To Rebel?

There was an article in the NY Times yesterday where a reporter was sitting in on debates between officers in the US Army. The debates were about the Iraq War and whether generals should have said more in the lead-up to the war about troop levels. The main argument in the debate seems to fall around when you are supposed to follow orders and when you should speak out in hopes of changing policy. I have been thinking about their arguments recently, because it both is meaningful in terms of having civilian control of the military but also because it applies to my work as a public administrator.

For many liberals, this issue doesn't seem hard at first. The generals should have spoken out and prevented the war from happening (or calling for many more troops, which would have had the same effect). One of the officers in the article though mentioned that if the military prevented any policy it disagreed with by fighting it in the press, the civilian leaders would no longer be in control of the military. Imagine a different scenario where a president wants to get involved to end a genocide but his or her military leadership drums up opposition to prevent it. This is unfathomable; Colin Powell was opposed to intervening in Bosnia.

This issue plays itself out in settings outside the military as well. I was trained in public administration, and one of the issues we talked about was when you are supposed to go along with an administration you don't agree with, and when you should resist or resign / quit. As civil servants, this is a big issue. Of course in class we watched a video about the Japanese Ambassador to Germany who signed papers allowing many Jews to leave Germany. This is a grand example, and although it was tremendously brave, doesn't help with the less obvious examples. Many of us might think Iraq is an obvious example, but we can think about working for EPA for example under President Bush. Liberals working there might want to fight his policies that are ruining our environment, but if everyone followed that lead, president's would be powerless and civil servants would run government. At some point, people have to be willing to work for a leader even if they don't agree with him or her.

The point of this rambling post is that we need to be careful what we wish for. A more outspoken military leadership might prevent meaningful interventions (or otherwise stand in the way of good policy).