dissent and strategic leadership of the military professions

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DISSENT AND STRATEGIC LEADERSHIPOF THE MILITARY PROFESSIONS

Don M. Snider

February 2008

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An early version of this monograph was presented October15, 2007, at a conference in Washington, DC, sponsored by theForeign Policy Research Institute ( www.fpri.org) and The ReserveOf cers Association ( www.roa.org).

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FOREWORD

Over the past 5 years, the War on Terrorism hasproduced many unforeseen results for the U.S. Army,something not unexpected by those who study waras we do here at the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI).One event, however, was truly unexpected—theparticipation in 2006 by several Army ag of cers inthe “Revolt of the Generals.”

It was unexpected because the professional ethicof the Army in the modern era has held that, in civil-military relations, the military is the servant of itsConstitutionally-mandated civilian leaders, boththose in the Executive branch and in the Congress.Thus, as Samuel Huntington noted over 5 decadesago, “loyalty and obedience” are the cardinal military

virtues. This precept has remained embedded in theArmy’s professional ethos to this day, especially forthe strategic leaders of the Army Profession. An act ofpublic dissent is to be exceptionally rare, undertakenonly after the most careful analysis and determinationof its absolute necessity.

While much of the commentary on the “Revolt” hasfocused on whether it was right, or even legal, for theseof cers to dissent from the policies and leadership of theRumsfeld-led Pentagon, the author of this monograph,Dr. Don Snider, develops a different framework, amoral framework, with which to analyze the event.Drawing on his extensive background in the study ofthe U.S. Army as a profession, Dr. Snider isolates thethree critical trust relationships which enable the Army

to be, and to behave as, a social trustee professionempowered to apply its expert knowledge in defense ofAmerica and her interests. He then develops indicators



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by which those considering dissent should analyzethe potential costs to the profession emanating from

impacts on these critical trust relationships.Not surprisingly, Dr. Snider concludes that effectivestewardship of the profession by the current strategicleaders of the Army has been made more dif cult by the“Revolt.” Further, he recommends that they refurbishand uphold the profession’s traditional ethic on publicdissent as a means of reasserting control over critical jurisdictions of the profession.

We are pleased to publish this work, completedwhile Dr. Snider was at SSI on sabbatical from WestPoint during the fall of 2007. It extends and complementsan earlier work completed here on another shortsabbatical in 2004 , The Future of the Army Profession, 2dEdition, coedited with Lloyd J. Matthews.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.DirectorStrategic Studies Institute



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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

DON M. SNIDER is a Professor of Political Science atthe United States Military Academy. He is a retiredColonel, U.S. Army, with three combat tours in Vietnam,service on the Army and Joint Staffs, and on the staffof the National Security Council, the White House. Dr.Snider’s teaching and research focus at West Point is onthe American political system, civil-military relations,the role of military professions, and the developmentof commissioned of cers. His most recent publications,both coedited with Lloyd J. Matthews, are: The Futureof the Army Profession, 2d Edition, (2005) and Forging theWarrior’s Character: Moral Precepts from the Cadet Prayer (2007).



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SUMMARY

Vice Admiral James Stockdale, Vietnam prisoner ofwar and Medal of Honor recipient, once said, “Evenin the most detached duty, we warriors must keepforemost in our minds that there are boundaries to theprerogatives of leadership, moral boundaries.”

In this monograph, the author delineates a segmentof these boundaries as they are understood from thestudy of military professions and as derived from theroles and responsibilities of those seniors privileged tobe the profession’s temporary stewards—the colonels/captains and Flag Of cers who comprise the strategicleadership. Such boundaries mean that the decision todissent can never be a purely personal matter. Ratherit will reverberate outward impinging at a minimum

the three critical trust relationships of the militaryprofession—those with the American people, thosewith civilian and military leaders at the highest levelsof decisionmaking, and those with the junior corps ofof cers and noncommissioned of cers of our armedforces.

To analyze the impact of dissent on these threecritical trust relationships, the author isolates vedifferent but closely related aspects of public dissentthat should be considered by the strategic leader whendeciding whether to take such a step—the gravity ofthe issue; the relevance of the professional’s expertknowledge and expertise to the issue at question; and,the three indicators of the dissenter’s motive—thepersonal sacri ce to be incurred in dissenting; the

timing of the act of dissent; and the congruence of suchan act with the previous career of service and leadershipwithin the military profession. None of these vefactors by themselves will likely be determinative for



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the would-be dissenter, but collectively they provide amoral context and framework in which a judgmental

decision should be made.The author concludes that if, as a result of theseconsiderations the military leader decides that dissentis warranted—if the leader believes that an act ofdissent best balances the immediate felt obligation tobring his/her professional military expertise to bearin a public forum with the longer-term obligation tolead and represent the profession as a social trustee,as a faithful servant of the American people, and asexpressly subordinate to civilian control—then forthose rare instances there should be no additionalrestrictions placed on any act of dissent. On rareoccasions, true professionals must retain the moralspace to “profess.”

He also concludes that what remains now is for the

strategic leaders of the military profession to stronglypromote and follow the existing professional ethic,reinforcing a culture that discourages public dissentbecause of the risks to the profession’s essential trustrelationships. He maintains that this will be no easytask for the current leaders, but it is an urgent one—reasserting that they alone ful ll the functional rolesof representing the profession, rendering advice, andexecuting legal orders. They must make it abundantlyclear that they and they alone, speak for the militaryprofession. All other military voices, including thoseretired, are heard from nonpracticing professionalsand should be considered as such. This will requirereestablishing control over their profession’s certi ca-tion processes to ensure that all parties to civil-military

relations understand that retired of cers speak forno one other than themselves as citizens; and, mostnotably, that they do not speak for the current practicingprofessionals who now lead in America’s con icts.



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DISSENT AND STRATEGIC LEADERSHIPOF THE MILITARY PROFESSIONS

The U.S. military has a long tradition of strong partner-ship between the civilian leadership of the Departmentof Defense and the uniformed services. Both have longbene ted from a relationship in which the civilian lead -ership exercises control with the advantage of fully can-did professional advice, and the military serves loyallywith the understanding that its advice has been heardand valued. That tradition has been frayed, and civil-military relations need to be repaired. 1

Iraq Study Group Report , December 2006

Personal and professional honor do not require requestfor reassignment or retirement if civilians order one’sservice, command, or unit to act in some manner an of-

cer nds distasteful, disastrous, or even immoral. Themilitary’s job is to advise and then execute lawful orders.. . . If of cers at various levels measure policies, deci -sions, orders, and operations against personal moral andethical systems, and act thereon, the good order and dis-cipline of the military would collapse. 2

Professor Richard H. Kohn, 2007

INTRODUCTIONThe two epigraphs above establish the scope of this

monograph. For a number of well-known reasons—allmuch discussed within the military and in the press,academic conferences, and journals—civil-militaryrelations in America during the Iraq War have been

lled with tensions, or “frayed” in the words of theIraq Study Group. Often these tensions manifestedthemselves in notably controversial behavior by eithercivilian or military leaders, behavior seemingly at



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odds with patterns we have come to expect from pastexperiences. Conspicuous among these behaviors

is what has become known as “The Revolt of theGenerals,” when several senior ag of cers, all retired,spoke out publicly in 2006 against both the militarypolicies pursued in Iraq and the civilian leaders(Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld et al.) whowere most responsible for them. 3

Now, with the departure of Secretary Rumsfeld andmany of the civilian leaders and military ag of cers heput in place, and abetted by a change in strategy thatmay at long last be advancing the counterinsurgencyeffort, such tensions and dissenting behaviors havesomewhat ebbed. However, as the second epigraphdemonstrates, strong feelings and opinions still lingerabout this period in American civil-military relations,and, more speci cally, about the appropriateness of the

“Revolt” and its reverberating in uences on America’smilitary and political cultures. It is not a stretch to notethat these reactions are intensifying with time. 4 Thismonograph, then, will focus on the subject of militarydissent using the revolt as a stimulus for thinking moreclearly about this latest phase in the Republic’s civil-military relations.

