Uncivil-military relations

Posted By Stephen M. Walt Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - 11:06 AM Share

I gave a guest lecture on U.S. grand strategy at the Army War College yesterday, and got some terrific questions and comments from the officers attending the course. One of the most intriguing questions was whether withdrawal from Afghanistan would have divisive effects here at home, including a backlash against the U.S. military and the kind of wrenching experience that the United States experienced after Vietnam.

I said that this was certainly a possibility, but also not inevitable, and that a lot depended on how U.S. elites and commentators dealt with that situation were it in fact to occur. I also reminded the soldiers that defeat in Vietnam was followed by a triumphant victory in the Cold War, a mere fourteen years after Saigon fell. The lesson is that a single setback need not have catastrophic or lasting consequences, if the United States retains the core elements of national power and deploy them wisely going forward.

I thought of that exchange this morning, when I read the already-infamous Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, which contains a number of indiscreet comments about the war in Afghanistan and the way that various members of Obama administration are handling it. 

Whatever else it might mean, this article is yet another sign that the war is not going well, and the article itself paints a rather grim picture of the situation. Most of the commentary I've seen is focusing on whether McChrystal will or should be asked to resign, but I think the real question is what this tells us about the state of the war itself.  When civilian leaders or uniformed commanders (or their aides) start taking pot shots at each other in public, it tells you that they are getting frustrated and that they are looking to pin the blame for failure on someone else. You would certainly not expect to see this sort of article to appear if the campaign was going swimmingly.

McChrystal has already expressed regret for his remarks, but he's still been summoned to the White House for a one-on-one with his commander-in-chief. I don't know if he'll keep his job or not, but this sort of distraction can't be good for either Obama or the war effort. Whatever happens to McChrystal, the real question remains unresolved: What the heck are we doing in Afghanistan, and is an open-ended war there in the U.S. national interest?

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

EXPLORE:CAN MCCHRYSTAL SURVIVE?, CENTRAL ASIA, AFGHANISTAN, AFPAK CHANNEL, DISASTERS, MILITARY, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
 

LOBEWIPER

3:05 PM ET

June 23, 2010

The good news

The good news is that the Army War College is listening to Dr. Walt's views and actively engaging with them. Hopefully, the College's dialogue with him and other clear thinkers will continue and ultimately point our foreign policies in more productive directions...

 

DAN HUCK

9:21 PM ET

June 23, 2010

General McChrystal has fallen on his sword

Because military leaders with integrity, strength of character, excellent leadership abilities, great intelligence and an undivided loyalty to the USA and to the Commander in Chief are not so easy to find, it behooves our Congress, our Administration, and the private institutions of our nation to follow policy initiatives and strategies which are as unambiguous as possible. When we have treaties, to stand by those treaties; when we have principles, to not abandon those principals for the sake of profits for the few, or advantage for the advocates of the policies of foreign nations.

The loyalty and idealism, the integrity and commitment of our military are unmatched by any other branch of our government. This is not to denigrate the one, but rather to give greater credit to the other. In a certain sense, every General, every Private, think of themselves as having committed to be a 'suicide bomber' in defense of this nation, if they are called upon to give the ultimate sacrifice. We may never know if this General 'fell on his sword' for national strategy reasons or not, to make a change in policy more palatable and understandable.

But the Afghans and the generals are not the only ones who have been suffering from this fiasco. The suicide rate of our soldiers speaks directly to the reasonableness and humaneness of our policies. There is no other conceivable reason, or set of reasons, which could explain this tragedy. It is because it is the most obvious reason, that talk about it is being avoided like the plaque.

If we are ambiguous and subterranean about our national purposes and goals, if our presidents make secret promises, if our Congress and Supreme Court put the rights of capital before the rights of people, AND if we, the people allow our responsibilities of citizenship to be dictated to us by the owners of the mass media, and no longer think, but simply fanaticize on command, then America's leadership will no longer have that "mandate of heaven", and we will sink into a deep sleep, as did the people of so many great nations before us.

 

Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

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