Reminder: The biggest danger in civil-military relations isn’t making a coup

Best Defense is on summer hiatus. During this restful spell we offer re-runs from the past 12 months. This item originally ran on Oct. 12, 2016.

Rather, it is letting things slide, and winding up with a poor formulation of national strategy. The focus on the prospects of a coup is a canard. But when the civil-military dialogue is strained, strategy suffers.

It is the duty of military leaders to give their unvarnished views. It is the obligation of their civilian overseers to listen to them carefully, and then to do their best to examine assumptions and explore differences. This may be require uncomfortable moments: “Admiral, that was interesting. . . . General, what is your personal view of the admiral’s plan?”

FDR was very good at forcing these differences to the surface. He did that not to undercut the military, but rather to look into what drove the differing views.

By contrast, a good example of a civil-military failure to probe this was President President George W. Bush’s apparent desire not to ask a lot of questions about what happened once we got to Iraq — and the military’s willingness to let that slide.

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