Aidana Sapuan
In response to growing tensions in the Korean Peninsula and increasing number of nuclear tests by the North Korea, President Trump made a drastic order to head “an armada” - the US Aircraft carrier group named “Vinson” from Singapore in the northern direction towards the abovementioned region. The vast majority of public has interpreted this move as an act of deterring North Korea and showing-off the US military capabilities, as Trump puts it: “Very powerful, we have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier, that I can tell you” in an interview with Fox News Business .
The most shocking revelation came out when Trump’s decision was an act of bluffing, since official photos on the US Navy website indicated that the carrier was thousands of kilometers away in the southern direction from the Korean Peninsula2. US military officials made an announcement that “Vinson” will first complete the joint military exercise with the Australian military, thereby disproving the implementation of Trump’s official order to head the carriers in an opposite direction. A little later, Secretary of Defense James Mattis told that the joint exercises had been cancelled and from now on the carriers will be heading back to the North Korea.
All of these confusions in reports both by President Trump and military officials (such as DoD, Pentagon, Mattis) raises thoughts about many important aspects of today’s civil military relations in the USA. The conventional wisdom of US civil military relations has at least two fundamental premises framed by the constitution: 1) the president is the commander in chief of the US Army, and by ordering special operations he is held accountable for them; 2) the president has to be aware of the state and locations of different items of the country’s military assets, and to be able to employ them in the times of need. In the context of these responsibilities put before the newly elected US President, wrongly announcing the deployment of the 97.000-ton carrier and its 60-plus aircraft against the country with unpredictable changes in its foreign policy like North Korea, to put it mildly, decreases the level of credibility and trust attributed to Trump by the public.
The other issue is grounded in the ambiguity around questions of “who?” and “why?” ordered “Vinson” to steam towards North Korea. Due to this confusion between different US military structures in their reports about Vinson’s whereabouts, it is very difficult to understand, which of these actors were involved in the command formulation process. From the point of civil-military relations, this might have a huge degrading effect for the US current state of CMR since it would mean that military is losing some of its advisory responsibilities before the state, which were strongly advocated by Huntington’s (1957) theory of objective control.
One of the possibilities is that the decision about “Vinson’s” deployment was made by Trump’s administration, which does not cause problems in legal terms, since such kind of operational decision-making under threat to US national security is the presidential prerogative. Nevertheless, following inconsistencies in reports do show the lack of inter-organizational coordination between the civilian leadership and Pentagon highlights the lack of expertise of the executive and makes the functioning of Trump as a chief commander of the US Army less effective.
___________
Reference list:
Huntington, Samuel P. 1957. The Soldier and the State the Theory and Politics of Civil- Military Relations. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Web Sources:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/19/asia/uss-carl-vinson-north-korea-timeline/
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/editorial-in-a-nuclear-standoff-with-north-korea-trump-s/article_48f8c4aa-81f2-5494-916e-c27ef6c4a5a1.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/18/us-military-shoot-down-north-korea-missile-tests
In response to growing tensions in the Korean Peninsula and increasing number of nuclear tests by the North Korea, President Trump made a drastic order to head “an armada” - the US Aircraft carrier group named “Vinson” from Singapore in the northern direction towards the abovementioned region. The vast majority of public has interpreted this move as an act of deterring North Korea and showing-off the US military capabilities, as Trump puts it: “Very powerful, we have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier, that I can tell you” in an interview with Fox News Business .
The most shocking revelation came out when Trump’s decision was an act of bluffing, since official photos on the US Navy website indicated that the carrier was thousands of kilometers away in the southern direction from the Korean Peninsula2. US military officials made an announcement that “Vinson” will first complete the joint military exercise with the Australian military, thereby disproving the implementation of Trump’s official order to head the carriers in an opposite direction. A little later, Secretary of Defense James Mattis told that the joint exercises had been cancelled and from now on the carriers will be heading back to the North Korea.
All of these confusions in reports both by President Trump and military officials (such as DoD, Pentagon, Mattis) raises thoughts about many important aspects of today’s civil military relations in the USA. The conventional wisdom of US civil military relations has at least two fundamental premises framed by the constitution: 1) the president is the commander in chief of the US Army, and by ordering special operations he is held accountable for them; 2) the president has to be aware of the state and locations of different items of the country’s military assets, and to be able to employ them in the times of need. In the context of these responsibilities put before the newly elected US President, wrongly announcing the deployment of the 97.000-ton carrier and its 60-plus aircraft against the country with unpredictable changes in its foreign policy like North Korea, to put it mildly, decreases the level of credibility and trust attributed to Trump by the public.
The other issue is grounded in the ambiguity around questions of “who?” and “why?” ordered “Vinson” to steam towards North Korea. Due to this confusion between different US military structures in their reports about Vinson’s whereabouts, it is very difficult to understand, which of these actors were involved in the command formulation process. From the point of civil-military relations, this might have a huge degrading effect for the US current state of CMR since it would mean that military is losing some of its advisory responsibilities before the state, which were strongly advocated by Huntington’s (1957) theory of objective control.
One of the possibilities is that the decision about “Vinson’s” deployment was made by Trump’s administration, which does not cause problems in legal terms, since such kind of operational decision-making under threat to US national security is the presidential prerogative. Nevertheless, following inconsistencies in reports do show the lack of inter-organizational coordination between the civilian leadership and Pentagon highlights the lack of expertise of the executive and makes the functioning of Trump as a chief commander of the US Army less effective.
___________
Reference list:
Huntington, Samuel P. 1957. The Soldier and the State the Theory and Politics of Civil- Military Relations. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Web Sources:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/19/asia/uss-carl-vinson-north-korea-timeline/
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/editorial-in-a-nuclear-standoff-with-north-korea-trump-s/article_48f8c4aa-81f2-5494-916e-c27ef6c4a5a1.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/18/us-military-shoot-down-north-korea-missile-tests
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