“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.”
These are the introductory lines to an open letter entitled, “To Support and Defend: Principles of Civilian Control and Best Practices of Civil-Military Relations,” and published by War on the Rocks on Tuesday, September 6th, 2022. The letter warns of the current challenging civil-military environment and outlines principles that will allow civilian and military professionals to overcome the problems of the present.
It is signed by 8 former Secretaries of Defense and 5 former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The letter includes 16 foundational principles that the signatories affirm are essential for Civil-Military relations to reclaim past successes, overcome present dilemmas, and optimistically pursue future outcomes.
“In such an environment, it is helpful to review the core principles and best practices by which civilian and military professionals have conducted healthy American civil-military relations in the past — and can continue to do so, if vigilant and mindful.”
A recent Washington Post article by Dan Lamothe explores the background and context of the open letter. It explains that the idea for the letter was derived from conversations between Dr. Peter Feaver, the AWC Principal at Duke, and General (ret.) Martin Dempsey, a former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and signatory to the letter.
Dr. Feaver recalled this conversation saying, “We realized that there was a need for a restatement of what civilian control means, and how it applies…It was striking that as General Dempsey reached out to them to get them involved, to a person they said, ‘Oh, yeah. That’s important. We need to do that.'”
Additionally, Dr. Feaver spoke with Kelly Hooper of POLITICO about helping carefully craft the letter. The signatories quickly agreed that the letter was important; however, they spent time drafting the language to ensure not to “misstate something or come across as partisan.”
“In this polarized environment you hear people making comments about a civil war and questions about armed insurrections and things like that — well that’s now straying into military matters. And so a proper understanding of civilian control in that climate seems to be a little more urgent than earlier days that were less fraught and where a majority of folks could be ignorant on the topic and it didn’t matter,” Dr. Feaver told POLITICO. “The letter is really responding to the prominence that civil military questions has taken in the political discourse.”
Peter Feaver is the AWC Principal at Duke University and the Director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy.