https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/opinion/sunday/mattis-mcmaster-foreign-policy-trump.html?ref=opinion
The Generals and Donald Trump
There is supposedly a tradition in the US that the military is subservient to civilian elected government. This is not anchored in the Constitution, but is generally assumed to be a necessary condition for liberal (in the sense of The Enlightenment, not in the sense of current American politics) democratic governance.
There is ample historic evidence that direct military involvement in governance virtually always leads no non-liberal, dictatorial governments.
In the US this separation between the military and civilian governments is not absolute. We have had a number of (former) military leaders elected President and we have had many former military officers serve effectively in civilian governments. Participation by active military in “partisan” political activity is prohibited by statutes (Ex. Title 10 U.S. Code § 113 and DoD Directives (DoD Directive 1344.10).
Of all recent Presidents, Donald Trump has aggressively gone against this tradition, and possibly against statutes, by the number of former and active-duty military officers (primarily Generals) in his administration. Aside from the somewhat worrisome personality traits which cause Donald Trump to turn to military advisors, at the very least this is worrisome in both domestic and international policy-making in that it gives excessive voice to the somewhat one-sided preferences for military-style solutions; a more bleak interpretation is that it sets the stage for a militarization of government in general.
There is another characteristic of the American psyche, that of excessive patriotic fervor whenever talking about military actions and military personnel, which could further encourage this militarization of formerly civilian governance. I hale from a country (Germany) where such almost blind trust in, and adulation of the military, first in the Prussian tradition and then the NAZI regime, led to complete collapse of liberal, democratic, civilian control of government.
Our recent history shows a number of worrisome examples of high-level military officers committing near-treasonous acts - David Petraeus divulging classified information to his mistress, Michael Flynn having unauthorized contacts with Russian and Turkish officials, possibly working against stated US policies and interests.
Unfortunately, even an almost universally praised General like H.R. McMaster, once faced with the real-world need to follow his own professional, ethical and moral conscience, failed disastrously. In his public comments regarding the divulging of highly secret information to the Russians in the Oval Office (with only Russian media and no US media present), McMaster’s comments were, at the very least deceptive, if not outright lies.
Donald Trump telegraphed his low opinion of “Generals” during the election (“I know more about ISIS than all the Generals”), and the Generals who joined his administration are continually being emasculating, the latest being the Tweet about transgender people serving in the military, catching the entire military hierarchy unprepared.
And now he has appointed another highly respected General, John F. Kelly, to be White House Chief of Staff. Just as McMasters and Kelly have essentially failed to be the stabilizing, rational forces in US foreign and military policy (which are in complete disarray) and have done irreparable harm to their reputations, Kelly will fail to reign in the complete chaos in the White House and domestic policy making.
Generals are trained to exercise power and leadership through the strict adherence and enforcement of the “chain of command”. This works against them in this White House in two ways: the “chain of command” almost instinctively makes them follow the lead of the President, even a deranged one, and their “chain of command” power downward in the Trump White House either does not exist (Kushner, Ivanka and now Scaramucci seem to be explicitly exempt from this chain of command), or is made a mockery of by the chaotic and despicable behavior of President Donald Trump.
The Generals will not save us from Donald Trump.
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