What the Allegations Against Chairman Milley Really Mean

[rangerrebew]

What the Allegations Against Chairman Milley Really Mean
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By Graham Allison
September 28, 2021
 
Because Senator Marco Rubio’s allegations of Milley having interfered with the chain of command in a way that could have increased the risk of nuclear war display such elementary ignorance of the basics of the command, control, and conduct of the U.S. military in preparing for, preventing, and executing military attacks, a brief summary of the basics may be in order.

A senior Senator has called on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to resign or be fired on the basis of undocumented claims from unnamed sources. Since Chairman Mark Milley is certain to be asked about his meeting on January 8 with senior officers from the National Military Command Center when he testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday—and because Senator Marco Rubio’s allegations of Milley having interfered with the chain of command in a way that could have increased the risk of nuclear war display such elementary ignorance of the basics of the command, control, and conduct of the U.S. military in preparing for, preventing, and executing military attacks—a brief summary of the basics may be in order.

First, as Commander in Chief, the President has the sole authority to order American military officers to conduct lethal strikes, including nuclear strikes. His order goes to the Secretary of Defense and from him to the military commander responsible for their military subordinates and weapons that conduct the attack. As the presidentially-selected, congressionally-confirmed leader of all American military forces, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has responsibility for assuring that the 1.4 million uniformed service members who operate everything from missile silos to nuclear-armed submarines are able and ready at every moment of every day and under all conceivable conditions, including when under attack, to execute presidential commands.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2021/09/28/what_the_allegations_against_chairman_milley_really_mean_796432.html

[Kamaji]

That's nice, but the author misses the evident mutiny/treason in the call to the Chinese counterpart to assure that he, Milley, will personally prevent the U.S. from engaging in an attack against China without him - Milley - personally calling them to warn them first.

Put into that context, Milley's subsequent use of the "review process" was not an honorable general doing his duty to the U.S., it was a mutineer/traitor subverting the process to make sure that he, and he alone, had control over the process, in order to further his mutiny/treason.

Context is everything; it is what distinguishes the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki from a war-crime.