General Milley Crosses the Rubicon

On the 10th of January, 49 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River with the army he had led to victory in Gaul. Facing a campaign of politically motivated prosecution in the Roman Senate, Caesar’s choices were bad and worse.

He could submit to trial, and be banished, stripped of titles and property. Or, he could fight. History records, of course, that he did the latter.

In the Roman Republic, the Rubicon River was the border between Italia and the provinces. To cross it with a standing army was illegal unless authorized by the Senate for the defense of Rome. The last man who had violated that proscription, Sulla, was reviled as a monster.

Nevertheless, Caesar felt he had no choice. His army was battle-hardened and fiercely loyal, and he would’ve been foolish to divest himself of this powerful asset. So, he crossed the Rubicon (hence the expression) and the Roman Civil War began.

Recently, another besieged General who may have felt he had no choice but to break the rules crossed the Rubicon. That’s US Army General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

If you believe Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, authors of the new book Peril, Milley undertook two phone calls to his Chinese counterpart, General Li Zuocheng. Apparently, the first call was authorized by Defense Secretary Mark Esper in October, to reassure the jittery and COVID-gripped Chinese that President Trump was not planning to attack them.

So far, so good. His communication with Li in October was authorized by a responsible civilian authority, and apparently had good intentions. Nobody wants a war caused by a misunderstanding.

It is in January, however, that Milley may have crossed the Rubicon. Or jumped the shark, depending on how fresh you like your metaphors. According to Woodward and Costa, Milley committed two acts which undermined the subordination of the military to civilian authority, the responsibility of commanders to the welfare of their troops, and the chain of command.

In the aftermath of the Capitol Riot, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reported to have called Milley, claiming Trump was “crazy,” and asking what precautions Milley had taken to prevent Trump from launching nuclear weapons. Milley is reported to have told Pelosi, “I agree with you on everything,” and later that day called an unprecedented meeting of command staff at the Pentagon.

In the meeting, Milley reportedly ordered his subordinates to review any orders from the President which might lead to war with him before executing them. In this, he was aping actions by Defense Secretary James Schlesinger in 1974, who had told military officers to do the same thing, concerned as he was with soon-to-be-impeached President Nixon’s mental health and heavy drinking.

It is important to note here that Milley is a military officer. Schlesinger was a member of the Executive Branch of the civilian government. That’s an important distinction. There is no suggestion from Woodward or Costa that the civilian authorities in the Pentagon were made aware of Milley’s orders.

Milley also made another re-assurance call to General Li. But he apparently promised to warn Li if the US attacked.

Whoa. There are so many things wrong with this, I’ll need to list them in point form.

One: military authority is subordinate to that of the elected civilian government. I.e. the President.

Milley appeared in January to either be taking orders from Nancy Pelosi, or his own conscience. Neither Nancy Pelosi nor Mark Milley is the lawful Commander-in-Chief. Period. There’s a word for violating this rule. That word is “coup.” How ironic that, after so much fretting about Trump using the military to regain or retain power, that the opposition should be the ones who are guilty of this. But, given the lack of denials from Milley, and the justifications and excuses coming from the Democrats, it’s all true.

Two: what justified such extraordinary measures?

There is apparently no suggestion from Woodward and Costa that Trump ever did or said anything that would imply an intention to attack China or use nuclear weapons for anything other than defense. If he did, you’d think Milley and the Biden Administration would be trotting that out right about now, given that the good general is being accused of treason. Milley and Pelosi appear to have constructed their own “what if” scenario to justify an unprecedented series of actions.

There can be no doubt that Trump’s reckless actions and comments following the November 2020 election contributed to the unease that Milley no doubt felt; but you need more than unease to do what he did. He had no proof that Trump was crazy. Nancy Pelosi is not a psychiatrist. And if Milley is so concerned with Presidential judgement and fitness, I wonder what he’s doing about Joe Biden right now?

Three: reassuring China that the US won’t attack is one thing. Telling them you’ll give them a heads-up is treason.

Was Milley sincere when he assured Li that he’d be warned of any US attack? If so, that would have been a treasonous act. If not, it’s amateur diplomacy and bad bluffing. One reason the State Department is supposed to do diplomacy, not grunts like Milley.

But the real problem with promising a heads-up is this: Let’s suppose Trump actually did launch a strike. Who’s going to carry it out? Milley’s subordinates in the armed forces, who will die by the trainload if China is advised ahead of time. Plus, a warning from Milley could give China the pretext to pre-empt the US attack, which could result in millions of deaths.

