Military Review English Edition September-October 2013 | Page 50

Uninformed, not Uniformed? The Apolitical Myth
Maj. Brian Babcock-Lumish, Ph.D., U.S. Army
I, _____,do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God. 1
The Federal Officer’s Oath

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of the Department of Defense.
Maj. Brian Babcock-Lumish is an assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences at the United States Military Academy (USMA). He holds a B.S. from USMA, an MPhil from the University of Oxford, and a Ph.D. in War Studies from Kings College London where he wrote his dissertation on the politics of wartime multinational command. He twice deployed from the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., to Multi-National Forces-Iraq, first training Iraqi intelligence officers and later serving as an analyst, briefer, and fusion chief. PHOTO: Governors Chet Culver, from Iowa, and Martin O’Malley, from Maryland, greet soldiers from the 573rd Clearance Company, 1st Engineer Battalion, from White Sands, N.M., at Contingency Operating Base Speicher, Iraq, 27 February 2010. (U.S. Army, Spec. Jessica Zullig)

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OR SERVING U.S. military officers in particular, the distinction between political understanding and political involvement is crucial to fulfillment of their professional obligations embodied in the oath. According to Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 1, The Army: Through this oath, soldiers affirm subordination to the Nation’s elected civilian leadership and abstain from public political involvement. Soldiers voluntarily give up freedoms fellow citizens take for granted and become subject to military discipline and regulations. Soldiers accept unlimited liability in the service of our Nation. This becomes the foundation of our profession.2 While accepting the necessity of U.S. Army soldiers’ abstention from “public political involvement,” or partisanship, this essay argues for more nuanced understanding of what it means to be political while serving in uniform and suggests that the current aversion to “politics,” broadly conceived, creates a paradox that threatens the effectiveness of the Army in the decades to come. We conflate “political” and “partisan” at our Nation’s peril. As ADP 1 notes: The land domain is the most complex of the domains, because it addresses humanity—its cultures, ethnicities, religions, and politics . . . Soldiers . . . accomplish missions face-to-face with people, in the midst of environmental, societal, religious, and political tumult. Winning battles and engagements is usually insufficient to produce lasting change in the conditions that spawned conflict.3
September-October 2013 ? MILITARY REVIEW

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