Gen. Milley's Actions Were an Acceptable Response to an Unacceptable President
PLUS: The key takeaways from the California recall
Every two or three years, Bob Woodward publishes a book that pulls back the curtains on Washington’s political drama. Next week, like clockwork, we get Peril (co-authored with Robert Costa) which pries into the 2020 campaign, the tumultuous transition period, and the early days of the Biden presidency. Woodward’s exposés have their admirers and detractors, but they always manage to drop a few juicy little details that set politicos abuzz. Reporters have already gotten their hands on a few; my favorite is how, of all people, former Vice President Dan Quayle (Remember him? “Potatoe”?) basically saved American democracy a few months ago.
There is one revelation from the book, though, that is getting a lot of play. It concerns chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley (pictured above) and steps he took both before and after the election to avoid a military conflict with China that he feared could be triggered by President Trump’s volatile behavior.
According to Woodward and Costa’s book, in October 2020, American intelligence reports suggested Chinese officials, alarmed by Trump’s rhetoric and U.S. military exercises in the South China Sea, were worried the United States was preparing an assault on their country. Milley called his counterpart in Beijing Gen. Li Zuocheng and assured him the United States was not going to attack China. Milley even went so far as to tell Li, “If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”
Milley placed another call to Li (as well as military officials in other countries such as the United Kingdom and Russia) on January 8, two days after the Capitol riot. Despite telling Li the United States was “100 percent steady,” the Chinese general remained unnerved by the United States’ political instability and concerned that an unhinged Trump might lash out at China militarily. Fearing China might act preemptively if it sensed a pending strike against their country, Milley advised postponing military exercises in the region. He also met with the senior officers in command of the United States’ nuclear arsenal and made them swear if Trump did order a nuclear attack—something the president alone can do—they would involve Milley in the process. That meeting followed a phone call with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who wanted to know what precautions existed to prevent an “unstable president” from ordering a military or even nuclear attack. According to a transcript of the call, Pelosi told Milley, “[Trump’s] crazy. You know he’s crazy.…He’s crazy and what he did [on 1/6] is further evidence of his craziness,” to which Milley replied, “I agree with you on everything.”
Those are some rather astonishing events. The United States has a long-established tradition of civilian control of the military, meaning when it comes to military affairs in this country, the ultimate decision-making authority resides in the President and his main deputy, the Secretary of Defense. This chain of command keeps the United States from devolving into a military dictatorship (or at least from becoming a state where the military is its own independent source of political authority.) A military commander who acted without the president’s authorization or who countermanded a presidential order would imperil American democracy, since not only would a representative of the people no longer be in control of the armed forces, but the source of the American government’s political power would shift from the will of the people to its instrumental military might.
One person who was rattled by Milley’s actions was Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. In a letter sent to President Biden calling on him to fire Milley, Rubio wrote of his “grave concern” that the general had “worked to actively undermine the sitting Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces and contemplated a treasonous leak of classified information to the Chinese Communist Party in advance of a potential armed conflict with the People’s Republic of China.” Rubio added, “General Milley has attempted to rationalize his reckless behavior by arguing that what he perceived as the military’s judgement [sic] was more stable than its civilian commander. It is a dangerous precedent that could be asserted at any point in the future by General Milley or others. It threatens to tear apart our nation’s longstanding principle of civilian control of the military.”
I don’t know if Rubio’s aware of this, but it sounds to me like he’s got a blockbuster on his hands. Here’s the pitch: Desperate to avoid losing an election, a very stable president with radiant skin and a genius-level intellect (played by Sylvester Stallone; he’s the same age as Trump) summons his top generals to the Oval Office to tell them to prepare a surprise attack on a Chinese naval base in the South China Sea. The devious chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (played by Madonna; she’s the same age as Milley) works behind the scenes to delay and foil the president’s orders, but, thanks to the intrepid work of a handsome senator with small hands (played by Mark Wahlberg; he’s the same age as Rubio [“Say hi to your mother for me, OK?”]), the treasonous general is outed and fired by the president. The leader of a patriotic Michigan militia (played by Kid Rock) is appointed the new Joint Chiefs chairman after humbly admitting to the president his hands (probably large) are tied when it comes to obeying an order from the commander in chief. The newly appointed general oversees the strike, which leads the president to declare a state of emergency and suspend the election after China retaliates by destroying American bases in Japan and South Korea. The movie ends with the president, the senator, and the general proudly surveying the sun setting over Washington DC as martial law descends on a fallen democracy girding for war with a nuclear-armed nation of 1.4 billion people. Cut to black. Title card: “Profiles in Subservience.”
Actually, come to think of it, that movie would suck.
A few key points here: First, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the highest-ranking active military officer in the United States but does not have command authority over the combatant commanders tasked with carrying out military missions. (Combatant commanders take their orders directly from the Secretary of Defense.) That means the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff can’t order or halt military actions; instead, they serve in an advisory capacity to the president. Secondly, the Joint Chiefs of Staff routinely communicate as a matter of diplomacy with their counterparts in other countries. Consequently, one could interpret Milley’s comments to General Li as nothing more than an assurance that if tension between the U.S. and China did rise to a level where a military conflict seemed possible, Milley would be in contact with Li as part of his efforts to de-escalate the situation.
