement can still be a pretty big incentive in a general's life.
Still, the scenario makes sense. The hawkishness of the two parties is currently more or less the inverse of what it was in the mid 60s (with one moderately hawkish and one very hawkish party), but partisanship in America, at least in terms of the unlikelihood of voting against party ID or switching votes in consecutive presidential elections, is higher than ever. America really is two cultural/political blocs, though the blocs themselves are pretty diverse. So the notion of Republican generals afraid or disinclined to speak against a Republican president who they identify as representing and respecting their, and their institution's best interests, is pretty credible. And scary. Bush might be a "bad apple", but he still represents the "good barrel" for generals. If there's any chance you might be proved wrong by events and held accountable by future Republican administrations or campaigns, you don't speak against him or his plans publicly. (Or, like Tony McPeak or John Shalikashvili in 2004, you break entirely and line up with the opposition, like going through a messy divorce.) The Bushies are bad enough at lining up hacks and yes-men; they, and their successors, hardly need the yes-man incentive built into the military structures from which they draw.
Without calling anybody out (e.g. Tommy Franks) Yingling argues that the failure of the U.S. generalship to plan for and to adequately advise civilian leadership on the risks and difficulties of invading Iraq and managing the aftermath. And, under the heading "The Generals We Need" he says the problem is institutional: the U.S. procedure for promoting generals is broken:
Neither the executive branch nor the services themselves are likely to remedy the shortcomings in America's general officer corps. Indeed, the tendency of the executive branch to seek out mild-mannered team players to serve as senior generals is part of the problem. The services themselves are equally to blame. The system that produces our generals does little to reward creativity and moral courage. Officers rise to flag rank by following remarkably similar career patterns. Senior generals, both active and retired, are the most important figures in determining an officer's potential for flag rank. The views of subordinates and peers play no role in an officer's advancement; to move up he must only please his superiors. In a system in which senior officers select for promotion those like themselves, there are powerful incentives for conformity. It is unreasonable to expect that an officer who spends 25 years conforming to institutional expectations will emerge as an innovator in his late forties.
Yingling says the responsibility for fixing the way generals are selected, promoted, protected and held accountable goes to Congress. He thinks Congress should force the armed services to focus more on the view of subordinates and peers, rather than just superiors, in evaluating and promoting generals; that the Senate in their confirmation process and evaluation should pay more attention to their academic and non-military credentials in subjects like languages and humanities; and (of course), both Houses should force the generals to speak more candidly in hearings about the costs and complexities of war. Maybe more interesting, he suggests that Congress burnish more liberally its already existent right to strip or demote rank from retiring three- or four-star generals whose performance was obviously poor or scandalous.
The bit about generals and the Executive, though, made me think about Lawrence Kaplan's article from three years ago on the politicization of the office corps:
...If the pattern of senior officers retiring and endorsing candidates becomes the norm, it won't be long before generals find themselves promoted on the basis of political affiliation rather than expertise. What president, after all, would want advice from an officer who, a year from now, might be denouncing him on the Today show? (The Clinton team didn't; in at least one instance, it asked a candidate for promotion what party he belonged to.) Politicization, then, creates the danger that presidents will end up with yes-men rather than military professionals, a phenomenon whose downsides became famously apparent when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell Taylor surrendered his critical faculties during the run-up to the war in Vietnam.
The politicization also may have a longer-term pernicious effect. There is a reason--beyond the Constitution--that political neutrality and military professionalism go hand in hand: As the nonpartisan ethos of the Armed Forces weakens, so, too, can traditional measures of military effectiveness. "Politicization erodes the cohesion, morale, and professional dedication of the officer corps," says Kohn, who points to a hemorrhage of officers during the Clinton era as evidence of what follows when the military adopts partisan views and expectations. And it has: According to a survey taken by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies before the 2000 election, 64 percent of officers identify with the Republican Party, twice the percentage who did two decades before, and only 8 percent list themselves as Democrats. Given recent history, this may stand to reason. But, now more than ever, the Armed Forces need to be able to retain officers, maintain morale, and operate effectively, regardless of the party in the White House.
A couple of things. First, that 64-8 ratio had likely changed considerably by the 2004 election and certainly by the advent of the post-Rumsfeld era. Second, Kaplan (a neocon) traces the seeking of partisan help within the military mainly to the past fifteen years and the Clinton Administration's need to create at least some allies in the officer corps, which doesn't jibe entirely with Yingling's argument that the failures in Iraq more or less perfectly shadow those in Vietnam. Third, the generals in question are retired -- though the ability to become a political player in retirement can still be a pretty big incentive in a general's life.
Still, the scenario makes sense. The hawkishness of the two parties is currently more or less the inverse of what it was in the mid 60s (with one moderately hawkish and one very hawkish party), but partisanship in America, at least in terms of the unlikelihood of voting against party ID or switching votes in consecutive presidential elections, is higher than ever. America really is two cultural/political blocs, though the blocs themselves are pretty diverse. So the notion of Republican generals afraid or disinclined to speak against a Republican president who they identify as representing and respecting their, and their institution's best interests, is pretty credible. And scary. Bush might be a "bad apple", but he still represents the "good barrel" for generals. If there's any chance you might be proved wrong by events and held accountable by future Republican administrations or campaigns, you don't speak against him or his plans publicly. (Or, like Tony McPeak or John Shalikashvili in 2004, you break entirely and line up with the opposition, like going through a messy divorce.) The Bushies are bad enough at lining up hacks and yes-men; they, and their successors, hardly need the yes-man incentive built into the military structures from which they draw.
2 Comments:
It's interesting that during the period I spent on exchange with the US Navy most of the officers, particularly senior officers, actually had a very obvious political leaning. I found that strange since in Canada (and Britain) the "warrior class" consider all politicians malleable and requiring training in the needs of the armed forces.
The typical US military officer I encountered was openly Republican, precisely for the reasons you describe: they felt the Republicans would promote their institutions.
The deeper thinkers, in my opinion, were more likely to be Democrats. It's not that the Democrats were going to do great things with the armed forces, because they weren't, but that there was a greater chance that they would rationalize the various needs against the cost of maintenance.
Oddly, it is the Democrats who have more often provided the generals with what they asked for. Unfortunately, that wasn't always the wisest thing to do, but so it goes.
Ya, but....
How many GenGens were part of the WHIG?
.
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