American Military Culture and Civil-Military Relations Today CHARLIE DUNLAP Review of Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon (Simon & Schuster 2016)

If you’re like me, you may dread long military detention, our strategic deafness plane trips, not out of anxiety about flying, about Africa, stability operations, drones, but rather out of fear of being stuck next covert operations, cyber, nonlethal to a loquacious but studiously uninformed weapons, the militarization of foreign traveler. But if your seatmate happens to policy, and much more. be Rosa Brooks, you know you’re going to have an interesting and thoughtful ride. If The wide range of topics in How you aren’t sure that’s going to happen Everything Became War is perhaps less for anytime soon, however, consider bringing its own sake than to point to the along her new book, How Everything interconnections between them, and also Became War and the Military Became to show the structure of national security Everything: Tales from the Pentagon. decision-making on a day-to-day basis and (Full disclosure, my friend Rosa—I’ll refer the many offices of government and to her in this review as Rosa, rather than officials — far beyond simply the Professor Brooks—very kindly listed me in Department of Defense and a handful of her book’s acknowledgements.) intelligence agencies — involved in making them. These are weighty topics, Though subtitled “Tales from the but the book proceeds in a deceptively Pentagon,” this book is not some sort of easy narrative tone, revealing Rosa’s mindless “tell-all” by a former government skill’s as a journalist. It opens, for official. Instead it’s a thoughtful analysis example, with an account of sitting in an of national security in a capacious sense, “anonymous Pentagon conference room … as seen by a former journalist turned listening as briefers from the military’s Georgetown law professor turned Special Operations command went over Pentagon official turned defense thinker. plans for an impending strike against a How Everything Became War is one of terrorist operative.” those rare books in which there is no part not worth reading; moreover, it addresses I say “deceptively easy” narrative, because an astonishing number of issues for a although How Everything Became War volume of this length. You’ll learn about often uses Rosa’s own experiences working such diverse security issues as piracy, in the Pentagon for a little over two years

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— not, interestingly, as a practicing mean. And that’s just within the national lawyer, but instead as a senior advisor to security community of the executive Under Secretary of Defense Michele branch; the gaps in understanding and Flournoy — its point is not memoir as trust are often even larger when extended such. Rather, Rosa uses her experiences, to the whole of government. set against her own self-described background as the product of a family of “left-wing antiwar activists” with many II prior assumptions about the US military, to probe into the interior functioning of Although much of How Everything Became the American national security apparatus War is about these “processes” internal to and American military culture. the US national security community — ways decisions are reached and policies As she says, the two years she spent in the and actions taken — it also has many Pentagon were “strange, almost surreal in interesting discussions about substantive their intensity” and she was simply too policies themselves. The development of busy while in the job to be able to autonomous weapons is one, and it is contemplate or analyze deeper questions another area where I find myself in about the structure of America’s national violent agreement with the book. Arguing security institutions. That’s the point of that autonomous weapons might “be more this book — to undertake the serious capable of behaving far more humanely analysis — and it might be thought of as than we might assume” (and possibly an exercise in "deep" journalism or more humanely than humans in many perhaps anthropology. Especially strong situations), she demonstrates her are Rosa’s observations as to how and why readiness to risk her street cred with the contemporary civil-military relations are human rights community with which she marred by mistrust and has long been associated, and particularly misunderstandings at the senior levels of and associated government, and how this plays out on a advocacy organizations’ “killer robots” day-to-day basis. campaign calling for an outright ban on these weapons. Her account of dealing with a civilian counterpart on the National Security This is not to say that everyone will agree Council, for example, who simply called up with everything she has to say. I one day asking — telling — the Pentagon disagreed with her on more than a few of to shift a surveillance drone platform from the issues. For example, she speaks whatever it was doing for Central regretfully (as do many others) of not Command, to monitor political events in being able to close Guantanamo. Kyrgyzstan bears reading in full (pp. 307- Although I think the President ought to 311). The NSC staffer evidently thought have the authority to do so, I also believe calling for shifting a surveillance drone the evidence is scant that its closure and its support was something akin to would markedly change anyone’s opinion ordering up a Big Mac; moreover, he of the U.S. or alter terrorist behavior one seemed not to understand that neither he scintilla, and may even create a whole new nor Rosa had the authority to order set of issues. Central Command to do this. Her experience illustrates that there are Apart from straight-up disagreement on civilian officials who should (and need to) several issues, in some cases I found know better — not only clueless as to how myself disappointed with the one- the military works but also having a sidedness of her treatment of some topics. skewed understanding of what “civil- Her hostility to drone warfare is one military relations” really is supposed to example; it’s not that her arguments don’t

