Armed Forces & Society

This Armed Forces & Society symposium on the ethics of senior officer resignation in the United States includes a collection of four papers, each looking at principled resignation in different ways. Two authors, Dubik and Snider, believe principled resignation of senior military officers is sometimes justified, especially in wartime, where their inherent morals clash with their professional demands; these senior officer’s ability to resign in protest distinguishes their service to this nation between stewards and servants. Conversely, Feaver and Kohn believe principled resignation is almost never justified as this action weakens the military profession and ultimately threatens national security. Further, the disastrous effects increase the ever present friction and mistrust in the civil-military process. Each author answers the question in the context of current American civil military relations and it is their hope that this symposium will lead to further discussions, research, and policies regarding the ethics surrounding the issue.

This short article answers the question of whether, in the context of current American civil–military relations, senior military professionals may loyally dissent from a decision by civilian authorities, even including by resignation. Stated another way, can their constitutional duties to obedience to civilian authority ever clash so severely with their responsibilities to their profession and its fiduciary trust with the American people that dissent is obligated. The position offered here is that senior military professionals always retain the moral agency for such dissent. It inheres in their role as a steward of an American military profession exercising the discretionary judgments that are the moral core of their professional work.

Principled resignation of senior military officers is sometimes justified, especially in wartime. First, except under very narrow circumstances, each of us remains a moral agent. Second, American’s hold those on the battlefield responsible for their decisions and actions, and we must hold senior generals and admirals responsible for strategic decisions and actions taken in capitals. Third, organizations—regardless of type—incur significant risks when senior officials remain silent in the face of serious wrongs. Finally, war risks, damages, changes, and often ends lives of the innocent, of the citizens who fight on behalf of their nation, and of the political community itself, even if the war does not involve an existential threat. Although my colleagues, with companion pieces in this journal, disagree, senior leaders who participate in strategic, war-waging decisions and actions are responsible to speak out, perhaps even to to leave, when the risk involves not just effectiveness but using poorly or wasting life.

Advocates of cultivating a resignation-in-protest ethic understate the costs and exaggerate the benefits. Military officers who believe that the policymaking process is heading in a bad direction already have ample recourse in the form of advising within the chain of command. If their advice is not heeded, it is exceedingly unlikely that the country would be better served by senior officers provoking a civil–military crisis to advertise their policy differences with civilian leaders.

Arguments in favor of the topmost senior officers exercising “principled resignation” in opposition to policies, decisions, or orders that they find immoral, unethical, or disastrous for the country weaken the military profession and endanger American national security. A member of the Joint Chiefs, a combatant commander, or a topmost war commander who “resigns” would be injecting themselves improperly into a policy role, opposing civilian authority, and undermining civilian control of the military. The act would be politicizing for the military and likely fail to change what the officer opposes. Most importantly, their act of personal conscience would poison civil–military relations long into the future; civilian trust in military subordinates not to undermine support for policies and decisions with the public and other political leaders would decline. Even more than today, they would choose their senior military leaders for compatibility and agreement above other traits.

Latin American scholars often maintain that militaries should be kept out of internal security operations. Soldiers, they claim, are ill suited for these assignments, inevitably placing innocent civilians in harm’s way. This study instead argues that not all counternarcotic missions are the same. When a specific operation coincides with a military’s capabilities and proclivities, it can be conducted effectively and humanely. When there is a disconnect between the operation and the institution, there is a greater chance for mission failure and civilian casualties. Those differences are revealed in a comparative case study of the Mexican military’s crime patrols versus its targeted operations against cartel kingpins. It finds that while there are justifiable doubts about transforming soldiers into cops, it is also the case that soldiers can conduct themselves professionally and with restraint when they are tasked with assignments that conform more closely to their skills sets.

Hard power, the unorthodox foreign policy mechanism, has emerged recently as a complex agency that uses military power to regulate diplomatic relations between military and civilian actors. Although national governments use hard power rather frequently to influence foreign public opinions, the field’s scholarship tends to downplay the role of military instruments in the development of public diplomacy. Almost all armed forces contribute to various public diplomacy efforts by applying basic tools, including humanitarian-relief operations and construction works, and international military education and training programs. This article analyzes these tools in the context of soft power and public diplomacy and demonstrates the impact of military power on public diplomacy. It also reconstructs the effective time frames of public diplomacy works of the military by introducing a novel pattern to understanding these works.

This article examines the relationship between advisors and linguists in the contemporary military advising mission and applies an emergent postmodern military culture theoretical framework. This project’s multimethod collected data from Iraq, documents, and interviews. The study reveals an intriguing and nuanced story about the deployment of advisors and linguists in the advising mission. This article defines the military advising mission including the major actors. The article then introduces the postmodern military culture theoretical framework and method. The findings report many themes including linguist selection and hiring processes, the importance of advisor–linguist relationships, the relevance of linguists’ backgrounds, linguists as full advisory team members, and the building blocks of successful advising sessions. Effective advisors work with linguists to deploy a Swiss Army knife of cultural tools including peacekeeper diplomat, warrior, subject matter expert, innovator, and others to accomplish the mission, which divulge broader changes indicative of an emergent postmodern military and culture.

Owing to regional and partisan imbalances, the U.S. military is at greater risk than at any time since the advent of the all-volunteer force of becoming estranged from significant portions of the society it serves. What—if anything—should be done? This article takes three initial steps to address this problem. First, the article examines regional and partisan representation in the U.S. military and suggests that existing imbalances are likely to grow worse over time. The article then argues that the most obvious policy response, a renewed draft, would in fact fail to adequately bridge the gap. Finally, the article outlines one policy response—the reassertion of nonpartisan norms—that would help to mitigate, though not close, the gap.

Jihadist terror is a multidimensional challenge that compels unique difficulties on compatibility between the military campaign and the political goal. Compatibility between military campaigns and political goal requires a deeper understanding about the Jihadi terrorism phenomenon that could be achieved by a strategic and diagnostic learning process. Such learning requires certain characteristics, which enable the creation of open discourse. This article introduced definitions of closed and open discourse, characterized the required conditions for creating open discourse, and explained the linkage between strategic learning and open discourse. This article aims to add another theoretical layer to Rebecca Schiff’s “targeted partnership” concept by elaborating on the essence of the encounter and discourse between the political and the military echelons in the context of terrorism in the Middle East, using examples from the American and Israeli experience. The concepts of “Discourse Space” and “Diagnostic Learning” are corresponding with Schiff’s concept and accomplish it.

There is growing interest in the implications of military service for the political attitudes, behaviors, and activism of military veterans. This article considers how promission and antiwar veterans’ narrate their experiences of becoming political activists and the mechanisms that effect that transition. The research draws on narratives from 40 members of the antiwar organization Iraq Veterans against the War and 28 members of the promission organization Vets for Freedom. Using “exemplars” from opposing political groups, the article reveals the shared process of politicization for both groups of veterans, and how divergent promission and antiwar definitions of duty, service, patriotism, and narratives of experiences and interpretations of warfare activate meaning-making activities, mechanisms, and analytical frames that share more in common than surface political differences might suggest.