On Rumsfeld

Well, I know it’s been three months since his resignation but I just have to say something about Rumsfeld’s tenure as Secretary of Defense (SECDEF). I certainly have my gripes with Bush’s first SECDEF. The accusations of his arrogance, inability to take criticism or advice, and the countless mistakes that he allegedly made in Afghanistan and Iraq have all been well voiced by media, pundits, experts, and political enemies alike and therefore, do not need to be rehashed here. These arguments have definitely found their mark for the present time and most Americans seem to harbor an intense hatred for Donald Rumsfeld and were glad to see him go.

Many of these arguments are certainly valid. As I noted last April during Rumsfeld’s brush with the “Revolt of the Generals,” Rumsfeld’s tenure seems to have been burdened by an inability to listen, debate, and compromise effectively. He seemingly displayed a my-way-or-the-highway type management of the Pentagon which, if this is accurate, is not a healthy environment to formulate effective policy decisions. As John Nagel argues in Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, successful and effective military policy must be created within an environment that is conducive to learning. Commanders must feel that their opinions are being heard by the civilian leadership, and civilians must be open to good ideas as well as criticisms in order to formulate effective policy decisions.

However, in all this criticism and bellyaching over decisions it seems to me that something has been lost and that something is the unimaginable difficulty under which the Secretary of Defense toils on a daily basis. As I’ve stated many times, there is no other position in the United States government that is more difficult, next to the President, than the Secretary of Defense. When the modern-day position was created in 1949 after the National Security Act was revised, it was originally thought that the SECDEF position would be a gateway office that could propel the officeholder into the presidency. Louis Johnson, the second Secretary of Defense from 1949-1950, took the office precisely because of this belief. Time, however, has proved otherwise. Of the 21 men who have presided over the Pentagon in the 59 year existence of the SECDEF office only three men have lasted longer than five years: Casper Weinberger, Robert McNamara, and, combining his years of service under the Ford and Bush administrations, Donald Rumsfeld. These three individuals, however, are extreme exceptions to the rule as most defense secretaries have not lasted longer than two or three years and some crap out after several months. The strain of the office, due to the unrelenting attacks in the press and the sheer number of hours that are required of the Secretary of Defense is simply too great. Weinberger was routinely criticized and fell victim to the Iran-Contra affair, McNamara’s life was nearly destroyed, and James Forrestal, the first Secretary of Defense, was eventually driven to suicide because he was unable, in his opinion, to function the Pentagon effectively. Six years in office at the head of the Pentagon is a staggering accomplishment for anyone.

This normally short tenure, in my humble opinion, is also due to the fact that the Secretary of Defense is in charge of one of the largest and most important organizations in American government: the military. This responsibility places the Secretary of Defense in an extremely difficult position because the military is about as change-averse as any organization can possibly be. Consequently, it is difficult for a civilian official to force significant force transformation reforms down the military’s throat without causing some significant objections.

During the Cold War, strategic and force structure planning were relatively easy. We knew the Soviets were the enemy. Consequently strategic planning was simply a matter of tailoring our military to deter aggression and, if the Cold War turned hot, counter Soviet forces in a conventional military conflict. Different presidents as well as the respective services may have disagreed over how best to carry this strategy out but the grand strategy designed to accomplish this desired end was essentially the same: the United States needed a powerful military in order to deter Soviet aggression. Such a strategy was well liked by the Pentagon because it gave them a lion’s share of the yearly appropriations as well as the defense industry which made billions on the yearly arms race. However, when the Cold War ended and the “Red Menace” disappeared, the military’s justification for large conventional forces, which advocated a large Air Force and Navy, did as well. Why, for example, did the United States need to pay for and maintain a “400 ship Navy” when no other hostile fleet existed?

Yet instead of thinking creatively about the new operational environment in which it now existed and tailoring forces to meet existential threats, a large part of the military brass basically held on to the same strategy that existed during the Cold War. They justified these arguments by claiming that the world had descended into “chaos” in the wake of the Soviet collapse and the United States needed to maintain its current conventional force structure to maintain order in a chaotic world. Such an argument encouraged this sector of officers and defense industrialists to search for and identify a hostile enemy, preferably with a large military, so their conventional force arguments could be justified and the military coffers would remain filled. This is why so much emphasis has been placed on a possible conflict with China over the Taiwan Straits; we would need a large fleet with significant ASW assets to counter any invasion the People’s Liberation Army might mount. Throughout the ‘90s no one wanted to hear that America needed a lighter, more agile force to deal with the asymmetric threats that became more and more prevalent as time passed and the Pentagon was allowed to operate with no clear direction or guidance from its civilian leadership. Instead, Les Aspin, William Perry, and William Cohen, chose to focus a majority of their efforts on the combat role of women and the presence of homosexuals in the military and the Pentagon became accustomed to a sort of hands-off civilian approach to grand strategy and force structure planning.

Consequently, when Rumsfeld, a heavy-handed secretary, showed up with a determined belief that the current force structure needed to be transformed into a lighter, faster, more agile force, it was only natural for sectors of the military to view this strong direction with suspicion. Rumsfeld has been severely criticized in the press for this heavy-handed approach but it is exactly this type of leadership that is required to enforce substantive changes on an organization that is rife with disagreement and competing services rivalries, all striving for a larger share of the appropriations pie. Reigning in these respective factions and forcing them down the same primrose path is a monumental task of unimaginable difficulty that is only compounded when major military operations are underway and requires strong leadership and clear direction if reform is to be effective. Rumsfeld provided such leadership at a difficult time for the United States, and for all his mistakes and shortcomings, he was exactly what the Department of Defense needed.

Godspeed Mr. Secretary and thank you for your service.