James Stavridis
I met Mark Milley, the now-embattled chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, almost 20 years ago in the Pentagon, and I met him because I had a problem. My job was senior military assistant to the secretary of defense, Don Rumsfeld, and every week we had to brief him on the “orders book.” This was a breakdown of the pending deployments that would send military units into combat – often complex and controversial decisions that only the secretary could make.
My problem was that Rumsfeld, a notoriously hard principal, was chewing through briefers. It needed to be a senior colonel or Navy captain with gravitas and battlefield experience, but more importantly someone who could gain the confidence of Rummy. The latter was the hard part, because the secretary was skeptical and a shrewd judge of character. He had fired a half-dozen briefers, a couple of them on the spot.
I went to my counterpart on the Joint Staff, which provided the briefers, and described what I needed: someone with strength to stand up to pressure, deep knowledge of both Iraq and Afghanistan, and inner character and self-confidence. Cue up Colonel Mark Milley, a Princeton graduate (like Rumsfeld), who has the gruff exterior and burly build of a New Jersey road-bar bouncer. Milley took a direct, confident and pragmatic tone. He was also a master of the most minute details in each operation, and added a sense of humor at appropriate moments. My problem was solved.
Some years later, Milley commanded troops as a general in Afghanistan, where his reputation and performance were further tested, and it was apparent he would go the distance into 4-star ranks. He has certainly needed every ounce of his character over the past two years as chairman, and the current firestorm over his calls to Chinese counterparts, as reported in a new book, will test it even more.
From my perspective, without benefit of seeing a transcript of any calls, it appears that Milley was conducting nothing beyond “Chairman 101” — simply doing his job. Senior U.S. military around the world frequently pick up the phone and call friends and foes to keep channels of communication open, provide perspective about specific incidents and reassure other nations of our intentions so miscalculations do not occur.
When I was the military commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I would occasionally call or hold meetings with my opposite number in the Russian military, General Nikolai Makarov. Among many other topics, we discussed incidents at sea between our respective warships, counterpiracy operations in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, the situation in Ukraine and the state of affairs in Afghanistan. On all of those calls, my senior staff were present. But there was no requirement to have members of the National Security Council or Pentagon senior civilians involved — something Milley is now being criticized for. It was an appropriate, sensible and de-escalatory military-to-military conversation.
It is worth noting that there must be a transcript, recording or certainly detailed notes with quotations of any calls between Milley and Chinese leaders, and other people would have been on the line. A thorough examination of that information, under the boundaries of classification, by civilian leadership in the White House and Congress is warranted, simply to allay any concerns. I have no doubt that Milley was operating squarely within the boundaries of his appointed rule set.
Given all the domestic turbulence in Washington throughout late 2020 and into the shameful events at the Capitol on Jan. 6, it was obvious that both our allies and opponents would be questioning the state of U.S. democracy. Especially to those in an authoritarian nation like China, it would have appeared so unusual that they might have expected a highly out-of-the-ordinary set of actions. Couple that with the revolving door among senior leadership in the Pentagon (an acting secretary of defense, who retired as a colonel), and it is clear that the propensity for a miscalculation or dangerous misunderstanding was high.
From all I can see (recognizing there are zero “on the record” statements about these calls so far), Milley did what we would want him to do – picked up the phone, called appropriate counterparts around the world, including the head of the People’s Liberation Army – and reassured them about the situation in Washington. What is extraordinary about that moment was not Milley’s actions; but rather the whirl of dangerous and divisive domestic politics that might have made outside observers believe we were headed into a period of destabilization and lack of coherent command and control. Mark Milley did the right thing in that moment, and we should be glad that he did.
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