First, it is necessary to describe the revolt. I speak ofthe behavior of six retired general of cers who, in vari-ous manners and public forums and for somewhat sim-ilar reasons, broke their services’ traditions in early 2006to speak out during war against their civilian leadersand the war policies they represented. These were,incidentally, policies which earlier the general of cersthemselves had each helped to formulate or execute.

Of interest to this monograph are not the differencesamong the rationales they each offered for their publicdissent, rather we are interested in the common theme,



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the principle of obedience does not allow for respectfuldissent. . . . 5

The revolt occurred for what each of cer felt wereprincipled reasons owing, essentially, from policydifferences—wrong war; wrong place; not well-planned, resourced, or executed; and culpable civilianleaders not replaced. True, several did mention otherconcerns such as the management style of civilianleaders, Secretary Rumsfeld in particular. But I be-lieve all of the dissenters to be forthright men withoutulterior motives, and that their main issue was substan-tive with respect to war policy. 6

Granting that military professions, and their ethicsin particular, do evolve slowly over time and that thisrevolt was an aberration when viewed against thehistorical pattern of military ethics in the U.S. military,

the broad question for this monograph becomeswhether the professions’ ethics should evolve toaccommodate in the future the forms of military dissentexpressed in this instance? Or should they evolve inways that continue, as they have in the past, to stronglydiscourage such public dissent by uniformed leaders,active and retired, during wartime?

Further, since the slow evolution of military ethicsis most in uenced by the stewards entrusted withits maintenance—the strategic leaders of the militaryprofessions—we are also interested in the role ofmilitary dissenters as strategic leaders. Stated anotherway, since the ethic of the military profession is at anypoint in time the result of the leadership (decisions andactions) of previous strategic leaders, how are we to

think about the in uences of dissenting behavior onthe evolution of the profession, its professionals, andtheir ethic?



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I will approach these contentious questions in threesteps:

• First, I shall present from the literature thevarious forms of military dissent being discussedso that all readers can understand the full rangeof actions available to those who chose todissent. I will do this primarily by reference torecent work by colleagues that uses a two-factoranalysis to focus on a policy-content rationale foranalyzing and explaining the range of potentialacts of military dissent.

• Second, I will look at an alternative approach,one that draws on the nature of militaryprofessions and their ethics of trust to analyzethe various in uences dissent can have on thosetrust-based relationships. This approach goesbeyond the narrow issue of whether the war

policies of civilian leaders are sound, dealinginstead with the broader issue of whether suchpublic dissent—irrespective of the substantivecorrectness of the dissent—is ultimately healthyfor the profession, its professionals, and itsethic.

• Last, I will offer some concluding observationson events now lying over the horizon.

Before we proceed, however, I must note afundamental consensus on at least one point thatover-watches our inquiry. That is the concept ofcivilian control or, perhaps more precisely, democraticpolitical control of the military in America. The U.S.military is subordinate to the President and to certain

designated of cials in the Executive branch as well asto elected political leaders in Congress. According tothe U.S. Constitution, these two branches of the federal



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government share primary authority and responsibilityfor military affairs. The military is, therefore, the ser-

vant of its Constitutionally-mandated masters andthrough them, the citizens of the Republic. A desirablepattern of U.S. civil-military relations—includinglegitimate military dissent—would therefore enhancedemocratic political control while also facilitatingsound strategic decisionmaking and the creation ofeffective military institutions. 7

Despite a broad consensus on this fundamentalpoint, there is nevertheless plenty of room fordisagreement on many subordinate issues, including,as we shall see, military dissent.

PART I: A FRAMEWORK FOR THOUGHT

In an opinion piece posted on the website of the

Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College,Professors Leonard Wong and Douglas Lovelaceportray in the schema below the options available toof cers when considering acts of dissent. This schemaapplies to the policy formulation stage, before adecision is nally made and promulgated: 8 To Wongand Lovelace, the important considerations clearly liein the policy environment—the degree of resistancecivilian leaders display to the military’s professionalexpertise and advice, and the importance to the nation’ssecurity of the issue being debated.

According to these scholars, the hard choices, thosein which strong action is appropriate, lie in the upperright quadrant where both resistance and the threatare more serious, i.e., situations like the Iraq War. Note

that Wong and Lovelace present the full spectrumof choices available to of cers, ranging from mere



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acquiescence to the policy in question up to the mostcostly act of dissent, resignation of one’s commissionwhich includes forfeiture of retirement and all otherbene ts that go with it.

However, are the two variables portrayed in theschema—policy content and relationships at thecivil-military nexus—all that the strategic leaders ofAmerica’s military profession should consider whencontemplating dissent? Or do they have other equally

important responsibilities that should bring into playadditional variables or considerations? That is to say, arethere other responsibilities derivable from their statusas leaders of a social trustee profession whose lifebloodis the public’s perception of the trustworthiness of thepractitioners?



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PART II: WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICSOF MILITARY PROFESSIONS AND THEIR ETHIC

OF TRUST; WHAT ARE THE FACTORS WITHINDISSENT THAT CAN STRENGTHEN OR WEAKENCRITICAL TRUST RELATIONSHIPS? 9

Before considering a model of modern, competitivemilitary professions and their requisite ethical behav-ior, we should note that the ethic of military professionshas both legal and moral components. On commission-ing, of cers of America’s military professions swear bya legally binding oath that they will do certain thingsand behave in certain ways, and then serve according tothe standards of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice(UCMJ) which provides for various legal sanctions incase of violations of that Code, violations demonstra-ting a failure to ful ll one’s duties as prescribed. 10

But the legal code is not of primary interest in thisinquiry. Retired of cers, unlike active duty of cers,can speak freely and, except in the rarest of cases, notbe prosecuted for such actions under UCMJ. 11 Thequestion for this inquiry is not whether they are entitled to speak freely; but, whether they should ? Thus we aremore interested here in the implied moral aspects ofthe profession’s ethic than in its legal aspects.

