Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, answers questions after the second of two Democratic presidential primary debates hosted by CNN Thursday, Aug. 1, 2019, in the Fox Theatre in Detroit.
Gabbard is why political candidates and the military shouldn’t mix
Lt. Col. ML Cavanaugh:
Tulsi Gabbard highlights a problem that is not unique to her. She has two identities, one as a politician and member of Congress and the other as a military officer and major in the Army National Guard. As a Democratic presidential candidate, she’s blurred and crossed the lines distinguishing those identities.
She should either serve the country in a military uniform or as a national politician, but she shouldn’t do both simultaneously, because it harms our military’s all-important nonpartisan ethic and has the potential to weaken our national defense by normalizing what could be a dangerous practice.
So either Maj. Gabbard — or Rep. Gabbard — should stand down.
Her ambition to do double duty is noble, impressive, yet nonetheless wrong. And unfortunately, this is a bipartisan affliction. Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s (R-Ill.) service in the Air National Guard is a prominent example on the other side of the aisle. Although the exact figure ebbs and flows, by my count nearly 20 member of Congress were soldier-lawmakers as recently as two years ago.
In this week’s Democratic debate in Detroit, Gabbard was true to form: Her military service was front and center, as it is in her campaign. Her status as a soldier is the lead biographical bullet point on her Twitter page and her campaign website points out that she’s “presently a major” in the Army National Guard. The site features a slick video of a political speech she gave in 2014 as a member of Congress, wearing her military dress uniform, deriding the “slashing of benefits” for service members and asserting “we must hold leaders accountable.”
Politicking in uniform clearly violates the spirit of the military officer’s oath — something she’s done over and over — and should concern every American citizen and soldier.
Because by regulation and tradition, our nation’s military is thoroughly and deliberately nonpartisan as it has a responsibility to prevent politics from splintering our troops and separating the military from society. Military officers are, of course, allowed to have political ideas and to vote privately. But that’s where it stops because the U.S. military serves all Americans — the red, white and blue — not one party, red or blue.
Although reservists and National Guard troops have slightly different rules that allow for some greater level of political participation than full-time troops, part-time service doesn’t mean part-time ethics.
In choosing to run for president, Gabbard’s combined identity as a citizen-soldier sends her into profoundly uncomfortable terrain.
As an oath-bound military officer — with the potential to be called into national service by the sitting commander-in-chief — how can Gabbard answer questions about impeachment appropriately? Could she honestly say to her constituents in Hawaii, and other national supporters, that her answers aren’t conditioned on her service as a military officer (which would counsel exercising caution and avoiding calls for impeachment)? Or when she’s so publicly sold herself as an “outspoken critic of regime change wars” could she really tell the soldiers she might lead into combat that she’s truly willing to salute and support the chain of command, all the way up to the commander-in-chief, and that she’ll fight when necessary?
In military culture, leaders set examples. And Gabbard is setting an example for everyone in military service. Would it be acceptable for others in uniform to similarly broadcast and propagate their personal political views on social media to the same degree as Gabbard? To follow her lead and risk alienating others in their platoon, company, battalion or brigade?
Members of Congress serving in the military undermine the chain of command. Since they can’t set aside such a prominent day job (designed to provide direct oversight to the military itself), they are almost certain to receive special treatment. Some majors are more major, but shouldn’t be.
For example, Gabbard famously met directly with an avowed adversary of the U.S. government, Bashar Assad, known as the butcher of Syria. How many Army majors would be permitted to do that without facing military justice, let alone be allowed to spell out what their foreign policy would be separate from our government’s?
Practicality also intervenes: National political figures will probably never be able to meet the 39 days per year of unit training required for reservists or members of the National Guard, a fact that should exclude them from service. Their job should be given to someone who can put in the time to be ready to fight when duty calls.
Such dual service easily becomes dual exploitation — a national politician advantaged and protected by military camouflage, as well as a military officer advanced and privileged by political clothing.
People are far less likely to tell a soldier-politician like Gabbard, or other simultaneously serving members of Congress, what to do. That’s understandable, given the public servants’ instinctual nobility — we need more citizens like them who want to serve in politics or in uniform.
