Are Trump’s generals in over their heads?

For many of America’s senior military officers, retired Gen. John Allen’s speech endorsing Hillary Clinton at the Democratic convention back in July of 2016 was a kind of tipping point. Allen’s rousing address, coupled with one given by retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for Donald Trump at the Republican convention, spread waves of discomfort through the U.S. officer corps, many of whom thought Allen and Flynn had gone too far.

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For many of America’s senior military officers, retired Gen. John Allen’s speech endorsing Hillary Clinton at the Democratic convention back in July of 2016 was a kind of tipping point. Allen’s rousing address, coupled with one given by retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for Donald Trump at the Republican convention, spread waves of discomfort through the U.S. officer corps, many of whom thought Allen and Flynn had gone too far. "The military is not a political prize,” former J.C.S. Chairman Martin Dempsey wrote in a high-profile critique two days after Allen’s appearance. "Politicians should take the advice of military leaders but keep them off the stage.”

Allen and Flynn’s appearance, and Dempsey’s letter, set off an under-the-radar debate about the proper role of retired military officers in American political life that has been deepened by President Trump’s appointment of several former and current high-ranking officers to key policy positions in his administration. Far from being "off the stage,” the president has put the military front-and-center in his administration: retired Marine Gen. James Mattis heads up the Pentagon, retired Gen. John Kelly is the White House chief of staff and Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (who is still in uniform) is Trump’s national security adviser, having replaced Flynn.

Richard Kohn, a respected expert on civilian-military relations at the University of North Carolina, points out that Trump’s critics have welcomed the appointments because Mattis, Kelly and McMaster are viewed as "the adults in the room” who can "can keep Trump on the right policy track, can kind of fence him in.” But, he warns, there’s a problem with that view. "We’re putting all three of them in an impossible squeeze,” he says. "By tradition and experience they are supposed to be subordinate, to follow orders, yet here we are hoping that they can somehow manipulate the president—to keep him from saying and doing things that he shouldn’t. Is that really what we want the military to do? It sets a bad precedent and it’s dangerous.”

There’s one key constituency who agrees with that last thought: Former top military leaders, many of whom are deeply conflicted over the political role their colleagues are playing.

U.S. President Donald Trump (C), national security adviser H.R. McMaster (L), Defense Secretary Jim Mattis (2nd L) and White House chief of staff John Kelly (R) attend a briefing with senior military leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House October 5, 2017 in Washington, D.C. | Pool photo by Andrew Harrer/Getty Images

Retired Gen. David Barno, who headed up the coalition fighting in Afghanistan, warns: "Civilians will now begin asking, ‘is the J.C.S. chairman a Democrat or Republican?’ and men and women in uniform will begin to wonder whether some day they can become the secretary of defense, or national security adviser.” But, like Kohn, Barno acknowledges the special expertise people like Mattis bring to their job. "Given the nature of this president, we need people around him who know something about war and bloodshed,” he argues. "That’s nothing that Mr. Trump can get from his real estate or Wall Street friends. So that’s extremely valuable, especially now.”

Barno’s recognition that our president needs the kind of guidance that can be provided by senior military officers who know war and bloodshed is repeated throughout the military — and on Capitol Hill. But it is balanced by growing worries that Mattis, Kelly and McMaster are most recently showing that military officers are ill-suited for positions that require years of nuanced political experience, and a deft handling of public opinion. Each of the three were gifted combat officers: Mattis and Kelly were brilliant commanders during Operation Iraqi Freedom; McMaster is celebrated as a courageous tank commander during the first Gulf War. Now we are asking that these three show the same expertise they showed on the battlefields of Iraq in selling the budget of the largest institution of the U.S. government, defending a president who mishandled a phone call with a grieving wife and coordinating a complex and often bulky national security bureaucracy. Perhaps we are expecting too much. Or perhaps Mattis, Kelly and McMaster are, to use a military phrase, "out of their lane.”

Or perhaps they are in over their heads.

The problem, it seems, is not Mattis, Kelly or McMaster — it’s Trump. "If the president were not such a polarizing figure these appointments wouldn’t be a problem,” Bryan McGrath, a naval war expert at the Hudson Institute, says. "I’ve never been a big fan of the ‘you’re always a soldier’ view of the world. No: You’re always a citizen. In many cases the generals and admirals have more experience on some issues than anyone else. Why would we deny ourselves the benefit of their wisdom?” But even for McGrath, there are nagging doubts. "It almost sounds like we expect these men to take on the role of the Turkish general staff – as guarantors of the secular constitution. I would hate to see that in the U.S., it would be absolutely deplorable, but you can see why such a thing might be possible, especially given a president who has only a passing familiarity with the First Amendment.”

Not everyone in Washington feels this way. Kelly’s appearance last week in the White House briefing room, where he attacked a member of Congress for criticizing the president’s phone call with a Gold Star mother and suggested that the U.S. military was defending a morally bankrupt society that no longer deserved it, set off a round of criticism. "Kelly should be replaced by someone who actually understands democratic governance and can deliver bad news and honest criticism to the president,” the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin wrote. "Congress should start by barring generals from acting in civilian capacities in the White House.” But the general consensus among D.C. elites seems to be that the generals are saving the republic from the president. Even Dempsey, who was so critical of Allen and Flynn for getting political, has begun taking careful shots at Trump on his Twitter account.

We’ve been here before. Back in the 1960s, public fears were aroused by the widely accepted but misplaced view that the military might intervene to impose a more hard-line view on Cold War policies. Senior military officers were viewed as conservative, uncompromising and confrontational. The bestselling book and popular movie "Seven Days in May” posited a coup launched by a military establishment opposed to a president willing to negotiate an arms deal with the Soviets. Now, more than 50 years later, the shift is complete: Large segments of official Washington are convinced that the only thing that stands between "fire and fury” are two former and one currently serving senior military officer whose primary role is to provide adult counseling to a conservative, uncompromising and confrontational chief executive.

Senior adviser and son-in-law to U.S. President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner (L) talks with National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster before Trump and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong deliver joint statements at the White House October 23, 2017 in Washington, DC. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Eliot A. Cohen, the director of the Strategic Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and a fierce critic of Trump, reflects these views. "I call it a ‘benign junta,’” he says. "In fact, we should be grateful that we have Mattis, McMaster and Kelly where they are.” But, like so many of his colleagues, he offers a cautionary note. "I suppose I am more conflicted than most,” he says, "because I know each of them and think highly of them. But this is a huge shift for them. They are now required to walk into the Oval Office and advise a president, which is a lot different than advising your commander-in-chief. And making that transition is not simply important. It’s crucial.”

The deep discomfort with having generals in powerful policymaking positions roiled the military from the moment that retired Flynn and Allen took center stage at the Republican and Democratic conventions. It roils it still. Retired Admiral Michael Mullen, who remains one of the most respected J.C.S. chairmen in our history, dissected this controversy most recently during an address he gave on October 6 at the U.S. Naval Institute. "I have been in too many countries globally where the generals, if you will, gave great comfort to their citizens,” Mullen said. "That is not the United States of America.”

Thankfully, very few in the military disagree with him, even if the positions that serving and retired military officers can and should fill has been stretched – perhaps to the breaking point. One thing seems certain: The long national debate touched off by Martin Dempsey’s warning back in July, is not only unresolved – it is only beginning. The final word comes from Eliot Cohen. "I don’t know how this ends, and I wouldn’t venture a prediction,” he says. "But I do know this. When Donald Trump calls Jim Mattis, John Kelly and H.R. McMaster ‘my generals,’ he’d dead wrong. They’re not his generals. They’re ours.”