More Political Interference Will Hurt, Not Help, the U.S. Military

[Boats]

More Political Interference Will Hurt, Not Help, the U.S. Military
By: Nadia Schadlow - Natonal Security & Defense - Review News 09-19-22
Re: https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/...-u-s-military/

Photo link: https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-co...n-15.jpg?w=768
U.S. Marines from Bravo Company, First Battalion, Sixth Marines, walk in Marjah in Nad Ali District, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, February 15, 2010. (Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Note: This report states: The introduction of outside actors into military units will undercut discipline and combat effectiveness.

For years, U.S. policy-makers criticized the communist systems of Russia and China for placing political commissars into the ranks of their militaries. This criticism was justified: These commissars were, in essence, enforcers. They revealed fundamental weaknesses because their existence suggested that Soviet and Chinese leaders did not have confidence in their commanders, and valued ideological conformity over military competence. Unfortunately, several developments in the Department of Defense offer disturbing hints of an American “commissar mentality.”

In late August, the Defense Department published a Civilian Harm Mitigation and Action plan. The plan reminds us that in war, the “protection of civilians is a strategic priority and moral imperative.” To ensure that military leaders don’t forget this, it establishes a committee focused on mitigating civilian harm, a new “center of excellence,” and “civilian harm assessment cells” that will be deployed with U.S. troops. Implicit in this plan is a mistrust of officers’ ability to embody existing and fundamental tenets of their jobs, such as verifying firepower is applied to minimize risk to civilians.

Of course, limiting civilian causalities is a laudable goal, but American military officers are already trained to protect civilians by adhering to the principles of discrimination and proportionality. These are parts of existing doctrine and training throughout the U.S. military services. The Laws of Land Warfare from a half-century ago, published just after the 1949 Geneva Conventions, affirmed that “civilians should not be made the object of attack.”

More recent updates, such as the Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Land Warfare, clarify that proportionality is the “requirement to avoid excessive harm to civilians.” The Handbook acknowledges that incidental harm to civilians is “unfortunate and tragic,” and explains that combatants must refrain from attacks in which injury to civilians “would be excessive to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated to be gained.”

Discrimination is the principle that requires soldiers to distinguish between combatants and the civilian population and is, according to existing manuals, “derivative of both military necessity and humanity.” Military commanders understand the need for proportionality and discrimination as a moral obligation from a Kantian perspective — to treat man as an end rather than a means — as well as the utilitarian philosophy of John Stuart Mill, which considers harm to civilians as contrary to mission accomplishment.

The bottom line is that the parameters to protect civilians already exist, and the responsibility for ensuring that U.S. servicemen and women fulfill moral and humanitarian obligations lies with the commander. Commanders understand their duty to minimize risk to innocent lives. That responsibility is unambiguous in military doctrine, law, and professional military ethics. Ignoring this long-standing component of the American military ethic and tradition seems particularly galling as we pass the first anniversary of the deaths of the 13 service members who died protecting Afghan civilians from the onslaught of Taliban forces.

When there are breakdowns in moral character and discipline in combat, leaders are held responsible — usually after an investigation and sometimes at a court-martial.

New regulations would direct the deployment of apparently morally superior “cells” of people that would, despite their best intentions, diminish command authority and reduce military effectiveness in battle.

Of course, no organization — nor its people — are perfect. There are infamous incidents in American military history — My Lai and Abu Ghraib are two in recent memory. Soldiers have transgressed and killed civilians without justification. But they have been investigated, prosecuted, and, if found guilty, have been sentenced to time in the military prison in Leavenworth, Kan. When there has been dissatisfaction about the consequences of moral failures, such as the Marines’ killings in Haditha, Iraq, the Defense Department has recommended strengthening the role of senior commanders in the disposition of criminal cases. Thus, provisions already exist to pursue justice.

The imposition of outside actors on military units undercuts discipline and combat effectiveness. In battle, soldiers look to their commanders to make tough decisions, and they must respond immediately to those orders to seize and retain the initiative. Commanders, not “civilian harm assessment cells,” are the ones who must be responsible for their unit’s success. By diluting the fundamental responsibility of military commanders to exercise moral and ethical conduct in war, this plan harms the core strengths of the American military.

The introduction of external arbiters also violates an essential principle of war — the unity of command. A committee, particularly a Washington or Pentagon-based committee, would not save us from future My Lais. Rather, it will impede decisiveness at every level of military command. Enemy forces at the tactical and operational level will be free to act as U.S. commanders contemplate how the committees and cells will judge their decisions.

Unfortunately, a movement toward external oversight of military commanders is evident in other documents. The National Defense Authorization Act now being considered by the U.S. Senate includes provisions for “gender advisors and gender focal points,” including the creation of a “credentialing program for gender advisors to foster the development of a professionalized cadre of gender advisors.” While it is unclear what that exactly means, it suggests that we cannot trust our officers, absent these new advisors, to treat all individuals equally and with dignity. If our officers are not doing so, we should be using existing channels to remove them from the military.

[If we do not trust our uniformed leaders to do the right thing in battle, we should reform our institutions through the chain of command, not introduce committees of people with yet-to-be-defined qualifications and motivations in those institutions. And if the U.S. government does not trust our military commanders, why would the American people encourage their sons and daughters to serve and protect our nation?]
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Personal note: Something to think about! That last sentance say alot and tends to upset the cohesivness of our military - and those that support our troops.