Very interesting post by UCLA Law professor Stephen Bainbridge on this - interesting perspective on “governance” for the military and the SecDef:
http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2006/04/bottom_up_monit.html#more
Bottom up Monitoring in the Defense Department: The Generals (Ret.) v. Rumsfeld
James Joyner summarizes the blogosphere arguments on the retired generals attacking Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ( Outspoken Retired Generals and Civilian Control, Redux ):
[i] Kevin Drum, reflecting on the recent spate of retired generals speaking out both both for and against Donald Rumsfeld’s being replaced as SECDEF, remarks ( http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_04/008636.php ), “Regardless of whether or not we agree with the generals’ criticism, I think it?s wise to be uneasy about something that has a bit of a sense of a palace revolt against the current civilian leadership of the military.”
Steven Taylor thinks this concern odd, arguing that ( http://www.poliblogger.com/?p=9774 ) "employing the 'civilian control of the military' card in this context is a non sequitur, because the generals in question are retired, and therefore are civilians and are exercising their rights as such to critique the sitting government." In follow-up posts, he notes that guys like Wesley Clark have spoken out without similar criticisms ( http://www.poliblogger.com/?p=9778 ) and, citing an Explainer piece noting that there are "about 4700 retired generals, ( http://www.slate.com/id/2139847/?nav=fix )" the pronouncements of a few of them will hardly undermine civilian control ( http://www.poliblogger.com/?p=9780 ).
While I am sympathetic to the "civilian control" argument and would like to see retired generals (and, indeed, public officials period) be silent, I ultimately agree with Taylor on this one. As I've noted before, we?ve had much more aggregious cases at even more inauspicious times without undermining the Republic ( http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2006/04/retired_generals_call_for_rumsfeld_resignation/ ). [/i]
I want to come at the problem from a slightly different direction; namely, by treating the question as one for institutional economics.
With authority comes accountability. Put another way, as between the American people and government officials there is a principal-agent problem. The officials must be monitored to ensure that their conduct redounds to the general welfare. It is not just a problem of preventing shirking, but also ensuring that the decision maker is exercising sound judgment. Indeed, given that high officials in any organization tend to have a high degree of self-motivation when it comes to the work-leisure choice, it is ensuring good judgment that is the real monitoring problem.
Civilian control of the military thus inevitably creates a corresponding need to ensure that such control is exercised responsibility.
In any organization, there are a variety of internal and external monitoring mechanisms. In a corporation, for example, the CEO is monitored internally by the board of directors. In addition to which, the CEO is also monitored by shareholders and market forces.
In contrast, a high government official like Rumsfeld is largely immune to market forces. The people can’t vote him out and there is no equivalent of the the product and capital markets that punish misbehaving CEOs. Internal monitoring is thus the order of the day.
Some scholars argue that a CEO is monitored not only from above by the board of directors, but also from below by the other members of the top management team. Eugene Fama contends, for example, that lower level managers monitor more senior managers. Eugene Fama, Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm, 88 J. Pol. Econ. 288, 293 (1980).
By analogy, perhaps Rumsfeld is monitored both by the President and by his top subordinates, including the military brass. Indeed, such an understanding of the military’s role may be implicit in the defense of Rumsfeld offered in today’s W$J by four retired generals ( In Defense of Donald Rumsfeld - WSJ ):
The notion that Secretary Rumsfeld doesn’t meet with, or ignores the advice of, senior military leaders is not founded in fact. During his tenure, senior military leaders have been involved to an unprecedented degree in every decision-making process. In addition to the Senior Level Review Group, Defense Senior Leadership Conference, and Quadrennial Defense Review, in 2005 Secretary Rumsfeld also participated in meetings involving service chiefs 110 times and combatant commanders 163 times. Gen. Myers correctly describes these meetings as “very collaborative” with a free flow of information and discussion. Gen. Tommy Franks, U.S. Central Command Commander during the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq, echoes Gen. Myers’s comments and supports Secretary Rumsfeld as collaborative in the decision-making process.
In adddition, the law requiring the Joint Chiefs to give Congress the benefit of their independent judgment expressly incorporates a bottom up monitoring compnent.
In theory, an executive’s subordinates often are better placed than anyone to evaluate the executive. In any organization, employees who advance to senior management levels necessarily invest considerable time and effort in learning how to do their job more effectively. Such an employee is likely to make better decisions for the firm than an outsider, even assuming equal levels of information relating to the decision at hand. The insider can put the decision in a broader context, seeing the relationships and connections it has to the firm as whole. In addition, insiders have better access to information. Insiders have lots of informal contacts, which promotes team formation, and better access to information.
Yet, I am skeptical that bottom up monitoring by subordinates works very well in the Pentagon. In the first place, such monitoring doesn’t work very well anywhere. I explained the problem in my article Why a Board? Group Decisionmaking in Corporate Governance ( Why a Board? Group Decisionmaking in Corporate Governance by Stephen M. Bainbridge :: SSRN ):
[i] Such up-stream monitoring … does not take full advantage of specialization. Fama and Jensen elsewhere point out that one response to agency costs is to separate “decision management”?initiating and implementing decisions?from “decision control”?ratifying and monitoring decisions. Such separation is a defining characteristic of the central office typical of M-form corporations. The M-form corporation replaces the simple pyramidal hierarchy with a more complex structure in which the central office has certain tasks and the operating units have others, which allows for more effective monitoring through specialization, sharper definition of purpose, and savings in informational costs. In particular, the central office?s key decision makers?the board of directors and top management?specialize in decision control. Because low and mid-level managers specialize in decision management, expecting them to monitor more senior managers thus calls on the former to perform a task for which they are poorly suited.
A different critique of Fama's hypothesis is suggested by evidence with respect to meeting behavior from research on group decision making. In mixed status groups, higher status persons talk more than lower status members. Managers, for example, talk more than subordinates in business meetings. Such disparities result in higher status group members being more inclined to propound initiatives and having greater influence over the group?s ultimate decision. [/i]
As applied to a military culture, bottom up monitoring seems especially unworkable. It does not impugn the patriotism or courage of members of the military to point out that the military as an institution tends to be plagued with careerism and politics. Former Colonel David Hackworth carved out a post-service career criticizing the military brass for just such failings, as illustrate by this 2000 op-ed ( http://www.hackworth.com/24apr00.html ). Milblogger John Holdaway ascribed the Abu Ghraib scandal to “a weakness in leadership driven by careerism.” ( http://www.intel-dump.com/archives/archive_2005_09_25-2005_10_01.shtml ) Ambitious generals at the end of their career, facing imminent mandatory retirement, seem especially unlikely to buck those who control their prospects for advancement.
In contrast, recently retired generals provide a source of external monitoring that has many of the advantages of insider oversight. They have access to information about the SecDef that is nearly as good as their active duty counterparts, without the political and carrier constraints. To be sure, one must take it all with a grain of salt, because the retirees may well have their own political axes to grind (or career scores to settle).
Yet, in thinking about the problem as one of monitoring within organizations, critiques by recent retirees strikes me as a useful combination of external and internal review. We get the informational advantages of insiders coupled with the freedom to criticize of external forces. It isn’t perfect, but in a system in which civilian control must be held accountable, this strikes me as a legitimate form of accountability.