Tomgram: William Astore, All the President's Generals
By William Astore
Posted on December 20, 2016, Printed on December 20, 2016
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176224/ ;
In a sense, human history could be seen as an endless tale of the rise and
fall of empires. In the last century alone, from the Hapsburgs and Imperial
Japan to Great Britain and the Soviet Union, the stage was crowded with such
entities heading for the nearest exit. By 1991, with the implosion of the
USSR, it seemed as if Earth's imperial history was more or less over. After
all, only one great imperial power was left. The Russians were, by then, a
shadow of their former Soviet self (despite their nuclear arsenal) and,
though on the rise, the Chinese were, in military terms at least, no more
than a growing regional power. Left essentially unchallenged was the United
States, the last empire standing. Even though its people rejected the word
"imperial" as a descriptive term for their "exceptional" country -- just as,
until oh-so-recently, they rejected the word "nationalist" for themselves --
the world's "sole superpower" was visibly the only game in town.
Its military, which already garrisoned much of the planet, was funded at
levels no other country or even groups of them combined could touch and had
destructive capabilities beyond compare. And yet, with the mightiest
military on the planet, the United States would never again win a
significant war or conflict. Though its forces would be quite capable of
taking the island of Grenada or briefly invading Panama, in the conflicts
that mattered -- Korea and Vietnam -- victory would never come into sight.
And it only got worse in the twenty-first century as that military fought an
endless series of conflicts (under the rubric of "the war on terror") across
the Greater Middle East and Africa. In those years, it left in its wake a
series of brutal sectarian struggles, ascendant terror movements, and failed
or failing states and yet, despite its stunning destructive power and its
modestly armed enemies, it was nowhere victorious. Never perhaps had an
empire at its seeming height attempted to control more while winning less.
(The power of its economy was, of course, another matter.)
Now, its losing generals -- under the circumstances, there could be no other
kind -- are, as TomDispatch regular retired Lieutenant Colonel William
Astore points out today, being elevated to positions of power. The man
doing so only recently derided their skills, claiming that American
generalship had been "reduced to rubble" and was "embarrassing for our
country." At the moment, his chosen generals are preparing themselves to
take over key civilian positions in the country's ever more powerful
national security state, now essentially its fourth branch of government.
And let's add to this one more curious aspect of the coming age of Trump: a
phenomenon until now restricted to the military and its distant wars seems
about to spread to what's left of the civilian part of our government. By
the look of things, Trump's cabinet is being assembled along eerily familiar
lines. Its members are unlikely to have the power to "win" (despite the
president-elect's deification of that concept), but they will indeed have an
unprecedented power to destroy.
They seem, in fact, to have been chosen largely for their desire to
dismantle whatever agency or department will be in their care or to
undermine the major tasks it is to carry out. Former Texas governor Rick
Perry, recently picked to head the Energy Department, an agency he
previously wanted to eliminate (and whose name he infamously forgot in a
televised presidential debate), is typical. See also Scott Pruitt,
prospective head of the Environmental Protection Agency; Betsy DeVos, the
Department of Education; and Tom Price, Health and Human Services. The
question, of course, is: Will the civilian part of our future government, in
the end, add another country to the count of failed states the U.S. military
has already chalked up?
As our first declinist candidate, Donald Trump seems determined to ensure
that the once sole superpower will join that endless human tale of felled
empires. He's already working hard to make certain that its government will
be hollowed out or simply dynamited in the coming years, while his covey of
retired generals will undoubtedly do their damnedest to create further havoc
on planet Earth, as they give new meaning to the latest American "principle"
being put in place (see Astore): military control over the military (and
much else). Tom
Too Many Generals Spoil the Democracy
Trump's Push to "Win" with Warriors is a Loss for America
By William J. Astore
America has always had a love affair with its generals. It started at the
founding of the republic with George Washington and continued with (among
others) Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, and Dwight D.