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have merit, but rather it’s the failure to (i.e., 2012), I said that the “one institution articulate the other side of the argument of government in which the people with the same rigor. In fairness to the retained faith was the military. Buoyed book, however, it takes up so many topics by the military’s obvious competence in that I finally came to realize that it was the First Gulf War, the public increasingly simply not possible for her to address turned to it for solutions to the country’s every aspect (to include all opposing views problems.” and interpretations) of every issue. That said, the reader needs to understand that Fast forward from 1992 to 2016 and Rosa there are other perspectives and says Americans view the military “as the interpretations. only reasonably well-functioning public institution we have these days [and,] as a How Everything Became War has one result, Americans increasingly treat the theme, indicated by the book’s title, of military as an all-purpose tool for fixing special importance in both civil-military anything that happens to be broken.” affairs and regarding American society True, but it would be an interesting more broadly. This is her observation discussion to address that phenomenon (often made but given an especially more broadly, as it so clearly predates shrewd discussion in this book) that more 9/11. How Everything Became War also and more matters are being given to the makes, however, a number of critiques of military to solve, even though it may not the U.S. military establishment. It offers a be the best entity to attempt to do so or an catalogue of prescriptions to radically entity that even has the capability of change its organization; most of these are doing so. This handover, or desire to hand proposals familiar to Lawfare readers as tasks over, arises in no small part because they are frequent topics of discussion in military is seemingly the only institution Washington think tanks. of government left standing in the public mind with any serious credibility. While agreeing with much she has to say regarding reform, I still would counsel Several other reviews of this book have caution, given the current popularity just appeared to take the view that this noted of the military among Americans phenomenon is a product of 9/11 and the (polls show the public has overwhelmingly public embrace of the US military in the more confidence in it that any other entity years following. It seems unlikely that it in our society), and the fact that virtually would have happened following 9/11 if all analysts believe it to be the world’s that public credibility had not grown in strongest. It’s axiomatic that any change earlier years. And in a 1991 seminal essay in the existing formula that has produced in (“Military Efficiency”) an institution so popular at home and so James Fallows mused on the many things respected abroad needs powerful the military seemed able to accomplish justification to overcome the maxim of “if and said: “I’m beginning to think that the it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” only way to get the national government to do anything worthwhile is to invent a security threat and turn the job over to III the military.” This important aspect of American civil-military affairs has a long Of course, even the best organizations pedigree. Moreover, a journalist, justly need to evolve, but change can produce lauding Rosa’s book, reminded me of a unintended, negative consequences. For futuristic article I myself wrote in 1992 example, Rosa criticizes the military’s that was deeply influenced by Fallow’s fitness and age requirements as keeping essay. In describing what I thought the people with high-tech skills out of the world would be like twenty years hence military. But in a nation of 310 million

