Dempsey Calls on Americans to Discuss Civil-Military Relations
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, July 5, 2013 – America’s all-volunteer military has been a success, but society at large and service members must ensure a shared understanding exists between them, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a commentary in the Washington Post today.
Dempsey described the all-volunteer force as one of America’s finest achievements. The military is so good, he wrote, that many Americans take it for granted.
“The last decade of war has affected the relationship between our society and the military,” Dempsey wrote. “We can't allow a sense of separation to grow between us. As the all-volunteer force enters its fifth decade, civilians and the military need to maintain the shared understanding necessary for a healthy relationship.”
Dempsey wrote that the nation needs to discuss the military-civil relationship, as well as the nation’s relationship with its service members.
“As a nation, we’ve learned to separate the warrior from the war,” he wrote. “But we still have much to learn about how to connect the warrior to the citizen.”
Since the end of conscription in July 1973, those entering the military have served as volunteers. In his commentary, Dempsey urged America’s civilians to establish a dialogue with their fellow citizens who serve in the all-volunteer force.
“As citizens, we must listen to our veterans,” the chairman wrote. “If we do, we’ll hear stories of pride and courage, anger and pain, laughter and joy. We’ll hear of actions that humble and inspire us. We’ll also hear of moments that break our hearts. These stories represent the best of our nation.”
Service members also bear a responsibility to communicate with their fellow citizens, Dempsey wrote. “We should tell our stories and recognize that those who aren’t in uniform might not know what to say or ask,” he added. “We also have a duty to listen. Our fellow citizens may have different perspectives that we need to hear and understand.”
The services as well as veterans understand the need for fiscal change, the general wrote. Cuts in funding, he added, are not an attack on veterans and their families.
“Modest reforms to pay and compensation will improve readiness and modernization,” Dempsey wrote. “They will help keep our all-volunteer force sustainable and strong. Keeping faith also means investing sufficient resources so that we can uphold our sacred obligations to defend the nation and to send our sons and daughters to war with only the best training, leadership and equipment. We can’t shrink from our obligations to one another. The stakes are too high.”
Service members and veterans must remember that public service takes many forms, Dempsey wrote.
“Across our country, police officers, firefighters, teachers, coaches, pastors, scout masters, business people and many others serve their communities every day,” he added. “Military service makes us different, but the desire to contribute permeates every corner of the United States.”
The nation cannot afford allowing the military to disconnect from American society, Dempsey wrote.
“We must guard against letting military service become a job for others,” he added. “Children of those in the military are far more likely to join than the children of those who are not. And young men and women in some areas never even consider the military as one of many ways to serve our nation.”
Some fault for this, Dempsey said, lies with the military. Service members, he added, cannot just stay on bases and remain in their own world.
“But we didn’t stop being citizens when we put on the uniform,” Dempsey wrote. “We came from small towns and big cities across our country, and we’ll go back one day. Civilians aren’t an abstraction; they’re our parents, grandparents, siblings and friends.”
An all-volunteer force is actually the norm for the United States, the chairman wrote, noting that since 1787, the nation used conscription for only 35 years.
“Except in times of great crisis, we have relied on a tradition of selfless service,” Dempsey wrote. “The all-volunteer force continues that tradition. It has served our nation well for the past 40 years. To do so for the next 40, we’ll have to work at it together.”
Comments
Good comments that made me think. However, in some cases I believe you missed the point, and I'm not nearly as much the right-winger as you seem to think. After all, it was a Republican administration and their conservative civil advisors that got us into the unnecessary mess of Iraq. However, at least President Bush and his military background may have given him some insight to overrule Generals when he went through with the Surge in Iraq.
<blockquote>Your proposed solution to improve civ-mil relations is mandatory national service, which seems to imply that your objective is to get our uninformed citizens to think like us and adopt a proper military view of the world and all the threats it portends (at least in our threat centric view of the world). Do really want to reduce the diversity of views in our society?</blockquote>
Actually, I'm advocating that our nation's youth need a better grasp of the world and other U.S. areas than currently exists. One only need watch Jay-Walking or Water's World to discern how clueless most U.S. citizens are. Yet they all vote and it often appears that the most clueless and least experienced automatically vote Democratic. Youth tend to have utopian views because they lack any real appreciation or understanding of how the world really works...and how fortunate they are to be an American.