That said, however, there is one particular inwhich the legally codi ed aspects of the professions’ethics does have bearing on our inquiry. Speci cally,in the United States Code, Title 10—Armed Forces(Sections 3583, 85831, and 5947), “Requirements ofExemplary Conduct” establishes as a matter of law thecommander’s responsibility for the moral and ethical

stewardship of his/her unit, to wit:



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All commanding of cers and others in authority in the[Army/Air Force, naval service] are required:

(1) to show themselves as a good example of virtue,honor, patriotism, and subordination;

(2) to be vigilant in inspecting the conduct of all per-sons who are placed under their command;

(3) to guard against and suppress all dissolute andimmoral practices, and to correct, according to the lawsand regulations of the Army, all persons who are guiltyof them, and;

(4) to take all proper and necessary measures, underlaws, regulations, and customs of the Army, to promoteand safeguard the morale, the physical well being, andthe general welfare of the of cers and the enlisted per -sons under their command or charge (brackets added). 12

It is of interest to note, therefore, that all commissionedof cers, and particularly those in the chain of command,are expected to be at all times “a good example ofvirtue, honor, patriotism, and subordination.” Thisincludes retired military professionals so long asthey have never resigned their commission. But whatis such a “good example,” and how are we to thinkabout it and evaluate alternative forms of dissent inthe context of this legal and moral requirement for“subordination” and the related qualities mandatedby the commissioning oath? To help us in that regard,

we turn now to a brief review of modern competitiveprofessions, particularly the military professions.

Modern Competitive Professions .13

We can fairly say that all societies generallyorganize their productive work under one of threeideal models—business, bureaucracy, or profession. 14 In this context, our armed forces are producinginstitutions— for example, the Army produces “thehuman expertise, embodied in leaders and their units,



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of effective land combat.” 15 In the rst model, businessesgenerally operate within the interactions of markets,

with economic forces producing the motivatingrationale. Most all inputs are organized into markets(labor, capital, technology, etc.) from which businessesacquire the wherewithal to produce something ofuse and value for consumers. Under various levels ofregulation or oversight, markets will equilibrate to aprice and quantity of production that satis es suppliers,producers, and consumers. Thus, economic pro t andproductive ef ciency are the motivating forces withinthis type of productive activity. And the resulting arms-length relationship between producer and consumerhas long been aptly characterized in economic texts ascaveat emptor, or “let the buyer beware.”

In contrast to a business, a bureaucracy doesnot operate on economic or market incentives at all.

Rather, ef ciency in repetitive production processes isthe main guiding principle of bureaucratic institutions,which tend to operate in their own interest for their self-perpetuation. Some degree of bureaucracy is intrinsicto all large, complex organizations—even businessesand professions—since it is bureaucracy that permitssmooth running, administratively ef cient opera-tions. 16 Every society needs things that are essential toits ourishing for which there is little economic incen- tive for their private production (highways, for exam-ple). The provision of such public goods and services,even if privatized at the nal point of production (e.g.,private contractors pour the concrete), usually occursthrough a governmental or explicitly not-for-pro tbureaucracy. Further, within bureaucracies, the worker

is not the focal point, rather the ef ciency of the productiveprocess is the key concern (think of a state drivers’license bureau). Traditionally, bureaucracies invest



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relatively little in their people, as the competenciesneeded for the routine and repetitive work processes

designed for ef ciency can be developed relativelyeasily in new workers. 17

In contrast to both business and bureaucracy, aprofession has as its central organizing feature theproduction of a unique type of work—expert work—which, by its very nature, the society cannot do foritself. Such work, far from being optional or nice-to-have, is fundamental to life and security and thusessential if the society is to ourish. Professional workrequires years of education and apprenticeship beforethe aspiring professional can learn the theory andpractice—the art—with which to serve society. The

elds of medicine, theology, law, and more recently themilitary have traditionally been organized in westernsocieties as a “social trustee” form of profession. 18

Effectiveness, not ef ciency, is the key to the workof professionals—the sick want a cure, the sinnerwants absolution, the accused want exoneration, andthe defenseless seek security. To be sure, all clientsin any professional eld want ef cient service, buteffectiveness—truly ef cacious results from theprofession’s expert practice—is their overriding goal.The service ethic of professions, whose responsibilityis to the client rather than to self, is characterized ascedat emptor, “let the taker believe in us.” 19 Clearly, theprofessional ethic is built on trust.

It follows that the means of motivation and socialcontrol within a profession—its ethic—is also quitedistinct from those of business and bureaucracy. Theclient (i.e., the public in the case of the military) trusts

the profession to produce the expert work when andwhere needed. And because of the client’s trust inthe professional’s knowledge and practice, he/she is



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willing to grant signi cant autonomy to professionalsto organize and police their own work .. Thus, while

businesses and bureaucracies traditionally motivatetheir workers by reliance on extrinsic factors suchas salary, bene ts, promotions, etc., professions incontrast use as means of social control largely intrinsicfactors such as the privilege and honor of service, thesatisfaction of nurturing and protecting life and ena-bling society to ourish, and the social status of mem-bership in an old, honorable, and revered occupationalgroup.

Further, it must be understood that professions,including the military, are quintessentially humaninstitutions because of the nature of their productiveprocesses. Speci cally, after many long years of studyand development, a professional practices his/her artby “the repetitive exercise of discretionary judgment,”

operating in areas where humanity’s most profoundconcerns reside. 20 Think of even a junior-grade landcombat professional leading a patrol in Baghdad. Overand over during the mission, he/she will make life-or-death decisions without reference to computers,doctrinal manuals, or written formulas, relyinginstead on the abstract knowledge about militaryoperations he/she has gained through study andexperience. Similar to the medical doctor in the clinicpracticing the arts of diagnosis and treatment or to thelawyer researching and writing a case brief, militaryprofessionals may use advanced technology in manyforms. But the essence of their practice is the humancapacity to reason to ef cacious decisions which, bytheir physical, intellectual, and moral character, they

can then lead soldiers to implement.



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The Role of Strategic Leaders of Military

Professions .

Lastly, before returning to our discussion of dissent,we should note the unique role that strategic leaders,of cers such as those in the general’s revolt, have inthe life of modern, competitive military professions.Their role mainly entails the maintenance of the rightbalance over time between the internal and external jurisdictions of the profession. 21 That is to say, in theprofession’s internal jurisdictions—creating expertknowledge and the development of professionals—thestrategic leaders are responsible to see that, at any pointin time, the profession has the expert knowledge neededto serve the client, and has embedded that knowledgeinto individual professionals and their units such that

the profession can practice its art when and where theclient might request it. 22 As noted earlier, to maintain theclient’s trust in the profession’s willingness and ability toserve the client effectively when and where service is requiredis the most fundamental moral obligation of a professionand, therefore, of its strategic leaders. Sadly, after the fallof Baghdad in March 2003, it became apparent thatprevious and current strategic leaders of America’sland combat professions, including the participants inthe revolt, had failed conspicuously in that deep moralobligation, both to their collective client, the Americanpeople, and to their subordinates, who were asked to

ght a counterinsurgency campaign with neither theexpert knowledge nor the materiel support requisite todoing so. 23

Within the two internal jurisdictions, and at onlya slightly lower level of moral import, the centralchallenge for strategic leaders day-by-day arises from



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the fact that modern militaries by their design andcharacter are both bureaucracy and profession! As

summarized by one noted sociologist of the military:From the outset, the American military differed fromother traditional professions in always being practiced in abureaucratic setting , in being composed of people who inmany cases did not have a lifelong commitment to theiroccupation, in having its autonomy constrained by re-sponsibility to extra-professional (state) authority, andto explicitly being politically neutral (italics added). 24

By the design and acts of many state legislatures andcongresses over the decades, the military professionshave been structured as a hierarchical, public-sectorbureaucracy and have been treated as such all too oftenby those authorizing and sustaining such institutions. 25 Unfortunately, all too often the strategic leaders of

our armed forces have responded by leading theirinstitutions as bureaucracies, i.e., treating their soldiersas bureaucratic, civilian time servers, rather than as aproud breed of can-doers who march to an entirelydifferent drummer.

