• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Who Should Have Final Say On Military Matters?

Who Should Have Final Say On Military Matters?

  • The President-Civilian Control

    Votes: 23 54.8%

  • The Joint Chiefs-The Military Professionals

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • The President, but the military should decide battlefield tactics.

    Votes: 19 45.2%
  • Total voters
    42
Devil505 said:
I usually agree with you Redress but not on this point. As CinC, a President has the authority to decide any military tactic or minuscule point that he/she wants. If President Obama suddenly orders all our soldiers to start wearing their skivvies on the outside of their pants from now on, that order is legal, binding & enforceable by court martial if violated.
Now, if the question is Should a President micro-manage the military, I would generally say no, but he always has that authority & it does occasionally need to be exercised, imo.
Click to expand...

I covered all that already. You are technically right but practically wrong. "Can" and "will" or two different things.
 
Redress said:
I covered all that already. You are technically right but practically wrong. "Can" and "will" or two different things.
Click to expand...

OK..I apologize if I misunderstood you then. I would say Authorized to & Should would be the difference I would point to, but I think we are saying the same thing.

(what threw me off was when you said: " The only part a president will manage on a tactical level is rules of engagement" .....which is not true. As I pointed out, LBJ got into specifics much deeper than just targets during the Vietnam War. He would decide specific ordinance & tactics to be used in battle! way more than I think advisable for a civilian to decide.)
 
Last edited:
Devil505 said:
OK..I apologize if I misunderstood you then. I would say Authorized to & Should would be the difference I would point to, but I think we are saying the same thing.

(what threw me off was when you said: " The only part a president will manage on a tactical level is rules of engagement" .....which is not true. As I pointed out, LBJ got into specifics much deeper than just targets during the Vietnam War. He would decide specific ordinance & tactics to be used in battle! way more than I think advisable for a civilian to decide.)
Click to expand...

That would qualify under "rules of engagement" largely.
 
FlanaganReport said:
You have a say in electing the people who can.
Click to expand...

When was the last time an honest politician was elected to POTUS? Point being is that just because they are elected by us doesn't mean that they have to do what we say. Look at Bush's last term in office. He pretty much said "screw you I'm going to do what I want regardless of what you people say".
 
Kal'Stang said:
When was the last time an honest politician was elected to POTUS? Point being is that just because they are elected by us doesn't mean that they have to do what we say.
Click to expand...

Personally, I elect leaders to "lead" not to simply mindlessly represent. If we do not like the manner in which someone is conducting themselves we can vote them out of office.

Look at Bush's last term in office. He pretty much said "screw you I'm going to do what I want regardless of what you people say".
Click to expand...

And the showing of the Republican Party in the 2008 election was largely negative because of it. That is how the system works.
 
FlanaganReport said:
Personally, I elect leaders to "lead" not to simply mindlessly represent. If we do not like the manner in which someone is conducting themselves we can vote them out of office.
Click to expand...

That is their job. Their job is not to take the country in the direction that they think it should go but to take in the direction that The People want it to go. I think that many seem to forget that this country is For the People and Of the People. Not For the Politicians and Of the Politicians.

FlanaganReport said:
And the showing of the Republican Party in the 2008 election was largely negative because of it. That is how the system works.
Click to expand...

Yes the majority of Republicans was hurt because of Bush's actions. But he was still able to take those actions regardless of what the people wanted. And that is the point I'm trying to make. Once they are in office they can do what ever they please until they are elected out of office or break the law. Beyond your vote you have no say.
 
Kal'Stang said:
That is their job. Their job is not to take the country in the direction that they think it should go but to take in the direction that The People want it to go. I think that many seem to forget that this country is For the People and Of the People. Not For the Politicians and Of the Politicians.
Click to expand...

Their job is to lead, often that involves making hard choices.

If we do not like the job someone has done, vote them out of office, surely we cannot expect that an elected leader will represent our views 100% of the time, because we are not the only people in their constituencies.

Yes the majority of Republicans was hurt because of Bush's actions. But he was still able to take those actions regardless of what the people wanted. And that is the point I'm trying to make. Once they are in office they can do what ever they please until they are elected out of office or break the law. Beyond your vote you have no say.
Click to expand...

What more do you want other than your vote?
 
FlanaganReport said:
Their job is to lead, often that involves making hard choices.

If we do not like the job someone has done, vote them out of office, surely we cannot expect that an elected leader will represent our views 100% of the time, because we are not the only people in their constituencies.
Click to expand...

The only real leadership that they should be doing is in the foriegn and military tactics departments. When it comes to domestic matters they should be listening to the people who they will affect and elected them into office. IE The People.

FlanaganReport said:
What more do you want other than your vote?
Click to expand...

I want them to listen to The People and do what they want. Is that really too much to ask of them? If the majority of people do not want our troops in a war then the President should pull out the troops. If the majority of people want government controlled health care then that is what the President should aim for. If the majority of people want our troops in a country then that is what the President should do.

Of the People and For the People. That is the very foundation of what this country and government was founded on.
 
Kal'Stang said:
The only real leadership that they should be doing is in the foriegn and military tactics departments. When it comes to domestic matters they should be listening to the people who they will affect and elected them into office. IE The People.

I want them to listen to The People and do what they want. Is that really too much to ask of them? If the majority of people do not want our troops in a war then the President should pull out the troops. If the majority of people want government controlled health care then that is what the President should aim for. If the majority of people want our troops in a country then that is what the President should do.

Of the People and For the People. That is the very foundation of what this country and government was founded on.
Click to expand...

