In the short run, this is good news for Bush. Somewhere down the road, this could cause some serious problems.
http://www.newhouse.com/archive/story1b101900.html
In Defiance of Tradition, Partisan Politics Surge in U.S. Military
By DAVID WOOD
c.2000 Newhouse News Service
WASHINGTON -- Traditionally uneasy about partisan politics, the 1.4 million Americans serving on active duty in the armed forces are preparing this year to speak with a big voice in the presidential election.
The trend toward increased partisanship is marked by a surge in voter registration on military posts around the country, and by an increase in political endorsements by retired senior officers.
Many in the military are taking the Republican side with a vengeance, saying they do not trust Democrats to properly manage or use the military.
"In my 18 years in the Army I have never seen anything like this," said Maj. Don Vandergriff, an armor officer stationed in Washington. "So many people, captains to colonels, are saying that if (GOP candidate George W.) Bush gets in, political correctness will go away and they can return to being warriors, and the military will be taken care of."
This accelerating trend of military partisanship, which has its roots in the bitter domestic divisions of the Vietnam War, deeply worries seasoned observers and some officers themselves. They see it as an alarming breach in the once-sacrosanct division between military and politics.
It "tells people that the military no longer stands above the political fray, that it has an investment in certain policies," said Richard H. Kohn, professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "It undermines the trust that the most senior political leadership has in the military."
Voting has always been a duty in the military ranks, especially for younger recruits. In the 1996 presidential election, for example, 64 percent of the active-duty military voted, compared to 49.8 percent of the general public.
An equally long tradition, however, held that military officers ought not to steal, lie, cheat or vote -- the last in the belief that to be effective as professionals they had to be scrupulously apolitical.
By law, members of the armed forces on active duty may vote and even express political opinions as individuals, but they may not participate in partisan politics. For that reason, officers and enlisted men and women agreed to discuss politics only if they were not identified by name.
Nevertheless, there is evidence of new political interest bubbling up from the ranks. It is motivated in part by distrust and even hatred of President Bill Clinton -- and by association, Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic candidate -- for what many see as the administration's disdain for the military and its embrace of social causes such as gay rights.
Thanks also to determined GOP voter registration drives around military installations, thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are signing up to vote.
At Fort Hood, in Texas, registrations have shot up by 8,000 new voters this year over 1996, the last presidential election year, said Army Staff Sgt. Arlisa Rivers, the post's voter assistance officer. There are 49,000 soldiers stationed at Fort Hood.
And at Fort Bragg, N.C., home of the elite maroon berets of the 82nd Airborne Division, registrations are up by 3,000 this year over 1996 and rising at a rate of 1,200 to 1,500 a month.
"That's the most we've seen in ... a million years," said Doc Scheffler, GOP chairman in Cumberland County, N.C., which encompasses Fort Bragg and the adjacent Pope Air Force Base. Scheffler is a retired Army Special Forces major.
Other organizations, such as the Association of the United States Army, are mounting unprecedented get-out-the-vote drives and voter education campaigns.
In a more controversial move, the Bush campaign this summer lined up 26 retired generals and admirals to publicly endorse the Republican candidate.
The group, co-chaired by Charles Krulak, recently retired commandant of the Marine Corps, includes six former members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, several senior regional commanders and at least four Medal of Honor recipients.
In June, an in-depth study by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies found that the tradition of nonpartisan officers is fast disappearing.
The study also found that the military's most elite, fast-rising young officers reject the traditional notion that military officers should advise political leaders and then, after a decision has been made by civilian policymakers, "salute and follow orders," as the old military adage goes.
Instead, half the officers said they have a right to "insist" on policy decisions to their liking.
The study was conducted by Kohn, at Chapel Hill, and Duke University political scientist Peter D. Feaver. An earlier, incomplete version of their report was released last year.
Between 1976 and 1999, Kohn and Feaver found, the number of elite officers who consider themselves politically independent or who had no political party preference dropped from a majority of 54 percent to only 28 percent.
Those officers identifying themselves as Republicans nearly doubled, from 33 percent to 64 percent. Fully two-thirds described themselves as political conservatives.
