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There is a trap and it is relatively easy to slide into where the normative assumption (among the public and elites) is that civilian leaders ought not interfere with military leaders due to the latter's superior expertise. 2/14
That risk is particularly acute in a society which generally assigns high moral qualities to service personnel and low moral qualities to politicians (as we do). There is already a lot of 'if only the politicians would let the generals do the job' popular discourse. 3/14
The thing is, states where the military has effectively insulated itself from civilian control have pretty consistent records of awful decision-making. The classic examples of this are Germany, 1871-1919 and Japan 1920-1945. 4/14
The thing is, civilian leaders have a very different job then military ones. As Clausewitz notes (drink!) the political leaders manage the 'when/why' of war (the political object) whereas the military leaders manage the 'how' of war (dealing with friction, etc.). 5/14
Clausewitz is quite clear that there is subordination between these elements and that the political object is supreme - that's the significance of 'war is policy by other means.' 6/14
But the creation of a norm whereby the only people fit to make military decisions are military people fosters an independence of military leaders from civilian direction and thus tends to prioritize the 'how' over the 'why/when' to disastrous effect. 7/14
That's how you get military leaders backing Germany into a war with France because in 1914 because their plan didn't allow for anything else - they let the 'how' of winning the war dictate the 'why' - 'why fight France' - because that was the how-plan! 8/14
Likewise, thinking within the IJN prior to 1941 became so focused on the 'how' of defeating the USN that it eclipsed the 'why' of fighting the USN (there was no good 'why' because such a war was fundamentally unwinnable). 9/14
Consequently, the IJN precipitated a war with a surprise attack that made the only possible victory scenario - a limited war with limited public support in the USA - impossible and replaced it with the nightmare scenario of a war of annihilation with a much stronger foe. 10/14
It is an irony that deserves to be better known, but countries where 'war is too serious to be left to the military' (in Clemenceau's famous quip), while they have suffered from political meddling, in the long run generally have better leadership. 11/14
Now, is Biden's choice of Lloyd Austin the tipping point on this road? No, probably not. Biden himself is an old foreign policy hand. I don't think anyone expects him to defer to the brass on major questions about using force. 12/14
But a future president - with less foreign policy experience - might! And avoiding setting that norm is exactly why the response to this has been so mixed, even though Austin is clearly very qualified. It's why doing this requires an act of congress to get the waiver. 13/14
And that is why the eggheads are bothered by this choice, esp since it is a 2-in-a-row where the first SecDef of an administration is military, which appears to be codifying a norm. We don't want that norm. Biden should, frankly, think hard and make another decision end/14
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