erudity.net prattlings on via nattering nabobs

Civilian Control

Some years ago I read Making The Corps, a book by Tom Ricks that's ostensibly about a platoon of Marine recruits as they make their way through boot camp at Parris Island, SC but shifts gears about halfway through, moving on to a history and examination of the current state of civilian control of the military along with the implications that the politicization of the military has on it.  It's a great book and a good introduction to the issues surrounding both of those topics, of which I have a close-up of everyday.  There's a gamut of opinion on the subject ranging from "active-duty military members shouldn't vote" to "military members should be active stakeholders in policies that affect them."  I trend toward the latter, as I've seen the corrosive influence that vocal expressions of political opinion have on diversity of thought and their increasing effects on groupthink, which extends even to subjects that should be explicitly non-political.

So I was intrigued to read about the results of a MilitaryTimes poll about Obama, the writeup of which was full of choice quotations such as this:

“Being that the Marine Corps can be sent anywhere in the world with the snap of his fingers, nobody has confidence in this guy as commander in chief,” said one lance corporal who asked not to be identified.

There is a caveat to the poll results that's buried rather far down:

The responses are not representative of the opinions of the military as a whole. The survey group overall under-represents minorities, women and junior enlisted service members, and over-represents soldiers.

What's left unsaid is that what you're left with are the heart of the professional corps of servicemembers that make our modern military.  As such, these results are somewhat disturbing - is there a point where military members will publicly and vocally disagree with their chain of command as with the Revolt of the Admirals?  What about DADT?  (My fears about DADT are actually a bit overstated - I believe that as older members retire, resign or simply leave the service you'll see a shift in attitudes rather quickly.)  My biggest fear is that the military will reach a critical mass of politicization and will then be forever lost to a whole other segment of the population - one that isn't conservative and Republican - with dire implications for the right (or wrong) leader who happens to either cross that ultra-politicized military or charm them into doing his/her bidding.