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people, enlisting a fit, young, and skilled focus their practices narrowly, and take cadre for the relatively small number of years to acquire their special expertise; people (less than 1% of population) the few would say that an outsider could military requires is hardly an practice competently via occasional forays, impossibility. The strategic costs — both even if endowed with a “partner” at home and abroad — of a force perceived appellation.) as unfit, aged, and potentially out-of-touch could be very great. (Parenthetically, in Even more important are the intangibles today’s combat theaters, every soldier can that can only be acquired by being part of find him or herself in a physically- the armed forces themselves for an demanding situation, regardless of job extended period. It is easy for civilians to title.) think that military occupations are interchangeable with a seemingly similar She also suggests that the military ought job in civilian life. However, the eminent to send its “ten brightest young officers off military historian John Keegan (who, to Silicon Valley for a few years.” though without military experience Obviously, there could be benefits in himself, taught for years at the British learning the ways of the byte barons. But military academy Sandhurst) relates Silicon Valley is not only one of the something worth pondering, based on his poshest and wealthiest places on the “life cast among warriors.” Soldiers, he planet, it’s also imbued with what one said, writer calls a culture of “self-importance and greed” — the very antipathy of the are not as other men … [that] lesson values the military wants to inculcate into has taught me to view with extreme its “brightest young officers.” On a more suspicion all theories and practical level, how confident are we that representations of war that equate it a soldier’s family (which so often dictates with any other activity in human whether a soldier stays or leaves the affairs … Connection does not military), having enjoyed the privileges amount to identity or even to and luxuries of Silicon Valley life, will be similarity …. War … must be fought satisfied with the working-class environs by men whose values and skills and the torrid summers of, say, a dusty [differ] … . They are those of a world and remote (but inexplicably named) Ft. apart, a very ancient world, which Bliss, TX? exists in parallel with the everyday world but does not belong to it. How Everything Became War further contends that, since relatively few One may argue whether lawyers and the positions in the military involve direct many others specialties Rosa believes are combat, they could be filled — à la World readily substitutable with civilians are War II — with persons drawn from “warriors,” but the real point is that in civilian life, costumed in a uniform, and order to be truly effective at these awarded a rank that ordinarily requires putatively “civilian” endeavors within years to earn. One of the examples she military culture, one must embrace a “life uses is that of a lawyer. Though this cast among warriors.” It really is that might smack of special pleading, I would simple. Apart from everything else, it is a suggest that the legal environment has mistake for a civilian to think that a changed markedly since World War II, military member, especially at the senior and it takes a lot of time to fully levels, will usually — or, maybe, ever — understand the intricacies and difficulties trust them as much as a fellow career of the “business” of this highly unusual servicemember. The bond of shared and unique “client.” (Indeed, the most experience is real, and means much in the sophisticated civilian lawyers these days military context.

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IV Cold War was conducted with many hot encounters and conflicts, fought through One of the great strengths of the book — proxy forces and using tools of covert and the underpinning of its theme — is action and deliberately blurred conditions her cogent tutorial on the evolution of of attribution, on both sides, in part efforts to use law to “tame” war. She because both sides wished to avoid a includes in that account a discussion of nuclear confrontation. the role of military lawyers (she calls them, affectionately — I think — “Boy The “peacetime” of the Cold War is Scouts”) since 9/11. What was especially perhaps the norm that the present most revealing — intriguing — to me was the resembles, including not just degree of hostility some Bush-era civilian transnational terrorists and non-state lawyers evinced towards attorneys in armies, but also the re-entry of Russia uniform, mainly, it seems, because those into the military history of the world — military lawyers did not share the then- and not in a good way. Perhaps, too, the Administration’s views on certain clean bright lines of the “binary” legal fundamental law of war and other issues. conception should be considered as a temporary construction made possible How Everything Became War's central during the golden years following the end premise here is that, historically, the of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet human condition has typically been a Union, in which international great power binary state, that is, at either war or struggles were muted under the umbrella peace. This circumstance, Rosa contends, of U.S. power. If so, then some form of the is fundamentally different today because “hybrid” legal regime that Rosa proposes of the rise of potent non-state belligerents is not so much as novelty as a reversion to and technology-empowered terrorists. She the historical mean of just how messy makes the not-implausible argument that ordinary “peace” can be. since today we live in a world that is not quite peace and not quite war, current law And in any case, the law of war is itself is inadequate, because it grounded in an evolutionary. The International Military unrealistic binary. She contends that Tribunal at Nuremberg concluded that the today nations seek to implement “law is not static, but by continual mechanistically either the peacetime legal adaption follows the needs of a changing regime or the war convention, despite the world.” True today? Consider how quickly fact that neither paradigm quite applies to the international community has gone contemporary reality. This leads her to from eschewing attacks against economic advocate some sort of new, hybrid set of targets to virtually carpet bombing laws to address this blurriness. Islamic State oil fields. Cyber? We now have the Tallinn Manual — which is a I suspect that military historians will take testament to the feasibility of applying issue with her proposal, as there are existing law to new technology. (And plenty of examples of conflicts that Tallinn 2.0 is on the way.) involved irregular fighter, terrorists, and exploitative criminals. There has always been a mixture of threats and enemy V capabilities. The history of armed engagements, small or large, involving How Everything Became War also seems U.S. military forces over the past, say, 100 to believe that the law of war paradigm years shows, if anything, that small-scale has come at the cost of human rights. engagements and uses of military force or Putting aside what occurred in the its threat are long-running features of the aftermath of 9/11, the fact is that today American experience of “peacetime.” The military operations, at least as conducted