Guess I'm saying that if we can "Build" and use COIN TTP overseas in conflict, our active and reserve component military could also do the same here at home. This article interested me the other day:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-rural-tennessee-a-new-way-to-…
Note how a bus was turned into a meal truck to bring meals to kids in a very poor area. Why couldn't a National Service youth do this driving a box van with a hybrid electric engine? Could these youth be in uniform and be exempt from lawsuits like our military? Could they not then also have a "medic" on board to treat poor kids and adults?
I recently moved my daughter to an area fairly close to West Virginia in a box van to start a new chapter in her life. Should we be more concerned about whether poor folks near there and in this article have jobs, or whether their clean coal is too dirty? If folks were more dispersed throughout the U.S., would air pollution and localized water usage be reduced? Can folks such as in this article ever move to other areas with more opportunity. Also, can someone in Chicago, New York, Las Vegas, Oakland, or Los Angeles ever take Governor Perry up on his offer for more job opportunity in some place like Texas?
<blockquote>Shouldn't we put at least equal effort into considering how to reintegrate career military members into our civilian communities in a way that they understand the full spectrum of challenges and opportunities of being a citizen? To expand their view beyond focusing just on potential external threats to include understanding the very real issues our citizens are dealing with now on a daily basis? Wouldn't that help us put things in perspective?</blockquote>
What if every new Private spent their first year in the service followed by a second year performing National Service in uniform and in some cases (law enforcement) out of military uniform. Would that help them reintegrate and better understand the plight of some of our poorest? At the end of two years, they then could either choose to reenter civilian life or reenlist in the military.
I don't think most military members are as clueless about civilian life as you seem to imply. Most move multiple times to different areas. I will agree that were it not for the recent rash of dangerous overseas deployments without families, military life isn't that difficult for the paycheck earned. I was somewhat shocked to learn that a Captain on flight pay with over 12 years in service makes up to $108 grand annually with much of it not taxed. That is not the real world unless you live in major urban areas where costs to live are exponentially higher. When I got out at about that point in 1992 I was making $55 grand and thought I was overpaid. It only was recently that my income surpassed that 1992 level and remains nowhere near that current Captain. Newspapers report that pay has increased for service members by 100% over the past decade. That was not the case in the civil sector. Yet service members have families and originate from the civil sector so they must realize how good they generally have it.
My wife has 3 decades of Federal Civil Service yet her pay is nowhere near that of even a Staff Sergeant with 10 years and her medical insurance payments are high and pension benefits quite limited relative to a service members. Don't confuse the inflated pay and pensions of State and Urban workers with that of Federal employees. She also works caring for children. Imagine how many mothers could work at even minimum wage jobs and make a difference in family income if they had access to National Service day care.
I owned/operated a small business for over a decade that was completely unrelated to the military and made fairly little compared to what I used to earn in the service. I've lived for long periods in Silicon Valley, Iowa, New York/Jersey, and Alabama over my life and have driven through probably 43 of the 50 states. That probably is somewhat typical of most current and former service members. Suspect that we better understand the civil sector than vice versa since many of us had jobs before and after the service which only 1% of Americans currently experience.
Lest you believe me too Republican, let me reiterate that I believe the rich are under-taxed, too many get away with paying less Federal Tax due to large mortgage interest in urban areas, and U.S. Corporate Boards and CEOs generally put the interests of shareholders far ahead of their employees. Only the richest amongst us (those with good jobs) benefit from owning stock and mutual funds. National Service would allow the children of our richest to experience how the other half lives and the sacrifices our military members make in many cases.
We could expand the civil affairs related MOS available and set our future services up for small wars and COIN-like and Security Force Assistance activities by practicing aid in the U.S. in a practical manner as both training and a mission to help. In addition by coordinating with federal agencies like the energy and agricultural departments now and state agencies, Soldiers/Marines would gain real world insight into civil-military interagency cooperation.
Move Forward,
IMO many of your comments actually address one of GEN Dempsey's concerns about civ-mil relations. We need view the problem as those poor naïve civilians don't understand us. Where is the discussion about those of in the military not understanding our civilian community? More importantly the risk to our nation of having a military that is increasingly disconnected? Misunderstanding cuts both ways. You presented a typical military perception of the world based on your conservative political views. There should be no discussion and definitely no judgment on red versus blue states in this discussion. States evolve politically in a certain direction for reasons and seldom are these directions locked in stone. That is the nature of a functional democracy, and if we're beginning to forget that then maybe we are developing a dangerous divide and forgetting our rightful role as defender of the constitution?
