What Is Happening to Our Apolitical Military?
Remarks by America’s most senior military officer mark the latest step in the continued erosion of relations between the armed forces and their civilian leaders.
By Kori Schake
Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, AEI
July 19, 2021
The nation’s senior military adviser, General Mark Milley, is once again in the news, for reportedly having described President Donald Trump’s postelection rhetoric as “a Reichstag moment” and privately reassuring friends and members of Congress that the president and his supporters “may try, but they’re not going to f---ing succeed” in preventing the peaceful transition of power.
As CNN reports, “Milley spoke to friends, lawmakers and colleagues about the threat of a coup,” and although journalists have largely recounted either private conversations or actions that Milley was planning—that is, giving him credit for things he might have done but hadn’t—the comments cast him in a flattering light, a soldier stalwart in defense of democracy.
And although some of the sources, and the subject himself, may be attempting to remake an image tarnished by Milley’s decision to march with Trump across Lafayette Square in combat fatigues during nationwide protests, the American military nevertheless did an admirable job navigating the interregnum between election and inauguration. The proper role for our armed forces in domestic political upheaval is none, and that appears to be what the American people got this election. Milley deserves credit for that, as he does for the other restraints he placed on presidential impulse during his tenure. He ought to be graded like an Olympic diver, with a degree of difficulty factored into his score.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/07/what-happening-our-apolitical-military/183863/
