Secretary Problem

Dauren Koptleuov

Recent Donald Trump’s signing of the executive order designed to restrict access of seven Middle East countries to the United States sparkled a massive debate around it. According to The Guardian (Siddiqui, 2017) this executive order applies to the refugees and immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia. Besides common public concern about the future of refugees and discrimination of Muslim states, there are also considerations amongst the military men. As NY Times (Cooper, 2017) states, Pentagon is not quite comfortable with Trump’s decision. For example, military officials consider Iraq an ally after overturn of Hussein’s regime; and a considerable amount of efforts and money are spent on military campaigns fighting terrorism and autocracy.

Quite an interesting role in this situation is devoted to the newly appointed Secretary of Defence, James Mattis. On the one hand, his appointment is one of uncommon decisions of Mr. Trump. On the other hand, according to NY Times (2017), Mattis is quite concerned about the current situation:

“This kind of thing is causing us great damage right now, and it’s sending shock waves through the international system”.

This, however, is not an end to dilemma that stands before the Secretary: Politico (Wright et al., 2017) states that democrats as well as some republicans from the Senate decided to grant permission to Mattis to hold position of Secretary with hope that he would be “reining in a president-elect who has unorthodox views on matters of war and peace”. Mad Dog seems to be caught in the middle: officials as well as rallying civilians appear to be highly dissatisfied because of immigration ban, while Mr. President certainly relies on support of his colleagues, especially those who were personally chosen by him. This situation is intensified by the fact that Trump fires US general attorney in several hours after she was reluctant to approve his executive order about immigration ban (Smith et al., 2017).

Eventually, let us shift to the brief discussion of how the case appointment of Mr. Mattis can be significant in the context of the civil-military relations. Generally, it challenges fundamental theory of Samuel Huntington (1957), general principle of which is: military stays out of politics. In other words, in order to preserve objective civilian control, Secretary of Defense should not be military person, because it potentially may cause a conflict between civilians and military, so the latter should completely obey. What is more interesting is that both the President and the Senate, technically speaking, made a decision to appoint Mattis with different purposes and both rely on Secretary’s support. Such setting may cause tensions not only between military and civilian sector, but also within the government itself. Therefore, it can be said that James Mattis becomes one of the key figures of the United States straightforwardly after appointment. Internal security of the state (possibility of armed protests, insurgencies, and coups) as well as civil-military relations seem to depend considerably on the rightfulness of his choice whether to oppose, agree or give a “frank advice” to Mr. Trump’s in the light of recent events.

References:

Cooper, H. (2017). Trump’s Signing of Immigrant Ban Puts Pentagon in Uncomfortable Light. Nytimes.com. Retrieved 28 January 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/politics/trump-immigration-ban-muslims-military.html?_r=0

Huntington, S. (1957). The soldier and the state (1st ed.). Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Siddiqui, S. (2017). Trump signs 'extreme vetting' executive order for people entering the US. the Guardian. Retrieved 28 January 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/27/donald-trump-muslim-refugee-ban-executive-action

Smith, D., Ackerman, S., & Jacobs, B. (2017). Sally Yates fired by Trump after acting US attorney general defied travel ban. the Guardian. Retrieved 30 January 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/30/justice-department-trump-immigration-acting-attorney-general-sally-yates

Wright, A., Herb, J., Bender, B., Schor, E., & Griffiths, B. (2017). Democrats’ role for Mattis: The anti-Trump. POLITICO. Retrieved 25 January 2017, from http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/james-mattis-confirmation-hearing-takeaways-233550

What would Huntington say about Mattis’ appointment as a Secretary of Defense?

Viktoriya Malikova

Link: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/james-mattis-confirmation-hearing-takeaways-233550

The article “Democrats’ role for Mattis: The anti-Trump” deals with a recently hotly debated topic about the potential appointment of the ex-general Mattis as the US Secretary Of Defense. The main issue is that according to the American law a military official can serve as a defense secretary only if seven years passed since his leaving the army. This law is closely connected to the theory of the civil military relations about need of civilian control over the army. In the case of Mattis, the period of seven years has not passed, so, in order to be exempted from this law Mattis’ candidacy must be approved by the Parliament.  This article discusses the results of Matis’ hearing in the Senate and it emphasizes an unexpected support of Mattis by the Democrats. This can be explained by the fact that the democrats consider Mattis to be able to balance Trump’s politics. It can be seen from the questions which the senators posed to Mattis, clarifying his views on some disputable points.