Still, it’s unnerving to learn of a general seemingly working behind the president’s back this way. Did Milley go too far? Let’s review. To begin with, Milley, like all the rest of us, knew what kind of person Trump was. It was clear as far back as 2016 that Trump was a “con artist” who exercised a “dangerous style of leadership” and was too “erratic” to be entrusted with the nation’s nuclear codes. Don’t take my word for it; that’s just what Marco Rubio said about him. On more than one occasion. I could go on but Little Marco hit that nail on the head.
And Milley knew from personal experience that Trump had autocratic tendencies and the inclinations of a military strongman. After protests erupted around the nation in the summer of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, Trump had urged Milley and Attorney General William Barr to get tough on demonstrators. “Crack their skulls” and “beat the f*** out of them,” Trump told them. After Milley and Barr rejected Trump’s suggestion that security forces “just shoot them,” Trump moderated his position: “Well, shoot them in the leg—or maybe the foot. But be hard on them!” Trump also wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act so the military could be used to squash protests. He told a group in the Situation Room Milley was “in charge” of the operation. Milley told Trump he was merely an advisor, not a commander. A shouting match between the two only ended after Barr confirmed that Milley was right and had no legal authority as a commander.
Milley was also at the White House the day police forcibly cleared the area around Lafayette Square of protesters. He surely remembers that because shortly afterwards he joined the president for a walk across the square to St. John’s Episcopal Church, where Trump—wielding a Bible—staged a photo op with, among others, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. I have no idea why Milley got caught up in these events (or why he was in Lafayette Square surveying the scene just minutes before police began dispersing the crowd) but the general would later issue a videotaped apology, stating
I should not have been there. My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics. As a commissioned uniformed officer, it was a mistake that I’ve learned from, and I sincerely hope we all can learn from it. We who wear the cloth of our nation come from the people of our nation, and we must hold dear the principle of an apolitical military that is so deeply rooted in the very essence of our republic.
In other words, Milley realized he had been co-opted by Trump for political purposes, which made it appear the military served a partisan political interest rather than the national interest.
So that’s what Milley knew: That Trump was a dangerous and erratic man with autocratic tendencies and a fascination with violence who was willing to co-opt the military for political purposes and use armed force to assert his strength and fulfill his domestic ambitions. Furthermore, Milley knew all that (and maybe more) from direct personal experience. Therefore, during those last anxious months of Trump’s presidency, it probably was not unreasonable for Milley to believe Trump might do something that could either jeopardize the nation’s security or undermine its democratic traditions. He also had the good sense to know other nations may have been thinking the same thing. That’s why Milley did what Woodward and Costa reported he did: To reassure other nations there were safeguards in place to rein in an unstable president, and to ensure America’s democracy was not hijacked or derailed by a deranged man so desperate to cling to power that he might manufacture a military crisis out of thin air that could have, for no strategic reason, resulted in World War III (or some lesser catastrophe if you don’t want to go that far.)
It’s absolutely fair to say the uniformed commanders of the United States’ military should defer to civilian authority, follow the chain of command, and obey orders at all times. But any reasonable person would agree there’s always a caveat to that rule and that there are times when orders should be disobeyed. The problem is it’s hard to specify under what circumstances an order shouldn’t be followed or when authority should be circumvented. Illegal orders, sure. But what about immoral or unjust orders? Or abuses of power? What about unwise orders? By whose standard is an order judged immoral or unjust or unwise, and what do those terms mean in the context of military operations involving lethal force? Is it possible to distinguish a politically-motivated order from an order pursuant to the national interest? The toughest of these questions can’t be answered with absolute certainty. It’s a genuine dilemma. We can only hope those who face them have good moral judgment and prudence and the courage to say “no” when their conscience compels them to.
While we may be inclined to shame someone who disobeyed an order—particularly someone in uniform—we should also remember we often honor those who defy authority when authority goes too far. We often teach our children they should be prepared to defy authority if an authority asks them to do something wrong. Claiming “I was just following orders” does not excuse one’s bad behavior. To argue it is too dangerous for a bureaucrat like Milley to just disregard the chain of command overlooks just how dangerous and corrupt authority and the power that comes with it can be.
Rubio may argue that Milley actively undermined the authority of the democratically-elected civilian leader of the United States military, but Milley could convincingly respond that he acted to safeguard democracy from a man who threatened to usurp it and kept the military from being wielded as a partisan tool. Prior to the election (and as far back as the 2016 election) Trump had cast doubt on the democratic process by openly questioning the integrity of the electoral process. While some might argue Trump’s actions prior to the election did not justify Milley’s actions at that time since it was not clear Trump would actually follow through on his threat not to accept the results of the election, Milley’s concerns proved well-founded on 1/6, when Trump incited a mob to storm the Capitol. It turned out Milley’s judgment concerning Trump was sound and he was right to worry the president might upend America’s democracy.