Here's the precise danger of this gallop toward partisanship, said Martin L. Cook, professor of ethics at the U.S. Army War College: If the military is seen endorsing Bush but Gore wins the election, "What does this do for the next administration's perceptions about the loyalty of the military?"
Senior retired officer or newly minted private, many in the military said they are motivated to vote this year because they have a personal stake in the issues. One burning issue is determining how and where the military is used: whether it should be sent off on peacekeeping missions and to fight fires and manage disaster relief, or held back to be used only for warfighting.
They also want a say in the debate about whether to invest more in combat readiness or in new weapons systems, in how their service should be redesigned for the future, and in dozens of other issues.
And they said they do not feel as if their military leaders are speaking to the country on their behalf, that they feel estranged from the nation's political leaders.
"They want somebody to pay attention to them," explained an Army colonel.
The Triangle Institute study found that the rising young officers also feel disdain for political leadership: 66 percent said political leaders are "somewhat ignorant" or "very ignorant" about military affairs. Two-thirds oppose allowing women in combat positions, and endorse the idea that a male, warrior culture is essential for military effectiveness.
Above all, the military seems to want respect.
A Marine gunnery sergeant said he looks to Bush "to instill in the American public that being in the military does not mean you are a second-class citizen, that it is fashionable to serve your country, and honorable to be in the military."
The roots of that kind of partisan identification reach back to the mid-1960s, said Kohn, "when the Democratic Party abandoned the military and became anti-defense spending and unsympathetic to the military, and the Republican Party began to reach out to the military."
He said Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, both Republican presidents, made a point of cultivating the military in the "culture wars" of the 1970s and '80s, when there were bitter divides over patriotism, the role of women and gays, and other social issues affecting the military.
The upshot, Kohn said, is that "the officer corps is becoming very invested in certain partisan policies, certain decisions, and they are coming to believe they should be insisting on certain things instead of advising" civilian policymakers.
Some young officers returning from peacekeeping missions in Kosovo, for instance, have astonished older officers by saying they would insist on the United States not taking on more such missions, vowing that they would resign rather than carry them out. There is great appeal to them in Bush's frequent campaign statements implying that, if he is elected, he would drastically cut back on peacekeeping and nation-building.
Although both Bush and Gore endorse increasing military readiness and enlarging defense budgets, Bush in particular has played on the discontent stirring through the ranks.
"Stay in the military -- there's a new commander in chief coming!" he told an Aug. 11 campaign rally in Everett, Wash., near several military installations.
Yet the perils of a partisan political military are all too evident, some observers say. Indeed, the United States has sought for years to convince other countries that "political generals" corrode democracy and civilian control of the military.
"I think we all lose something when the public comes to perceive the military as just another interest group, like trial lawyers or big oil or the Teamsters (union)," said Albert C. Pierce, director of the Center for the Study of Professional Military Ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Pierce said the military "ought to be, and ought to be seen as, the neutral servant of the state. It has a monopoly on organized, large-scale violence, which ought to be clearly a tool of the state."
Krulak declined to discuss his new role in partisan politics that followed his retirement as commandant of the Marine Corps in June 1999. But some analysts argue that the case against partisanship is no less compelling for retired senior officers.
One reason is that they still hold considerable influence within the ranks. For a culture used to taking and following orders, a political endorsement by a senior retired officer might be considered close to an order, some officers said.
Another reason is that when officers suddenly move from very senior command positions into retirement and partisan politics, it raises questions about their loyalty to civilian officials and the quality of advice they were giving as commanders.
"Technically, since they are no longer on active duty, they have a right to participate in the political process," said Pierce. "But I think prudence argues against an organized, systematic public effort by prominent senior officers" on behalf of a partisan political cause.
These currents of discontent within the military, some of which are venting into partisan activity, worry old-timers.
"The one unchanging bedrock principle for soldiers has been obedience. A soldier is obedient," said Robert Killebrew, a retired Army strategist. "But this idea is starting to crack. We are saying, for the first time in my lifetime, obedience has its limits.
"We are evolving a new morality, for the Army and the profession," Killebrew said.