Eisenhower. These military men shared something in common: they were
winning generals. Washington in the Revolution; Jackson in the War of 1812;
Taylor in the Mexican-American War; Grant in the Civil War; and Ike, of
course, in World War II. Americans have always loved a hero in uniform --
when he wins.
Yet twenty-first-century America is witnessing a new and revolutionary
moment: the elevation of losing generals to the highest offices in the land.
Retired Marine Corps General James "Mad Dog" Mattis, known as a
tough-talking "warrior-monk," will soon be the nation's secretary of
defense. He'll be joined by a real mad dog, retired Army Lieutenant General
Michael Flynn as President-elect Donald Trump's national security adviser.
Leading the Department of Homeland Security will be recently retired General
John Kelly, another no-nonsense Marine. And even though he wasn't selected,
retired Army General David Petraeus was seriously considered for secretary
of state, further proof of Trump's starry-eyed fascination with the brass of
our losing wars. Generals who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan to anything
but victory -- pyrrhic ones don't count -- are again being empowered. This
time, it's as "civilian" advisers to Trump, a business tycoon whose military
knowledge begins and ends with his invocation of two World War II generals,
George S. Patton and Douglas MacArthur, as his all-time favorite military
leaders.
Let's pause for a moment to consider those choices. Patton was a skilled
commander of armored forces at the divisional and corps level, but lacked
the political acumen and temperament to succeed at higher levels of command
during World War II. MacArthur, notoriously vainglorious and -- does this
ring a bell? -- completely narcissistic, was fired by President Harry Truman
for insubordination during the Korean War. And yet these are the generals
Trump professes to admire most. Not Omar Bradley, known as the GI's
general; not Dwight Eisenhower, the man who led the D-Day invasion in 1944;
and not, most of all, George C. Marshall, a giant of a man and the architect
of military victory in World War II, who did indeed make a remarkably smooth
transition to civilian service both as secretary of state and defense after
the war.
If Truman appointed Marshall, what's wrong, one might ask, with Trump
surrounding himself with retired generals? Consider two obvious problems.
First, the president already has a team of uniformed generals to advise him:
the Joint Chiefs of Staff. By selecting career military men like Mattis and
Flynn as his senior civilian advisers on military matters, Trump is in
essence creating a rival Joint Chiefs, his own tight circle of generals
trained and acculturated to think about the world as primarily a realm of
conflict and to favor military solutions to geopolitical problems. Second,
though it's getting ever harder to remember in increasingly militarized
America, this nation was founded on the fundamental principle of civilian
control over the military, a principle that will be seriously eroded if the
president's senior civilian advisers on defense-related matters are men who
self-identify as warriors and warfighters.
Having taken off the uniform only a short time ago, career military men like
Mattis, Flynn, and Kelly are not truly civilians. In fact, when they
served, they weren't even citizen-soldiers; quite the opposite, those in
America's post-Vietnam military self-identify as professional warriors. For
Mattis and Kelly, it's once a Marine, always a Marine (especially since each
served 40-plus years in the Corps). Flynn occupies a spot all his own,
since he specifically fancies himself as a warrior-crusader against Islam.
These are the men who will soon occupy the highest civilian offices in
America's colossal national security state.
The bottom line is this: a republic -- or should I say, former republic? --
founded on civilian control of the military needs true civilians as a
counterweight to militarism as well as military adventurism. Recently
retired generals are anything but that; they're not even speed bumps on the
road to the next set of misbegotten military "adventures." They are likely
to be only one thing: enablers of and accelerants to military action. Their
presence in the highest civilian positions represents nothing short of a de
facto military coup in Washington, a coup that required no violence since
the president-elect simply anointed and exalted them as America's security
saviors.
But here's a question for you: If these men and their three- and four-star
colleagues couldn't win decisive military victories while in uniform, what
makes Trump and the Washington establishment think they'll do any better
while wearing mufti?
