Warriors and Politicians: US Civil–Military Relations Under Stress
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Warriors and Politicians With historical case studies ranging from the Revolutionary War to the war in Iraq, this book shows how the US military is caught between two civilian masters – the president and the Congress – in responding to the challenges of warfi ghting, rearmament, and transformation. By exploring the role of Congress and its unique relationship with the armed forces, Charles Stevenson expands the study of civil–military relations from its usual focus on the president as commander-in-chief and shows how the US military can appeal to congressional leaders in order to resist presidential policies as well as how presidents can pressure a reluctant Congress to support his war efforts. Through analyses that range from the Revolutionary War, Civil War, and the Vietnam War to the struggles over radical innovations pushed by Theodore Roosevelt, Robert McNamara, and Donald Rumsfeld, the author demonstrates that this triangular struggle is rooted in the US Constitution and has recurred time and again throughout US history. Illustrating this dual system of civilian military control in a series of case studies, this new volume starts from the way the Continental Congress ran the Revolutionary War by committee and concludes with the George W. Bush/Donald Rumsfeld efforts to transform the US military into a modern terrorist-fi ghting force. This book will be of great interest to students of the US military, US politics, civil–military relations and of military studies in general. Charles A. Stevenson has witnessed and taught about US civil–military relations for over four decades while serving as a US Senate staffer and a professor at the National War College. He also served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff specializing in political–military and civil–military issues. He is now a Professorial Lecturer in American Foreign Policy at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Cass Military Studies Intelligence Activities in Ancient Rome Trust in the gods, but verify Rose Mary Sheldon Clausewitz and African War Politics and strategy in Liberia and Somalia Isabelle Duyvesteyn Strategy and Politics in the Middle East, 1954–60 Defending the Northern Tier Michael Cohen The Cuban Intervention in Angola, 1965–1991 From Che Guevara to Cuito Cuanavale Edward George Military Leadership in the British Civil Wars, 1642–1651 The genius of this age Stanley Carpenter Israel’s Reprisal Policy, 1953–1956 The dynamics of military retaliation Ze’ev Drory Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Second World War Enver Redzie Leaders in War: West Point Remembers the 1991 Gulf War Edited by Frederick Kagan and Christian Kubik Khedive Ismail’s Army John Dunn Yugoslav Military Industry 1918–1991 Amadeo Watkins Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914–1918 The List Regiment John Williams Rostóv in the Russian Civil War, 1917–1920 The key to victory Brian Murphy The Tet Effect, Intelligence and the Public Perception of War Jake Blood The US Military Profession into the 21st Century: War, peace and politics Edited by Sam C. Sarkesian and Robert E. Connor, Jr Civil–Military Relations in Europe Learning from crisis and institutional change Edited by Hans Born, Marina Caparini, Karl Haltiner and Jürgen Kuhlmann Strategic Culture and Ways of War Lawrence Sondhaus Military Unionism in the Post Cold War Era A future reality? Edited by Richard Bartle and Lindy Heinecken Warriors and Politicians US civil–military relations under stress Charles A. Stevenson Warriors and Politicians US civil–military relations under stress Charles A. Stevenson I~ ~~o~;~;n~~~up LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2006 by Routledge Published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2006 Charles A. Stevenson Typeset in Sabon by HWA Text and Data Management, Tunbridge Wells The Open Access version of this book, available at www. tandfebooks. com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN13: 978-0-415-77007-1 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-77008-8 (pbk) To Sue Contents List of fi gures xi Preface xii 1 Introduction: the peculiar nature of US civil–military relations 1 PART I The challenge of warfi ghting 13 2 Revolutionary war by committee 15 3 Lincoln, Congress, and the generals 30 4 Managing the Vietnam War 52 PART II The challenge of rearmament 77 5 John Adams and the politics of rearmament, 1798 79 6 Franklin Roosevelt and the politics of rearmament 93 7 Harry Truman and the politics of rearmament 114 PART III The challenge of transformation 137 8 Theodore Roosevelt and military modernization 139 x Contents 9 The McNamara revolution 152 10 The Goldwater–Nichols revolution from above 165 11 The Bush–Rumsfeld wars and transformation 177 12 Conclusions: US civil–military relations under stress 194 Notes 214 Bibliography 237 Index 248 Figures 1.1 Signing of the US Constitution, 1787 5 2.1 Washington and a Committee of Congress at Valley Forge 20 3.1 Abraham Lincoln and General George McClellan at Antietam, 1862 42 4.1 Lyndon Johnson meeting with Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1964 54 5.1 John Adams 81 6.1 Franklin Roosevelt signing the declaration of war against Japan in the presence of congressional leaders, 1941 112 7.1 Harry Truman meeting General Douglas MacArthur, 1950 132 8.1 Theodore Roosevelt reviewing naval parade off Long Island, 1903 147 9.1 Defense Secretary Robert McNamara 153 10.1 Senators Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn 172 11.1 President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld 179 12.1 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers 198 Preface Most writers on civil–military relations focus on the balance of power between the government leadership and the armed forces and defi ne civilian control in terms of the integrity of the chain of command. They ask top-down questions of command and control. Is the military truly subordinate to civil authority? How great is the danger of a military coup? When the president or prime minister gives an order, do the armed forces comply faithfully? This book has a somewhat different focus. It is about the United States, not other countries, both because I know America best and because the United States has some historically unique features which give it a more unusual system of civil–military relations. The US Constitution was framed by men distrustful of standing armies and any concentrated power. They established a government with separated institutions sharing power. In particular, they created a dual system of civilian control – direct command from the President within the Executive Branch but also control by the Legislative Branch by means of laws and money. Other countries may have strong presidents or strong prime ministers based in powerful parliaments, but few come close to America’s system of truly separate and roughly co-equal branches of power. I came to appreciate this dual system during more than two decades’ service on the staff of four US Senators. I observed and frequently participated in legislative efforts to recommend, direct, fund, and control the activities of the US armed forces and even the President. I witnessed and heard military complaints, outside the chain of command, about policies and actions of senior civilian leaders, often with entreaties to take countermanding measures. I became convinced that the US military is a very loyal and subordinate institution, but it is often cross-pressured by its two masters and it often feels compelled to turn to one for relief from the other. Later, as a professor at the National War College, I developed a course on civil–military relations organized around the dilemmas faced by senior offi cers and their civilian leaders. When and how can one dissent from offi cial policy? What are the proper roles of civilians and military leaders in planning and executing combat missions? How should military offi cers relate to the Congress? Should offi cers avoid or engage in partisan politics? I teamed with a military faculty colleague in order to counteract my own biases on these issues. We drew upon historical examples from American experience with these and other questions. Preface xiii This book is an effort to expand the examples available for study. It seeks to show how US civilian and military leaders coped with periods of extraordinary stress and controversy – fi ghting wars, rearming to meet emerging threats, and radically changing the structure and missions of the armed forces. It is not a comprehensive history of US civil–military relations. It does not cover instances, such as the conduct of the First and Second World Wars, when the president or Congress was relatively quiescent or inactive in applying their levers of civilian control. Instead, I have picked signifi cant and illustrative episodes and have tried to tell the story of how the triangular relationships worked in practice. I have discovered patterns, more continuities than change, which make me believe that this is a useful focus on the issues of civil–military relations. I am especially grateful to my colleagues over the years – in the Senate and at the National War College. They helped me to understand and apprec- iate the quite different perspectives which senior leaders bring to their responsibilities. My contribution in return, and in this book, is to explain and defend the political factors which often infl uence policy.