In thriving democracies, the military is visibly subordinate to the will of the citizenry, as manifest in a civilian government. The military swears by the Constitution from which it derives its authority to undertake violence in order to safeguard the sovereignty of the nation, and not that of the temporary political dispensation of the day.
The Constitution is supreme, everlasting, and the political landscape assumed changeable. This arrangement requires the military to remain perceptibly apolitical, and undertake the tasks ordered by the dispensation of the day, which are presumably, always constitutionally correct.
Soldiers Are Only Expected to Hang Their Uniforms, Not Their Ranks or Institutional Values
The serving ‘uniformed’ fraternity seems to have eschewed any political appropriations and preferences, with demonstrated public restraint and rectitude, like a sacred covenant. Therefore, this deliberate and unnatural arrangement of institutional ‘voicelessness’ breeds certain undercurrents of trust-deficit vis-à-vis the politicos and with civilian bureaucrats, but the cribs rarely go beyond the barricaded cantonments.
The public goodwill for the military ensures a positive pressure on the politicos to ‘look after’ the soldier, who occupies a hallowed place in the national imagination and conscience, that is bipartisan.
Soldiers are only expected to hang their uniforms, not their ranks or institutional values, even as veterans. It is this extended principle that the former-Marine Corps General and Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, described as the French concept of devoir de réserve (duty of silence). Mattis left the Donald Trump administration over unambiguously professional and policy differences, yet refused to publicly elaborate on the same in order to ‘give the people who are still there as much opportunity as possible to defend the country’.
The operative part of Mattis’s statement was about affording the dignity and right to ‘defend the country’ by maintaining silence, against someone with whom you may still have individual differences.
The Realisation That Trump Had Milked the ‘Uniform’ to Build His Own Political Muscularity
The military ethos of not publicly airing disagreements led to many instances of having to ‘take it on its chin’, as the institution has traditionally tilted sharply in favour of the Republicans. The revolving-door of the incumbent White House administration saw the hiring-and-firing of many from the ‘Uniform’ like John F Kelly, Michael Flynn, HR McMaster, James Mattis etc. Other instances like the controversial sacking of Captain Brett Crozier, from the command of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, blaming ‘my generals’ for a failed raid in Yemen, interfering in the chain of command to reinstate Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, disrespecting former Warrior-Senator John McCain or countless other slights to the institution led to brewing discomfiture within the ‘Uniform’, that still stayed silent, only because the Presidential attack was either personal or institutional, and not yet constitutional.
An awkward realisation that the showman Trump had only milked the ‘Uniform’ to build his own political muscularity, with theatrical flouting of traditions, invocations and using the institution as a political diversionary tact, became increasingly apparent.
It finally took the murder of African American George Floyd to shake America from its slumber, as it faced the real-time potential of abandoning its cherished Constitutional moorings, fully sanctified by the incumbent President.
Why Ex-US Defense Secy Mattis Broke His Promised Silence
The ‘Uniform’ was pushed over the brim when the US President recklessly used military terminology like ‘battle space’ and threatened kinetic-action to ‘dominate’, while he himself slid into a bunker – the ‘Uniform’ looked askance and horrified at the conduct of its Commander-in-Chief. It was no longer about them individually or collectively, the constitutionality is at stake, and the ‘Uniform’ has unprecedentedly dissented and finally spoken.
Houston’s Police Chief asked the President to ‘keep your mouth shut’. Major General Thomas Carden, the Adjutant General of the Georgia National Guard said, “of all the things I've been asked in do in the last 34 plus years in uniform, this is on the bottom of my list”.
James Mattis too broke his promised silence under the weight of possible consequences of his continuing silence: “When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens”. Mattis added profoundly, “Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “the Nazi slogan for destroying us… was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.”.
Rain of Dissent in the US
The urgency was apparent in the words of Admiral McRaven who had earlier said: “It is time for a new person in the Oval Office — Republican, Democrat or Independent — the sooner, the better. The fate of our Republic depends upon it”.
This rain of dissent by some of the most valorous, respected and decorated soldiers is despite Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, that bars ‘contemptuous words against the President’, and also extends to Veterans. This time Donald Trump has overplayed his ‘divisive’ card, and the ‘Uniform’ is symbolically and powerfully beseeching Americans to be better than their politics. This stand of the ‘Uniform’ may actually apply the much-required societal balm, as the President himself has surrendered the moral ground to suggest peace or as he menacingly tweeted in caps, ‘LAW & ORDER’.
Principally the ‘Uniform’ must not speak publicly, but still be heard and felt, where it matters.
It is not an alternative to civilian governments – history bears painful consequences for nations, who thought otherwise. Using the image of the ‘Uniform’ to score a political hit is a relatively new political phenomenon, and beyond appropriations it must be spared the shenanigans and populism within its blunt realm.
A nonpartisan military is the cornerstone of democracy, public-life, constitutionality and even morality in society, which cannot be violated with dilutions and liberties.
Despite renewed calls for gag on the ‘Uniform’ in light of its rare dissent, many have spoken in measured and nonpartisan terms, the evocative import and echoes of which will linger for a long time, and hopefully so, in the White House sensibilities.
(Lt Gen Bhopinder Singh (Retd) is a Former Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands & Puducherry. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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