Today’s volunteers within our armed forces, par-ticularly within the commissioned and noncommission-ed ranks, volunteer with the intention and expectationof becoming professionals and being able to do theirwork in the physical environment and organizationalculture of a profession–one that grants them signi cantautonomy to organize and execute their own work:“Professions are self-forming, self-regulating, andself-initiating in the provision of expert services to aclient which the profession is ethically constrained not

to exploit in its own self-interest.”26

In 2000, an Armymajor frustrated by the increasing bureaucratization ofher chosen life’s work put the question: “How can I bea professional if there is no profession?” 27



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The dif culty lies in the fact that leaders belowthe ranks of the colonels/captains and Flag Of cers,

who comprise the strategic leaders, have insuf cientauthority and capability to de ect the institutionaway from its bureaucratic pathologies and back toauthentic professional practice. Recall again that therelationship between a profession and its client is oneof trust, not of market forces, and that professions,unlike bureaucracies, rely for results on leadershipand inspiration rather than managership and rule-mongering. Now, the challenge for strategic leaders inthe military takes on new meaning!

No one can make our armed forces a professionrather than bureaucracy other than the uniformedstrategic leaders, and even they must secure thecooperation of enlightened civilian leaders. Oneexample of this immense responsibility is their control

over the personnel development, evaluation andcerti cation, assignment and utilization processesthat will either motivate or demotivate aspiringprofessionals as they progress through a career ofservice. With signi cant autonomy already grantedfrom civilian leadership, if the Army does not behaveas a profession and develop inspired and competentprofessionals, it is because the strategic leaders havefailed in their unique responsibility.

The Trust Relationships of a Profession’s StrategicLeaders .

Let us now examine more closely the critical trustrelationships that military professions hold and to

which strategic leaders are parties. Each is deeplymoral in content, re ecting the character of a dedicatedprofession. I posit that at a minimum there are three



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such relationships, and each can be qualitatively ratedalong a continuum ranging from “Fully Trusted” as the

ideal to “Not Trustworthy” as the most opprobrious:28

(1) the profession’s relationship to the client, theAmerican people; (2) the profession’s relationshipswith the public’s elected and appointed civilian leadersin both the Congress and in the Executive—the “civ-mil nexus” as it is becoming known. 29 This is a set ofrelationships inhabited by the strategic leaders of themilitary professions, both those on active duty andthose retired (the “once a general, always a general”phenomenon of American political and militarycultures); and (3) the relationship with subordinateleaders within the military professions, particularly thecorps of commissioned and noncommissioned of cersin our armed forces.

I will not spend much time defending these three

as primary, as they ow largely from the foregoingdiscussion of the role and character of militaryprofessions in America. The rst—the profession’srelation to the American people— ows from thenature of “social trustee” professions and their serviceto their clients. The third—the profession’s relationto subordinate leaders—is axiomatic to almost all theleadership doctrines of our armed forces—leadersat all levels serve their subordinates. The secondrelationship—the profession’s relation to civilianleaders—may need a bit of explanation. It is derivedfrom, and well-understood within, the literature andpractice of American civil-military relations.

According to Samuel Huntington in 1957, and stillvery much accepted today, our military leaders have

three responsibilities: 30 (1) The representative function: “to represent the

claims of military security within the state machinery.”



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I interpret and have experienced this to mean thatof cers are to express their expert point of view on

any matter touching the creation, maintenance, use,or contemplated use of the armed forces. This point ofview will derive from their years of formal education,training, and experience, a perspective not held by anyother group, professional or otherwise, and withoutwhich informed public discourse and governmentalpolicy formulation would be diminished. 31 This meansof cers are to represent forthrightly the militaryperspective in all forums, both in public view andout of view. Even Huntington was reluctant to drawexplicit boundaries to the of cer’s responsibilitiesunder this function—“The extent to which he maycarry the presentation of his views is dif cult to de ne,but he must recognize and accept the fact that thereare limits.” 32 Thus the behavior will depend on the

personal discretion and professional judgment of theindividual of cer, as be ts his/her role as a professional.Apparently, in the case of the generals’ revolt, theof cers construed the limits liberally, pressing theirviews even to the point of demanding an incumbentSecretary of Defense’s resignation.

(2) The advisory function: “to analyze and to reporton the implications of alternative courses of action fromthe military point of view.” I understand this to meanthe provision of candid professional military adviceto elected and appointed civilian leaders, regardlessof whether the advice was solicited or regardless ofwhether the advice is likely to be welcomed. Further,this means there is normally no legitimate role foruniformed of cers in policy advocacy. Huntington

considered such beyond their presumed competence. 33 The problematic nature of advice-giving by strategicleaders of military professions, especially under the



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dif cult conditions of being responsible to two oftencompeting masters (Congress and Executive), are

well-chronicled in the historical and civil-militaryliteratures. 34 Even without the general’s revolt, theIraq War had heightened tensions at this civil-militarynexus to a fever pitch with comments on the war’sprogress, or lack thereof, being instantly politicized bythe news media, the administration, and the Congress. 35 Regardless, the professional responsibility is, andwill remain, to render forthrightly such advice basedalmost solely on discretionary professional judgment.After that, the civilians must choose and decide.Regardless of the theorizing and hand-wringing ofmany academics and retired of cers, there is simplyno requirement that such advice be followed by thecivilian leaders who receive it. Civilian leaders remainresponsible to the electorate for any ill consequences

of ignoring professional military advice and, of course,for all matters lying beyond the purview of theirmilitary advisors—issues such as the establishment ofthe political objectives of war and the assessment ofpolitical risk in its undertaking. 36

(3) The executive function: “to implement statedecisions with respect to state security even if it isa decision which runs violently counter to his military

judgment” (italics added). Huntington’s argument isquite to the point:

The military profession exists to serve the state. To ren-der the highest possible service the entire profession andthe military force which it leads must be constituted asan effective instrument of state policy. Since political di-rection comes from the top, this means that the profes-

sion has to be organized into a hierarchy of obedience.For the profession to perform its function, each levelwithin it must be able to command the instantaneous



19

and loyal obedience of subordinate levels. Without theserelationships, military professionalism is impossible.Consequently, loyalty and obedience are the highestmilitary virtues. 37

Today, few, if any, authorities disagree with the thrustof this argument. 38 Thus, for sound functional andinstrumental reasons, the norm of the professional ethicis “military obedience.” What very narrow areas remainfor military dissent, or even military disobedience, we

shall return to later.

Factors for Evaluation of the Trust Relationships .