Your proposed solution to improve civ-mil relations is mandatory national service, which seems to imply that your objective is to get our uninformed citizens to think like us and adopt a proper military view of the world and all the threats it portends (at least in our threat centric view of the world). Do really want to reduce the diversity of views in our society? Shouldn't we put at least equal effort into considering how to reintegrate career military members into our civilian communities in a way that they understand the full spectrum of challenges and opportunities of being a citizen? To expand their view beyond focusing just on potential external threats to include understanding the very real issues our citizens are dealing with now on a daily basis? Wouldn't that help us put things in perspective?
It is premature to talk about the right size of the military until we have a realistic National Security Strategy and subordinate National Military Strategy. We currently have a lofty set of policy goals that seem to be based on "The End of History." I suspect when we put everything into context, not just defense matters, we may find nation building adventures less appealing. Of course that doesn't mean we don't do them again in the future, but can we afford to sustain that level of force indefinitely? I do agree that the rapid downsizing we are undergoing will result in the military, and our nation, assuming much more risk than many of us think is appropriate and it will increase the level of strain on our forces. That strain will impact combat readiness which is a much greater risk than not be able to build nations.
Do you really have to military experience to be a civilian leader, or just wise enough to listen with a cynical ear? I have seen little evidence that military experience equals the ability to develop effective military strategy. Some us in the special operations arena would argue that too much experience in the conventional military results in strategists where every problem looks like a nail that they can hammer in with superior firepower. The conventional forces accuse SOF of thinking we can solve all problems with a small footprint and influencing the human terrain. Both are right, which means we're both wrong headed, and a smart person standing above this fray is more likely to develop an appropriate military strategy than a uniformed person bringing their considerable bias and agenda to strategy formation. Often times a military approach isn't required at all, and the threats we beat the drum over again and again often aren't really that serious to begin with. We can defend our nation, but it is hyperbole to the max to think we can keep it safe, and if preventing every potential terrorist attack becomes the driving factor of our national military strategy we will put our constitution at risk and financially strain our nation. We're Americans, we assume risks every day, and we don't need to live in society that is risk free where everyone views the world the same way. It sounds like many in the defense community are promoting a nanny state where father knows best.
We need to have this discussion with the American people. We're the ones providing the defense and they're the ones who are paying for it and the ones we're defending. Decisions to the extent possible should be made collectively with the American people, and we (both DOD and the State Department) need to stop pretending we're an elite group that knows what is best for our nation's security. Recent history demonstrates that isn't necessarily true.
Bill M,
After reading both your links, I would counter that most current leaders without military experience are ill-equipped to create strategic or operational policy for our military. That is one undesirable effect of not having a draft. Fortunately, if one looks back at past enemies or future threats, threat leaders are equally ill-equipped from a military experience standpoint (China, North Korea, Iran) with the possible exception of Putin. Likewise, their militaries (except Syria) lack actual war experience whereas ours has a wealth of it...provided we retain that experience in the training and future leadership base.
Whether future threats will require a large active military depends on your perspective of past much larger military sizes and whether we recently had sufficient forces to do the job. Our military is at one of its smallest personnel sizes in recent history dating back to 1960. Although it grew during conflict to partially relieve the problem, now the ground component’s size is likely to shrink to late 90s levels when Soldiers also were overstressed in the Balkans, and simultaneously were hampered by the Clinton procurement holiday. Our resultant active Army which was grossly undersized for Iraq and Afghanistan caused Soldiers to bear the deployment length brunt with its accompanying dangers and burdens of being away from families. Now we will repay many of them by kicking them to the curb.
Regardless of whether Soldiers were on a FOB or a COP, all long-termers were exposed to three to five year-long deployments in a hostile environment. That was because the active Army was too small relative to other services with much shorter tours. Fortunately the nature of rapid upfront victories in both wars meant we had time to get reserve component Soldiers up to speed to partially relieve the active Army. Will that always be the case? We may retain some active troops in the reserve component but what of the new ones without that experience? With the exception of police and medical personnel who do similar jobs in both civilian and military life, civilian reservists in the Army or Marines are unlikely as a unit or individual to be immediately ready to deploy and contribute.
