by Brett Tinder
We are not political pundits. Our service does not strip us of our rights to vote, but faithful adherence to American civil-military relations requires an ambivalence to political change. An apolitical military benefits the American people by ensuring we remain an instrument of national policy as voted on during elections, and it benefits the military by encouraging consensus on our budget and the priorities supported therein. This separation is more important than ever as our society remains substantially polarized. We should help junior leaders, especially those graduating from America’s military academies, understand the foundations of the American civil-military relationship and why it benefits the force they will soon lead.
You can count on one hand the number of military leaders whose primary decision-making consideration is a political one. A long-range training calendar is not a political document, nor is a marksmanship range risk assessment, nor are change of command inventories. This is where the vast majority of the force spends its time, and political outcomes are irrelevant to it. A rotation at the National Training Center occupies months of a unit’s attention span and does not require a political ideology; it requires a tactical SOP. The tenet of an apolitical military is a good idea, but not a new one.
The Foundations of U.S. Civil-Military Relations
The philosophical nexus for America’s system of civil-military relations begins with Plato’s treatise on the city-state, “The Republic.” Plato elevates the duty of a “guardian” above those of a shoemaker, husband, or weaver, concluding that war requires expertise and that guardians would be selected based on their nature. Guardians needed to possess certain physical qualities, like speed and strength, along with an indomitable spirit. These bodily qualities would ensure the city-state’s guardians could defeat their enemies in war. Plato realizes that these characteristics can lead to barbarism, and notes that guardians must be “dangerous to their enemies, and gentle to their friends … if not, they will destroy themselves without waiting for their enemies to destroy them.” Plato’s guardian concept emphasizes a separation from the rest of society. They are to “dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom of the State … [and] not practise or imitate anything else.” If they aspire to anything else, it should be only to those who are “courageous, temperate, holy, free.”
By remaining apart from the society they guard, guardians will naturally prioritize defense of the state above all else and avoid the “baseless or illiberality” of internal quarreling. Their virtue, inculcated with proper education, will prevent them from preying on the citizenry despite their power. Plato’s concept of the city-state guardian, specifically its duality of physical capability and appreciation of philosophy and knowledge, is key to later civil-military theory developed by authors Samuel P. Huntington and Eliot A. Cohen.
The framers of the U.S. Constitution sought a more institutional check on the military, rooting civilian control in America’s founding document. Standing armies were the hallmark of European monarchies, and many early Americans considered them the greatest threat to liberty. In writing the Constitution, the framers sought to empower the government to raise an Army and a Navy capable of defending the young nation from powerful European countries, but not strong enough to threaten state autonomy. In Federalist No. 8, Alexander Hamilton appeals to early America’s distrust of standing armies to rally support for a central government. Without a capable central government to mediate conflict, neighboring states would war and create standing state armies to protect their borders from being overrun. This would lead to a perpetual state of war similar to Europe, which in turn would lead to tyranny because “it is the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of legislative authority.” Distrust of standing armies is why the framers cemented civilian control of the military in the Constitution and divided its control between the unitary executive and distributive legislature. Instead of banning a standing army altogether, they diffused its power and required both branches to be responsible for its deployment.
Article II, Section 2, designates the President as the “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.” The framers do not make the President the administrator or commissioner of the military; they make him the “Commander in Chief.” The militaristic title is notable and makes clear they intended the President to supersede all lower commands within the armed forces, establishing an unmistakable chain of command culminating in civil authority. While the framers wanted an energetic executive capable of decisively employing the military against foreign threats, they understood that war emboldened the unitary executive and created the conditions for monarchy.
Article II, Section 8, grants Congress the power to declare war, “raise and support Armies … provide and maintain a Navy … and provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia.” Shared control of the military has characterized the relationship between the President and Congress ever since.
How Does Today’s System Work?
Modern American civil-military infrastructure is an evolution of successive reform efforts and legislative action. Fear of standing armies limited the military’s development during America’s first 150 years. In 1789, the War Department was created as one of just four federal departments. Overseen by a Secretary of War, the department directed the mobilization and maintenance of the U.S. Army. Throughout much of the 19th century, the military remained a sub-professional organization comprised of Regulars and augmented by local militias. The military did not become a dominant player in national security policy until after WWII. The National Security Act (NSA) of 1947 established key civilian offices, notably the National Security Council and the Secretary of Defense. The war made clear the need for “interdepartmental coordination of political-military affairs” in late 1944, creating the civilian secretaries of service to shift strategic decision-making from commanding generals to civilian leaders within the national policy-making process.
America’s expanded role as a global security guarantor necessitated a large civil-military establishment to coordinate and deploy state power. The Office of the Secretary of Defense, which began as a “weak coordinator”, was strengthened by the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. The act addressed exigencies from inter-departmental strife after the Korean War by resetting civilian judgment into the military establishment. It clarified the military chain of command from combatant commanders to the Secretary of Defense to the president. The act also required high-performing military officers in certain ranks to acquire “joint time,” or service within the Joint Chiefs of Staff, beginning their development as future resources for the nation’s top civilian leadership.
Civil-Military Relations “Infrastructure”
Today, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) is expansive and enhances civilian control through both Congress and the executive branch. Not including the Secretary of Defense, OSD includes 22 senior government officials to oversee defense policy, acquisition, finances, intelligence and security, research and engineering, and personnel. The office is authorized 13 assistant secretary of defense billets. Within each service [Army, Navy, etc.], each uniformed chief of staff is paired with a civilian secretary and, in some services, an assistant secretary if that service has an assistant chief of staff. This robust civil-military “infrastructure” ensures the military is led by civilian leadership. If war is a policy by other means, then civilian control of the military ensures that policy is endorsed by the public.
Why should we care?
Civilian control of the military is not just a guard against the tyranny of the guardians; it enhances the service’s ability to recruit and be prepared to compete with China. Recent national defense strategies (NDS) require the military to win in an increasingly complex global environment of rival great powers that will stretch its understanding of traditional land, air, and sea domains, and require a highly trained workforce in specialized fields. To compete in cyber and space domains, a recent NDS calls for “recruiting, developing, and retaining high-quality military and civilian” leaders who can integrate new capabilities into a new approach. The military will cultivate a “modern, agile, information-advantaged Department [of] motivated, diverse, and highly skilled” members. This puts the DoD in direct competition with high-paying, private industry recruiting agencies for top talent. Unable to compete on pay, the military must appeal to recruits’ sense of service. If they believe the military is a political tool, will they join?
If political stigmatization can threaten the American people’s trust in the military, junior leaders have a responsibility to focus on warfighting and eschew the political arena. Politics now permeates the internet at a time when many young people are chronically online. Because it has never been easier to voice your political opinion, it has never been more important to understand why we have the system we do. Upholding the virtue of an apolitical military is part of a tradition dating back through Plato, expanded by America’s founding fathers, and codified by legislative action. It is a hallmark of modern democracies and is integral to civil-military relations, which confers equal benefits on the populace as it does on the military.
Brett Tinder is a United States Army Major and an artillery officer. He currently serves as a Battalion Operations Officer in 75th Field Artillery Brigade. Previously, he completed the Army’s Congressional Fellowship Program, where he worked on Capitol Hill as a defense advisor to Rep. Joe Wilson (House Armed Services Committee) and in the Army Budget Office at the Pentagon.
