Military Mission Creep

Thomas Schweich, former director of the State Department's counter-narcotics office, writes in the Washington Post on the military's increasing influence in traditionally non-military areas. We hear a lot about this subject, and given the huge budget of the Department of Defense vs. other government agencies, it's not an altogether surprising development. What we haven't heard this explicitly before is Schweich's theory of the threat to civilian-led government that this trend could represent. He recommends the following: 1. Direct -- or, better yet, order -- Gates, Jones, Blair and the other military leaders in his Cabinet to rid the Pentagon's lower ranks of Rumsfeld holdovers whose only mission is to increase the power of the Pentagon. 2. Turn Gates's speeches on the need to promote soft power into reality with a massive transfer of funds from the Pentagon to the State Department, the Justice Department and USAID. 3. Put senior, respected civilians -- not retired or active military personnel -- into key subsidiary positions in the intelligence community and the National Security Council. 4. Above all, he should let his appointees with military backgrounds know swiftly and firmly that, under the Constitution, he is their commander, and that he will not tolerate the well-rehearsed lip service that the military gave to civilian agencies and even President Bush over the past four years. A couple of good responses to his piece came in, too - check them out.