In contrast, a fixed-wing pilot plies his trade in the civil sector and as a reservist is readily able to contribute to any future fight. A sailor keeps sea lanes open, however that threat is more nebulous given the lack of major sea battles in the past 68 years. Meanwhile China, the primary threat requiring a large Navy, also wants sea lanes open and would suffer far more than us were they to close. Compared to the Cold War era, the PLAN is not and is unlikely to ever be a blue water Navy and thus is not the threat necessarily requiring 11 carriers, and an equal number of nuclear deterrent submarines.
In contrast, proven terrorist, Middle East, African, and North Korean threats remain problematic and require ground forces. Likewise, ground forces boarding and stopping civil ships from land nearby sea chokepoints precludes likelihood of war with China as does our economic interdependency and the trade they have with other southeast Asia neighbors and distant European friends (of ours too).
One essential component to civil-military relations could be mandatory national service. This would increase American youth involvement with both military and civilian service. Such service supporting the military, law enforcement, fire departments, border patrol, customs, DEA, transportation departments, daycare, early education, and medical emergency rooms could provide jobs and training to counter prospects of article like this and provide skills outside the school environment, particularly helping smaller communities without major tax bases:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2013/07/should-we-fear-the-end…
And as we talk about immigration reform, let’s not forget current citizen needs:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2013/07/jobless-rate-for-poor-…
National service would not institute a draft, but would have active or reserve component military as an option at reduced pay levels with guarantees of tuition assistance and accumulation of social security quarters (40 quarters required for SS eligibility) versus other service that would not have the same incentives. A blend of active duty and civil component service also could be implemented to expand training occupations in area unrelated to military service. Perhaps all youth would be required to attend basic training to obtain some awareness of what the military faces and instill a degree of discipline for subsequent civil or military national service.
Instead of eliminating energy jobs due to specious environmental concerns, perhaps we could create civil national service jobs to include a public-private drilling partnership on public lands with some profits going to our government. This would be the equivalent of a low cost internship and training mechanism for many of the unemployed. Instead of fearing global warming and taking expensive efforts to barely make a dent in a possibly nonexistent problem, why not expand both clean and traditional energy under the Energy Department?
As for FEMA, Homeland Defense, Border Patrol, and DEA/Customs I’ve previously mentioned that telescoping sensors mounted on a small conex could have remote machine guns and short-range missiles, line-charges, or automated mortars for wartime National Guard deployment. In peacetime, weapons would be replaced by fire hoses and missiles to disperse fire retardant onto peacetime forest fires. These conexs could be slung load near neighborhoods to provide remote control of fire-fighting from safe-locations to preclude the dangers just experienced in Arizona and elsewhere during massive fires. Water hoses run to such conexs likewise could run from a COP larger water point to the conexs to provide water for patrolling troops, border patrol, and perhaps villagers in combat zones and border states. Hurricane Sandy also illustrated how such conexs could have generators to power gas stations and neighborhoods in peacetime disaster, and power COPs and OPs in conflict zones. Such systems also could have nuclear and chemical detection capabilities for wartime and for peacetime terrorism monitoring.
One goal of such national service would be an attempt to give youth a chance to look at other areas outside major urban areas where they currently live. Real estate prices on coasts and large urban areas often preclude quality home ownership for younger workers. In contrast, if youth experienced other middle America areas and found follow-on work there after national service, home and rent price invariably would be far cheaper. We must eliminate the high property taxes, home prices, and long commutes of many urban areas, where urban civil servants have inflated pensions. One way to do that is provide incentives to move elsewhere. Perhaps one component of national service could be learning to drive small moving vans and personnel transport vans to move national service youth cross country along with others desiring to move who need cheaper means of transport.
Obviously, this also would expand automotive van manufacturing. The major kicker could be that these would be mandated electric-drive vans and hybrid-electric moving vans. In addition, one component of national service would be operation of small battery exchange stations along interstates to support long-distance electric drive vehicles. Again, this could be a private-public partnership. Tesla recently demonstrated the ability to change batteries faster than a normal large fuel tank could be refueled. However that was automated while a manual capability is advocated here that would be similarly rapid with sufficient public service manpower.
