When The Buck Doesn’t Stop

Accountability can imply many things: financial efficiency, honoring promises, imparting factual information, and taking responsibility for decisions that are made. When it comes to government, accountability doesn’t mean any of these things. It is just a fancy word thrown about to make politicians seem like they are looking out for our interests, but deniability and distance are more common traits of our government today, a government raised on the principals of “me first” and “play now, pay later.” Our military is an extension of our government, a separate organization that is under the control of the Congress. And though the military has the might to subdue the government at will, our Constitution forbids the military from taking any action unilaterally, requiring it to act only on orders from its civilian boss, the president. The president, in turn, must get permission for military engagements through appropriations agreements with Congress. In short, he has to ask for the money to pay for the military, and they have to approve it. This little arrangement is supposed to create a nice system of checks and balances. It not only keeps the military from becoming an independent force (although the American concept of freedom among the members of our armed forces certainly helps keep any possibilities of a military coup d’etat at bay), it also keeps a president from using the power of the military at any whim. When everyone does their part, the system works pretty well. But what happens when part of the system, or several parts, stop doing their job?

Take a look at military spending. For fiscal year 2006, the budget appropriates $419 Billion dollars for the Department of Defense. That’s about $1400 in military spending for each American citizen. But the real costs are still higher. The military is involved in all government technological, medical, and scientific research programs, as well as providing pensions, medical benefits, and other veterans programs. In addition, military alliances with other nations sometimes have our troops assuming the role of military protector of foreign countries, all at taxpayer expense. These added costs push the actual military figures hundreds of billions of dollars higher than the Department of Defense appropriations. Well one might argue that having the finest fighting force on the planet costs a lot of money, and I would probably be inclined to agree, were it not for decades of reports detailing Pentagon overspending on things like hammers and light bulbs and commercial airline tickets that are never used. I would agree that the money budgeted is money well spent if troops in the field weren’t cannibalizing shattered vehicles to reinforce their tank armor. I would support the costs of defense more readily if the Congress stopped awarding “no bid” contracts to favored corporations while soldiers’ families draw food stamps. We should finally put an end to overcharges in the military through consistent auditing and enforcement, punishable with fines, denial of future contracts, and even prison time. And many of the new technologies that end up as consumer products, technologies developed first for the military, with tax dollars, but by private corporations, should not be given back to these same corporations to market and reap all the profits. All new research and development should be a shared investment if the corporation wants future marketing rights or the public should get a cut of the eventual proceeds.

There was a time when massive military spending was justifiable in light of the nuclear arms race with the former Soviet Union, but today’s geopolitical dynamics are far different than they once were. With the possible looming exception of China, who could more easily cripple our economy than defeat us in an all out war, America no longer has a military equal. Our enemy today is not some behemoth hostile nation, but rather smaller groups of hostile foes, who don’t march at us with tanks and soldiers, but sneak up on us as suicide bombers. And though the world is perhaps more unstable today, in large part because of the radical Islamic declaration of war on all “infidels,” the necessity of maintaining a large military presence all over the world is perhaps less necessary than it has been in the past, and may be a luxury we can’t afford. The “War on Terror” is something that affects all free nations, perhaps more so than the threat of Communism ever did, so shouldn’t it be incumbent on other nations to offer more in the area of military support? Shouldn’t they at least be protecting their own territories? Why is the US taxpayer paying for the protection of Iceland? We have permanent bases and troops in at least 17 foreign countries, supposedly to deter aggression from a conventional armed force. In several of these countries, the public doesn’t even want us around. Maybe its time we packed up and went home, or at the very least, started charging for our services as a protective, deterrent force.

