Jonathan Tremblay: Obama Fires General McChrystal: A History of Military Submission
This past month, the general in charge of allied troops in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal resigned (was fired) by President Obama due to criticisms made by the General and his aides that appeared in a Rolling Stone Magazine article entitled “Runaway General”. They had let comments and insinuations fly about VP Biden, UN envoy Richard Holbrooke and the Obama administration in general while being interviewed by a journalist for the publication. Unsurprisingly, everything made it to print and once the article made it to newsstands, it was not long before McChrystal was summoned back to Washington, dismissed and effectively forced into retirement. This is but one of many battles of egos between an American Head of State and General in charge of their armed forces in US history. As we will see, through differing priorities and the eternal battle between military and civilian authority, the US has a distinctive history of bouts at the top that resulted in embarrassment, public bickering and the eventual dismissal of the nation’s top soldiers.
“The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general. It undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system”, President Obama reacted to the McChrystal article by stating something that American Presidents have wanted to make abundantly clear for centuries now, namely that the American President is the Commander in Chief of the US Army. All generals, no matter how many stars adorn their lapel, must answer to the highest office in the land. As such, President Obama swiftly replaced McChrystal with General Petreus, former leader of the Iraqi taskforce (that was so incredibly successful). That being said, the Obama administration assured us there would be no change in the mission or method of the allied forces in Afghanistan so the change in command is unsubtly just a message of the President’s supreme authority of the armed forces. Some have even speculated that the White House finally got the opportunity it needed to justify sacking General McChrystal. Highly esteemed in the army and beloved by the Afghan government, McChrystal was not at his first faux pas with the media. In 2009 for example, the General publicly sent out his evaluation of the Afghan mission, the immediate need to redirect troops there and the vital need for the President to focus more on this country. This in fact “forced” the President’s hand to act due to the public pressure that ensued. The senate even asked for his head on a platter but McChrystal’s circumventing of official channels was not enough to dismiss the decorated soldier. The repeat offense against established policy has finally been dealt with; in much the same way as in the past.
If we go back to the nineteenth century, we find out that Honest Abe Lincoln had a similar problem. His generals kept losing to the secessionist South and kept disagreeing with the President on how to conduct the Civil War. This is why he ended up dismissing General McDowell…and General Meade…General Hooker…General McClellan, General Pope and General Burnside. Lincoln’s administration briefly questioned the carousel of passing generals that were being put aside at a time of great need but the President prevailed by replacing them with General Ulysses S. Grant. The North won and Grant went on to be President himself. As for the dismissed generals, one gave us the Sideburns and another the term for army accompanying prostitutes.
Further on and once again in a time of war for the US, Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy had to contend with the popularity, stubbornness and, some might say, paranoid insanity of General Curtis LeMay. This general was a strong proponent of the “Nuke the Soviets Now” camp for most of the 50s and 60s, which gained him some strong conservative admiration for a time. When the United States entered French Indochina to battle one of the longest and most frustrating engagements in American History, his aggressive and impulsive comments earned him less such praise and he was promptly fired. LeMay proposed a plan to firebomb AND carpet-bomb North Vietnamese cities (not military bases but cities) and to drop two nuclear devices on the main administrative centres. The subordination of military to civilian elected government in this case seems to have averted nuclear war.
Following the Vietnam War, President Jimmy Carter had his own McChrystal in the person of General John Singlaub. This General wanted American troops stationed in Korea since the fifties to be better used abroad. President Carter insisted that the American troops protecting the Korean ceasefire (The Korean War has officially never ended) were an important instrument to keep the peace in the Far East and a show of good will on America’s part. Singlaub wanted none of it and disagreed…publicly. In March of 1977, President Carter simply announced that, as his boss, he was firing General Singlaub for overstepping his bounds and failing to respect the President’s authority.
He may have been president for only 4 years a long time ago and the poster boy for humanitarianism but Jimmy Carter was once an unmistakable hard-ass.
Finally, the granddaddy of all Presidential-Top soldier confrontations came following the Second World War. President Truman already had the difficult task of replacing Franklin Roosevelt (a 4-term President) as the head of state but he also had to maintain the authority of the White House in a country where soldiers had become heroes of legend. While General Eisenhower had led the Allies to victory on the beaches of France (and would later be elected as president), General Douglass MacArthur had been the victor of the Pacific and annihilator of the Japanese Imperial Fleet. He was lauded as hero of the American people (and way of life) and hailed as a liberator in Japan. He was one of very few Generals in American History to be given four stars, the highest ranking achieved by a soldier in office. This last general however was not ready to play politician and would see the pacific as his personal responsibility. Thus when the Korean War erupted in 1950, no one else could even be considered to lead the American (NATO) forces against the Communist invasion of Korea.
The Korean War was a conflict of exchanges. One month the Americans had pushed on to the communist capital, another month South Korea was reduced to a beach on the southernmost point of the peninsula. What was described as a battle for Korean unification was in all actuality an American (NATO) capitalist South Front battling a Soviet funded and China manned Communist North Front. Not many Koreans were involved at all (except the ones dying on the fields). Macarthur became increasingly frustrated with the involvement of global communism in the affair (especially China’s). He openly started calling for Chinese withdrawal, criticizing White House pacifism and eventually promoted a plan to invade and bomb China with atomic weapons. Of course Truman could not afford to fire MacArthur but did what he could to keep him in line. He avoided open conflict with him, met many times in private with the General and issued a directive that all military officers be required to clear all public statements with the State Department and that they refrain from speaking to “newspapers, magazines and other publicity media”. MacArthur responded by not speaking with the Press, but with China instead. While President Truman worked on a ceasefire agreement, General McArthur issued an ultimatum demanding that China surrender to him personally. Enough was enough and the General was fired.
Many Presidents have struggled with high-ranking officials that appear larger than life but it always comes down to the basic structure of American democracy. Whereas both men always seem to act in the best interest of the country they serve, The President must always hold the ultimate veto because he is elected by the people. The electorate directs government and thus directs the army. Despite official statements and the pomp and circumstance that has accompanied these honourable discharges, President Truman sums up the true spirit of these confrontations with a statement to Time Magazine in December 1973: “I fired him because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the President. I didn’t fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that’s not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.
In conclusion, I evoke the present story of Obama versus McChrystal because another high-ranking official went against the party line this week but in North Korea. Kwon Ho Ung, Pyongyang’s envoy responsible for talks with South Korea for many years, was deemed a failure because he failed to keep worldwide opinion from turning against Kim Jong-il’s government. He was “dismissed” by firing squad on Monday. There are seemingly worse things than being dismissed in the public eye. One thing that seems obvious and omnipresent in the different ideological governments of the world: there remains a hierarchical structure in every government and a constant tension between civilian and military institutions. Whereas this results in military coups and army-conducted revolutions here and there, the American government has succeeded in maintaining the submission of military heroes to the people despite the delicate dance of egos and insidious fights for authority among the great men of the past few centuries.