Such a service also would allow those who become unemployed to move to new areas at reduced costs. National service also could be delayed for those wishing to attend college. Citizens could choose between serving now or waiting for a period of unemployment as a means of paying in part for their unemployment benefits.
The best way to ensure civil-military understanding is to have more Congressional and Executive Branch leaders and everyday citizens who understand the need to serve their nation and its communities. That is community organizing. The best way to ensure continued high unemployment and underemployment is to continue giving the poor something for nothing while ignoring obvious opportunities for employment in the energy (to include clean coal) and disaster fields. It also does not help to provide health care incentives for employers to hire part time workers with less than 30 hours. If global warming is inevitable as some claim, better we use money to prepare citizens for the related disasters and give them opportunities to move from areas where disasters are more likely.
The lack of logic currently exhibited by many federal and blue state civil leaders, environmentalists, health care proponents, and union supporters leads me to question their related logical capacity to formulate strategic and operational solutions to keep our world safe. Incentives to not work or provide less than full-time work as an employer make no sense, but do buy votes from the least productive. Unions get benefits that others do not enjoy and drive manufacturing out of the U.S. or to right-to-work states. That leads me to believe many citizens would be better off moving to red states after their national service where jobs at lower right-to-work pay rates at least pay the bills and allow citizens to buy or rent a home at a reasonable rate without a 40 minute commute. By hiring essentially two or more public service youth at the price of one union civil service worker with public service housing, state budget problems would be reduced and reduced-pay Privates would allow a sufficiently large military for national emergencies...at home and abroad.
Another perspective on civilian-military relations that was posted on SWJ not that long ago.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/a-caution-on-civil-military-relati…
Another article well worth reading, short quote below the link.
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/201002.owens.civilmilitaryrelations.html
"The failure of American civil-military relations to generate strategy can be attributed to the confluence of three factors. The first of these is the continued dominance within the American system of what Eliot Cohen has called the “normal” theory of civil-military relations, the belief that there is a clear line of demarcation between civilians who determine the goals of the war and the uniformed military who then conduct the actual fighting."
The General is correct that we can't allow a sense of separation to grow between our volunteer military and the civilian population. Three major points got my attention as I reviewed the stated need to reach out to civilians. 1) "As a nation, we've learned to separate the warrior from the war..." 2)"We owe much to our veterans and their families, but we shouldn't view all proposed defense cuts as an attack on them." 3)"We must also remember our shared values." Because of some recent occurrences, I saw these three points as adversely effecting that outreach and providing our military with some real challenges.
1. At the lower ranks, where the "close with and destroy" is done, we can separate the warrior from the war. However, at the higher ranks, with those who serve at the will of the president, there is not the separation of which the general speaks. The higher ranks are invariably linked to the administration and their political appointees. I believe some seniors are out of touch with the sophistication of the American public.
2. We shouldn't view all proposed defense cuts as an attack on veteran's and their families. While some cuts may be necessary, I believe this is planted in the article to provide the administration and the SECDEF with cover as they cut military forces. This also includes the recent statements concerning the reduction of nukes.
3. We must also remember our shared values. This is the greatest stumbling block as the military would reach out to civilians. What are those shared values? Whose values? Is "gays in the military", homosexual behavior, male on male sex, a shared value with probably millions of Americans who would, otherwise, like to see their sons and daughters serve? Is the concept of women in combat units a shared value for the majority of Americans? How has the Benghazi issue effected the general perception when there was no military response? That is the "leave no one behind" concept. What about a counterinsurgency doctrine that prioritizes the protection of foreign civilians above the needs of American troops? Is Islam really a religion of peace? There are issues of sexual assaults, which is difficult to explain during any outreach endeavor.
A friend of mine wrote a song: "Broken Soldier." A line in that song was: "I am a broken soldier trying to make sense of all I see." I believe many people are trying to make some sense of what they see. The general is right to stress the civilian outreach. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
"Children of those in the military are far more likely to join than the children of those who are not." Yep.
"Civilians aren't an abstraction; they are our parents, our grandparents, our siblings and our friends." Well, sometimes.
Got to get some headgear or, better yet, a t-shirt made for the wife that says: Army granddaughter, Army daughter, Army wife and Army mother.