Failing Civil-Military Relations: An Inside Job?

The safety and security of the United States depends on a healthy civil-military relationship. The Constitution grants ultimate command, authority, and responsibility over U.S. troops to the President. This authority is delegated by the President to professional military commanders to execute military operations that support the President’s policy goals. Unfortunately, when it comes to distilling civil policy goals into operational military objectives, relations between civilian and military leaders have often been frayed. In “Lead Me, Follow Me, Or Get Out Of My Way: Rethinking and Refining The Civil-Military Relationship,” a September 2012 monograph from the Strategic Studies Institute, legal scholar Mark Shulman uses the works of constitutional scholars Diane Mazur and Bruce Ackerman to evaluate internal factors complicating the civil-military relationship. He then contrasts these opinions with his own hypothesis, that external factors better explain the waning relationship.

Mazur, in her book A More Perfect Military: How the Constitution Can Make Our Military Stronger, concludes that over the last 40 years, proactive lawmakers and Supreme Court Justices have successfully walled off internal military policy from Constitutional review. She asserts that these changes have led to a growing schism between military commanders and their civilian counterparts.

In contrast to Mazur’s view of an active judiciary and largely passive military, Bruce Ackerman, in his book The Decline and Fall of the American Republic, characterizes the military as a partisan and burgeoning political power whose growing dominion threatens the traditional civil-military relationship. He cites the power of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, a “military colonization” over senior national security policy positions, and a growing partisanship of military members as evidence of an overreaching military.

Shulman asserts that while both authors bring uniquely insightful case study to bear on the problem of civil-military relations, their work lacks an appreciation of the potential external factors affecting the relationship. He identifies the “militarization of foreign relations” as an explanation for expanded military influence in the realm of political, diplomatic affairs. The size of the Department of Defense (DoD) dwarfs that of the Department of State, 3,050,000 to 29,000 personnel respectively and the DoD budget is 30 times that of the State Department. Shulman posits that the DoD’s size, resourcing, and diffused nature better explain the growing military influence in political and diplomatic affairs.

Shulman also discusses the implications of the “information revolution,” where evolving threats and new capabilities combine to blur the respective domains of civil-military policy makers. For example, it is not immediately clear when cyber warfare or the use of Remotely Piloted Aircraft is a military or a civilian function. Nor is it clear whether command and control over operations against non-state actors is a civilian or a military function. Congressional oversight mandates distinct requirements for intelligence, military, and covert action activities. Technology, however, enables activities that do not clearly align with the existing congressional oversight structure. This misalignment engenders confusion and bickering.

Regardless of the root cause of civil-military dissonance, a discussion and debate about achieving a healthy civil-military relationship is essential to meeting U.S. national security goals.

Feature Photo: cc/ (chiptape)