Given the functional activities for which the strate-gic leaders of our military professions are respon-sible, we can now evaluate the impact of potential actsof dissent on the three critical trust relationships. Inbroad terms, such moral relationships are always bi-lateral—profession and American people, professionand civilian leaders, and profession and junior leaders.We are interested here in how the “other” party in eachbilateral relationship will perceive and understand theacts of dissent by the strategic leaders of the profession.Will they view the act as something that reinforces and

builds trust within the relationship, or will they, onbalance, construe the act as diminishing their trust inthe leadership of the military professions and, thus, inthe profession itself? 39

Therefore, completely apart from the legal,prudential, and substantive advisability of renderinga public dissent, strategic leaders must also considerthe effects of the contemplated dissent on theseprecious bonds of trust between their profession andits clients. Such a moral analysis must address at leastthe following considerations:



20

• Gravity of the issue to the nation (and thus tothe profession’s client);

• Relevance of the strategic leader’s professionalexpertise to the issue at hand (Does the issuefall squarely within the scope of the dissenters’expertise as a military professional?);

• Degree of sacri ce involved for the dissenter (Isthe dissent motivated solely by a disinteresteddesire to serve the nation, even in the face ofpersonal risk and sacri ce, or is there a self-serving subtext such as a desire to further one’sown professional or political ambitions?);

• Timing of the act of dissent (Did the timing ofdissent undercut the actions or policies beingdissented from?); and,

• Congruency of the dissent with the prior, long-term personality, character, and belief patter n sof the dissenter (Does the dissent strike a sud-den d iscordant a berration from those authentic

long-term behaviors that colleagues close to the

dissenter would have expected?).

Such an analysis by a would-be dissenter couldlogically require 15 individual assessments, as shownin the matrix below—encompassing 5 factors analyzedfor each of the 3 trust relationships. But in practice,some factors are obviously more salient than others.As I discuss each of these factors, a convincing case forthe relative degree of importance I attach to each ofthem will become apparent.

(a) Gravity of the Issue. Wong and Lovelace arecertainly correct: the gravity of the issue as regards

the security of the Republic is a paramount factorin all three relationships. Logically, the higher the



21

Trust with theAmericanPeople

Trust withCivilianLeaders

Trust withJunior

LeadersGravityof Issue

Relevanceto Expertise

Degree of

SacrifceTiming of Dissent

Authenticityas Leader

stakes, the greater the temptation and justi cationwill be for dissenters to speak out. There are two suchunderstandings:

(1) The military professions serve solely to de-fend the Republic, which would otherwise be helplessand vulnerable. There is no raison d’etre for the existenceof military professions other than national security. Ifthe security of the Republic is not in peril, there would

appear to be no cause for military professionals toconsider dissent.(2) A second understanding is the inviolate

principle of American civil-military relations—thesupremacy of civilian values and the concomitantsubordination of the military to civilian leaders. Giventhis principle, how will acts of dissent with theirinherent suggestion of insubordination be interpreted?The answer is not as straightforward as it mightappear. Given a collective client deeply polarizedalong partisan lines, many of whom perceive the mil-



22

itary as too identi ed with the Republican Party andthe current administration 40 and a war going badly

over which the partisan divide is even deeper, whatwill be the perception of senior military of cer dissentfrom decisions of that administration?

Recent research sheds some light on this issue.Though Huntington posited in 1957 the existence of aconservative military mind—an ideology that inheresin the professional function and which serves to restrainmilitary involvement in politics and policymaking—itis the case that such does not exist to the same degree,if at all, today. Recent research shows quite clearlythat, “Both in terms of their attitudinal pluralism andthe shared liberal grammar employed to describe and justify their beliefs; the Army of cers surveyed do notindicate any holistic attitudinal distinctions worthy ofmilitary-mind claims.” 41 Thus, the recent dissent could

well be construed as a positive development, suggestingthat the putative military mind is not as monolithicallypartisan as argued by the academics and journalists.

Whether this factor explains the revolt of high-rankingmilitary of cers against this administration, we cannotbe sure.

Other scholars nd that the public education aspectof such acts of dissent—military judgments about war,both in general and in its particulars—to be potentiallyvery helpful in creating public discourse that is morefully informed. Without violating current limits onmilitary participation in political activities, thereare indeed several conduits through which militaryleaders can and do effectively make known expertinformation and policy preferences. 42 These include, in

addition to their extensive access within the Executivebranch, informal communications and meetings withmembers of Congress and their staffs; and dinners



23

with journalists, business leaders, and other publicgures. To agree with such political activity, one

must accept military dissent as a form of negativeadvocacy that can be helpful to the functioning of theAmerican political system. In view of senior of cers’unique professional knowledge, that assertion is notquestioned here. What is in question is how far dissentshould be carried. For when dissent begins to shadeover into political activity, or comes to be regarded assuch, then the dissenters incur the risk of being seenas little more than uniformed lobbyists advocating acause in behalf of their uniformed interest group—tothe extreme detriment of both! 43

(b) Relevance of professional knowledge and expertise tothe issue in question. Another important aspect of an actof dissent that will in uence the perceptions of those ina trust relationship with the strategic leaders of military

professions is the extent to which the issue falls withinthe leader’s particular area of military expertise. In otherwords, why should the dissenter be listened to? Bywhat expert knowledge and expertise is the credibilityof the dissenter to be judged? If the issue does not twithin the compass of the profession’s expertise, oronly marginally so, one would expect observers todismiss dissenters as free-lancers operating withoutstanding, much as an Oscar-winning Hollywoodactor who sets up shop as an authority on nationaldefense. Strategic leaders speaking on matters beyondtheir professional military ken will likely be viewedas self-serving, using the status of their professionmanipulatively to in uence issue outcomes to their ortheir profession’s advantage. A quicker way to rupture

the moral relationships between profession and clientcan hardly be imagined!

Thus, we must be careful to understand thetrue essence of the issues that arise between civilian



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and military leaders, determining whether they are“professional” in some legitimate sense—i.e., based on

military expertise as derived from the art and scienceof war. If the issue can be thus characterized, then theprofessional is morally bound to “profess” (e.g., howmany troops of what type are needed to support aparticular war plan for a speci c contingency, etc.). Onthe other hand, if the disagreements are based on thedissenter’s “personal values and beliefs,” that may gobeyond the scope of his professional knowledge—e.g.,a personal belief that it is immoral to use an army in amanner that will “break” it, whatever that means to theindividual strategic leader (the reader is encouraged toread again the second epigraph to this monograph).

We must also admit that parsing what is withinthe military’s knowledge and expertise is no easytask simply because the profession has done such a

poor job of de ning for itself such a knowledge mapand establishing certi cation/licensure protocolsthat amplify for both military professionals and theirclients what the boundaries are or should be. The onlyattempt by any military service to do this recently (theArmy in 2002) revealed immense confusion on the partof the service and its strategic leaders, serving morethan anything else to demonstrate why the service wascontracting out various functions willy-nilly withoutany good understanding of future implications. 44 Itwas a case of a would-be military profession behavingalmost purely as a bureaucracy.

