Civilian-military relations under ‘extreme strain,’ former Pentagon leaders say

Eight former US secretaries of Defense and five former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are warning that civilian-military relations are at a low, pointing to recent events at home and abroad that have shaken the military’s foundations.

“We are in an exceptionally challenging civil-military environment,” the former officials said in an open letter published by the War on the Rocks blog. “Many of the factors that shape civil-military relations have undergone extreme strain in recent years.”

For starters, they pointed to the “winding down” of American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, noting that the military has to “come to terms with” war efforts that were not entirely successful “while preparing for more daunting competition with near-peer rivals.” Domestically, they claimed that military officials “confront an extremely adverse environment” marked by political polarization “that culminated in the first election in over a century when the peaceful transfer of political power was disrupted and in doubt.”

They also described how the COVID-19 pandemic and economic problems in the U.S. “have disrupted societal patterns and put enormous strain on individuals and families.”