But one identity should stand down.
Military service is a privilege, sometimes a painful one. It entails the suppression of certain individual interests for the nation’s greater benefit. Whether members of Congress should simultaneously serve as reserve or National Guard officers is a question that should be officially addressed. At a minimum, those who formally seek the office of commander-in-chief should follow the example of Gen. George Washington — and leave military service behind before ascending to political office.
In Detroit, Gabbard promised to bring the “soldier’s values of service above self to the White House.” That’s fine, as long as she leaves the uniform behind well before walking in the front door.
Partisan politics has no place in today’s (or tomorrow’s) military
Throughout its history, the United States’ military has, by design, removed itself from partisan politics and pursued an apolitical voice in public discourse. In the current political climate where the popular culture has blended so heavily with politics, the line between apolitical speech and partisan talking points has all but disappeared and the military has jumped into that quagmire with both feet. In recent months, scandals in the form of social media outbursts, participation in unlawful assemblies by current and former members of the armed forces, and political statements in uniform made by senior enlisted and general officers have removed any pretense of political neutrality from the U.S. armed forces.
This shift is not only damaging to the U.S. armed forces’ reputation, but to the morale of the service members and the support of United States citizens. The leadership stand-down to address extremism in the force appears to have been designed in direct response to the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol building where there have been arrests of current and former active duty and reserves members of the military. In and of itself, this is not a particularly surprising move — every action has a reaction and typically that reaction from senior military leadership is mandatory training in regards to the issue at hand (e.g., Marines United). This stand-down training does not exist without context, however.
The context in this case is that the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol followed nearly eight months of riots in nearly every major city that resulted in over $2 billion of damages to public and private property and over 30 deaths. When presented in this context it is impossible to maintain the perception that partisan politics did not play a role in the creation and mandate of this training. As every service member knows, perception is reality. Further evidence of emergent partisanship at the highest levels of the armed forces, when service members at “every echelon” question as to why the anti-extremism training has been created in response to the Jan. 6 rioting and not the previous eight months the Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Sergeant Major Ramón Colón-López stated, “We cannot confuse a First Amendment grievance because of social injustice organization and some of the criminals that latched on to go ahead and loot, destroy and commit other crimes. There’s two clear, distinct groups right there.”
In an anecdotal account from an active-duty sailor reported by prominent political correspondent Jack Posobiec, during the extremism stand-down groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers were identified by their leadership as extremist groups while the sailor in question was told Antifa, BLM, and domestic Islamic jihadism were not appropriate examples in regards to the extremism training despite domestic terror incidents being carried out by members of, or in the name of, these groups. In this example, the focus on only one side of the political spectrum is stark and is counter to the military’s tradition of non-partisanship. It is evident that according to a separate article by McClatchy, this is not a unique case.
While it is true that there have been more service members, actively serving or otherwise formerly associated, were implicated in and charged with crimes in relation to the Jan. 6 riot; it is disingenuous (and factually inaccurate) to assert that no service member was engaged in the riots for “social injustice” during the previous eight months considering the arrest of Airman First Class Larry Williams Jr., allegedly caught on video torching a police car during riots in Salt Lake City. This begs the question: is the military actually concerned with all extremist ideologies equally or is it only concerned with partisan optics in response to a right-wing riot?
Unfortunately, this is not the only recent example of hypocrisy and partisan statements by senior officials. In response to comments made by Tucker Carlson, a Fox News political commentator, several senior officers and enlisted members of the U.S. military took to social media and even CNN to disparage him and his comments. These comments fly in the face of the social media misconduct policies instituted by each branch. General officers such as Army Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe, TRADOC Gen. Paul Funk, enlisted leadership such as Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant Scott Stalker and Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston, and the official Twitter account for Marine II Marine Information Group, have made public, politically charged comments — irrelevantly pointing at Carlson’s lack of military service — in response, adding fuel to the partisan firefight. Grinston went so far as to appear on CNN in uniform. II MIG (to their credit) has issued a public apology for their unprofessionalism.
These comments, without the context of being in response to a partisan political commentator, would not be seen as a political statement and would be rightly seen as a relatively obvious group of statements that accurately reflect the role of women in the military. When taken in context, however, the comments are political statements directed at a political commentator in order to play party politics on behalf of armed forces. Despite anyone’s personal opinions on Tucker Carlson’s statements on the military’s priorities with regard to hair and nail polish regulations or maternity uniforms, making public statements from official military social media accounts and appearing on partisan news networks is — and should be — impermissible for our senior military leaders. This bold-faced partisan commenting has led Republican Sen. Ted Cruz to state, “This spectacle risks politicizing the military after several centuries of efforts to keep military officials out of domestic affairs, undermining civil-military relations by having the military take a side in a contentious cultural dispute, and the perception that military leaders are happily weaponizing the institution against political critics of the sitting administration.”
Senator Cruz has also requested a meeting with the Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David Berger to discuss the comments made by military service members against Tucker Carlson.
This commentary is not meant to disparage the military — it is a metaphorical call to arms. It is intended to bring to light the emerging partisanship of the armed forces and correct the course of action before it is too late. The military exists to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America and by becoming embroiled in partisan politics that becomes impossible to do. If I, a current member of the military, and others do not begin to voice our concerns with our senior leaders’ increasingly partisan activities and statements we will lose the pride we once had in our service, we will lose quality service members who feel their personal political opinions are being disparaged by the military leadership, we will lose the faith of the citizens of the United States, and (most importantly) we will lose future conflicts by bleeding off quality members who would rather leave the military than become pawns for partisan use by leaders who would rather focus on optics and future political opportunity than on the future of our missions and our national defense. We cannot allow ourselves to become a tool to the current or any future administration for partisan politics.
The international and domestic conditions have changed sufficiently in the last forty years to warrant a review of how and to what end we are developing our leaders and specifically our field grade officer corps.
Background and Disclaimers
In my last year as a lieutenant colonel, I requested to serve as a faculty instructor at the Command and General Staff School (CGSS) following four years as a consumer of their efforts. As the Chief, Future Operations (G35) and later the Assistant Chief of Staff for Strategy, Plans, and Policy (G5) my teams were predominantly comprised of post Command and General Staff Officer College (CGSOC) and School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) trained majors. For the most part I was a satisfied customer because the talent of our rising officer corps is second to none. However, there was one common trait: lack of clarity in thought. I define this term as one’s ability to understand and communicate staff work, organizational process, professional opinions, and leader decision implications in a context that accounts for the nature of the operational environment, established policy parameters, military theory, and history. Said another way, a professional’s ability to show their math; not just have an opinion.
My ten months as an instructor at CGSOC were illuminating. Armed with Training and Doctrine Command’s (TRADOC) instructor certifications on the Adult Learning Model (ADM) and further pressured to pursue a parallel academic rank, I was entrusted with the Joint, Interagency, and Multinational operations instruction for a seminar of 16 students. The people whom I had the pleasure of teach beside are world class professionals driven by personal desires to empower the next generation of Army, sister service, and international leaders. The following observations and recommendations are oriented on the organizational necessities of the Army and do not reflect any perceived shortcomings of the incredibly talented cadre across CGSOC.
A Tale of Two Identities.
Training or Educating (What’s the difference). To most people these terms are synonymous; both involving teaching and learning. However, when designing organizational structures and expending finite resources (people/time/money) to produce individuals or teams with a specific skill set, these two terms couldn’t be more different. The January 2020 CGSOC Joint Professional Military Education (JPME)-I Reaccreditation Self Study highlights the distinct nature of these terms. Unfortunately, instead of choosing to be good at educating or training, the prescribed methodology for CGSOC is to balance and integrate “complementary approaches.” Said another way, the one-year CGSOC program fits eight pounds of knowledge into three-pound brains. We can do better, and it begins with a clear purpose and function to drive decisions that innovate a culture of learning.
