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The Pentagon portrait removals are petty

The Pentagon portrait removals are petty The Pentagon portrait removals are petty

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley undermined his position and the U.S. military by his partisan engagement with the media. Milley should have resigned. The performance of former U.S. Central Command commanding officer Gen. Kenneth McKenzie was similarly poor. Responsible for supervising the disastrous August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, McKenzie then defended absurd Biden administration talking points rather than offer honest military assessments.

This speaks to a broader problem in the U.S. military’s general officer ranks, namely a penchant for putting patronage, ego, and politics before nonpartisan skill in command. That said, the ongoing removal of portraits at the Pentagon, almost certainly at President Donald Trump’s behest, is becoming problematic.

First went Milley’s portrait, and now former Defense Secretary and Army Secretary Mark Esper’s portrait has disappeared. Who will be next? Who knows.

Regardless, Trump is harming his interests and the national interest with these antics. The commander in chief is broadcasting an ego-vested fixation on petty retribution rather than a posture of confident strength. Rather than engage in this pathetic Soviet-style attempt to wipe out history, Trump should focus on fixing the core problem at the Pentagon heights.

Of course, everyone has a First Amendment right to speak their mind freely. But too few retired general officers and Defense Department officials (as with too many former senior intelligence officers) appear to care that their partisan rhetoric undermines the military’s credibility in critical public service. This hurts the nation. And as former Gen. David Petraeus exemplifies, excess ego and four stars are too often inseparable.

There are some excellent general officers in service. Indo-Pacific Command’s Adm. Sam Paparo, CENTCOM’s Gen. Michael Kurilla, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs CQ Brown all fit this bill. Still, America has too many general officers, too many of whom got their ranks by virtue of patronage relationships rather than skill or effective service. In contrast with their counterparts among America’s allies, U.S. military general officers are pampered by excessive staffs that often include gourmet chefs. Then comes the post-service speaking tours, corporate gigs, and lucrative positions on defense boards.

This glamor incentivizes political relationships over service. It also helps explain the Pentagon’s absurd tolerance for rank incompetence and grotesque taxpayer costs of the kind evinced by Lockheed Martin over the F-35 fighter jet program and the Electric Boat company over the submarine force. The failure of general officers to speak direct truth to power leads both to debacles like that in Afghanistan and monstrosities such as the Littoral Combat Ship.

Still, removing the portraits and security details of officials such as Milley (under direct threat from Iran) is petty rather than presidential behavior. This speaks to a tendency by Trump to overreact to personal slights in a way that does a disservice to the nation. While we would expect former Gen. John Kelly’s harsh criticisms of Trump to receive the president’s riposte, for example, the measure of Trump’s reprisals neglect Kelly’s terrible personal sacrifices for the nation.

Instead, Trump’s Pentagon attention should refocus on that which his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has promised to prioritize: leadership that delivers lethality, responsibility, and value for money. This concern is urgent because Hegseth’s predecessor, retired four-star Gen. Lloyd Austin, sent the distinct message that responsibility doesn’t exist past a certain rank.

What should Trump and Hegseth refocus on specifically?

For a start, reforms that mean the best officers getting promoted rather than those who have made the right connections via repeated staff assignments. Ask a retired colonel or Navy captain why they retired, and many times the answer will be “politics.” These reforms will also require ending the glaring difference between how junior and midranking officers are treated for perceived failures and how general officers are treated.

Where the former are thrown to the metaphorical wolves for their failings, the latter are nearly always shielded from consequences. This reality is well understood by junior and midranking officers, and the failure to resolve it significantly undermines confidence in the chain of command. Indeed, so significant is the concern over double standards some officers are willing to risk their careers to speak out over it.

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Take the example of retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller, who was relieved of his command and imprisoned in 2021 after publicly lamenting the absence of command responsibility at the top ranks of the Pentagon. While Scheller’s relief of command was inevitable in light of his direct insubordination, his complaints were justified. It also bears reminding that the former commander in chief was directly complicit in the Pentagon’s abject abandonment of responsibility for the Afghanistan withdrawal. Scheller has now been appointed as a Pentagon adviser.

Trump can do great things at the Pentagon if he refocuses on what really matters. Whatever has been said about Trump by Milley, Esper, and others, Trump’s first obligation must be to the nation and not retribution born of ego.

This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com

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