Keeping a promise is a mark of integrity, and this is no less true for a large organization. Our military is no exception. With few exceptions, when it comes to working together as a fighting force, each element of our military has bonds of trust between the individuals of the unit that are forged and tested in the toughest of circumstances. They know they can trust each other and they know they’ve been taught their trade well. But too often, this trust, instilled in the fighting men and women as a trademark of military and personal conduct, is betrayed by the both their leading officers and the civilian handlers who profess to support and honor their service. In an all-volunteer service, we entice new recruits with promises of education, defined periods of service, medical care for life if injured in the course of duty, a pension, loan guarantees, and the prospect of moving up the social-economic ladder of American society. In some cases, military recruiters make false statements or promises to inductees regarding the jobs they will get or the places they’ll get stationed. Outside the compound, in the halls of Congress, lawmakers are cutting back veterans medical programs, closing veteran’s hospitals, and flat out abandoning former warriors the treatment they need to heal the physical and mental traumas of war. Lawmakers funnel funds into projects that the military brass say they don’t want or need, but the project is a payback for a donor and it gets shoved through. The result of these diverted funds is less support and arming in the theaters of war, a result that is nothing short of abandonment. Congress has the say so over whether troops get sent into harms way. If they approve a president’s request for military action, their have a duty to make sure those soldiers have everything they need to survive and succeed. The promise of adequate funding, once made, should not become a pawn in political power brokering. Our military personnel are the people in this country who will give up their own lives to protect our freedom. We can’t keep slapping them in the face during and after their tour of duty. We owe them everything we promise them.

Most people enter military service out of family tradition or as a way to get higher education and job skills without having to pay all the costs associated with civilian life, in essence, a transitory period in life. They enter the service with an eye to their future, and they operate on a kind of faith that their commanders will only send them into harms way if there is no other alternative. They are taught to trust the decisions and plans of the military brass and planners, who in turn have to sell their war plans to the civilian leaders. Sometimes, the civilian leaders have first hand knowledge of war, other times they don’t. Sometimes civilian leaders know when to defer to trained experts, sometimes they bend those experts to their own predetermined visions. In times of war, civilian leaders who don’t allow the generals to run the show on the front are destroying the trust that is vital to a successful military operation. Because the military is obligated to take its orders from the civilian leadership, an inexperienced, micromanaging, or egotistical politician can quickly erode a mission’s efficacy and when too many troops on the ground don’t come back from a patrol, troop morale diminishes. Civilians try to pass on the failure to the military brass who usually stand there and take it. The result is a military body that doesn’t trust the civilian or the military leaders to get them home safe, a military body that can’t recommend service to others if he does get back home. Volunteers eventually stop volunteering when they know they’re just going to be used up and tossed out. In short, planning military campaigns should be left to the experts, just as planning political strategy and the use of troops should be left to the politicians

In a democracy, the military gets its lifeblood from the civilian leaders. The civilian leaders get their direction from their constituents. At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. But in order for the citizens to give informed instructions to their congressperson, they need to have factual information. This is ever more true in times of conflict. The power of technology has made it nearly impossible for governments to conduct military operations in secrecy any more. Yet the government tries to keep a closed mouth about much that takes place in the theaters. In a war of defense, some facts should remain concealed, but only until the hostilities have ended. In wars of offense, the truth about casualties and progress, and setbacks would go farther with keeping the public informed. But even before war breaks out, governments have the duty to clearly define the reasons for war, reasons that are provable and unchanging. They must offer details about the goal, and the plan for after the mission has been completed. The American people are not cowards, but they are not “yes men” either. If a valid reason for armed conflict exists, such as the 9-11 attack retaliations, the citizens are supportive. If a war has to be sold to the public, it’s likely to lose whatever support it once had, especially if things go badly.

The Option of Last Resort

There is no deed more somber a government can undertake than one of military action. Unleashing the tools of warfare on another people yields the very worst that humanity has to offer and leaves in its wake a shattered nation, a conquered people, and generations of despair. History often portrays wars of the past in heroic terms or romantic terms while discarding the horrors that war brings. And from a distance of hundreds or thousands of years, what we remember about these conflicts is the results of their outcomes; the “taming” of humanity into civilizations, the consolidation of geography and resources, the spread of religious ideologies. In today’s world of instant communications, we know all too well the true face of warfare, and it is anything but romantic. But depending on ones perspective, the resulting consequences of warfare can be seen in either a positive or a negative light. And depending upon ones cultural traditions, the horrors brought with warfare may be forgiven or taken forward through the generations in an unending feud for vengeance.