That said, the potential dissenter must still decide;they must still use discretionary professional judgmentto arrive at a decision to dissent. As Martin Cook has

well-noted, the challenge is:

. . . how to understand professionalism so that two equalvalues, somewhat in tension with each other, are pre-served: the unquestioned subordination of military of-



25

cers to constitutionally legitimate civilian leadership;and the equally important role of the of cer corps inproviding professional military advice, unalloyed withextraneous political or cultural considerations. 45

As Cook and others believe, part of that judgmentmust rest on the idea that professionals are obligatednot only to serve the client (in this case, ultimately, thestate and its constitution) but also obligated to have“their own highly developed internal sense of the

proper application of the professional knowledge.”46

In other words, dissent without insubordination tocivilian authority can rightly be based on loyalty tothe profession’s expert knowledge and its appropriateapplication. If this were not the case, there would be noneed for military professions—the Republic’s securitycould be provided by businesses and bureaucracies.

Some scholars go even further. In a recent challengeto Huntington’s functionalist assertion that loyalty andobedience are the cardinal military virtues, James Burkcontends that:

Military professionals require autonomy, to includemoral autonomy, to be competent actors held responsi-ble for what they do. By autonomy, I mean the ability togovern or control one’s actions with some degree of free-dom. Autonomous action is a precondition for respon-sible obedience and the opposite of blind obedience. . . .[There is a] conceptual space within which military pro-fessionals exercise moral discretion. The map includesa de nition of responsible obedience and disobedience.But it also includes two types of actions that do not tthe classic de nitions of these alternatives. They eachexhibit a defect in which discretion is used either to dowhat is morally wrong or to do what was explicitly notauthorized. Nevertheless, they are not simply forms ofdisobedience. They are “protected” actions, protectedbecause the discretion to commit them preserves the au-



26

tonomy on which the moral responsibility of the militaryprofession depends. 47

To me, Burk’s argument is compelling. When theexercise of discretionary professional judgment leads todissent, such acts by the profession’s strategic leaderscan fall in the “protected space” that professionals’actions occupy, a space that may indeed require acts ofdissent or disobedience if “the moral responsibility ofthe profession is to be preserved,” to again cite Burk.But that is a narrow space, indeed.

Knowing with certitude which acts fall in thisnarrow space will never be easy, but the knowledgethat it exists should give both the professional and theclient immediate pause when they hear assertions tothe contrary as contained in the second epigraph tothis monograph.

The last three factors to be considered in this moralcalculus get to the motive of the dissenter. Since theother parties in these trust relations can never know aleader’s innermost motives, they must rely on other indi-cators to inform them as to whether the dissenter’s ac-tion is self-motivated or a act of sel ess service asexpected of a true professional. Such sel ess motivation,as we have seen, re ects the core characteristic ofthe military profession and its members. The otherparties of the trust relationship know this well, for ithas long been understood that the military professionapproaches ethical decisionmaking more from theperspective of virtue ethics than from a consequence-or rule-based philosophy:

Thus, it is important to develop of cers of character whounderstand what it means to be good of cers—not justwhat it means to follow rules, perform duties, or reasonwell, although these are important to being ethical. . . . If



27

of cers are to have the resources necessary to make ethi -cally sound decisions, they need an approach to ethicsthat articulates what good character is, how it is devel-oped, and how it in uences moral decisionmaking. 48

For insights into the motive of the dissenter, then, theother parties have at least three visible aspects of thepublic act to draw from: the degree of personal sacri ceinvolved for the dissenter, the timing of the act, andthe apparent character of the dissenter.

(c) Sacri ce incurred by the individual for taking theaction. Common sense must apply here, especially inthe rst and third relationships (the American peopleand junior professionals, respectively): the perceptionsof the “other partner” to the trust relationship willbe very strongly in uenced by the degree of sacri ceincurred by the dissenter (loss of position, rank, activeduty status, or even nancial bene ts in the case ofresignation). In a profession that places great store inthe military virtues of individual honor and loyalty upand down the chains of command, all members expectsacri ce to be a shared phenomenon at all levels;authentic leadership (equal risk-sharing) requires noless. For the true professional, a right understanding ofone’s loyalties always places loyalty to self dead last. 49

Thus, absent personal sacri ce, such dissent quicklyleads to suspicion of and the search for ulterior motives(in the case of the revolt, political manipulation by thepress and partisan political operatives who sought outthe dissenters and arranged the interviews, placedtheir opinion editorials and arranged their televisionappearances, and grew the number of ag of cersparticipating to six, etc.).

(d) Timing of the Act of Dissent. Here common sensemust also apply. If something is worthy of an act of



28

dissent, then it is worthy. Thus, as soon as that isdiscerned and decided by the strategic leader, the act

should follow immediately. Any separation of monthsor years between the cause and the act is grounds,again, for suspicion of lack of moral agency and for asearch for ulterior motives.

Again, this is particularly true in the thirdrelationship. Junior military professionals expect theirleaders to lead. The strategic leaders acting in dissentare the very same senior professionals who have taughtand led in accordance with the profession’s doctrines ofdecisiveness and audacity in battle; their subordinatefollowers will see no reason (nor will most Americans,I would suspect) for different qualities to apply in actsof dissent.

(e) Authenticity as a leader . Competent, ethicallyupright junior of cers and noncommissioned leaders

will go further toward shaping the future of the militaryprofession and securing the Republic than any otherpart of the client base whose trust the profession mustengender. To make these idealistic young professionalscynical about their calling, about their very futures andthose of their families, is an unconscionably large priceto pay for an act of dissent.

Over the course of long careers, not all strategicleaders in the military profession have displayedthat steadfastness of character automatically assuringthat any act of public dissent would be construed asdisinterested. Yet the research shows that authenticityin leadership is crucial for a professional culture thatengenders effective combat units. 50 Disillusionmentoccurs in junior of cers and noncommissioned of cers

when they discover that the strategic leaders whohave exhorted them on in combat turn out to havebeen opposed to the war for some time, or when they



29

learn that they have risked their lives and those of theirsubordinates for a cause in which their leaders did

not believe, even as they led. Such cynicism and lackof integrity in a senior leader is devastating to juniorleaders at a very formative and vulnerable time in theircareers. Assuredly, cynicism begets cynicism.

As research shows, in any hierarchical organizationsuch as the military, there is always some amountof mistrust between junior professionals and theirstrategic leaders. 51 But in some periods, it becomesclearly excessive and destructive, as in the periodsurrounding the turn of the 20th century when the“exodus of Captains” occurred, a catastrophe inprofessional development from which the Army hadnot yet recovered when the Iraq War began. 52 Thus, thepossibility of fomenting cynicism and the consequentexodus of younger professionals should always

gure quite prominently in the calculation of thosecontemplating dissent.

PART III: CONCLUSIONS—SHOULD THEREBE FURTHER LIMITATIONS ON MILITARYDISSENT BY THE STRATEGIC LEADERSOF AMERICA’S MILITARY PROFESSIONS,PARTICULARLY THOSE IN RETIRED STATUS,OR IS THE CURRENT ETHIC, WHICHSTRONGLY DISCOURAGES SUCH ACTS,STILL SUFFICIENT?