Why not just hold a referendum on every issue that comes up then?
 
FlanaganReport said:
Why not just hold a referendum on every issue that comes up then?
Click to expand...

I say do it. Of course it could be setup to be alot easier to find out what the people want than the expensive process of a referendum. Especially in today's age of the internet.
 
Kal'Stang said:
I say do it. Of course it could be setup to be alot easier to find out what the people want than the expensive process of a referendum. Especially in today's age of the internet.
Click to expand...

I would be totally opposed to that. Most of the issues that come up the public has no clue about.

Let us take missile defense for example, do we really want the general public voting on an issue that 90% of people could not even generally explain how it functioned?

It seems that we will just disagree on this issue.
 
I find this poll result fascinating so far. It's been almost perfectly evenly split throughout the day, with no ideological bias.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Can you tell anyone in the military what to do?
Click to expand...

Missed this b4. If you are asking if a President can do that, the answer is yes. The President is CinC & any lawful order he gives must be carried out or you can be court-martialed for disobedience.
 
KillerAngel said:
Actually, that's another good example of a bad General. Burnside was given superior alternatives by his subordinates (fording the river immediately and attacking the rebs before they achieved a strong defensive position), but he blundered and chose to wait several days for a pontoon bridge to be brought into place.
Click to expand...

Right, by his subordinates. Since you know that, you also know that those alternatives would have delayed the attack several days longer than it would have taken to build the pontoon bridge; and option that Burnside didn't have. He was under orders from Washington to attack, now.



But generally speaking you are correct on one count; the generals never wanted to attack Lee. It was the constant interference from Lincoln that finally allowed the army to rotate through enough commanders to find one willing to attack and win the war (Grant). Had he left it up to any of the first 4 or 5 commanders to prosecute the war, the north would have lost.
Click to expand...


Actually, Lincoln finally found a commander that was willing to pour as much cannon fodder into the fight, until the Confederates expended all their combat power. Grant had a population of 20 million to draw on, plus a seemingly endless supply of immigrants who signed their citizenship papers, right after they enlisted in the army; that seemingly endless supply of manpower was Grant's only real advantage.
 
Redress said:
The President sets goals, decides on overall missions, and decides on any rules of engagement needed for a particular mission, and that is as it should be. Congress is needed to declare war(though this is unused in modern times) and set funding(and denying funding would be political suicide), and this is as it should be. The military decided tactics and strategies within the above framework. All of this is appropriate.
Click to expand...

Tactical decisions, down to the ROE should be decided by the theater commander.
 
Obviously the Pres(who however on the civilian side.) should take the major decisions, you can't have the military in control of stuff like that, the rest should generally be left to the commanders but the Pres should be able to override them.
 
Last edited:
Wessexman said:
Obviously the Pres(who however on the civilian side.) should take the major decisions, you can't have the military in control of stuff like that, the rest should generally be left to the commanders but the Pres should be able to override them.
Click to expand...

Yeah, what business do military commanders with 30-odd years of experience have making military decisions. A general, with a couple different degress and untold hours of education in the military sciences couldn't possibly know more than a civilian president with a degree in basket weaving, when it comes to tactical and strategic matters. That would be totally nuts to do something like that and yes, I'm being sarcastic.
 
apdst said:
Yeah, what business do military commanders with 30-odd years of experience have making military decisions. A general, with a couple different degress and untold hours of education in the military sciences couldn't possibly know more than a civilian president with a degree in basket weaving, when it comes to tactical and strategic matters. That would be totally nuts to do something like that and yes, I'm being sarcastic.
Click to expand...

That is clearly what I said.:roll:

The question is about who should have final say. I think it must always be the civilian representatives. That doesn't mean I think they should often interfere in tactics and such.
 
Wessexman said:
That is clearly what I said.:roll:

The question is about who should have final say. I think it must always be the civilian representatives. That doesn't mean I think they should often interfere in tactics and such.
Click to expand...

I think it behooves the civilian reps to go along with what the theater commander says should be done.
 
The chain of command is about who has the authority to make the call, not who is actually the most competent. I can't really think of a scenario when the president should personally take command of a fire team and tell them where to direct suppressing fire, but if he does, they have an obligation to follow his orders. Overall, the planning is typically best left to the generals. Although there are times when presidents have overridden them to good use, such instances are the exception. What is more important, is that the military is subordinate to civilian rule. Having a leader of our forces be a terrible strategist is not nearly as bad as having our leader fighting for the wrong side.
 
rathi said:
I can't really think of a scenario when the president should personally take command of a fire team and tell them where to direct suppressing fire, but if he does, they have an obligation to follow his orders.
Click to expand...

Actually, they're not obligated to obey the president's orders, in that particular situation.
 
rathi said:
The chain of command is about who has the authority to make the call, not who is actually the most competent. I can't really think of a scenario when the president should personally take command of a fire team and tell them where to direct suppressing fire, but if he does, they have an obligation to follow his orders. Overall, the planning is typically best left to the generals. Although there are times when presidents have overridden them to good use, such instances are the exception. What is more important, is that the military is subordinate to civilian rule. Having a leader of our forces be a terrible strategist is not nearly as bad as having our leader fighting for the wrong side.
Click to expand...
This is completely correct. History tells us the military must be kept under a tight rein. This doesn't usually mean they shouldn't have tactical autonomy but to not allow the civilian side to overrule even this if it sees fit is giving the military too much absolute independence; almost always a negative.
 
apdst said:
Actually, they're not obligated to obey the president's orders, in that particular situation.
Click to expand...

How do you figure that? He is at the top of the chain of command.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom