Is Trump hiring too many generals?

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump was openly disdainful of the military brass. “I know more about ISIS than the generals do,” he said in fall 2016. “Believe me.”

But as soon as he was elected, Trump began courting a handful of generals for key Cabinet positions, including retired Army Gen. David Petraeus for secretary of state and Adm. Michael S. Rogers for director of national intelligence.

Later, he appointed retired Gen. James Mattis as his defense secretary (a post almost always designated for civilians), Gen. John Kelly as secretary of Homeland Security, and Gen. H.R. McMaster as national security adviser.

Then, on Friday, Trump announced (via Twitter) that he was firing his chief of staff Reince Priebus and replacing him with Gen. Kelly, the first military general to hold the position since Alexander Haig during the Nixon administration.

The country is still mired in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it’s not surprising that Trump would seek military guidance. But Trump’s reliance on military personnel has raised fundamental questions about the role of civilian leadership in the American system.

It also raises serious questions about whether the Pentagon could take steps that start new wars or deepen US involvement in new ones. Mattis effectively has free rein to set troop levels in Afghanistan, the top US commander in Afghanistan dropped the biggest non-atomic bomb ever used in combat without anyone in the White House knowing or signing off, and the US has sharply stepped up its military activities in both Yemen and Somalia.

I reached out to retired Army Gen. Daniel Bolger to talk about the basis for America’s tradition of ensuring civilian rule over the military. The author of Why We Lost: A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, Bolger has written extensively about the tensions between civilian and military leadership. Here we talk about Trump’s military tilt and whether it’s something we should worry about.

Our lightly edited conversation follows.

Sean Illing

You’re a retired general, but I assume you believe in the separation of political and military leadership?

Daniel Bolger

Well, civilian control of the military is one of those principles that's been a part of the American Constitution since it was adopted. Articles 1 and 2 make it very clear that the civilians are in charge. The Congress votes on the resources in terms of money and specifies the regulations for a good order of discipline, and the commander in chief gives the orders. That's what we want and that is the ideal.

Sean Illing

Do you think that the Trump administration is upholding this ideal so far?

Daniel Bolger

I have to say, I’m not sure what they’re doing is all that unusual. President Obama's National Security Adviser, Jim Jones, was a former Commandant of the Marine Corps and a former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Gen. John Allen, who was my commander under the ISAF [International Security Assistance Force], ended up as an ambassador trying to stitch together the anti-ISIS coalition. Then of course you had Gen. David Petraeus switching over to run the CIA. There were also senior military leaders throughout the Bush and Clinton administrations.

So it’s fairly common for military people to cross over and work on the civilian side at the highest levels of government. This may be slightly pronounced in the Trump administration, but it’s not that out of step with previous administrations.

Sean Illing

I think it’s more than “slightly pronounced,” but I take your broader point. What is unusual, though, is the utter neglect of the State Department. There’s something like 200 positions at the State Department that have yet to be filled, and the administration seems content to leave them empty. Doesn’t that create a decision structure in which the military perspective eclipses the diplomatic perspective?

Daniel Bolger

Yeah, there’s no doubt about that. Hell, the State Department has been understaffed for a long time. Here’s an alarming stat: there are more Marines in two regiments down in Camp Lejeune near me than there would be in the entire foreign service. That’s staggering.

Sean Illing

That says a lot about our priorities.

Daniel Bolger

Indeed it does.

Sean Illing

On the other hand, the world’s a scary place — and we need Marines. But do you worry that this sort of imbalance increases the likelihood of conflict?

Daniel Bolger

Well, that's always something that we have to watch. I think we need more balance. When top officials sit around a table and make decisions about North Korea or Syria or some other issue, we need people there representing the non-military options. We need people who understand economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure and how to employ those instruments in order to avoid war. There has to be prudent people in the room who can promote and defend diplomatic measures. Military leaders, more than anyone, know this.

Sean Illing

Let’s zoom back and talk about the constitutional justifications for ensuring civilian rule over the military. Why were the founders adamant about this? What did they have in mind?

Daniel Bolger

They were very alert to something that had happened in Great Britain. The English had a civil war in the 1640s, and it got very, very ugly. And basically, the military, representing Parliament, took control. But when Oliver Cromwell took control, he sent Parliament home. He said, “Hey, I don't need you guys. Me and the generals, we don't need you.”

Other than the protectorate, he called himself the Lord and Protector, Oliver Cromwell basically just suspended civil liberties and ran the country like a military camp. The founders were keenly aware of all this and they enshrined civilian rule in our Constitution as a reaction to this period of British military dictatorship.

They all emerged out of that English law tradition. They did not want a strong standing military. They envisioned fixed civilian control as a check against this kind of repressive tyranny. And they did not want the military in the policymaking business.

Sean Illing

Do you think that’s how it ought to be, that the military should execute policy, not dictate it?