Because wars exist, and because wars will continue to be fought for the foreseeable future, nations maintain a military force for both protection and offensive movements. In this area, the United States of America has achieved what no other nation before it has, namely, a global military force that is second to none in terms of mobility, technology, and ability. Taken as a whole, our men and women in uniform are unmatched by any other military in the world, especially when given a winnable mission, the tools to win it, and the authority to control the action on the ground. This praise is not to be misunderstood as a wholesale endorsement of the American military apparatus though, for there is much about the way our military is used and run that can and should be improved upon. Even while the individual men and women who make up our (for the present) all-voluntary force can be commended for their professionalism as a whole, the civilians who are charged with funding the military and deciding its missions consistently foul things up. And the bureaucracy that encumbers the efficacy of the military’s duties is about as efficient and accountable as a comatose accident victim. The problems of both the civilians who guide military policy (also known as politicians and their corporate benefactors) and the bureaucrats in and out of uniform who keep the beast moving may not be easy to solve, but they are easy to identify.

Accountability Accountability in the military is a multi-pronged problem. First, we need to have greater financial accountability of the military’s expenditures, for it has been documented far too many times that the military is completely irresponsible with the tax dollars that are appropriated for “defense.” Secondly, we need to have greater practical accountability for the actions of the troops in the field. At issue, specifically, is who takes responsibility for the planning and execution of military events, and what should be expected to be in place before any military action is initiated. Third, we need greater accountability in the lower rungs of the chain of command, beginning with the methods used for recruitment all the way up to the information services that present military encounters to the public. And finally, we need public accountability, which in times of just war means falling behind our leaders and sacrificing some of our materialistic desires to reduce the nation’s costs of fighting, or in times of unjust war it means fighting the politicians to bring our troops back home as quickly as possible.

Responsibility Part of the appeal to joining an all-volunteer military is the knowledge that you are giving something back to your country of your own free will. A much bigger draw is all the programs and benefits available to veterans. Maybe “alleged” benefits is a better description. The government of this country has a long history of abusing the trust given to it by its military personnel. We promise our veterans health care and education grants and housing loans to get them to enlist. Then, when they have served their tours, and come home to return to civilian life, they find that their hospitals have been closed or consolidated, their grants won’t cover the costs of tuition, or the loan limits preclude actually buying a house somewhere near an employer. In short, we are engaged in a classic bait and switch con game with the very people who would give their lives for our way of life. Our government is also responsible for training and equipping our military forces with the best materials at our disposal. If we are to send people into harms way, it should always be a top priority to give them the tools to succeed and survive. There must also be in place a firm objective and a firm goal for cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of forces. And, government must be responsible to the civilian populations in any country where our troops are engaged, taking the highest efforts to remove warfare from civilian populations and to assist in the rebuilding and protection of infrastructure as troops move to other forward positions.


Flexibility Just as the methods of warfare change as time and technology move forward, so too must the structure of an effective military evolve to meet these changing challenges. So far in the 21st century, our prime enemy is not a traditional state government, but rather an ideology that transcends borders and has no formal body of warriors. Efforts to combat this type of adversary are not always feasible with large deployments of men and machines. Other conflicts that call for armed intervention, genocidal conflicts within states that flare over borders, call for a different kind of force, one that is not unilateral in nature. In some cases, military actions such as containment of an enemy nation may require a different kind of soldier while actual defense of the homeland would present an entirely new problem and would likely result in an entirely different kind of fighting force. In order for our military to be prepared for each of these contingencies, we have a duty to reevaluate of military organizations and make rational adjustments based on the principals of security rather than on political appeasement.

Rationality Perhaps the most important aspect of the use of the military in a democracy is the duty of the government to keep the citizens apprised of what the troops are engaged in. It is our children, our parents, our friends and co-workers who are going off to fight. It is our right to know whom they are fighting and what they are fighting for. It is our right to know what the objectives are and how we will meet them. And for the people in the war zones, it is most necessary to understand what conditions must exist for our troops to make a safe exodus from their country and for the return of their government to them.

In this next series of essays, efforts will be made to address these problems with Common Sense solutions that could result in a much more efficient military, a much more effective military and a much more respected military for this country. In addition, discussions about the proper planning of military action, the rationale for taking military action, and observations on our current military endeavors will occur.