Of Highly Groomed (and Flawed) Generals
Americans, who strongly admire their military, like to think that its most
senior leaders rise on merit. This is not, however, the way the military
promotion system actually works. Officers who reach the rank of general
have usually been identified and sponsored at a young age, often when they
are still company-grade officers in their mid-twenties. They are, in a
word, groomed. Their careers are carefully "curated," as a friend of mine
(and colonel in the Air Force) reminded me recently. They're placed on a
fast track for early promotion and often given jobs in Washington at the
Pentagon or as liaisons to Congress. Their sponsors and patrons, flying
"top cover" for them, have found them worthy and they may indeed be talented
and hard-charging. They are also judged to be "safe" -- in the sense of
being true believers in the professional military way of life.
As my colonel-friend put it, "There's little room for innovation [in today's
military] because the next generation of GOs [general officers] has been
incubating for ten years, learning all the talking points and preparing to
venerate the sacred cows. It's why when a truly innovative idea breaks
through and the colonel behind it is publicly commended, there's no answer
to 'Wow, he's great. I wonder why he's retiring as a colonel?'"
True mavericks in the military often stall out at that rank. By disrupting
the status quo, they make powerful enemies. A sterling example is Colonel
John Boyd. Arguably the finest strategist the U.S. Air Force has produced
in the last half-century, Boyd originated the OODA loop concept and fought
hard against the brass for more maneuverable and affordable fighter jets
like the F-16. Stymied within the ranks, he only gained influence after
retirement as a Pentagon consultant.
General officers, by the way, have come to resemble a self-replicating
organism. The grooming process, favoring homogeneity as it does, is partly
to blame. Disruptive creativity and a reputation for outspokenness can mark
one as not being a "team player." Political skills and conformity are
valued more highly. It's a mistake, then, to assume that America's generals
are the best and the brightest. "The curated and the calculating" is perhaps
a more accurate description.
With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Trump's chosen threesome,
starting with General Mattis. He has his virtues: a distinguished career in
the Marine Corps, a sensible stance against torture, a dedication to all
ranks within the military. Yet like so many high-ranking military retirees
-- take General Mark Welsh of the Air Force, for example -- Mattis quickly
cashed in on his career, reputation, and continuing influence via the
military-industrial complex. Despite a six-figure pension, he joined
corporate boards, notably that of military-industrial powerhouse General
Dynamics where he quickly earned or acquired nearly $1.5 million in salary
and stock options. Mattis is also on the board at Theranos, a deeply
troubled company that failed to deliver on promises to develop effective
blood-testing technologies for the military.
And then, of course, there was his long military career, itself a distinctly
mixed bag. As head of U.S. Central Command under President Obama, for
instance, his hawkish stance toward Iran led to his removal and forced
retirement in 2013. Almost a decade earlier in 2004, the aggressive tactics
he oversaw in Iraq as commanding general of the 1st Marine Division during
the Battle of Fallujah have been characterized by some as war crimes. For
Trump, however, none of this matters. Mattis, much like General Patton (in
the president-elect's view), is a man who "plays no games."
And Mattis seems like the voice of reason and moderation compared to Flynn,
whose hatred of Islam is as virulent as it is transparent. Like Trump,
Flynn is a fan of tweeting, perhaps his most infamous being "Fear of Muslims
is RATIONAL." A brusque man convinced of his own rectitude, who has a
reputation for not playing well with others, Flynn was forced from his
position as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, after which
he became a harsh critic of the Obama administration.
In his brief retirement, Flynn served as a paid lobbyist to a Turkish
businessman with close ties to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey,
while running a business consultancy that is due to profit by providing
surveillance drones to patrol the U.S.-Mexican border. Rising to prominence
during the Trump campaign, he led the chant against Hillary Clinton ("Lock
her up!") at the Republican National Convention in July. (His son recently
helped spread the false rumor that Clinton was involved in a child sex
trafficking ring involving a Washington, D.C., pizzeria.) Flynn, who sees
Islam as a political conspiracy rather than a legitimate religion, is an
angry warrior, a dyed-in-the-wool crusader. That Trump sees such a figure
as qualified to serve as the nation's senior civilian security adviser
speaks volumes about the president-elect and the crusading militarism that
is likely to be forthcoming from his administration.
