[Mb-civic] Behind the Revolt - Max Hastings - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Behind the Revolt
The Generals' View: To the Micromanager Goes the Blame
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By Max Hastings
The Washington Post
Wednesday, April 26, 2006; A25

The "generals' revolt" against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has 
provoked debate on both sides of the Atlantic about the proper 
boundaries of military protest. Many people who oppose the Iraq war and 
deplore Rumsfeld are nonetheless troubled by the notion of senior 
officers, even retired ones, openly criticizing political leadership.

But in truth, retired soldiers have always been outspoken about the 
alleged blunders of successor warlords, uniformed and otherwise. During 
Britain's colonial conflicts and in both world wars, through Korea and 
Vietnam, hoary old American and British warriors wrote frequently to 
newspapers, deploring this decision or that, exploiting their 
credentials to criticize governments and commanders.

During the Iraq campaigns of 1991 and 2003, I heard British chiefs of 
staff express their fervent desire for veterans to get themselves off 
television screens. We may assume that, as chairman of the U.S. Joint 
Chiefs of Staff today, Gen. Peter Pace feels the same way.

Winston Churchill's wartime chief of staff, Gen. Hastings "Pug" Ismay, 
charmingly described in his memoirs how, in 1940, lunches at his old 
army club in London became intolerable because at every mouthful, he was 
beset by veterans explaining how his master should properly be running 
the war. In self-defense, Ismay resorted to lunching at White's, a 
venerable aristocratic institution where few members had noticed that a 
conflict was taking place.

In the past, however, there was a clear demarcation between those issues 
for which governments were responsible in war -- high policy and the 
appointment of commanders -- and those of which generals were in charge: 
field operations. Administrations in the United States and Britain 
sometimes perished for starting the wrong wars or mismanaging the big 
issues -- Lyndon Johnson over Vietnam, Britain's Asquith government in 
1916. When battles were lost, however, it was generals' heads that 
rolled, not politicians'.

The great progressive change since 1945 is that the conduct of limited 
wars has become intensely political. The interventions of civilian 
leaders are ever more detailed and explicit in matters that were once 
deemed military turf. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was sacked in Korea in 1951 
for conduct no more imperious than his World War II norm in the Pacific. 
The general failed to understand that the principle on which he had 
always justified his own mandate -- when wars start, politicians must 
leave soldiers to run them -- was a dead letter in the nuclear age.

Yet how far should the process go of political engagement in military 
operations? This issue lies at the heart of the tensions between senior 
U.S. soldiers and Rumsfeld, and it will persist through all wars. The 
military -- and there is no doubt that many serving officers share the 
unhappiness voiced by retired colleagues -- does not question the 
government's prerogative to make policy. It is dismayed, however, by 
attempts to second-guess Iraqi battles out of Washington.

Modern communications make feasible a high degree of micromanagement. 
Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's interventions in Vietnam are well 
known and were bitterly unpopular with soldiers at the time. A notable 
example of the new relationship between field commanders and governments 
was seen during the Falklands War in May 1982. The British senior 
officer on the spot, Brig. Julian Thompson, wanted simply to keep an eye 
on the Argentine garrison at Goose Green settlement rather than attack 
it, and to advance toward Port Stanley.

In London, however, it was deemed vital to secure a quick, conspicuous 
military success to forestall stalemate and a U.S.-imposed cease-fire. 
Thompson was ordered to attack Goose Green immediately or be sacked. The 
British got their little victory, but it was a battle fought in 
deference to perceived political necessity, not military judgment. 
Thompson afterward lamented the countless hours he was obliged to spend 
arguing by satellite link with a headquarters 8,000 miles away, rather 
than directing his troops. This is what is new. Technology empowers 
political leaders to intervene in even local, small-unit actions.

There is another strand. The post-Vietnam generation of U.S. generals is 
much more cautious about overseas operations, especially against 
insurgencies, than were their predecessors of the Westmoreland -- never 
mind MacArthur -- eras. Once, generals were notoriously gung-ho. Today 
they are haunted by fear of failure. By a notable historical irony, 
enthusiasm for using troops is far more prevalent among civilian 
ideologues than among professional warriors.

It is unlikely that field commanders will ever again enjoy the 
operational latitude they once possessed. In his book "Supreme Command," 
Eliot Cohen eloquently argues that civilian leaders -- he cites Lincoln, 
Clemenceau, Churchill and Ben-Gurion -- have sometimes provided a vital 
impetus for military operations when soldiers proved incapable. Yet his 
thesis supposes a level of civilian genius that is often absent, as the 
military believes it to be in Iraq today.

If commanders are denied the power to manage campaigns as they think 
right, it is unjust to allow them to accept blame when these go awry. In 
the new world, the generals' revolt seems a legitimate response to 
political mismanagement of operations. If a civilian such as Donald 
Rumsfeld seeks to exercise from Washington functions that were 
traditionally those of soldiers, he should take the customary 
consequences. The most conspicuous historical example of a politician 
presiding over a military fiasco was that of Winston Churchill as First 
Lord of the Admiralty. He sponsored the 1915 Dardanelles campaign -- and 
was forced to quit.

Max Hastings, a British journalist and historian, is the author of 
"Warriors: The Korean War" and "Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/25/AR2006042501587.html
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