Daniel Bolger

Absolutely. The bottom line is that that allows military people to focus on what we are good at and that is fighting. That's what we train to do in the service and that's what we prepare to do. And our job is to make recommendations and to remind civilian leadership how serious war is.

I know there’s a portrayal in popular culture of generals as these bloodthirsty guys pounding tables and advocating for war, but I’ve never met those guys. Most military guys who've been in combat, the last thing they want to do is get involved in a shooting war, especially if it hasn't been well thought out.

Sean Illing

Is that always the case, though? You know the old cliché about a hammer seeing only nails. I’m a veteran and I think what you’re saying is largely true, but military leaders are trained to see everything through the prism of war, and so one imagines that that colors how they think about force as a political tool.

Daniel Bolger

It’s a great question, Sean. My experience is that that’s true of military leaders once you put us in the field. If you put a bunch of generals in Afghanistan and Iraq, you’re right, they’re going to focus on fighting a war and defeating an enemy — that’s what we do. But in that deliberative phase, when we're trying to determine what we should do, whether we should engage country X or start a conflict, I think military guys will do everything possible to avoid war.

Sean Illing

Can you think of any examples in which the military, either here or in some other country, got overly involved in policy?

Daniel Bolger

In democratic states (constitutional republics like ours and constitutional monarchies like Great Britain), the military rests firmly under civilian control. Those in uniform make policy recommendations. The civilian leaders decide. Sometimes the military policy recommendations are not followed (Iraq surge opposed by the Joint Chiefs in 2006, Libya intervention opposed by the Joint Chiefs in 2011) and things go wrong.

Other times, the military offers poor options (bombing plan for the Cuban Missile Crisis 1962, proposed incursion to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos in 1968). But even in times of great tumult (American Civil War of 1861 to 1865, French coup crisis of April 1961, Richard Nixon resignation in 1974), civilian control remains.

Sean Illing

I think the present concern is that Trump has both surrounded himself with so many military voices and effectively abdicated the policymaking process. It’s not clear what the decision structure is in the White House, but it does appear that Trump is mostly hands-off when it comes to policy. So who is making those decisions? And who is serving as the prudent counterbalance? We know, for example, that after the military dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat, Trump boasted that his commanders have “total authorization” to make decisions in the field.

Daniel Bolger

If military people are deciding policy, that would be a real concern. But I’m not sure that’s the case. Leave aside the public statements. How many more additional resources have been sent into Iraq or Afghanistan. Have we sent in ten thousand more troops? Have we sent in extra bomber squadrons? Until you start seeing resources moving around, I would say this is mostly a standard approach. Sure, Trump seems adamant about letting his commanders decide what to do on the battlefield, but that too is fairly standard.

Sean Illing

Is Trump’s orientation to the military, how he talks about the institution and publicly interacts with the generals in his administration, normal?

Daniel Bolger

The Trump Administration is well within the American tradition in public statements about the military and interactions with generals and admirals. American presidents of both parties regularly praise those in uniform, more so since the bad feelings at the close of the Vietnam War and the shift from a draft to an all-volunteer force.

The president is the constitutional commander in chief. He determines strategy and issues overall orders. For the most part, presidents leave the operational details to the military. But all presidents — including this one — reserve the right to direct specific actions. The military complies. When presidents get crosswise with subordinate officers, the military commanders are relieved of duty: Douglas MacArthur in Korea in 1951, Michael Dugan regarding Iraq plans in 1990, and Stan McChrystal in Afghanistan in 2010.

Sean Illing

Do you worry that Trump’s reliance on the military risks politicizing the military as an institution? The military remains the most trusted institution in the country, but that could change if the military ceases to be apolitical.

Daniel Bolger

I agree with you. The military has this respect but it's not guaranteed. When I was young, in the wake of Vietnam, that was not the status of the American military. We squandered a lot of the goodwill from the World Wars and the Korean War by what happened in and around Vietnam.

So, what we have today is by no means a guarantee — and it shouldn't be. The reason the military has the credibility we do is because the men and women in the service serve the American people. They don't serve a political party, they don't serve a particular agenda. They do the best they can with the orders they have to carry out the will of the American people as expressed by the elected representatives.

What you don't want to see, and I don't think we will see, is people in uniform at political rallies. You don't want to see people in uniform endorsing candidates at all. Nor do we want military officials openly posturing for political positions. It's just not the way we do it. Because, again, this year's candidate can become next year's president or senator or governor or whatever the case may be. You have to be prepared to serve loyally and faithfully, regardless of who is elected.

That's something we do want to preserve and we've got to be very, very careful to keep that safe.

Sean Illing

What would happen if the tradition of preserving civilian rule were to erode or disappear?

Daniel Bolger

If the traditional separation between the military and civilians were to break down, this would be a fundamentally different country. It would not be a constitutional republic. We would likely slide into authoritarian rule.

And that is something we can’t allow to happen.

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