Serving in a supporting capacity to Flynn as chief of staff of the National
Security Council (NSC) is yet another high-ranking military man (and early
supporter of Trump's presidential run), Army retired Lieutenant General
Keith Kellogg. Almost a generation older than Flynn, Kellogg served as
chief operations officer for the ill-fated Coalition Provisional Authority
in Iraq, which badly mismanaged the U.S. military's occupation of the
country after the fall of Baghdad in 2003. Like most retired generals,
Kellogg has profited from close links to defense-related industries,
including CACI International, Oracle Corporation (Homeland Security
Division), and Cubic, where he was senior vice president for ground combat
programs. It's hard to see fresh ideas coming from the NSC with
long-serving military diehards like Flynn and Kellogg ruling the roost.
General John Kelly, the last of the quartet and soon to be head of the
Department of Homeland Security, is yet another long-serving Marine with a
reputation for bluntness. He opposed efforts by the Obama administration to
close the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, claiming that the remaining
detainees were "all bad boys," both guilty and dangerous. He also ran afoul
of the administration by criticizing efforts to open combat positions to
qualified servicewomen, claiming such efforts were "agenda-driven" and would
lead to lower standards and decreased military combat effectiveness.
Despite these views, or perhaps because of them, Kelly, who served as senior
military assistant to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and has been well
vetted by the system, is likely to be confirmed with little real debate.
Of Coups and Crusades
Collectively, the team of Mattis, Flynn, and Kelly could not be more
symbolic of the ongoing process of subversion of civilian control of the
military. With Trump holding their reins, these self-styled warriors will
soon take charge of the highest civilian positions overseeing the military
of the world's sole superpower. Don't think of this, however, as a "Seven
Days in May" scenario in which a hard-headed general mounts a coup against
an allegedly soft-hearted president. It's far worse. Who needs a coup when
generals are essentially to be given free rein by a president-elect who
fancies himself a military expert because, as a teenager, he spent a few
years at a military-themed boarding school?
In all of this, Trump represents just the next (giant) step in an ongoing
process. His warrior-steeds, his "dream team" of generals, highlight
America's striking twenty-first-century embrace of militarism. At the same
time, the future of U.S. foreign policy seems increasingly clear: more
violent interventionism against what these men see as the existential threat
of radical Islam. In the process, one radical idea will be pitted against
another: American exceptionalism, armed to the teeth and empowered by
war-lovers (some deeply involved in an evangelizing Christianity) against
Islamic jihadist extremism. Rather than a "clash of civilizations," it's a
clash of warring creeds, of what should essentially be seen as
fundamentalist cults. Both embrace their own exceptionalism, both see
themselves as righteous warriors, both represent ways of thinking steeped in
patriarchy and saturated with violence, and both are remarkably resistant to
any thought of compromise.
Put another way, under Trump's team of "civilian" warrior-generals, it looks
like the crusades may be back -- with a vengeance. Yet for all the
president-elect's tough talk about winning, count on the next four years,
like the last 15, being filled to the brim with military frustrations rather
than victory. And fear a second possibility as well. Whatever else they
do, Trump and his generals are likely to produce one historically stunning
result: the withering away of what's left of the American democratic
experiment.
William J. Astore, a TomDispatch regular, is a historian and retired
lieutenant colonel (USAF). His personal blog is Bracing Views.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest
Dispatch Book, John Feffer's dystopian novel Splinterlands, as well as Nick
Turse's Next Time They'll Come to Count the Dead, and Tom Engelhardt's
latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global
Security State in a Single-Superpower World.