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by the US and its allies, are far more York) found that only 32% of Americans constrained than the law of war would thought that the government’s anti- permit. Indeed, if there is a criticism to be policies “have gone too far in leveled (and both Presidential candidates restricting the average person’s civil seem to have done so), it’s that the air war liberties” while a whopping 53% believe against the Islamic State has not been “they have not gone far enough to prosecuted to the fullest extent that the adequately protect the country.” As law would permit. The real human rights terrorist incidents persist, any attempt to and moral issue today is not too- adjust the domestic legal framework may aggressive military action on the part of end with something much at odds with the US and its allies, but rather policy- what Rosa and the human rights-centered driven inaction. community would seem to want.

In addition to the international legal Frankly, it also isn’t clear to me that scene, a major portion of the book is spent creating in essence a third legal regime, enumerating what Rosa sees as flaws in a either international or domestically, will domestic legal scheme that, in her opinion, result in the clarity and simplicity Rosa yields too often to the perceived needs of desires, at least not if it’s supposed to be a security. Her criticisms generally (but not genuinely new kind of law and not simply always) track those of privacy advocates, a return, especially in , human rights organizations, and left-of- to the ways states have actually center progressives. Her perspective in understood things and acted and regarded this area is unapologetically one of an as lawful under existing paradigms of law. advocate, not a dispassionate elucidator of The problem with the binary legal view — opposing sides. That understood, is she including thinking that it creates right that we need real change in both problems that require solving through a international and domestic law? genuinely new legal paradigm — is that the law was never cleanly binary in the A guarded “maybe” is all I can muster. first place. Caution is (again) merited, as international law regulating conflict is And more law doesn’t necessary produce already under stress. Moreover, almost better solutions. “Grey area” cases will every initiative for change — largely continue to arise, and their resolution will coming from the human rights community always be fact-specific. Is it hard to divine — is aimed at further endowing non-state the applicable law and to apply it actors with additional legal rights and appropriately in many (most?) privileges (despite their utter contempt for circumstances? Of course, but that’s what the law), rather than enhancing the lawyers do. And let’s keep in mind that in ability of states to protect their citizenry, a high-technology era, there are many as that citizenry seems to want. We need extraordinarily complicated security to be very careful not to reinforce the tasks, so lawyers shouldn’t feel themselves notion that the law is drifting into entitled to exemption from the problems of seeming impotence and irrelevance — not complexity and blurred lines. just from newly empowered non-state actors, but also from rising or re-emerging Taken as a whole, it’s pretty clear that Great Powers as, for example, Russia Rosa wants to start a much-needed conducts an air war in Aleppo that one dialogue with How Everything Became might be forgiven for mistaking to be a War and not necessarily to definitively World War II leveling of cities. resolve each concern raised. Indeed, a central purpose of the book seems to be to Domestic law? Let’s not forget that a very alert the reader to the very fact that the recent poll (before the bombings in New issues exist and provide some context to

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think about them. I could easily envision listening.” And, really, isn’t that what the this book being a platform for a graduate best airplane seat partners — er, books — or law school seminar where students do? were assigned to critique (or confirm) the matters she raises. Charlie Dunlap is a retired Air Force major general who is currently a Professor How Everything Became War could hardly of the Practice of Law, and Executive be richer in raising critically important Director of the Center on Law, Ethics and issues; it’s a must-read conversation- National Security at Duke Law School. starter par excellence. What makes it especially engaging is Rosa’s constructive Cite as Charlie Dunlap, American Military tenor and tone. It isn’t dictatorial or Culture and Civil-Military Relations condescending as so many of the books of Today, Lawfare (October 7, 2016), at this genre tend to be. Rather, when you https://lawfareblog.com/american-military- come to the end, it’s almost as if she turns culture-and-civil-military-relations-today. to you — sitting side by side in your airplane seats — and says, “Ok, that’s what I think; what do you think? I’m

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