The rise of communist China requires the United States to employ the entirety of its capabilities, including a professional military. If the U.S. military loses its professionalism, it will eliminate its combat effectiveness and ability to innovate. In turn, this will weaken U.S. military power and ability to sustain alliance commitments in the competition with China.
Civilian control is assured if the officer corps sustains a highly professional institution with its own domain of control. In contrast, subjective control is the denial of an independent military sphere, the consequence of which is a politicized military.
The response to the China threat is hindered by the rise of progressivism in U.S. domestic politics. There are three major civil-military issues impacting the Pentagon today that stem from the rise of progressivism. First, how does the department sustain objective civilian control? Second, how does it maintain a culture that fosters an environment of innovation? And third, how can it address relevant problems while there remains time to retain objective civilian control?
Sustaining a professional military requires what Samuel Huntington termed “objective civilian control.” By this, he meant that the U.S. military possesses an independent military domain that will sustain the professional officer corps. A problem for maintaining objective control arises when there is pressure on political leadership to trespass on this domain for the achievement of other objectives, as required by progressivism.
However, military professionalism requires that the military domain be isolated from the cultural, ideological, and social pressures that impact the rest of the government. What those pressures are must be identified by the Department of Defense (DOD). Senior Pentagon leadership must address three fundamental issues: the threats to objective civilian control, the causes of these threats, and how leadership will resolve them to sustain objective civilian control.
The Threats
These pressures on the DOD are more than the historical problems of cynicism, careerism, or favoritism. These problems have always existed, but historically robust military professionalism kept them in check.
Today, the DOD faces a more profound problem—a progressive ideology that causes the department to confront a new hierarchy of principles, values, and culture. This ideological pressure erodes the independent military domain and, thus, the military’s professionalism.
As a result of the decline in professionalism, the department has less ability to restrain its historical problems of careerism and cynicism. Simultaneously, it faces a host of new challenges generated by ideological change. The bulwark of military professionalism is undermined by these problems—and they must be solved.
Lamentably, it is not just the U.S. military affected by this but also key allies like Great Britain. The chief recruiter for the Royal Air Force has made allegations that she was told to favor women and minorities over white men to meet government diversity targets.
The Cause of the Threat
The cause of the threat is an ideological change from traditional liberalism to progressivism. This change generates profound tensions and challenges for preserving objective civilian control. At root, the Pentagon’s leadership confronts this ideological change directly. Senior leadership must determine whether the requirements of objective civilian control, including the recognition of the independent military domain, will be respected in changing ideological circumstances.
If the answer is negative, then senior leadership must prepare for subjective civilian control and its consequences for national security, the force, and U.S. allies and foes. China would want nothing more than for this to occur.
If affirmative, then the senior leadership must devise solutions regarding how the military domain will be respected and insulated. To sustain objective civilian control, the warfighting ethos must be kept and internalized by the entirety of the force, particularly senior leadership. That spirit is warfighting. It requires officers and NCOs to be honest, critical, and forthright. These virtues must be preserved, and protection provided as they allow the DOD to avoid an intellectually listless, careerist, and apathetic officer and NCO corps. When officers and NCOs refrain from providing candid and sincere assessments of the weaknesses and adverse implications of those policies, they have lost the ethos necessary to develop superior strategies and solutions.
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