Former Pentagon officials voiced concern that civilian political intervention in the military may intensify and issued a warning on Tuesday that the US political system’s severe rifts are placing unwelcome pressure on the armed services.
After several years — particularly under former president Donald Trump — in which the Pentagon became entangled in political machinations, eight previous defence secretaries and five ex-joint chiefs chairmen issued a statement on 16 “Best Practices of Civil-Military Relations.”
They wrote, “We are in an unusually difficult civil-military climate.”From a political standpoint, military personnel work in a very unfavourable atmosphere marked by the polarisation of emotions, which culminated in the first election to interrupt the peaceful transition of power in more than a century.