Train to fight OR educate to think. Learning a specific skill utilized on the battlefield requires repetition, realistic conditions, and muscle memory. Learning how to think about war and subsequent battlefields requires reflection, research, and mentorship. Memorizing, through repetition, the intricate battlefield conditions and tactical actions of the forces commanded by Napoleon and Wellington may give you an expert appreciation of what happened at Waterloo, but alone cannot give an understanding of Napoleon’s revolution in military affairs or the impacts of the French Revolution on the character of warfare that remain today. This knowledge can only be achieved through research, reflection, writing, and engaging with a mentor who can enrich that learning experience. Similarly, reading, reflecting, and pontificating about the employment of weapons systems, particularly within complex environments of combined arms formations, will never give you a decisive victory over a skilled and capable adversary. Only through the crucible of training, repetition, assessments, and retraining can one achieve a decisive advantage and master the skills of fighting a crew, staff, or task force. Just ask the Russians in Ukraine.
Educate to fight AND train to think. The current Army professional education system is trying to be everything to everyone and unfortunately is slowly becoming a relic. The establishment of Army University, while at first was a noble effort to give service members and families an advantage when seeking degrees and opportunity in the world of higher education has grown to disproportionally influence policy decisions across TRADOC. To provide similar, if not superior, academic status as the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force, the Army University has expanded its scale and scope exponentially, blending the roles of commander, director, educator, and trainer. This is most notable at the executive level with the Commander, TRADOC serving as the Chancellor of Army University. The Director of the Combined Arms Center hold the office of Vice Chancellor and the Deputy Commandant of CGSOC is the Army University Provost. A cursory comparison of their civilian counterparts at a civilian university demonstrates distinct differences in career development paths, professional expertise, and daily scope of work. The point is NOT that Army senior leaders are unqualified for these positions, rather the unintended consequences of this structure has been the implementation of policies that educate soldiers to fight and train our people to think. Neither accomplishing optimal results. This is the cognitive dissidence that will ultimately erode the Army’s competitive advantage in the next 10 years.
There are two examples of CGSOC friction points that stem from this confusion. The first is the institutions inability to balance student time for reflection and study, with their classroom time to apply and process competencies such as planning and decision making. Often double booked based on instructor-student densities driven by accreditations, the work that doesn’t get finished is moved to homework and into direct competition with other efforts such as writing academic papers and projects imposed by multiple accreditation agencies. The result is that the learning is often ineffective because students will develop a survival routine that prioritizes everything or nothing at the same time. They become product vice content oriented and get captured by competing and redundant requirements that eventually force the learning experience into a routine of block checking and gamesmanship. Again, there is nothing nefarious about these realities rather another symptom of not having a guiding principle to prioritize toward. The second example was the incorporation external instructors for new curriculum dictated by senior Army leaders. The Army University chancellor in 2019 after concerns with CGSOC instructor qualifications, brought in training experts from the centers of excellence to educate CGSOC students on emerging warfighting concepts. Th outsourcing of academic tasks is a clear indicator of misaligned resources and intellectual confusion. A similar trend will emerge as TRADOC transform its mid-level courses and outsources education and training to units in the form of prerequisite distance learning requirements for prospective students.
The Bus to Abilene. It cannot be underemphasized that the collaging of education and training is neither a result of incompetence nor nefarious motives. The Army gets things done and the course of action that combines two distinct options is always the preferred and often directed method. Just like in Jerry B. Harvey’s 1974 article “The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement,” well-meaning professionals have perpetuated initiatives at CGSOC over the past forty years that have unintentionally resulted in saturated students, unfocused programs of study, and frustrated faculty either under resourced or unqualified to perform adequately. The creation and strategic implications of Army University is one example of good concepts with mixed results. The other is the SAMS Factor.
The SAMS Factor.
