The Need for Proper Military Dissent
Abstract
The future security environment is poised to become even more difficult for strategic leaders to navigate, exposing national security policy to an increasingly global and interconnected audience. Advancing technologies, further interconnecting international systems and increasing and faster media access will immediately display the civil-military discourse and its impact on the national security apparatus. The past ten years has highlighted strategic gaps in that discourse, leading to significant damage to individuals, organizations, and institutions. Strategic leaders, civilian and military alike, share responsibility to uphold the highest ideals in conducting future discourse, emphasizing ethical, and professional, decision making. there is likely no more difficult calling for a military professional than to dissent, especially when there are clear moral, legal, or ethical reasons to do so. It is when those reasons blur in a world increasingly turning grey where our future civil-military discourse demands strategic military leaders to fully understand dissent, and its implications, when speaking truth to power. The last decade shows that the military s robotic acquiescence to political masters is outdated and that there indeed is a place for dissent in today s environment, as long as it remains respectful and private
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 03, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA561494
Entities
People
- Brian W. Gibson
Organizations
- United States Army War College