Stewardship and the Retired Senior Leader: Toward a New Professional Ethic

AuthorColonel George R. Smawley
Pages292-315
292 MILITARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 220
STEWARDSHIP AND THE RETIRED SENIOR LEADER:
TOWARD A NEW PROFESSIONAL ETHIC
COLONEL GEORGE R. SMAWLEY*
In the interest of winning this war we all must defer
judgments about the efficacy of our wartime leaders to
the wisdom of the American voters and the 20-20
hindsight of historians like me . . . after our Soldiers and
Marines come home.
—Major General Robert H. Scales (Retired)
Former Commandant, U.S. Army War College1
I. Introduction
When the nation’s senior military leader, the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, feels compelled to publicly render as “disappointing” the
criticisms by former military officers toward the President’s management
of national security information, it is a remarkable thing indeed. The
August 2012 comments by General Martin Dempsey, describing the
policy criticisms as “eroding that bond of trust that we have with the
American people,”2 is the most recent illustration of an enduring question
* Judge Advocate, U.S. Army. Presently assigned as the Executive Officer, Office of
The Judge Advocate General, Washington, D.C. M.S.S., 2013, The U.S. Army War
College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; The U.S. Army Command & General Staff
College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2004; LL.M., 2001, The Judge Advocate General’s
School, U.S. Army, Charlottesville, Virginia; J.D., 1991, The Beasley School of Law,
Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; B.A. (English, Public Policy), 1988,
Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Previous assignments include: Staff Judge
Advocate, 25th Infantry Division (25ID), Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, U.S. Division–
Center, Iraq, 2010–2011, and Multi-National Division–North and Task Force Lightning,
Iraq, 2009; Assistant Executive Officer, Office of The Judge Advocate General,
Pentagon, 2007–2009; Deputy Staff Judge Advocate, 10th Mountain Division (Light
Infantry) & Fort Drum, Fort Drum, New York, 2004–2007; Deputy Staff Judge
Advocate, Combined Joint Task Force–76, Afghanistan, 2006. Member of the bars of
Pennsylvania, the U.S. District Court–Northern District of New York, the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Armed Forces, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
1 Robert H. Scales, Op Ed, The Generals’ Ill-timed Revolt, WASH. TIMES, May 2, 2006, at
A19.
2 General Martin Dempsey, in Victor Davis Hanson, Should Retired Military Officers
Speak Out: Always, Never—or It Sort of Depends?, NATL REV. ONLINE, Aug. 23, 2012,
available at http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/314795/should-retired-military-
officers-speak-out-always-never-or-it-sort-of-depends/ (last visited June 4, 2014). See
also Jim Garamone, Public Trust Requires Apolitical Military, Dempsey Says, U.S. A.F.
2014] NEW PROF’L ETHIC: THE RETIRED SENIOR LEADER 293
about the proper relationship of former military leaders to civilian
leadership and active military. It also begs the more nuanced question of
appropriate professional ethics for retired military leaders and its
consequences for the military profession.
The underlying tension between former military leaders and the
executive branch is hardly new. The annals of military and civilian
relations are replete with examples of retired flag and general officers
openly criticizing military strategic planning, organization, and
operations in peace and war. In the mid-1950s, President Dwight
Eisenhower was confronted by active and uniformed Army leaders’
vociferous opposition to his strategic approach, which relied heavily
upon nuclear weapons at the expense of a large standing Army.3 This
opposition endured well into the retirements of General Matthew B.
Ridgway, General James M. Gavin, and General Maxwell Taylor, who in
the 1950s each wrote and advocated against what they perceived to be a
poorly conceived policy compromising national security in the face of a
rising Soviet threat.4
In the modern era, policy advocacy by retired military leaders has
taken on a new political character that could hardly be imagined a half
century ago. The contemporary nature of instant and enduring
information via the Internet and print and cable news has fundamentally
altered how the voices of former senior leaders are received and utilized.
Association with the active force affords retired senior leaders important
ONLINE, Sept. 17, 2006, available at http:www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123318227
(last visited June 4, 2014); Larry Thornberry, Political General Complains of Politics:
Time for First Amendment Training for Flag Officers, AM. SPECTATOR, Aug. 23, 2012,
available at http://spectator.org/archives/2012/08/23/political-general-complains-of/ (last
visited June 4, 2014).
3 Donald Alan Carter, Eisenhower Versus the Generals, 71 J. MIL. HISTORY no. 4, Oct.
2007, at 1169–71; see also ANDREW J. BACEVICH & LAWRENCE F. KAPLAN, GENERALS
VERSUS THE PRESIDENT: EISENHOWER AND THE ARMY, 1953–1955 (Syracuse University
and Johns Hopkins University, 1997), available at http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/exed/
Sites/nss/NSS_Case_Study_Listing_Descriptions/#CS0697-02 (last visited June 4, 2014)
(a case study describing senior Army leader opposition to Eisenhower's strategy of
massive retaliation, and the means by which military leaders advanced their opposition).
4 Id. at 1195. General Ridgway vented his frustration through a series of magazine
articles published by the Saturday Evening Post and later condensed into a book, Soldier:
The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway. A year after his 1858 retirement, General Gavin
published War and Peace in the Space Age, condemning the Eisenhower
Administration’s strategic emphasis on nuclear weapons. In the same year, 1959,
General Maxwell Taylor published The Uncertain Trumpet, which took a highly critical
look at Eisenhower’s reorganization of the military. Id. at 1185–95.

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