Vice Admiral James Stockdale, Vietnam prisoner ofwar and Medal of Honor recipient, once said, “evenin the most detached duty, we warriors must keep

foremost in our minds that there are boundaries to theprerogatives of leadership, moral boundaries.” 53

I have tried in this monograph to delineate a segmentof these boundaries as they are understood from the



30

study of military professions and as derived from theroles and responsibilities of those seniors privileged to

be the profession’s temporary stewards—the colonels/captains and Flag Of cers who comprise the strategicleadership. Such boundaries mean that the decision todissent can never be a purely personal matter. Ratherit will reverberate outward impinging at a minimumthe three critical trust relationships of the militaryprofession—those with the American people, thosewith civilian and military leaders at the highest levelsof decisionmaking, and those with the junior corps ofof cers and noncommissioned of cers of our armedforces.

As we have seen, at least ve different but closelyrelated aspects of public dissent should be consideredby the strategic leader when deciding whether to takesuch a step—the gravity of the issue; the relevance

of the professional’s expert knowledge and expertiseto the issue at question; and, the three indicators ofthe dissenter’s motive—the personal sacri ce to beincurred in dissenting; the timing of the act of dissent;and the congruence of such an act with the previouscareer of service and leadership within the militaryprofession.

None of these ve factors by themselves willlikely be determinative for the would-be dissenter,but collectively they do provide a moral context andframework in which a judgmental decision should bemade. If, as a result of these considerations, the militaryleader concludes that dissent is warranted—if theleader believes that an act of dissent best balances theimmediate felt obligation to bring his/her professional

military expertise to bear in a public forum with thelonger-term obligation to lead and represent theprofession as a social trustee, as a faithful servant ofthe American people, and as expressly subordinate to



31

civilian control—then, in my judgment for those rareinstances, there should be no additional restrictions

placed on any act of dissent. On rare occasions,true professionals must retain the moral space to“profess.”

Since the revolt just some 18 months ago, it isremarkable in retrospect how little it actually in uencedevents in the short term and how unremarkable it nowappears from the vantage point of the mid term. TheRepublic, the war in Iraq, and the military professionproceed apace. And, as Lieutenant Colonel PaulYingling’s critique of the current state of “generalship”indicates, 54 the revolt may have contributed to aninternal professional environment more open tohonest dialogue and critique. If so, that is a positivedevelopment, indeed.

What remains now is for the strategic leaders of the

military profession to strongly promote and follow theexisting professional ethic, reinforcing a culture thatdiscourages public dissent because of, as we have seen,the risks to the profession’s essential trust relationships.One tentative attempt in this direction is a formal letterof guidance issued this fall by the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen:

To the degree we allow ourselves to disconnect from theAmerican People, we allow the very foundation uponwhich our success rests to crumble. . . . Every action wetake, every day, must be executed in a way that strength-ens and sustains the public’s trust and con dence in ourability and our integrity. 55

This will be no easy task for the current leaders, but

it is an urgent one—reasserting that they alone ful llthe functional roles of representing the profession,rendering advice, and executing legal orders. Theymust make it abundantly clear that they and they



32

alone speak for the military profession. All othermilitary voices, including those retired, are heard from

nonpracticing professionals and should be consideredas such. This will require reestablishing control overtheir profession’s certi cation processes to ensure thatall parties to civil-military relations understand thatretired of cers speak for no one other than themselvesas citizens; and, most notably, that they do not speakfor the current practicing professionals who now leadin America’s con icts.

As Admiral Stockdale noted, there are moral limits,but it is not clear to me that they have been rupturedby recent acts of dissent. However, they might be in thefuture, and at terrible cost to trust relationships, unlessthe profession’s ethic on the rarity of public dissent isrefurbished and fully implemented.

ENDNOTES

1. James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, co-chairs, The IraqStudy Group Report , December 2006, p. 52, available at bakerinstitute.org/Pubs/iraqstudygroup_ ndings.pdf .

2. Richard H. Kohn, “Huntington’s Challenge: MaximizingMilitary Security and Civilian Control of the Military,” chaptermanuscript delivered at Senior Conference 07, United StatesMilitary Academy, West Point, NY, June 2007. Papers from theconference will be published in an edited volume in 2008.

3. Within the Army Profession, at least this moniker hasbecome standard largely due to an article by former Chief ofMilitary History Brigadier General John S. Brown, “The Revolt ofthe Generals,” Army 56, September 2006, pp. 110-112.

4. As an example of the growing sharpness of this debateas it progresses, see the recent journal exchange by a number ofrespected academics, subsequently joined by former Chairman ofthe Joint Chiefs General Richard B. Myers in Michael C. Desch,



33

“Bush and the Generals,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 86, No. 3, May-June2007, p. 97; and Richard B. Myers, Richard H. Kohn, MackubinThomas Owens, Lawrence J. Korb, and Michael C. Desch, “Saluteand Disobey?” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 86, No. 5, September/October2007, pp. 147-156.

5. Gregory Newbold, “Why Iraq was a Mistake,” Time, Vol.167, April 17, 2006, pp. 42-43.

6. The views of the six general of cers can be found in manyplaces in the journalistic literature. One good source is DavidMargolick, “The Night of the Generals,” Vanity Fair, April 2007.

7. These concerns are central to Samuel Huntington’s classictext, The Soldier and the State. See Samuel P. Huntington, TheSoldier and The State, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of HarvardUniversity Press, 1957, pp. 2-3.

8. The op-ed was accessed by the author on August 18, 2007,at www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdf les/PUB798.pdf .

9. I use the singular of “profession” in this text for simplicity,but the reader should know that there are, in fact, three militaryprofessions currently serving the Republic—the aerospacemilitary profession, the maritime military profession, and the landcombat military profession—and a fourth appears to be evolving.See Don M. Snider and Jeffrey Peterson, “Opportunity for theArmy: Defense Transformation and the Emergence of a New JointMilitary Profession,” chapter 10 in Snider and Matthews, eds., TheFuture of the Army Profession, 2nd Ed., New York: McGraw-Hill,2005, pp. 237-251.

10. For the most recent of cial discussion of the responsibilityof Commissioned Of cers, see Department of Defense, The ArmedForces Of cer , Washington, DC: National Defense University Pressand Potomac Press Inc., 2007.

11. Even so, those interested in the legal aspects should, at aminimum, see J. Mackey Ives, and Michael J. Davidson, “Court-Martial Jurisdiction over Retirees under Articles 2(4) and 2(6),Time to Lighten Up and Tighten Up?” Military Law Review, Vol.175, March 2003, pp. 1-85, available at www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_ Law/Military_Law_Review/pdf- les/175-03-2003.pdf .



34

12. See Perspectives on Of cership: The Commissioned ArmyLeader , 3rd Ed., published by the William E. Simon Center forthe Professional Military Ethic, United States Military Academy,New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing, 2005, p. xxxi; and The ArmedForces Of cer , p. v.

13. For a more detailed presentation of the theory of modernprofessions applied to the Army, see Andrew Abbott, “The Armyand the Theory of Professions,” Chapter 24 in Don M. Snider andLloyd J. Matthews, eds., The Future of the Army Profession, 1st Ed.,New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002, pp. 223-236.

14. See Eliot Friedson, Professionalism—The Third Logic: On thePractice of Knowledge, Chicago: Univeristy of Chicago Press, 2001.

