Out of control: the crisis in civil-military relations

National Interest, The, Spring, 1994 by Richard H. Kohn

Even more troubling, General Powell took it upon himself to be the arbiter of American military intervention overseas, an unprecedented policy role for a senior military officer, and the most explicit intrusion into policy since MacArthur's conflict with Truman. It was Powell, as Senior Military Assistant, who oversaw the writing of Weinberger's 1984 speech outlining the six criteria for American intervention abroad.(10) According to Washington Post reporter Don Oberdorfer, Powell resisted intervention in Somalia for at least four months, but surprised the Bush administration by reversing himself, and within a month American soldiers were on the ground.(11) Powell's public statements on the subject in the last two years have been increasingly bold. Under his leadership, the uniformed military gained an enormous public voice on the subject of when, where, and in what circumstances American military power should be used. His opposition to intervention in Bosnia now approaches legend; perhaps more than any single individual he restrained first the Bush, and then the Clinton, administrations from action.

Many became uncomfortable at this military intrusion into foreign policy, particularly when General Powell published, at the height of the presidential campaign in 1992, a New York Times op-ed piece, warning explicitly against intervention in Bosnia.(12) Even more unfortunate was an article in Foreign Affairs in the Winter 1992-93 issue, the timing of which constituted a clear, public declaration of principles from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to an incoming president who ran and won on an exclusively domestic agenda, who possessed little foreign policy experience, and no credibility in military affairs. The uniformed head of the American armed forces defined the American role in the world, commented on American society, and asserted that "I share responsibility for America's security...with the president and commander in chief, with the secretary of defense and with the magnificent men and women--volunteers all--of America's armed forces." In this article, the General claimed that our nation is "obligated to lead" in the world, and then he repeated the Weinberger formula of conditions, processes, and methods under which American forces can be used to intervene. In its defense of past actions, a defeated administration's policies, and its strictures for the future, General Powell was offering his own views on foreign policy, in contravention to the tradition of American civil military relations since the beginning of the republic.(13)

Mutiny in the Ranks

THE VERY WORST breach of civilian control occurred just after Bill Clinton's election on the question of homosexuals serving openly in the armed forces. General Powell knew of President-elect Clinton's position. Powell had for a year taken very public stances in support of the existing policy on excluding homosexuals, in spite of the comparison with earlier discrimination against African-Americans and the heat he must have taken from civil rights advocates and allies in the African-American community. General Powell must have felt very strongly indeed on this subject, for he virtually defied the President-elect, never denying publicly the rumors in November-December 1992 that he might resign over the issue, doing nothing to scotch rumors that his fellow chiefs might do the same, doing nothing to discourage retired generals from lobbying on Capitol Hill to form an alliance against lifting the ban. General Powell and the Joint Chiefs then appeared to negotiate publicly with the President at a meeting in late January 1993--and privately through the Secretary of Defense, the press, and Congress--for the compromise finally forced on Bill Clinton last summer. On this issue, the military leadership took full advantage of a young, incoming president with extraordinarily weak authority in military affairs. Nothing did more to harm the launching of the Clinton administration than "gays in the military," for it announced to Washington and the world that the President could be rolled. If the one group pledged by law and tradition to obey could roll him, then everyone could--or at least could try.