Mattis’ answers have shown that concerning some issues his position is different from that of Trump’s, for example about Russia – he does not support Trump’s approvals of Putin, NATO – unlike Trump, he emphasizes the importance of this organization. Mattis stated that he is ready to defend his position to the President while giving him advice. This gives the Senators the hope that Mattis would be able to provide a check on the President.  The author, however, ends his article with underlying the fact that, Mattis avoided criticizing the President-elect explicitly, for example during the questions when he was asked to comment some of Trump’s Twitter posts.

Apart from the question about whether Mattis can and will balance Trump’s politics, the appointment of the ex-general to the position of  the US SECDEF touches upon the principle of the civilian control over military, which in this case is not followed. One of the Civil-Military Relations theorists, Huntington, would clearly disapprove such decision as according to him the soldiers do not become good ministers. Moreover, he would not agree with the logic behind Democrats’ approval of Mattis. Huntington claims that the military official should not disagree with a politician and obey his decision and orders even if the policy is aimed at promoting the politician’s rather than nation’s interest. Thus, basing on the Clausewitz’ theory cited in Huntington it might be concluded that Mattis cannot and should not oppose or balance Trump’s policies. Thus, according to Huntington, Democrats are wrong in their hopes about Mattis and should not support him as he will not realize their hopes about balancing Trump’s politics. Therefore, civilian control would be more efficient and appointment of Mattis would have negative consequences, according to Huntington.

I would also agree that Democrats are too optimistic in their hopes about Mattis’ keeping Trump in check as it is unclear if Mattis can be as good in politics as he is in the military sphere, and Trump does not seem to be a person who would easily bend to the advises of even a professional officer if the officer’ views would differ from his own ones.

Insight into General Mattis From Huntington (1957)

Today in class we talked about the first four chapters of Huntington's (1957) classic: The Soldier and the State.  In the third chapter, Huntington outlines the professional military ethic, or what he calls the "military mind."

One quote from this description of the outlook of military men on the world stood out to me in particular: "The military ethic...places unusual value upon the ordered, purposive study of history.  History is valuable to the military man only when it is used to develop principles which may be capable of future application" (Huntington 1957, 64).

I was checking up on an old friend who had messaged me on Facebook earlier.  He had a link to an article about General Mattis, the Trump nominee for Secretary of Defense.  The article is about an email that he sent during his tour in Iraq in 2003 about the value of reading, and the fact that the email has recently "gone viral."

I read the story and the email and was struck by how much, nearly 60 years since Huntington began describing the profession of military officers, Mattis played to type. After outlining the books he's read before and during various deployments, Mattis has this to say about war and the obligations of officers to the profession (emphasis mine):

We have been fighting on this planet for 5000 years and we should take advantage of their experience. “Winging it” and filling body bags as we sort out what works reminds us of the moral dictates and the cost of incompetence in our profession. As commanders and staff officers, we are coaches and sentries for our units: how can we coach anything if we don’t know a hell of a lot more than just the TTPs? What happens when you’re on a dynamic battlefield and things are changing faster than higher HQ can stay abreast? Do you not adapt because you cannot conceptualize faster than the enemy’s adaptation? 

I started the class out last week with a blog article about the potential dangers of trump nominating generals who are still relatively "fresh" out of the military to key civilian posts. It will be interesting to see if Mattis can be successful in a "political" role when he has been very professional as a soldier.  Huntington gives much more credence to the political role - it is wider, more ambiguous, and more difficult than the narrowly applied application of violence to carry out the political goals of the state.

Reading Huntington and then Mattis, I can agree with him on one point: there is nothing new under the sun.
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Huntington, Samuel P. 1957. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA.