n an era of civil unrest, a time of political discord, and a time when U.S. citizens are losing faith in their electoral process, now is not the time for dismantling the credibility of civilian-military relations. A dangerous example of this erosion is exhibited in the open letter to General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The letter argues in favor of a Defense Department participation in the removal of Donald J. Trump from the White House, should he lose the upcoming election.
The authors, John Nagl and Paul Yingling, are both retired U.S. Army officers with experience in multiple combat theaters and assorted published works. Based on that experience, as well as having been entrusted as commissioned officers, they are presumed to understand the unique role of commanders and the intricacies of the limits of military authority. They should understand implicitly how irresponsible, unethical, and institutionally wrong it is to try and convince the Chairman to employ the United States military in a domestic political transfer of power. The authors appear to have forgotten the legislatively defined role of the Title X military force, which may simply be expressed as the defense of national security.
The argument outlines a scenario in which the Department of Homeland Security is a private army rather than a Federal Law Enforcement Agency. Undoubtedly, the act of employing militarized federal police against protesters in Portland is entirely unacceptable under any circumstances. But to correlate flawed employment of a law enforcement agency with the establishment of a private army is a decided leap. For reference and comparison, the Wagner Group is a privatized military contractor company based out of Russia. The same group’s operatives were arrested in Belarus less than a month ago, allegedly sent to the capitol city of Minsk to destabilize the environment ahead of the country's national elections. This paramilitary organization has been found in Libya, Ukraine, Venezuela, and elsewhere with the aim of executing the will of the Russian executive hidden behind a veil of deniability.
Ostensibly, those actions by the DHS were against civil, social protests—not political demonstrators—whose aim involved criminal justice reform and anti-racism protest in the wake of the George Floyd tragic event. An attempt at turning a legitimate democratic right to assemble into a rhetorical talking point which, when viewed objectively, once again falters into hyperbolic fallacy. If the militarized DHS, in a theoretical future confrontation, is a foundational point for the plea to General Milley on DoD intervention, why wait until this week to assert the need for the military to become involved? Was the unconstitutional conduct of the DHS a few short weeks ago not enough of a constitutional crisis? Again, the correlation between rationale and response doesn’t pass the acid test.
From the letter: “These powerful crosscurrents—Mr. Trumps electoral defeat, his assault on our elections, his impending criminal prosecution, and his creation of a private army—will collide on January 20.” This narrative is post hoc, ergo propter hoc- asserting that January 20, 2021 will feature the 45th President of the United States hunkering in the oval office, with two options facing the Chairman: first, an unruly Donald J. Trump is surrounded by his (fictitious) little green men and the Chairman must choose that U.S. military will run this gauntlet and remove him in favor of a victorious political opponent; or alternatively, Gen. Milley must “remain silent [and] be complicit in the coup d'état.”
Much like the president’s faulty use of the term during his impeachment trial last year, an actual coup d'état is when a military overthrows or alters an established government. In short, the solicitation is either grossly negligent in the use of analogies, or engages in Orwellian doublespeak, as the content seemingly argues in favor of General Milley step beyond his constitutional authority and in fact, stage a coup. Either way, throwing around such assertions without fully considering the delivery’s impact or connotation is a dangerous and explosive use of a public forum.
General Milley is in no position to exercise any executive authority. It returns to the aforementioned establishment of a civilian led military. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff presides over the service chiefs and is established (under the Goldwater-Nichols DoD Reorganization Act of 1986) as the principal military advisor to the President, Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Council. Congress abolished any executive authority of the Chairman in 1953, and thus the position has absolutely no executive power over the service chiefs or combatant commanders. Per the Joint Chiefs of Staff own website, “the chain of command runs through the President, to the Secretary of Defense; and from the Secretary of Defense to the commander of the combatant command.” Appealing to General Milley’s position demonstrates a lack of understanding on the structure of the United States military.
To be clear, if Donald Trump loses the 2020 election, then upon the stroke of noon, January 20, 2021, he will lose his constitutional authority to direct either the secret service, federal law enforcement, or the United States military as Commander in Chief. He will be relegated to that of a private citizen once again. If he were to attempt to remain in place, the secret service or a federal law enforcement agency will remove him from the oval office at the direction of the Speaker of the House. For their part, this is a significant but unexercised aspect of their role in service to the Office of the President, rather than to the individual. It is not the province of the U.S. military to remove a sitting or expired president. There is no national command authority which grants the auspices of such a move, and to portend this as an alternative to existing systems is entirely untenable in a democracy.
Article II of the constitution makes the transfer of power exceptionally clear on this issue, and that expressed clarity is what makes this open letter to General Milley so volatile in its content, timing, and delivery. To postulate that the system may diverge from this established design, at the direction of its non-executive, senior-most member means turning the DoD into a Junta. It further demonstrates the nature of the present political discourse. The fact that such a piece was considered, let alone published, is both reckless and reflects just how bad the present environment is, and why diverging further from the norms of our democracy is the wrong path to take.
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Democracy Can’t Fight Fire with Gasoline
Photo by Jacob Morch via Unsplash.
August 19, 2020
I
n an era of civil unrest, a time of political discord, and a time when U.S. citizens are losing faith in their electoral process, now is not the time for dismantling the credibility of civilian-military relations. A dangerous example of this erosion is exhibited in the open letter to General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The letter argues in favor of a Defense Department participation in the removal of Donald J. Trump from the White House, should he lose the upcoming election.
The authors, John Nagl and Paul Yingling, are both retired U.S. Army officers with experience in multiple combat theaters and assorted published works. Based on that experience, as well as having been entrusted as commissioned officers, they are presumed to understand the unique role of commanders and the intricacies of the limits of military authority. They should understand implicitly how irresponsible, unethical, and institutionally wrong it is to try and convince the Chairman to employ the United States military in a domestic political transfer of power. The authors appear to have forgotten the legislatively defined role of the Title X military force, which may simply be expressed as the defense of national security.
The argument outlines a scenario in which the Department of Homeland Security is a private army rather than a Federal Law Enforcement Agency. Undoubtedly, the act of employing militarized federal police against protesters in Portland is entirely unacceptable under any circumstances. But to correlate flawed employment of a law enforcement agency with the establishment of a private army is a decided leap. For reference and comparison, the Wagner Group is a privatized military contractor company based out of Russia. The same group’s operatives were arrested in Belarus less than a month ago, allegedly sent to the capitol city of Minsk to destabilize the environment ahead of the country's national elections. This paramilitary organization has been found in Libya, Ukraine, Venezuela, and elsewhere with the aim of executing the will of the Russian executive hidden behind a veil of deniability.
Ostensibly, those actions by the DHS were against civil, social protests—not political demonstrators—whose aim involved criminal justice reform and anti-racism protest in the wake of the George Floyd tragic event. An attempt at turning a legitimate democratic right to assemble into a rhetorical talking point which, when viewed objectively, once again falters into hyperbolic fallacy. If the militarized DHS, in a theoretical future confrontation, is a foundational point for the plea to General Milley on DoD intervention, why wait until this week to assert the need for the military to become involved? Was the unconstitutional conduct of the DHS a few short weeks ago not enough of a constitutional crisis? Again, the correlation between rationale and response doesn’t pass the acid test.
From the letter: “These powerful crosscurrents—Mr. Trumps electoral defeat, his assault on our elections, his impending criminal prosecution, and his creation of a private army—will collide on January 20.” This narrative is post hoc, ergo propter hoc- asserting that January 20, 2021 will feature the 45th President of the United States hunkering in the oval office, with two options facing the Chairman: first, an unruly Donald J. Trump is surrounded by his (fictitious) little green men and the Chairman must choose that U.S. military will run this gauntlet and remove him in favor of a victorious political opponent; or alternatively, Gen. Milley must “remain silent [and] be complicit in the coup d'état.”
Much like the president’s faulty use of the term during his impeachment trial last year, an actual coup d'état is when a military overthrows or alters an established government. In short, the solicitation is either grossly negligent in the use of analogies, or engages in Orwellian doublespeak, as the content seemingly argues in favor of General Milley step beyond his constitutional authority and in fact, stage a coup. Either way, throwing around such assertions without fully considering the delivery’s impact or connotation is a dangerous and explosive use of a public forum.
General Milley is in no position to exercise any executive authority. It returns to the aforementioned establishment of a civilian led military. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff presides over the service chiefs and is established (under the Goldwater-Nichols DoD Reorganization Act of 1986) as the principal military advisor to the President, Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Council. Congress abolished any executive authority of the Chairman in 1953, and thus the position has absolutely no executive power over the service chiefs or combatant commanders. Per the Joint Chiefs of Staff own website, “the chain of command runs through the President, to the Secretary of Defense; and from the Secretary of Defense to the commander of the combatant command.” Appealing to General Milley’s position demonstrates a lack of understanding on the structure of the United States military.
To be clear, if Donald Trump loses the 2020 election, then upon the stroke of noon, January 20, 2021, he will lose his constitutional authority to direct either the secret service, federal law enforcement, or the United States military as Commander in Chief. He will be relegated to that of a private citizen once again. If he were to attempt to remain in place, the secret service or a federal law enforcement agency will remove him from the oval office at the direction of the Speaker of the House. For their part, this is a significant but unexercised aspect of their role in service to the Office of the President, rather than to the individual. It is not the province of the U.S. military to remove a sitting or expired president. There is no national command authority which grants the auspices of such a move, and to portend this as an alternative to existing systems is entirely untenable in a democracy.
Article II of the constitution makes the transfer of power exceptionally clear on this issue, and that expressed clarity is what makes this open letter to General Milley so volatile in its content, timing, and delivery. To postulate that the system may diverge from this established design, at the direction of its non-executive, senior-most member means turning the DoD into a Junta. It further demonstrates the nature of the present political discourse. The fact that such a piece was considered, let alone published, is both reckless and reflects just how bad the present environment is, and why diverging further from the norms of our democracy is the wrong path to take.
