Have Our Senior Military Leaders Lost their Way?

LTC Marc King — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:46:59 -0400

Given the current geo-political turmoil in the Middle East and Africa it is a valid expectation that our senior military leaders play a critical role in shaping our foreign policy and the extension and application of our military power in a manner that insures the national security of the United States (Clausewitz saw military force as an instrument that states and other political actors use to pursue the ends of policy, in a dialectic between opposing wills, each with the aim of imposing his policies and will upon his enemy). This is our expectation, but this is not the reality that we are seeing on a daily basis.

Those who are or were commissioned officers have all sworn an oath to ‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same… and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter’. Those who have served in the enlisted ranks have sworn a similar oath with some modifications. Nowhere in either oath does it require blind allegiance to anyone, to include the Commander in Chief – in fact it requires that allegiance be to the Constitution and no higher authority. It is the same oath that our most senior leadership takes as well. However, recent actions taken by leaders such as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Service Chiefs and those that are currently leading some of our key agencies has to be seriously called into question.
Before anyone goes off the deep end here, I am not advocating that anyone should disobey a direct lawful order from anyone in the Chain of Command. What I am concerned about is the actions that have been demonstrated most recently by the Chairman of the JCS and the uniformed leaders of the military departments in acting on matters that are clearly political and may not be in the best interests of the security of the United States and; an apparent public unwillingness to exhibit the moral courage to take a stand on what they know is right. On matters such as ISIS, the Bergdahl swap, the on-going efforts to close GITMO and return to the battlefield those who our members worked so hard and at great risk to capture. The 4 years it took to get the correct decision for the victims of Nadal Hasan at Ft. Hood, allowing a traitor like Manning to have his personal wishes met while incarcerated and the list goes on.

Have the trappings of office become so comfortable that our senior leaders find it more suitable to retain their positions of authority, even if it means allowing politics to override sound military judgement. No person got to be a Flag Officer because they were ignorant or untrustworthy. But I do believe that many have lost their way… they have forgotten what it was like to crack open their first copy of the Officers Guide and to read about those character traits that were expected of a new lieutenant… a man who needed be trusted to respond and report accurately and to have the moral courage to tell his superiors what he thought and not to be a “yes” man. Are these values not the values that guide our senior leaders any longer?
Perhaps I live in time and place that no longer exists and this is the way the world is today. I don’t believe that is true but I would like to see what you think of the discussion, the issue and how it should be portrayed.