The United States’ ferocious use of force against Iran has failed to secure American objectives because of a profound disconnect between our political and military leadership. As the conflict drags on, it’s becoming clearer than ever that America’s problem does not lie in its military power or operational skill, but in a military culture that increasingly intervenes in and seeks to set policy. Against Iran, and in the Middle East more broadly, this imbalance is recoverable. But the U.S. faces a long-term, more dangerous threat from China in the Indo-Pacific region that requires a properly balanced — and therefore unequal — civil–military relationship.
The harsh reality is that America’s military culture may lose us our next war. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth can begin to fix this problem by ensuring that the president, when faced with crucial and time-sensitive military decisions, has access to multiple points of professional military view.
Military operations are enormously complex. They are defined by what the German philosopher of war Carl von Clausewitz termed friction — the tendency of even simple actions to contain compounding difficulties that slow an overall system disproportionately — and the fog of war, which is the fundamental uncertainty surrounding the plans, force distribution, and capabilities of the adversary, and of one’s own forces. There is, in turn, seldom one “optimal” solution to a battlefield problem. War is the domain of chance, and thereby of choice. Commanders’ decisions, from a platoon holding a ridgeline to a commanding general in his headquarters, are fundamental to combat outcomes.
Military officers are tasked with mastering the profession of arms. But those officers who interact with policymakers have a unique responsibility. They are responsible for developing and presenting multiple courses of action in an objective manner, indicating the opportunities and risks associated with each option, and providing a well-reasoned professional judgment as to which course of action is the most viable. Crucially, they must be prepared to execute any course of action on which the civilian policymaker decides.
The universal uncertainty of war necessitates hearing out multiple points of view when taking any major military decision. Until the 19th century, commanders usually relied on war councils for major decisions and the advice of a few trusted confidantes day to day. In the modern era of global warfare, a hybrid administrative-analytical-operational body — the permanent staff — was created to clearly assess and decide on courses of action. Modern staffs have different specialties, ranging from plans to intelligence to manpower. They are designed to aggregate knowledge and generate synthetic products for their commanders to make informed decisions under pressure.
Major policy decisions on a war’s direction, however, are the most fundamental decisions that can be made. It would be grossly imprudent to have just one point of professional advice with access to key decision-makers, namely the president and secretary of defense. Yet this is precisely how the United States national security system currently operates. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, is the only official source of military advice to President Trump and Secretary Hegseth. This is a tremendous responsibility — one that is impossible to execute practically. Such a system also creates the risk of political overextension, in which the chairman provides policy guidance — the domain of the civilian — dressed up as military advice.
It is irresponsible to compel one individual to serve as the executive’s only source of professional military advice, particularly in a strategically consequential war such as the U.S. campaign against Iran. It is especially irresponsible because the United States military has a pattern of deciding to fight the wars it wants, rather than accepting strategic reality.
It is a commonplace to assert that the United States has never lost a war, at least not on the battlefield. Political leaders may have retreated, the narrative goes, particularly in Vietnam. But the military remains undefeated, with the potential exception of the grubby stalemate with the British from 1812 to 1815. Under this view, the problem is politicians who either meddle too much in war planning or contrive missions the military cannot achieve. Put another way, either American leaders refuse to leave war to the professionals, or they succumb to “hammer–nail syndrome” and assume that military force can solve apparently political or diplomatic problems.
This neat point construed to protect professional military pride elides the fundamental reality of military strategy.
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Seth Cropsey is the founder and president of Yorktown Institute.