The creation of SAMS will be codified as one of the most impactful innovations in American military history. Like the after-action review (AAR), history will show that SAMS had an exponentially greater impact on the successful employment of violence by the U.S. Army than most technological advancements. Given the geopolitical circumstances as well as the perceived state of training and education in the Army at the time SAMS was created, the true genius of Huba Wass de Czege was to both understand the needed skills of the Army officer corps in 1983, but also anticipate the limiting factors the bureaucracy would place on relevant solution strategies. Specifically, the establishment of SAMS was Huba Wass de Czege recognizing a need to return to a 2-year education model for majors that both trained officers to be tactically and technically proficient but also to be critical and creative thinkers. The establishment of SAMS as a pilot and then later a standalone course for a select group of officers was as much about addressing the Army’s cognitive gap as it was subverting to the bureaucratic resistance to change. Designed as building blocks, SAMS was the third phase of a complimentary education process that included the foundational course (now 12 years removed) led by the Combined Arms Service Staff School; teaching combined arms officers how to effectively operate at echelons above Brigade. Over the past 40-years, the SAMS curriculum, including the awarding of a master’s degree, has pollinated, and influenced the culture and vision of the entire Army University. Most influences have been positive. Others, like the fixation on master’s degrees and academic status have convoluted the CGSOC curriculum, overwhelmed the faculty, and confuses students. As in 1983, today the Army faces the same questions: where do we go from here and who is leading that charge?
Inflection Points come with hard decisions. Comprehensive adjustments must be made to address the evolving characteristics of warfare as well as the perceived cognitive dissidence in the Army education system. Tremendous investments are being made in Doctrine, Organizations, Training, Material, Personnel, and Facilities and the successful integration of these solutions relies on the adaptability of people which can only be gained through training and education. Moreover, as the Army’s modernization strategy comes into full view, the battlefield application remains fully reliant on adaptable and capable Soldiers and leaders. The resources are available for the Army to align properly and effectively, it just requires thoughtful and comprehensive recommendations and hard decisions.
Where and how do leaders learn to fight and where and how do they learn to think?
The final section is a comparison of two options for developing junior field grade officers to be adaptable and lethal leaders: each compelling, suitable, and distinguishable. The hardest part is determining what competencies Army Junior Executives must perfect during the CGSOC experience, think or fight. If it is both, then the Army must find ways of dedicating more time. Each course of action below will drive change and increase reliance on either civilian institutions or military training and education centers across the force. If the Army chooses to study this paradigm and decides to both conduct better training and educate more effectively, then the Intermediate level education system must again go to a two-year experience.
Course of Action 1. Training Focused instruction: How the Army fights.
●Integrate instruction with the School for Command preparation while simultaneously resurrecting the learning demands of the Combined Arms Service Staff School.
●Increase planning and scenario sets and reps.
●Military Instructors need to regain the majority if not a 3/1 ratio.
●Dissolve the master’s degree efforts at CGSOC
●Add Staff Work instruction for Flag Officer headquarters
●Military instructor positions must be career enhancing
●Turn Military History and Military Theory into electives
Course of Action 2. Education Focused instruction: How the Army thinks.
● New Departments with mandated civilian education requirements including PhD led syndicates.
● Reduced Leadership, Tactics, and Joint Doctrine instruction
● Create Military Theory department and instruction
● Retain Military History but focus on actual history, not theory
● Create International Relations and Political Science department
Choose a Direction of Travel and Resource the effort. If history has taught one thing it is that successful militaries have leaders who can both fight and think. Achieving this within the formations of the future begins with choosing an identity and purpose for the Army’s intellectual institutions and then aligning resources appropriately. The above is NOT a binary choice ( A binary decision is a choice between two alternatives, for instance between taking some specific action or not taking it. Binary decisions are basic to many fields. ) for the overall development of the officer corps, but a framework for how the Army develops mid-grade leaders for success and then adopt corresponding changes across the entire developmental timeline. There are equally compelling arguments for the Army to resource education or training at CGSOC. Whichever is decided, it cannot exist in a vacuum but reverberate across the Army’s professional development and education institutions. There will be second and third order effects that must be embraced or else the seeds of change will not take root. If CGSOC chooses to educate our officers, then the Centers of Excellence and pre-commissioning institutions must double down on training. Moreover, if education is the true focus for CGSOC, then how is the War College curriculum refined, or how do the Schools for Command Preparation or Advanced Military Studies evolve and further revolutionize our force?
