Fire All the Generals
My Fleming Foundation article
Fire All the Generals
By John Seiler
Long ago when Trump first took office, I advised him on Fleming Foundation to fire all his generals. Including the admirals. Instead, he packed them into his administration: Gen. Mattis, Gen. Kelly, Gen. McMaster. The only good one, Gen. Flynn, got railroaded by Trump’s own “Justice” Department, then later exonerated.
I mentioned the late military analyst Peter Huber, a retired Naval officer who argued for purging all the generals before his untimely death. He pointed out the top brass not only was incompetent, but existed to pass through the revolving door to the civilian side of the Military-Industrial Complex, collecting millions along the way. That’s why they always pushed more and more wars for more and more MIC profits. He said fire them all down to full-bird colonel. The lt.-colonels run everything anyway.
An excellent article in Foreign Affairs doesn’t go that far, but is titled, “Crisis of Command: America’s Broken Civil-Military Relationship Imperils National Security.” It came out in the May/June number, so it’s not a reaction to the ongoing Afghanistan disaster.
They write: “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.”
That’s why all the generals should be fired.
“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 have little practical control if generals dictate all the options or slow their implementation—as they often do now.”
That’s why all the generals should be fired.
“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.”
But the public doesn’t know what’s going on, and never will. Few any more have served in the military. And even if they had, the WWII generation botched Vietnam though most of the men had served.
Which is why all the generals should be fired.
“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.”
Obama should have fired all the other generals, too.
“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.”
He should have fired all the generals.
“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.”
That’s why all the generals should be fired.
“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).”
Why, oh why, did Trump put these generals in charge?
“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.”
Trump should have called Nagl and Yingling back to active service – which the Commander-in-Chief can do – and send them to lead platoons in Afghanistan.
“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.”
Why did Trump and Biden do this? We certainly have enough civilians who can perform these roles.
Finally, it’s significant this article appeared in Foreign Affairs. I have called it “the Establishment talking to itself.” It’s published by the Council on Foreign Relations, the most powerful such body on the planet. So even the Establishment is getting tired of these loser generals running our military, and our country, into the Slough of Despond.