RETHINKING SECURITY

Abu Muquwama perfectly expressed my discomfort with Peter Beinart’s article on the Israeli military-intelligence structure apparently resisting war with Iran:

If anyone noticed Sam Huntington spinning in his grave, that’s because Beinart is arguing that in a democracy, a military that actively resists the policy preferences of its elected leaders is a more responsible military than one that faithfully executes those same policy preferences. …But endorsing a system of government in which military officers get to pick and choose which policy preferences of their elected leaders to carry out is not a prescription for better policy-making. It is instead a prescription for turning yourself into Pakistan.

First, not being fluent in Israeli political-military relations I am unsure of whether the article is even correctly describing the relationships depicted. However, for the purpose of argument I will assume that Beinart has accurately depicted Israeli civ-military relationships, because the article is not about Israel but about what Beinart sees as a normative model for the United States.

 Beinart notes that resistance is (compared to the American system), surprisingly open:

But the Israeli system is less hierarchical. The military and intelligence agencies in the United States certainly leak to the press, and use bureaucratic tactics to box in their civilian overlords. At the end of the day, however, soldiers and intelligence analysts are trained to give their professional advice and then get out of the way. In Israel, the lines are more blurred, and bureaucrats are more freewheeling in speaking to the press. This has its disadvantages, but in a case like this, it gives the antiwar generals and spies greater leverage to fight back.

This works largely because, as Beinart notes, the Israeli public not only trusts the military more than they trust politicians, but see the army in very different ways than Americans do:

In Israel, by contrast, the military (and the intelligence agencies with whom it is deeply intertwined) is “us,” the institution in which everyone (or at least everyone Jewish) serves. Israelis, therefore, disregarding military leaders represents an assault on the institution that, more than any other, binds Jewish society together. Israelis don’t take that lightly.

Hence, if we are to believe Beinart’s representation of Israeli politics, an institution that already is seen as equivalent to society itself is working through official, unofficial, and other channels to frustrate the will of the civilian executive through public attacks. This is far different from military officials vigorously contesting an option in private or a retired general or two voicing his criticisms in an op-ed column.

What is going on is a set of overlapping institutional networks trying to politically thwart Netanyahu—or at least as the article makes it out to be. And to oppose those institutions, Beinart argues, is to be seen as anti-Israeli or even anti-Jewish. Is this desirable for Israel, much less America? What if the same institution wanted to strike Iran against the will of the considerably diminished (compared to America) Israeli civilian executive that Beinart describes.

Graham Jenkins looks more generally about the structural differences between military institutions that focus on restraint rather than aggression:

I think there is something to be said for the difference between the military proposing an offensive action and opposing one. The impact of a military perceived as rushing to war, itching for a chance to just fight someone, somewhere - regardless of the desires of civilian government - is not only a visual and metaphorical disaster, but a very real step towards some sort of quasi-junta. This is not to say that that was the case in 2003, but that it clearly is a ‘bad’ example of military resistance to civilian oversight.

The flip side would be ‘good’ resistance; a civilian leadership that makes a particularly flawed/problematic case for war is overruled - or at least argued against - by a military uneasy with the thought of a war. ..What the Israeli military/intelligence establishment seems to be doing (from my admittedly poor understanding) is not refusing to fight a war, or resigning in disgust, or conscientiously objecting. Rather, it is making salient, cogent, rational arguments against Israeli strikes against Iran. In doing so it is adding to the debate, not forcing - nor blocking - the implementation of policy.

The problem is that “salient, cogent, and rational” arguments are in the eye of the beholder. And a military does not have to refuse to scramble the fighters in order to thwart the will of the civilian executive. Adding to the debate, in the context, I have described earlier, is attempting to block policy by casting doubt about the executive’s policy in a context very different from offering professional military advice. This may enhance the debate, but the main goal is not to enhance the richness of the discussion but to oppose a specific policy option. Beinart titled the article “Israelis Fight Iran War Push.”

Additionally, restraint is not always good and aggression is not always bad. A culture of restraint (the “cult of the defensive”) was in vogue in military theory during the 1930s that we now, from the perspective of history, can see was ill-equipped to the needs of the time. During the Civil War, the primary difference between Lincoln and his early generals was his understanding that a total war demanded total methods—in contrast to his generals’ tie to a more genteel model of war and a hope of reconciliation with the South. And one such general, McCllelan, not only frustrated directly Lincoln’s will by poorly implementing his orders, but talked to the press, and even tried to take Lincoln’s political office.

Depending on the circumstance, war needs either harshness or restraint, hence the problem of attaching a normative difference between a military that overrules a civilian government in favor of restraint or one that favors war. We can’t assume that opposing war is always bad, nor that proposing one is always good. But the purpose of the armed forces—like any other instrument of government—is to be an instrument of the policymaker rather than an obstruction.

While I hate slippery slope arguments, it should also be pointed out that a template that favors “good” resistance can enable “bad” control. The reason why Curtis LeMay could have been thwarted was precisely because the civilian institution of power was so strong, instead of the paranoid fantasy represented by Seven Days in May.

This isn’t to say that the military should roll over in the face of a poor plan. Bureaucrats of any sort should vigorously contest, within internal settings, plans they see as unrealistic. And in external settings, if asked by legal authorities for their professional opinions they should give them. General Shinseki did what was expected of him—to offer impartial military advice and criticism when asked in testimony.

The fault lay not in military figures like Shinseki, who did their duty to inform when asked about the military costs, but the civilian lawmakers and media figures who refused to listen to him. Hence in the context of Iraq Shinseki is a symbol of the system working—but the system cannot guarantee that civilian policymakers, lawmakers, media elites, or even ordinary people won’t make horrible mistakes. That’s simply the price of having civilian control.

It doesn’t mean that individual figures can’t follow their consciences and speak out, like many did once they resigned. But a coordinated effort by an institution is a wholly different matter, which in effect is what Beinart is describing and sees as a normative model.

So how to improve civil-military relations and stop poor policy decisions? Perhaps it involves the public and media supporting the Shinsekis of the military when they are legally called to give their professional opinions, instead of letting them twist in the wind. Otherwise there is no incentives for them to risk retaliation to tell the truth. It seems more cheaper to try to build more incentives for that kind of truth-telling than to enable a military veto.