Copyright 2016 William J. Astore
C 2016 TomDispatch. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176224
Tomgram: William Astore, All the President's Generals
By William Astore
Posted on December 20, 2016, Printed on December 20, 2016
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176224/ ;
In a sense, human history could be seen as an endless tale of the rise and
fall of empires. In the last century alone, from the Hapsburgs and Imperial
Japan to Great Britain and the Soviet Union, the stage was crowded with such
entities heading for the nearest exit. By 1991, with the implosion of the
USSR, it seemed as if Earth's imperial history was more or less over. After
all, only one great imperial power was left. The Russians were, by then, a
shadow of their former Soviet self (despite their nuclear arsenal) and,
though on the rise, the Chinese were, in military terms at least, no more
than a growing regional power. Left essentially unchallenged was the United
States, the last empire standing. Even though its people rejected the word
"imperial" as a descriptive term for their "exceptional" country -- just as,
until oh-so-recently, they rejected the word "nationalist" for themselves --
the world's "sole superpower" was visibly the only game in town.
Its military, which already garrisoned much of the planet, was funded at
levels no other country or even groups of them combined could touch and had
destructive capabilities beyond compare. And yet, with the mightiest
military on the planet, the United States would never again win a
significant war or conflict. Though its forces would be quite capable of
taking the island of Grenada or briefly invading Panama, in the conflicts
that mattered -- Korea and Vietnam -- victory would never come into sight.
And it only got worse in the twenty-first century as that military fought an
endless series of conflicts (under the rubric of "the war on terror") across
the Greater Middle East and Africa. In those years, it left in its wake a
series of brutal sectarian struggles, ascendant terror movements, and failed
or failing states and yet, despite its stunning destructive power and its
modestly armed enemies, it was nowhere victorious. Never perhaps had an
empire at its seeming height attempted to control more while winning less.
(The power of its economy was, of course, another matter.)
Now, its losing generals -- under the circumstances, there could be no other
kind -- are, as TomDispatch regular retired Lieutenant Colonel William
Astore points out today, being elevated to positions of power. The man doing
so only recently derided their skills, claiming that American generalship
had been "reduced to rubble" and was "embarrassing for our country." At the
moment, his chosen generals are preparing themselves to take over key
civilian positions in the country's ever more powerful national security
state, now essentially its fourth branch of government.
And let's add to this one more curious aspect of the coming age of Trump: a
phenomenon until now restricted to the military and its distant wars seems
about to spread to what's left of the civilian part of our government. By
the look of things, Trump's cabinet is being assembled along eerily familiar
lines. Its members are unlikely to have the power to "win" (despite the
president-elect's deification of that concept), but they will indeed have an
unprecedented power to destroy.
They seem, in fact, to have been chosen largely for their desire to
dismantle whatever agency or department will be in their care or to
undermine the major tasks it is to carry out. Former Texas governor Rick
Perry, recently picked to head the Energy Department, an agency he
previously wanted to eliminate (and whose name he infamously forgot in a
televised presidential debate), is typical. See also Scott Pruitt,
prospective head of the Environmental Protection Agency; Betsy DeVos, the
Department of Education; and Tom Price, Health and Human Services. The
question, of course, is: Will the civilian part of our future government, in
the end, add another country to the count of failed states the U.S. military
has already chalked up?
As our first declinist candidate, Donald Trump seems determined to ensure
that the once sole superpower will join that endless human tale of felled
empires. He's already working hard to make certain that its government will
be hollowed out or simply dynamited in the coming years, while his covey of
retired generals will undoubtedly do their damnedest to create further havoc
on planet Earth, as they give new meaning to the latest American "principle"
being put in place (see Astore): military control over the military (and
much else). Tom
Too Many Generals Spoil the Democracy
Trump's Push to "Win" with Warriors is a Loss for America
By William J. Astore
America has always had a love affair with its generals. It started at the
founding of the republic with George Washington and continued with (among
others) Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, and Dwight D.
