Hagel’s nomination as secretary of defense was not
well received by most Republicans. And his performance during the confirmation
hearings did nothing to help his cause. In the end, the nomination narrowly
squeezed past a cloture vote. More than a few in Hagel’s old party gave him a
thumbs-down in the final vote.
So while Hagel has settled in at the Pentagon, he
cannot sit easy. He is a marked man. His critics will be looking for the first
misstep to call for his head. The new secretary also faces a new problem—a
possible half-trillion dollars in defense cuts on top of the approximately
half-trillion dollars in cuts he inherited. Hagel may be efficient, smart and
prudent in making the Pentagon’s ends meet. But he will still have to run a
Walmart-size company on a 7 Eleven-size budget in a world that is not much
safer than it was four years ago.
Still, neither budgets nor headhunters may prove to
be Hagel’s biggest headache. He should be most worried about the dark shadow of
sour civil-military relations.
The best take on American civil-military relations
remains the introduction to Eliot Cohen’s masterful book, Supreme Command.
Cohen makes the point that the realms of political and military decision-making
are not distinctly separate spheres. Rather, they do and should overlap.
Generals should make decisions that win battles. They shouldn’t meddle in
politics, but their military advice always ought to be suitable, feasible and
acceptable. During World War II, for example, the U.S. Army estimated that
about 10 percent of the nation’s manpower could be put in uniform without
creating a worker shortage that would undermine the capacity of industry to
sustain the armed forces. It would have made no sense for the military to ask
for a bigger force than the nation could sensibly field.
In contrast, political leaders should never
outsource the field of battle to the field marshals. Lincoln, one of the
leaders profiled in Supreme Command, quickly learned the lesson that he had to
understand war to lead the nation to victory in war.
Cohen’s case study of Lincoln captures precisely how
that small space shared between the military and political spheres demands the
very best of leaders—both civilian and military. Operating effectively requires
the right mix of trust, confidence, competence and character.
There are many signs that the bridge across the
Potomac is shaky. The president has sent plenty of signals that, beyond
reciting the usual platitudes, he doesn’t consider preserving military
readiness and defense capabilities more of a priority than keeping any other
government department humming. He was, after all, more than willing to hold
defense hostage during the sequestration debate—trying to force conservatives
in the Congress to choose between tax hikes or gutting national security (which
takes 50 percent of the sequestration cuts on top of the billions the president
has already taken off the Pentagon’s top line).
Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s top brass have a
credibility problem of their own. When the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, famously declared the national debt was
America’s number one national-security threat, many in Washington interpreted
the comment not as a warning to get the nation’s fiscal house in order but as
green light for defense cuts. Further, the current chairman and chiefs have not
been much better advocates for a strong national defense. For months, they said
virtually nothing about the dangers of the so-called sequester. Only when the
White House wanted to ratchet up pressure on Congress to axe the sequester in
favor or higher taxes did the brass start trumpeting their doom and gloom
warnings. When it comes to readiness and capabilities, the senior officer corps
is starting to look a bit like presidential sock puppets.
In the last few years, senior officers striking a
discordant note have been silenced pretty quickly. Take the case of the
surprise early retirement of Marine Corps General James Mattis, the commander
of U.S. Central Command, which watches over all the hot spots in the Middle
East. “[W]hat message does it send to the services,” writes Bing West in
National Review “when the one leader known for his war-fighting skills rather
than bureaucratic and political talents is retired early via a press handout?”
Obama’s Pentagon is starting to look a lot like
Clinton’s, where senior commanders found themselves serving a president who,
never comfortable wearing his commander-in-chief hat, was more than willing to
cut corners on national security. Ultimately, this leaves the armed services
stuck with trying to do the best they can with what is at hand.
The saving grace for Clinton was that he had Bill
Cohen as secretary of defense. Cohen worked hard to gain the trust of the
chiefs, bridge the gap between them and the White House, and protect the chiefs
from an increasingly hostile Congress. Whether Chuck Hagel can match that
performance remains an open question.
The White House is banking on the end of combat
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the president’s popularity at home, to
shift the focus away from what inevitably will be strained times at the
Pentagon. How Hagel handles the senior armed-service leaders and how much
demand there is for U.S. military force in the future may determine how well
that strategy works.
About the author: James Jay Carafano is vice
president of Foreign and Defense policy studies at The Heritage Foundation.
This article was published by The Heritage
Foundation.
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