Just when you thought you didn’t have enough to worry about with this election.
The power of the purse, the power to hold hearings — that’s one of the ways civilian control is exerted over the military.
Greg Hadley writing at AIR & SPACE FORCES MAGAZINE has an article spelling out how this election has potential consequences beyond the concerns about Trump and “his” generals. The title is a bit deceptive, as all the service branches will be affected, but he’s looking at it from the Air Force and Space Forces angle.
The civilian leadership of the military will be up to which candidate wins the White House — but Congressional elections in the House and Senate will also be important.
The Commander in Chief — hires and fires among other things. There’s also those nuclear launch codes...
On the eve of Election Day, the U.S. Senate is projected to swing ever so narrowly to the Republican party, while the race for the presidency has Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in a virtual tie, and control of the House of Representatives remains anyone’s guess.
Regardless of who wins the White House, however, a host of changes are headed our way, many of which will impact the Air Force, Space Force, and the rest of the military family. Here are four of them.
Hadley looks at Civilian Leadership first: who gets to be Secretary of Defense and their civilian staff, and civilian leaders of the different military branches. This paragraph should set alarm bells ringing given the views of the man in question:
If Trump wins, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is seen by multiple media outlets as a leading contender for Defense Secretary. A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Cotton has been an advocate for Air Force programs, and recently suggested the Air Force should acquire more than the 100 B-21 bombers in its current plan.
Control of Congress is another issue. If the GOP takes the Senate, as seems likely, who ends up chairing committees will will have a lot do with setting spending priorities and pushing programs. It goes without saying there will be a nightmare for a President Harris trying to get any nominees approved in the guaranteed face of Republican obstruction. Changing control of the House to Democratic hands will also see a lot of potential upheavals depending on who ends up on critical committees there.
Races To Watch looks at several House and Senate races where candidates with sharply different views about what priorities the military should be pursuing are on the ballot. For example:
Another surprising race has Montana Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term Senate Democrat in a mostly Republican state, under duress. Tester, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee, has been a strong advocate for ICBM modernization, a key factor for a state that is home to Malmstrom Air Force Base. But the Sentinel ICBM program has been hit with cost and schedule overruns, and Tester has been hit with a surprisingly strong campaign from Republican Tim Sheehy, a political novice
The final category Hadley examines is Veterans in Congress — people with actual experience serving in the military. There are some incumbents, and some challengers. Depending on what branch of the service they were in, that could shape how those branches fare at their hands. Hadley expects the Air Force to pick up some support.
Read the whole thing. There’s info in there that usually gets overlooked in press coverage of defense issues.
With the tensions over the Israel and the Middle East, Russ-Ukraine-NATO, China-Taiwan, and so many other places, it’s important to remember that the military has a lot of moving parts and it’s not just about following the orders of the Commander in Chief. (Although that matters a lot.) It takes a lot of key personnel to carry out policy and exercise oversight.
Or to say no to a would-be tyrant.
Interesting times ahead.