Eisenhower. These military men shared something in common: they were winning
generals. Washington in the Revolution; Jackson in the War of 1812; Taylor
in the Mexican-American War; Grant in the Civil War; and Ike, of course, in
World War II. Americans have always loved a hero in uniform -- when he wins.
Yet twenty-first-century America is witnessing a new and revolutionary
moment: the elevation of losing generals to the highest offices in the land.
Retired Marine Corps General James "Mad Dog" Mattis, known as a
tough-talking "warrior-monk," will soon be the nation's secretary of
defense. He'll be joined by a real mad dog, retired Army Lieutenant General
Michael Flynn as President-elect Donald Trump's national security adviser.
Leading the Department of Homeland Security will be recently retired General
John Kelly, another no-nonsense Marine. And even though he wasn't selected,
retired Army General David Petraeus was seriously considered for secretary
of state, further proof of Trump's starry-eyed fascination with the brass of
our losing wars. Generals who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan to anything but
victory -- pyrrhic ones don't count -- are again being empowered. This time,
it's as "civilian" advisers to Trump, a business tycoon whose military
knowledge begins and ends with his invocation of two World War II generals,
George S. Patton and Douglas MacArthur, as his all-time favorite military
leaders.
Let's pause for a moment to consider those choices. Patton was a skilled
commander of armored forces at the divisional and corps level, but lacked
the political acumen and temperament to succeed at higher levels of command
during World War II. MacArthur, notoriously vainglorious and -- does this
ring a bell? -- completely narcissistic, was fired by President Harry Truman
for insubordination during the Korean War. And yet these are the generals
Trump professes to admire most. Not Omar Bradley, known as the GI's general;
not Dwight Eisenhower, the man who led the D-Day invasion in 1944; and not,
most of all, George C. Marshall, a giant of a man and the architect of
military victory in World War II, who did indeed make a remarkably smooth
transition to civilian service both as secretary of state and defense after
the war.
If Truman appointed Marshall, what's wrong, one might ask, with Trump
surrounding himself with retired generals? Consider two obvious problems.
First, the president already has a team of uniformed generals to advise him:
the Joint Chiefs of Staff. By selecting career military men like Mattis and
Flynn as his senior civilian advisers on military matters, Trump is in
essence creating a rival Joint Chiefs, his own tight circle of generals
trained and acculturated to think about the world as primarily a realm of
conflict and to favor military solutions to geopolitical problems. Second,
though it's getting ever harder to remember in increasingly militarized
America, this nation was founded on the fundamental principle of civilian
control over the military, a principle that will be seriously eroded if the
president's senior civilian advisers on defense-related matters are men who
self-identify as warriors and warfighters.
Having taken off the uniform only a short time ago, career military men like
Mattis, Flynn, and Kelly are not truly civilians. In fact, when they served,
they weren't even citizen-soldiers; quite the opposite, those in America's
post-Vietnam military self-identify as professional warriors. For Mattis and
Kelly, it's once a Marine, always a Marine (especially since each served
40-plus years in the Corps). Flynn occupies a spot all his own, since he
specifically fancies himself as a warrior-crusader against Islam. These are
the men who will soon occupy the highest civilian offices in America's
colossal national security state.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1608467244/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1608467244/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20The bottom
line is this: a republic -- or should I say, former republic? -- founded on
civilian control of the military needs true civilians as a counterweight to
militarism as well as military adventurism. Recently retired generals are
anything but that; they're not even speed bumps on the road to the next set
of misbegotten military "adventures." They are likely to be only one thing:
enablers of and accelerants to military action. Their presence in the
highest civilian positions represents nothing short of a de facto military
coup in Washington, a coup that required no violence since the
president-elect simply anointed and exalted them as America's security
saviors.
But here's a question for you: If these men and their three- and four-star
colleagues couldn't win decisive military victories while in uniform, what
makes Trump and the Washington establishment think they'll do any better
while wearing mufti?