Meantime, he acknowledged, "Nobody is quite sure where the ethical bounds are anymore."
http://www.newhouse.com/archive/story1b101900.html
In Defiance of Tradition, Partisan Politics Surge in U.S. Military
By DAVID WOOD
c.2000 Newhouse News Service
WASHINGTON -- Traditionally uneasy about partisan politics, the 1.4 million Americans serving on active duty in the armed forces are preparing this year to speak with a big voice in the presidential election.
The trend toward increased partisanship is marked by a surge in voter registration on military posts around the country, and by an increase in political endorsements by retired senior officers.
Many in the military are taking the Republican side with a vengeance, saying they do not trust Democrats to properly manage or use the military.
"In my 18 years in the Army I have never seen anything like this," said Maj. Don Vandergriff, an armor officer stationed in Washington. "So many people, captains to colonels, are saying that if (GOP candidate George W.) Bush gets in, political correctness will go away and they can return to being warriors, and the military will be taken care of."
This accelerating trend of military partisanship, which has its roots in the bitter domestic divisions of the Vietnam War, deeply worries seasoned observers and some officers themselves. They see it as an alarming breach in the once-sacrosanct division between military and politics.
It "tells people that the military no longer stands above the political fray, that it has an investment in certain policies," said Richard H. Kohn, professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "It undermines the trust that the most senior political leadership has in the military."
Voting has always been a duty in the military ranks, especially for younger recruits. In the 1996 presidential election, for example, 64 percent of the active-duty military voted, compared to 49.8 percent of the general public.
An equally long tradition, however, held that military officers ought not to steal, lie, cheat or vote -- the last in the belief that to be effective as professionals they had to be scrupulously apolitical.
By law, members of the armed forces on active duty may vote and even express political opinions as individuals, but they may not participate in partisan politics. For that reason, officers and enlisted men and women agreed to discuss politics only if they were not identified by name.
Nevertheless, there is evidence of new political interest bubbling up from the ranks. It is motivated in part by distrust and even hatred of President Bill Clinton -- and by association, Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic candidate -- for what many see as the administration's disdain for the military and its embrace of social causes such as gay rights.
Thanks also to determined GOP voter registration drives around military installations, thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are signing up to vote.
At Fort Hood, in Texas, registrations have shot up by 8,000 new voters this year over 1996, the last presidential election year, said Army Staff Sgt. Arlisa Rivers, the post's voter assistance officer. There are 49,000 soldiers stationed at Fort Hood.
And at Fort Bragg, N.C., home of the elite maroon berets of the 82nd Airborne Division, registrations are up by 3,000 this year over 1996 and rising at a rate of 1,200 to 1,500 a month.
"That's the most we've seen in ... a million years," said Doc Scheffler, GOP chairman in Cumberland County, N.C., which encompasses Fort Bragg and the adjacent Pope Air Force Base. Scheffler is a retired Army Special Forces major.
Other organizations, such as the Association of the United States Army, are mounting unprecedented get-out-the-vote drives and voter education campaigns.
In a more controversial move, the Bush campaign this summer lined up 26 retired generals and admirals to publicly endorse the Republican candidate.
The group, co-chaired by Charles Krulak, recently retired commandant of the Marine Corps, includes six former members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, several senior regional commanders and at least four Medal of Honor recipients.
In June, an in-depth study by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies found that the tradition of nonpartisan officers is fast disappearing.
The study also found that the military's most elite, fast-rising young officers reject the traditional notion that military officers should advise political leaders and then, after a decision has been made by civilian policymakers, "salute and follow orders," as the old military adage goes.
Instead, half the officers said they have a right to "insist" on policy decisions to their liking.
The study was conducted by Kohn, at Chapel Hill, and Duke University political scientist Peter D. Feaver. An earlier, incomplete version of their report was released last year.
Between 1976 and 1999, Kohn and Feaver found, the number of elite officers who consider themselves politically independent or who had no political party preference dropped from a majority of 54 percent to only 28 percent.
Those officers identifying themselves as Republicans nearly doubled, from 33 percent to 64 percent. Fully two-thirds described themselves as political conservatives.
