A large group of former Joint Chiefs chairmen and Defense secretaries have come together to sign a letter of warning about a “challenging civil-military environment” just a short few days in the wake of Old Uncle Joe stepping up to give a heavily polarizing political speech while flanked by a pair of marines as background decoration.
This open letter was officially made public this past Tuesday on a website focused on national security, War On The Rocks. A group of five former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and eight former secretaries of Defense signed the document.
“We are in an exceptionally challenging civil-military environment. Many of the factors that shape civil-military relations have undergone extreme strain in recent years,” stated the letter, highlighting the “winding down” of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. pullout of Afghanistan last year was hallmarked by bloodshed and chaos as 13 U.S. service members died in a terrorist attack in the final days of the war.
The letter also highlights strains from the “pandemic and the economic dislocations.” it stated that military professionals have gone through an “extremely adverse environment characterized by the divisiveness of affective polarization” that ended in the January 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol.
The letter then explains 16 “core principles and best practices” that must be observed by both civilian and military leaders alike in order to protect the integrity of the military from politicization and controversy. The letter comes out just a bit under a week after Biden kicked up a storm of controversy by featuring two U.S. marines standing in the backdrop of a political speech in which he exclaimed: “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
While there has been a bevy of critics going after Biden’s choice of words, many others highlighted the conspicuous placement of the pair of marines as backdrop decoration. Presidents often refrain from using the U.S. military as props when issuing political speeches, and the presence of the military members adds a worrying tone to Biden’s speech.
“The message to other military personnel, particularly other Marines, is that support for the president’s opponents is considered a threat to the constitutional Republic,” explained one law professor at the George Washington University Law School, Jonathan Turley.
This open letter seemed to target such a controversy as the U.S. military seeming to be part of a political event. It also highlighted that military rules expressly forbid the carrying out of various political activities by service members.
“There are significant limits on the public role of military personnel in partisan politics, as outlined in longstanding Defense Department policy and regulations. Members of the military accept limits on the public expression of their private views — limits that would be unconstitutional if imposed on other citizens. Military and civilian leaders must be diligent about keeping the military separate from partisan political activity,” read the letter.
The letter was officially signed by former Joint Chiefs chairmen Gen. Martin Edward Dempsey, Gen. Joseph Francis Dunford Jr., Adm. Michael Glenn Mullen, Gen. Richard Bowman Myers, and Gen. Peter Pace, and joined by former Defense secretaries Dr. Ashton Baldwin Carter, William Sebastian Cohen, Dr. Mark Thomas Esper, Dr. Robert Michael Gates, Charles Timothy Hagel, James Norman Mattis, Leon Edward Panetta, and Dr. William James Perry.