In late November, President Trump intervened in a case of military justice within the U.S. Navy, setting off a political firestorm within the executive branch. Trump ordered the Navy to restore Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher’s rank — and then ordered that Gallagher should also retain his coveted Special Warfare trident.
Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper later fired Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer — who had called for a review board on Gallagher’s SEAL status. The Gallagher case resulted in profuse discussion across the country about a crisis in civil-military relations in the Trump administration. In retrospect, though, it’s difficult to call the Gallagher saga a crisis. Here’s why.
Influential figures expressed outrage and concern about the president’s intervention, but my research suggests that presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Trump regularly intervene in military operations and tactics, not just for strategic reasons but to help their domestic political fortunes.
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So what really happened? Far from being a crisis, the Gallagher episode instead represents a very public display of the same kind of civil-military frictions that all modern U.S. presidents have encountered. And by keeping the disagreement between political officials, the Navy secretary effectively prevented the kind of outright civil-military conflict that early reports suggested was brewing.
Presidents can intervene. But should they?
Much of the public and media outrage has focused on the impact of Trump’s pardons on the military’s ability to police its own, the signal that such a move sends to other countries, and how the perceived exaltation of convicted war criminals reflects on Trump as a leader. On the other side, supporters have painted Trump as rescuing decorated service members from a corrupt system that sought to unfairly punish them for defending the country.
Many analysts also questioned the wisdom of intervening in the military justice system regardless of one’s opinion of Gallagher. Peter Feaver points out that when presidents appear to “meddle” in military matters — particularly on issues that the military considers central to its role as the profession of arms — this can destroy trust and compromise the nature of the political-military relationship in the long run.
This is particularly true if the military perceives the intent of the intervention to be political, rather than strategic, in nature. Additional research, highlighted by Doyle Hodges here in the Monkey Cage, suggests that civilian intervention in the military justice system can result in the further politicization of the military. This erodes important norms around the military as a nonpartisan institution. And when the U.S. public sees its military as a partisan prop, research shows that civilian trust in the military declines.
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But this is not a new debate
Yet these are not new issues. Indeed, presidents since Abraham Lincoln have been accused of meddling in military affairs. Each president has incurred his share of wrath for intervening on issues the military considers to be its business. Harry S. Truman dealt with the “Revolt of the Admirals” over budgeting conflicts. The U.S. military thought Lyndon Johnson lost the war by picking targets over North Vietnam.
For Bill Clinton, it was “don’t ask, don’t tell,” while George W. Bush faced the “Revolt of the Generals” in 2006 over his policy in Iraq. And military analysts roundly criticized Barack Obama for exercising control over the rules of engagement in both Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention his commutation of Chelsea Manning’s sentence in 2016. Civilian intervention in military affairs is, in fact, one of the oldest and most predictable sources of civil-military disagreement in the United States.
There was more at stake in this case
The bigger question, however, was over the Navy’s response to Trump’s decision to intervene. Military officers will tell you that their job, once a decision is made, is to salute smartly and execute all lawful orders. But initial reports suggested senior military officers considered speaking out publicly against Trump’s decision. The New York Times reported that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley attempted to broker a deal between Trump and the Navy by suggesting that both Secretary Spencer and Rear Adm. Collin Green, the SEAL commander, might resign in protest over the issue.
Resignation in protest by an active-duty officer — in this case, Green — would have constituted a major break in civil-military relations. Even more troubling, however, were reports that the Navy was exploring whether it needed to comply with the president’s tweeted preference at all. While the military has increasingly used legal reasoning to escape difficult situations, the public nature of the debate meant both the White House and the public likely would have perceived any such move as outright insubordination.
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… But the Navy actually avoided a crisis
Ultimately, however, no true crisis emerged, because Navy Secretary Spencer — a civilian political appointee — became the public face of the conflict. Reports of Green’s dissatisfaction with Trump’s decision have largely disappeared from the media, Gallagher retired from service without further investigations into his questionable post-clemency conduct, and Milley declared the case “closed.”
Instead of involving active-duty officers, the conflict stayed at the political level — it was the civilian Navy secretary who was fired and then released an “acknowledgment of termination” letter condemning the president’s actions. And while the Navy secretary’s judgments about the president’s character and intent were harsh, Spencer is a civilian businessman with just five years’ experience as a tactical leader in the Marines — his protest, military and political analysts might argue, is distinct from uniformed active-duty members he represented.
By becoming the face of the conflict, Spencer in fact averted a crisis in civil-military relations. Rather than forcing military officers to take sides in a partisan political issue, Spencer publicly signaled the Navy’s commitment to “good order discipline” while also preserving important civil-military norms. This political conflict evolved into a familiar pattern: a president who consistently engages in public fights with his own political appointees and has trouble generating support from his own administration.
Carrie A. Lee is an assistant professor at the U.S. Air War College. You can follow her musings about civil-military relations, democracy and war on Twitter at @CarrieALee1. The views and analysis presented here are the author’s own and do not represent the official policy or position of the Air War College, U.S. Air Force or Defense Department.