Of Highly Groomed (and Flawed) Generals
Americans, who strongly admire their military, like to think that its most
senior leaders rise on merit. This is not, however, the way the military
promotion system actually works. Officers who reach the rank of general have
usually been identified and sponsored at a young age, often when they are
still company-grade officers in their mid-twenties. They are, in a word,
groomed. Their careers are carefully "curated," as a friend of mine (and
colonel in the Air Force) reminded me recently. They're placed on a fast
track for early promotion and often given jobs in Washington at the Pentagon
or as liaisons to Congress. Their sponsors and patrons, flying "top cover"
for them, have found them worthy and they may indeed be talented and
hard-charging. They are also judged to be "safe" -- in the sense of being
true believers in the professional military way of life.
As my colonel-friend put it, "There's little room for innovation [in today's
military] because the next generation of GOs [general officers] has been
incubating for ten years, learning all the talking points and preparing to
venerate the sacred cows. It's why when a truly innovative idea breaks
through and the colonel behind it is publicly commended, there's no answer
to 'Wow, he's great. I wonder why he's retiring as a colonel?'"
True mavericks in the military often stall out at that rank. By disrupting
the status quo, they make powerful enemies. A sterling example is Colonel
John Boyd. Arguably the finest strategist the U.S. Air Force has produced in
the last half-century, Boyd originated the OODA loop concept and fought hard
against the brass for more maneuverable and affordable fighter jets like the
F-16. Stymied within the ranks, he only gained influence after retirement as
a Pentagon consultant.
General officers, by the way, have come to resemble a self-replicating
organism. The grooming process, favoring homogeneity as it does, is partly
to blame. Disruptive creativity and a reputation for outspokenness can mark
one as not being a "team player." Political skills and conformity are valued
more highly. It's a mistake, then, to assume that America's generals are the
best and the brightest. "The curated and the calculating" is perhaps a more
accurate description.
With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Trump's chosen threesome,
starting with General Mattis. He has his virtues: a distinguished career in
the Marine Corps, a sensible stance against torture, a dedication to all
ranks within the military. Yet like so many high-ranking military retirees
-- take General Mark Welsh of the Air Force, for example -- Mattis quickly
cashed in on his career, reputation, and continuing influence via the
military-industrial complex. Despite a six-figure pension, he joined
corporate boards, notably that of military-industrial powerhouse General
Dynamics where he quickly earned or acquired nearly $1.5 million in salary
and stock options. Mattis is also on the board at Theranos, a deeply
troubled company that failed to deliver on promises to develop effective
blood-testing technologies for the military.
And then, of course, there was his long military career, itself a distinctly
mixed bag. As head of U.S. Central Command under President Obama, for
instance, his hawkish stance toward Iran led to his removal and forced
retirement in 2013. Almost a decade earlier in 2004, the aggressive tactics
he oversaw in Iraq as commanding general of the 1st Marine Division during
the Battle of Fallujah have been characterized by some as war crimes. For
Trump, however, none of this matters. Mattis, much like General Patton (in
the president-elect's view), is a man who "plays no games."
And Mattis seems like the voice of reason and moderation compared to Flynn,
whose hatred of Islam is as virulent as it is transparent. Like Trump, Flynn
is a fan of tweeting, perhaps his most infamous being "Fear of Muslims is
RATIONAL." A brusque man convinced of his own rectitude, who has a
reputation for not playing well with others, Flynn was forced from his
position as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, after which
he became a harsh critic of the Obama administration.
In his brief retirement, Flynn served as a paid lobbyist to a Turkish
businessman with close ties to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey,
while running a business consultancy that is due to profit by providing
surveillance drones to patrol the U.S.-Mexican border. Rising to prominence
during the Trump campaign, he led the chant against Hillary Clinton ("Lock
her up!") at the Republican National Convention in July. (His son recently
helped spread the false rumor that Clinton was involved in a child sex
trafficking ring involving a Washington, D.C., pizzeria.) Flynn, who sees
Islam as a political conspiracy rather than a legitimate religion, is an
angry warrior, a dyed-in-the-wool crusader. That Trump sees such a figure as
qualified to serve as the nation's senior civilian security adviser speaks
volumes about the president-elect and the crusading militarism that is
likely to be forthcoming from his administration.