Here's the precise danger of this gallop toward partisanship, said Martin L. Cook, professor of ethics at the U.S. Army War College: If the military is seen endorsing Bush but Gore wins the election, "What does this do for the next administration's perceptions about the loyalty of the military?"
Senior retired officer or newly minted private, many in the military said they are motivated to vote this year because they have a personal stake in the issues. One burning issue is determining how and where the military is used: whether it should be sent off on peacekeeping missions and to fight fires and manage disaster relief, or held back to be used only for warfighting.
They also want a say in the debate about whether to invest more in combat readiness or in new weapons systems, in how their service should be redesigned for the future, and in dozens of other issues.
And they said they do not feel as if their military leaders are speaking to the country on their behalf, that they feel estranged from the nation's political leaders.
"They want somebody to pay attention to them," explained an Army colonel.
The Triangle Institute study found that the rising young officers also feel disdain for political leadership: 66 percent said political leaders are "somewhat ignorant" or "very ignorant" about military affairs. Two-thirds oppose allowing women in combat positions, and endorse the idea that a male, warrior culture is essential for military effectiveness.
Above all, the military seems to want respect.
A Marine gunnery sergeant said he looks to Bush "to instill in the American public that being in the military does not mean you are a second-class citizen, that it is fashionable to serve your country, and honorable to be in the military."
The roots of that kind of partisan identification reach back to the mid-1960s, said Kohn, "when the Democratic Party abandoned the military and became anti-defense spending and unsympathetic to the military, and the Republican Party began to reach out to the military."
He said Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, both Republican presidents, made a point of cultivating the military in the "culture wars" of the 1970s and '80s, when there were bitter divides over patriotism, the role of women and gays, and other social issues affecting the military.
The upshot, Kohn said, is that "the officer corps is becoming very invested in certain partisan policies, certain decisions, and they are coming to believe they should be insisting on certain things instead of advising" civilian policymakers.
Some young officers returning from peacekeeping missions in Kosovo, for instance, have astonished older officers by saying they would insist on the United States not taking on more such missions, vowing that they would resign rather than carry them out. There is great appeal to them in Bush's frequent campaign statements implying that, if he is elected, he would drastically cut back on peacekeeping and nation-building.
Although both Bush and Gore endorse increasing military readiness and enlarging defense budgets, Bush in particular has played on the discontent stirring through the ranks.
"Stay in the military -- there's a new commander in chief coming!" he told an Aug. 11 campaign rally in Everett, Wash., near several military installations.
Yet the perils of a partisan political military are all too evident, some observers say. Indeed, the United States has sought for years to convince other countries that "political generals" corrode democracy and civilian control of the military.
"I think we all lose something when the public comes to perceive the military as just another interest group, like trial lawyers or big oil or the Teamsters (union)," said Albert C. Pierce, director of the Center for the Study of Professional Military Ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Pierce said the military "ought to be, and ought to be seen as, the neutral servant of the state. It has a monopoly on organized, large-scale violence, which ought to be clearly a tool of the state."
Krulak declined to discuss his new role in partisan politics that followed his retirement as commandant of the Marine Corps in June 1999. But some analysts argue that the case against partisanship is no less compelling for retired senior officers.
One reason is that they still hold considerable influence within the ranks. For a culture used to taking and following orders, a political endorsement by a senior retired officer might be considered close to an order, some officers said.
Another reason is that when officers suddenly move from very senior command positions into retirement and partisan politics, it raises questions about their loyalty to civilian officials and the quality of advice they were giving as commanders.
"Technically, since they are no longer on active duty, they have a right to participate in the political process," said Pierce. "But I think prudence argues against an organized, systematic public effort by prominent senior officers" on behalf of a partisan political cause.
These currents of discontent within the military, some of which are venting into partisan activity, worry old-timers.
"The one unchanging bedrock principle for soldiers has been obedience. A soldier is obedient," said Robert Killebrew, a retired Army strategist. "But this idea is starting to crack. We are saying, for the first time in my lifetime, obedience has its limits.
"We are evolving a new morality, for the Army and the profession," Killebrew said.
Meantime, he acknowledged, "Nobody is quite sure where the ethical bounds are anymore."