Would I want other generals to act this way in the future? Under more conventional circumstances, no. But yes, I would want them to follow Milley’s example if a future president threatened to use the military to undermine our democracy, or was so desperate to stay in power they sought to enlist the military for their own political ends, or was so unstable they might push a button and set in motion a humanitarian catastrophe.
The lesson others should take from this situation is not that “anything goes” now when it comes to the military’s deference to civilian control. Adopting that attitude would completely disregard the highly unusual circumstances Milley found himself in. Milley responded to a genuinely extraordinary situation (we need to constantly remind ourselves how extraordinary and abnormal Trump’s presidency was) with extraordinary measures. Milley’s actions were unprecedented, but they were the unprecedented response to Trump’s unprecedented presidency. Under more normal circumstances, Milley would have a hard time justifying his actions.
If anyone should be brought under questioning here, it is Rubio, who clearly saw the danger Trump posed to the republic in 2016 yet abandoned his own judgment to endorse him, frequently swept Trump’s abuses of power under the rug, let Trump’s anti-democratic inclinations fester for years, and had the opportunity to hold Trump accountable for his actions not once but twice through the impeachment process yet failed to do so. The key question here isn’t really about Milley’s extraordinary actions but why Rubio and his fellow Republican legislators allowed the country to get to the point where Milley felt compelled for very legitimate reasons to work around a democratically-elected wannabe autocrat in order to preserve democracy.
Photo credit: Carolyn Kaster/AP
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What Democrats Learned from the California Recall
It only cost Californians somewhere around $300 million, but we now know Gov. Gavin Newsom (pictured above) has roughly the same amount of electoral support as he had when he was first elected governor back in 2018. With 78% of the vote in, here are the most up-to-date results:
Yes on the recall: 36.3%
No on the recall: 63.7%
Compare that to the 2018 gubernatorial election, which Newsom won with 62% of the vote. Or the 2020 presidential election, which Biden won in California with 63.5% of the vote. (Turnout in the recall, as expected, was lower.)
It’s also worth looking closely at the results from suburban Orange County. For decades, the OC had been a stronghold of American conservatism. In 2016, however, Hillary Clinton became the first Democrat to win the county since 1936. It’s now highly competitive, as its four House seats are among the swingiest in the nation and Republicans still do fairly well at the local level. As of right now, the recall is failing in Orange County by a 47.6%-52.4% margin. That’s an improvement on 2018, when Newsom won the county 50.1%-49.9%, but lower than Biden’s 53.5%-44.4% margin.
I wouldn’t read too much into the overall results, though. California isn’t exactly a bellwether of the national mood. (Although what do they say? “Everything that happens in the United States happens first in California?”) If anything, the results suggest the conditions that shaped the outcome of the 2020 election continue to prevail, which may be of no small significance. However disappointed Californians may be with Newsom, there was no great groundswell of electoral opposition to the Democratic governor. And for all their fury, the MAGA crowd could do no better in 2021 than they did in 2020 (when the presidential election largely bypassed California due to its status as a solidly blue state.) Would the outcome have been different if Republicans had turned to a more moderate candidate like former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer rather than right-wing radio host Larry Elder? Would the MAGA crowd have rallied around Faulconer the way they rallied around Elder? I have no idea how that would have played out, or even if that was a plausible scenario.
It does appear, though, that Newsom motivated voters to reject the recall by running hard against Republican’s anti-vax/anti-public health positions. That seems like a good strategy going forward: Make Republicans own the pandemic and work overtime to make sure that’s an electoral loser for them. And don’t go easy on them either. Make sure voters know the Republican Party is pro-pandemic, pro-sickness, and anti-health. Some might say the Democratic Party shouldn’t politicize the pandemic. At this point, with the way Republicans have been behaving, it’s too late for that, and besides, pandemic mitigation strategies are both good policies and good politics.
That appears to be Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s strategy in Virginia. He’s running ads like this one, which take aim at his opponent, Republican Glenn Youngkin, over the pandemic.
Youngkin is countering that narrative with this ad:
Youngkin is a likeable candidate; it’s interesting how many of his ads feature him speaking directly to the camera compared to McAuliffe, who only really appears in his commercials’ disclaimers. But I’ve really got to wonder if voters believe Youngkin’s “ask them nicely” approach to vaccines would really work (um, it hasn’t) or if his approach is just too passive. The more I see this ad, the more defensive it seems to me, like he’s trying to put a shine on a serious vulnerability or trying to convince on-the-fence voters in northern Virginia that his opposition to mandates is just the byproduct of his nice and compassionate personality. Glenn Youngkin may seem like a congenial guy, but he seems awful soft on the pandemic.
Thanks for reading.
Photo credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Exit music: “Ain’t That Lonely Yet” by Dwight Yoakam (1993, This Time)