Serving in a supporting capacity to Flynn as chief of staff of the National
Security Council (NSC) is yet another high-ranking military man (and early
supporter of Trump's presidential run), Army retired Lieutenant General
Keith Kellogg. Almost a generation older than Flynn, Kellogg served as chief
operations officer for the ill-fated Coalition Provisional Authority in
Iraq, which badly mismanaged the U.S. military's occupation of the country
after the fall of Baghdad in 2003. Like most retired generals, Kellogg has
profited from close links to defense-related industries, including CACI
International, Oracle Corporation (Homeland Security Division), and Cubic,
where he was senior vice president for ground combat programs. It's hard to
see fresh ideas coming from the NSC with long-serving military diehards like
Flynn and Kellogg ruling the roost.
General John Kelly, the last of the quartet and soon to be head of the
Department of Homeland Security, is yet another long-serving Marine with a
reputation for bluntness. He opposed efforts by the Obama administration to
close the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, claiming that the remaining
detainees were "all bad boys," both guilty and dangerous. He also ran afoul
of the administration by criticizing efforts to open combat positions to
qualified servicewomen, claiming such efforts were "agenda-driven" and would
lead to lower standards and decreased military combat effectiveness. Despite
these views, or perhaps because of them, Kelly, who served as senior
military assistant to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and has been well
vetted by the system, is likely to be confirmed with little real debate.
Of Coups and Crusades
Collectively, the team of Mattis, Flynn, and Kelly could not be more
symbolic of the ongoing process of subversion of civilian control of the
military. With Trump holding their reins, these self-styled warriors will
soon take charge of the highest civilian positions overseeing the military
of the world's sole superpower. Don't think of this, however, as a "Seven
Days in May" scenario in which a hard-headed general mounts a coup against
an allegedly soft-hearted president. It's far worse. Who needs a coup when
generals are essentially to be given free rein by a president-elect who
fancies himself a military expert because, as a teenager, he spent a few
years at a military-themed boarding school?
In all of this, Trump represents just the next (giant) step in an ongoing
process. His warrior-steeds, his "dream team" of generals, highlight
America's striking twenty-first-century embrace of militarism. At the same
time, the future of U.S. foreign policy seems increasingly clear: more
violent interventionism against what these men see as the existential threat
of radical Islam. In the process, one radical idea will be pitted against
another: American exceptionalism, armed to the teeth and empowered by
war-lovers (some deeply involved in an evangelizing Christianity) against
Islamic jihadist extremism. Rather than a "clash of civilizations," it's a
clash of warring creeds, of what should essentially be seen as
fundamentalist cults. Both embrace their own exceptionalism, both see
themselves as righteous warriors, both represent ways of thinking steeped in
patriarchy and saturated with violence, and both are remarkably resistant to
any thought of compromise.
Put another way, under Trump's team of "civilian" warrior-generals, it looks
like the crusades may be back -- with a vengeance. Yet for all the
president-elect's tough talk about winning, count on the next four years,
like the last 15, being filled to the brim with military frustrations rather
than victory. And fear a second possibility as well. Whatever else they do,
Trump and his generals are likely to produce one historically stunning
result: the withering away of what's left of the American democratic
experiment.
William J. Astore, a TomDispatch regular, is a historian and retired
lieutenant colonel (USAF). His personal blog is Bracing Views.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest
Dispatch Book, John Feffer's dystopian novel Splinterlands, as well as Nick
Turse's Next Time They'll Come to Count the Dead, and Tom Engelhardt's
latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global
Security State in a Single-Superpower World.
Copyright 2016 William J. Astore
C 2016 TomDispatch. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176224
