Military Review English Edition September-October 2013 | Page 83

TRUST

replaced five senior commanders in Afghanistan during his first term.35 Accommodation of various audiences and stakeholder perspectives is a challenging task for senior leaders offering testimony at public hearings or conveying messages to support executive branch policy decisions. They need to guard against perceptions of deception in these highly politicized contexts. Public communications appearing to lack candor or driven by political correctness could be perceived as deceptive. As empowered professionals, senior officers are expected to balance the obligations of loyalty to civilian authority with the candor and personal courage expected by members within the Department of Defense and with the American public. Army senior leaders’ ability to communicate complex messages to multiple diverse audiences in these contexts has met with mixed success. The virtues of loyalty and candor must be closely guarded and balanced in highly politicized settings, where statements can unintentionally lead to perceptions of deception.36 The service chiefs engagements in budget and posture hearings for fiscal year 2014 indicate whether senior military leaders are up to the challenge of navigating the potential mixed-message minefield of these budget battles. Public statements by retirees and veterans present an integrity-based vulnerability to the Army’s hold on public trust, especially if those statements appear to be motivated by political or ideological agendas.37 The retiree or veteran might be an Army critic or advocate. In either case, the retiree or veteran is perceived as a credible intermediary informing the public about the Army. As civilians with intimate knowledge of the military, these retirees and veterans are entitled to their opinion and their right of free speech; but the perceived politicizing violates the Army’s tacit professional code of ethical conduct. As advocates or critics, retirees and veterans who politicize Army equity issues present a unique and largely uncontrollable vulnerability to the Army’s public trust.38 The Army profession can suffer at the hands of soldiers transitioning back into society as well. Soldiers re-entering American society risk integrity violations if they are perceived as flagrantly displaying an attitude of entitlement.39 In addition, public criticism of the nation’s civilian
MILITARY REVIEW ? September-October 2013

leadership by retired generals, dubbed ”the revolt of the Generals” by the media, was a high visibility example of a violation that crossed the line.40 Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dempsey clearly stated his concern, “If someone uses the uniform, whatever uniform, for partisan politics, I am disappointed because I think it does erode that bond of trust we have with the American people.”41 Internal fractious bickering is another threat to integrity-based public trust. During periods of reduced conflict, the American public may perceive the Army as an opportunistic component of a selfserving civil-military industrial complex, behaving more as a political interest group than a military profession. This perception can be reinforced when the services or Army components disagree regarding budget reduction or resource prioritization choices in the public arena. The last round of infighting between Army components over reduced defense spending occurred in the mid-1990s.42 Perhaps a harbinger of things to come, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, commenting on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, stated that “entrenched bureaucratic interests still resist what most Americans now accept as an accomplished fact. The Joint Chiefs fought our efforts to bring the chief of the Guard Bureau into the ‘Tank’ not because they misunderstand the value the Guard and Reserve, but precisely because they fear that value proposition may threaten the size and budget of their active components in the years to come.”43 To the public, who seldom have a direct role in resolving these disagreements, this bickering may

In a democratic system, however, civilian decision authorities are informed by robust public debate; silence is not always a viable option.
appear to be self-interested opportunism. Interservice and component infighting is unseemly of a profession. Internal squabbles appear to violate the leadership principles of stewardship and the Army value of sacrifice in the national interest. Not engaging in the public quarrels is the best
81