Or, it might halt the US attack without a shot being fired. But, as gambles go, they don’t get bigger than this one. And, it’s a betrayal of the people he’s supposed to be looking out for. It’s one thing for Milley to put himself in harm’s way to stop Trump from starting a war. But to make a phone call from his comfy office that slaughters his own subordinates? That’s just sleazy.

Four: Milley might have inadvertently started the very war he wanted to prevent.

Talking war with China’s top general on the basis of a flimsy theory about Trump’s intentions, egged on by a partisan source like Pelosi is a very risky maneuver. The very mention of the “what-if” scenario could’ve planted the idea of an attack, or made that idea seem so much more credible. Intelligence reports from spies and chatter from the background are one thing; a phone call about contingencies from America’s top general is a much more substantial indicator that a threat exists. Otherwise, why would Milley be calling?

Now imagine you are General Li. Would you be tempted to increase your readiness? Of course you would. Might you target some missiles? Sure. Would you, in light of the conversation, be prepared to view any ambiguous indicators as evidence of potential war?

And would you necessarily trust Milley to tell you the whole story? Remember, these are men from two very different cultural and ideological backgrounds. Milley may have felt there was some sort of soldierly bonhomie there, but personally I think he was being dangerously naïve. Li could well have suspected the reassurances of a warning from Milley were actually a ruse, designed to prevent a proper Chinese defensive posture. I’m not sure Milley saying “trust me” actually impressed General Li very much.

But the call may have made him think about one thing: pre-emption. It wouldn’t be the first time a nation had launched an attack to forestall their opponent. Think of the Six-Day War. Perhaps people like Milley don’t consider this a serious threat, given America’s still sizable nuclear arsenal. But is this arsenal secure from cyberattack? How about the power grid? The water supply? China is not yet militarily superior to the US. But she is no weakling either.

It is a well-established fact of nuclear strategy that America’s land-based deterrent forces are terribly vulnerable to a flat-trajectory strike by submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). China only has six Jin-class missile boats carrying 12 JL-2 SLBMs. That’s not enough to keep them on station permanently in a position to carry out such an attack. But a warning like Milley’s could’ve changed that, allowing the PLA Navy to get its boomers on station en masse. Given that each JL-2 can carry 3-8 nuclear warheads which could arrive on their targets in under five minutes, China could effectively adopt the role of David to America’s Goliath. Perhaps they’d put up a statue of Milley in Beijing.

Five: Milley’s actions were unconstitutional and set a terrible precedent for the future of bipartisan governorship.

Milley is said to have justified his actions out of fear that he couldn’t “control” Trump. Let’s all imagine for a moment how the media and the Democrats would respond to a general who fretted about his inability to control a Democratic President, shall we? Would there be the general collective yawn we are hearing now?

The military is not allowed to “control” the civilian leadership. That’s what happens in a coup. If the concern, justifiably enough was Trump’s erratic nature and wild statements, then protocols and safeguards already exist for military officers like Milley to refuse an illegal order legally. An order to launch an unprovoked attack on China is an illegal order. Trump wanted to use the military to quell rioting following the death of George Floyd. Milley didn’t have any problems sidestepping that, did he? It wouldn’t have been out of line for Milley to remind his subordinates of their responsibilities under the laws of war, regardless of what happens. But to insert himself between the Commander-and-Chief and the national retaliatory capability is completely unlawful. Especially when it appears that this was done at the prompting of one of the President’s political enemies.

Milley was reportedly using Nazi metaphors and catastrophist language to describe Trump and his supporters. While it was not inappropriate of him to be alarmed by the actions of the President and his supporters, it does seem that he got a bit carried away. To use another Roman metaphor, perhaps he saw himself as Cincinnatus on the bridge, standing between the fall of the nation and its salvation. To think that world peace was risked for one man’s ego trip is a sobering thought.

I’ve been worried about Mark Milley for a while now. I think he’s demonstrably crossed the line, like Julius Caesar, from soldier to politician. That’s been done many times in American history, starting with Washington. But there’s one step Milley missed in his transition to politics. He forgot to resign his commission first.

When he stood in front of the cameras at the Pentagon and called the drone strike that killed an Afghan working for the US government and his children “righteous,” that told me a lot about what kind of man he is. Mistakes happen in war. But you’re supposed to admit them, and apologize for them, not cover them in bullshit and crow about what a great job you did.

He wears a proud uniform, with lots of decorations and qualifications I doubt I could ever earn. Maybe he was a good soldier once. But now, he’s a politician, and not a very good one at that.

I hesitate to call Mark Milley a traitor. But I have no problem calling him a fool. And a dangerous one at that.