15. See Les Brownlee and Peter Schoomaker, “Serving aNation at War,” Parameters, Vol. 34, Summer 2004, pp. 4-23.

16. See Steven Brint, In an Age of Experts: The Changing Roleof Professionals in Politics and Public Life, Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1994.

17. For an excellent, but short, comparison of bureaucracies andprofessions, see T. O. Jacobs and Michael G. Sanders, “Principlesfor Building the Profession: The SOF Experience,” Chapter 20 ofThe Future of the Army Profession, 2nd Ed., pp. 441-462.

18. For major recent works on professions, see Andrew Abbott,The Theory of Professions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1998; and Eliot Freidson, Professionalism Reborn: Theory, Prophecyand Policy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

19. David Segal and Karen DeAngelis, “Changing Concep-tions of the Military Professions,” chapter manuscript deliveredat Senior Conference 07.

20. Don M. Snider, “The Multiple Identities of the ArmyOf cer,” Chapter 6 in The Future of the Army Profession, 2nd Ed., p.143.

21. See Leonard Wong and Don M. Snider, “StrategicLeadership of the Army Profession,” Chapter 28 in The Future of the Army Profession, 2nd Ed., pp. 601-624.



35

22. I am using the singular of client here for simplicityof argument and presentation. As I will develop later in thismonograph, the strategic leaders of military professions actuallyserve multiple clients: rst, they serve the soldiers they lead whoare the sons and daughters of the American people; second,they serve their military and civilian superiors who direct theprofession with delegated authority from the American people;and third, ultimately, they serve the people themselves for whomthey are providing security.

23. I say “previous and current” since it takes 5-10 yearsto create new expert knowledge and develop its use in leadersand their units up to battalion level. Thus, our land combatforces today are the product of the strategic leadership that heldstewardship over these professions in the 1990s and the early partof this decade.

24. See Segal and DeAngelis.

25. One need only think of the micro-detail in the annualauthorizing and appropriations processes of congressionalsubcommittees to recognize the truth of this statement.

26. See Jacobs and Sanders, pp. 441-462.

27. See Gayle L. Watkins and Randi C. Cohen, “In their OwnWords: Army Of cers Discuss Their Profession,” Chapter 5 in TheFuture of the Army Profession, 2nd Ed., pp. 115-138.

28. One interesting fact owing from the study of professionsis that the strategic leaders of military professions today do notget to determine if their institution is a profession or not. Thisis always the prerogative of the client, in this case the Americanpublic. If one does not believe that the client can determine foritself that the military is not a profession, one need only recallthe years after Vietnam, or the loss of autonomy imposed on theNavy after the Tailhook incident or on the Army after the trainingscandal at Aberdeen.

29. See Christopher Gibson, “Enhancing National Security and Civilian Control of the Military: An Argument for a Madisonian



36

Approach,” chapter manuscript delivered at Senior Conference07.

30. Huntington, The Soldier and The State, pp. 72-73.

31. My own experience chairing interagency meetings whileon the staff of the National Security Council, The White House,1987-89, con rmed the accuracy of this understanding.

32. See Huntington, The Soldier and The State, p. 72.

33. Ibid.

34. See Lloyd Matthews, “Army Of cers and the FirstAmendment,” Army, January 1998, pp. 31-32.

35. For a superb account of the in uences on administrationdecisionmaking before and during the Iraq War, see Michael R.Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of theInvasion and Occupation of Iraq, New York: Pantheon Books, 2006.

36. See Suzanne C. Nielsen, “The Rules of the Game: TheWeinberger Doctrine and the American Use of Force,” Chapter 10in The Future of the Army Profession,1st Ed., pp. 199-224.

37. See Huntington, The Soldier and The State, p. 73.

38. Indeed, one respected scholar concludes: “The law is nowgenerally understood to require that soldiers resolve all doubtsabout the legality of a superior’s orders in favor of obedience.”Mark J. Osiel, Obeying Orders: Atrocity, Military Discipline and theLaw of War , Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1999, p. 5.

39. A major premise to the analysis in this section is that aleader’s actions, including those of dissent, do in uence the trustcomponent of their relationships with those they both serve andlead. I do not think this point needs further elaboration.

40. See Ole R. Holsti, “On Chasms and Convergences:Attitudes and Beliefs of Civilians and Military Elites at the Startof a New Millennium,” Chapter 1 in Peter D. Feaver and RichardH. Kohn, eds., Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and



37

American National Security, Cambridge, MA: Belfer Center forScience and International Affairs, Harvard University, 2001, pp.15-100.

41. See Darrell W. Driver, “The Military Mind and the MilitaryProfession: A Reassessment of the Ideological Roots of AmericanMilitary Professionalism,” chapter manuscript delivered at SeniorConference 07.

42. See Risa Brooks, “Rethinking Subjective Control: PoliticalActivity of the Military in Democracies,” chapter manuscriptdelivered at Senior Conference 07.

43. See Richard H. Kohn, “Military and Civilian Behaviorsto Maximize National Security and Assure Civilian Control,”chapter manuscript delivered at Senior Conference 07.

44. See Richard Lacquement, “Mapping Army ProfessionalExpertise and Clarifying Jurisdictions of Practice,” and DeborahAvant, “Losing Control of the Profession Through Outsourcing?”Chapters 9 and 12, respectively, in The Future of the Army Profession,2nd Ed., pp. 213-236, 271-290.

45. See Martin Cook, The Moral Warrior: Ethics and Service inthe U.S. Military , Albany: State University of New York Press,2004, pp. 55.

46. Ibid., p. 65.

47. See James Burk, “Responsible Obedience and Discretionto Do What is Wrong,” chapter manuscript delivered at SeniorConference 07.

48. See Tony Pfaff, “The Of cer as Leader of Character:Leadership, Character, and Ethical Decision-Making,” Chapter 6in Snider and Matthews, eds., The Future of the Army Profession, 2nd Ed., pp. 153-161.

49. See George M. Clifford III, “ Duty at All Costs,” Naval War College Review, Vol. 60, No. 1, Winter 2007, pp. 103-128.

50. See Patrick J. Sweeney and Sean T. Hannah, “High-ImpactMilitary Leadership: The Positive Effects of Authentic Moral



Leadership on Followers,” Chapter 4 in Don M. Snider and Lloyd J. Matthews, eds., Forging the Warrior’s Character: Moral Precepts from the Cadet Prayer , Sisters, OR: Jericho LLC, 2007, pp. 127-162.

51. See Walter F. Ulmer and Joseph J. Collins (ProjectDirectors), American Military Culture in the Twenty-First Century ,Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies,2000, pp. xv-xxvii.

52. See Mark Lewis, “Transformation and Junior Of cerExodus,” Armed Forces and Society, Fall 2004, pp. 63-93.

53. Quoted by General Peter Pace, Chairman, Joint Chiefs ofStaff, in the Introduction to the Armed Forces Of cer , p. ix.

54. See Paul Yingling, “Failure in Generalship,” Armed Forces Journal International , May 2007.

55. Michael G. Mullen, “CJCS Guidance for 2007-2008,” letterdated October 1, 2007, available at www.jcs.mil/CJCS_GUIDANCE. pdf .

dissent and strategic leadership of the military professions

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