Coral Gables Watch

Don’t Appoint Another General (ret.) Sect of Defense

Having made good choices for national security adviser and secretary of state, it is a pity that the president-elect has made such a fundamental blunder. Congress should not enable him to make an appointment that would have more in common with the behavior of shaky democracies and authoritarian governments than the most powerful and long-established republic on the planet. It would be a bitter irony for an incoming administration to strike a different kind of blow at the democratic norms that it is so clearly, in other domains, keen to recover and restore.

This Is No Job for a General – The Atlantic

One of the norms that Trump violated was to appoint current and retired generals to key national security pots. “His Generals.” Biden should not make the same mistake because he knows the retired general as a friends and confident.

We need secure, competent civilian control over the military who are here to serve the country, not to direct policy.