General Richard Dannat, the head of the British army, once remarked that the British Armed Forces are less understood and less honoured for their commitment and sacrifice by ordinary Britons than in comparable societies, like United States, and probably even less than in earlier periods.
But this is not unique to Britain. And it is part of two broader inter-related trends; the disappearance of sacrifice as an element of Europe’s development and, as a result, the divorce of the institution most knows for sacrifice – the military – from European society.
The most obvious example is the disappearance of ex-military officers from politics. The appointment of Admiral Sir Alan West, the decorated former head of the Royal Navy, to a junior ministerial post in Gordon Brown’s government is remarkable precisely because it’s rare. Military experience has similarly become less important for reaching reach high office; no Ministers in the current Cabinet have served in the armed forces.
Few European countries appoint general officers to civilian positions; none serve at the top of the European Union’s bureaucracy, the Commission or the Council Secretariat. Of seven hundred European parliamentarians, only one was a former high-ranking officer: Philippe Morrilon, the former French UN general.
Contrast this with the United States, where, from George Washington onwards, military officers have regularly shed their uniforms to take high office.
President Roosevelt’s secretaries of War and Navy during the Second World War had both fought in France in 1918 and both wanted to be addressed as “colonel”, even by their subordinate, General George Marshall. In fact, most American foreign policy personalities in the twentieth century – like Brent Scowcroft, Stansfield Turner, and Colin Powell – started their careers in barracks and boot camps, not at Harvard Yard. Until Bill Clinton, every U.S president had served in the military, perhaps most famously Europe’s military saviour, Dwight Eisenhower.
And despite spending the Vietnam War in the Texas National Guard, George W Bush has appointed more generals than any of his predecessors; scores of military officers serve in key civilian positions, including as National Intelligence Director (an admiral), CIA Director (a general), as the President’s “War Czar” (another general) and as Deputy Treasury Secretary (a former general).
Inside the State Department – the most civilian of departments, mocked for housing pin-stripped, effete bureaucrats – military officers now occupy central jobs from the Counter-Terrorism Coordinator to the Under-Secretary for Economic Affairs. As the Bush administration begins drawing to a close, and civilians leave for jobs in the private sector, expect to see more military officers take civilian positions. And rumblings have already begun about the political ambitions of General David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq.
What does this difference say about American and European – political cultures? In 2002, the American writer Robert Kagan sparked a trans-Atlantic row in the article “Power and Weakness” published in Policy Review. In his article – and later his book – Kagan argued that differences the U.S and Europe’s relative levels of power were leading Europeans and Americans to develop different ideas about how the world works and what their policies in it ought to be. Militarily well-endowed Americans are comfortable with unilateralism and the use of force, and uncomfortable with the constraints of international institutions. Militarily weaker Europeans are the opposite.
It is tempting to add America’s long-standing tradition to appoint generals to civilian positions in government – and European counter-veiling reluctance – as an associated distinction. It may also signal an appreciation of the virtues that military men are seen to bring with them into their civilian jobs – dedication, courage and loyalty. And pragmatism, a “get-things-done” mentality that, in fairness to the non-political European bureaucracies, has never been their hallmark.
But, on the other hand, the U.S is often accused by Europeans of having too militaristic an outlook, willing to dial 911-Pentagon to solve any problem. The presence of military officers in the upper echelons of the government may not be unrelated (although the “hawkiest” members of the Bush Administration – Bush himself, Cheney, ‘Scooter Libby, Wolfowitz, Eliot Ambrams etc – did not come from the military).
However, I can’t help think that Europe’s approach to security issues might not benefit from having a few more ex-soldiers thrown into the mix.
