Say there is a U.S. president who is totally uninterested in his or her Commander-in-Chief duties. Doesn’t give orders, doesn’t care about or want to be involved in anything military. Would the military still conduct exercises, defend against attack, run daily operations, do joint training with allies, function as usual, etc. 99% of the same with or without any orders from the president?
I think so. Presumably that President would have appointed a Secretary of Defense, who’d be charged with ensuring all that stuff you mention happens. And Congress would allocate money, and so on.
Realistically, the President can be as uninvolved as being the person who has final say over whether the military does something violent, or they can be much more involved.
Even without a Secretary of Defense, the rank and file of the military will be able to function as usual almost indefinitely. The government’s job isn’t to run the military - the military runs itself. The government’s job is to control the military.
A question - if it was Opposite Thursday, and the President reversed his/her/their apathy and uninterest, and became suddenly fascinated with some aspect of the military and pulled rank as Commander-In-Chief and decided they knew best and had some great ideas, could he/she/they, for example:
- rename their Abrams tanks to ‘Killmaster MAGA-3000’
- decide the Army’s camouflage is too subtle, and want to replace it with some designed by the President’s children (for a small royalty per camo shirt)
- name a naval garbage scow the USS Biden Crime Family?
Can an over-zealous C-in-C be dissuaded or ring-fenced from interfering by the military?
Thanks for the answers. Can the military and SecDef do things pretty autonomously in terms of new decisions without the President’s input or permission? For instance, if Belgium says, “Hey, we ought to do a big joint exercise with the USA, how do you think, America?” or if the SecDef feels most American troops in Germany should be stationed in Poland instead, does it need the POTUS?
For your OP and additional questions, there is a lot of continuity between Presidents. There will be lots of standing rules/treaties etc that tells the military what it can or cannot do.
We’d just have to think if your hypothetical would be a brand new or very different change in strategy. If so, the military would want the President/civilian direction.
So for exercises with Belgium, probably fine because probably NATO approved or something that’s been contemplated.
Moving tens of thousands of troops to permanently to Poland would be aggressive (toward Russia) and I’d think require POTUS approval.
Sure, I just meant that in very large scale strategic considerations, the politicians are the ones directing when/where the military is actually deployed. “War is a continuation of politics by other means” as the saying goes.
So yeah, the military could just chug right along doing their peacetime duties without interference from the President, but I’d think there would need to be standing orders of some sort to allow them to deploy, even in a defensive capacity.
I would think that depends on the President. Some are probably very hands off, while others are less so. I would think that joint exercises would fall under the category of stuff that’s already budgeted and planned for, and would fall under their normal operational planning.
Now if it’s some sort of “show the flag” sort of thing meant to convey a message to a foreign nation, then that would probably be at the President’s behest, as that’s the sort of thing that directly impacts foreign policy, and isn’t the sort of thing we want the Pentagon just doing willy-nilly.
The military wont just stand there and let its troops get killed. In the absence of a general strategy for winning a war, the military will do whatever it can to eliminate the threat, until told otherwise.
I would think it’s something of a gray area where the military would indeed deploy or at least position themselves effectively while desperately asking for direction/authorization from the politicians.
I suspect that in the event of an actual shooting war, the military might find it more prudent to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission, and would fight the war by itself without political input until someone tells it to stop.
Absolutely. But generally speaking, the go/no go decision is the politicians’, except in situations like Pearl Harbor, where they definitely fought back without any input from politicians.
Of course there were standing orders to fight back if attacked. And to be on the alert for an attack. At least they got one of those sorta right that day.
Keep in mind the government operates like any major corporation. There’s the CEO- the president. The Army etc. is directed by the Secretary of Defence. Each person in charge of a branch reports to him, and have their own staff. Etc.
When there’s a major decision to be made, then at a regular cabinet meeting the Secretary will update the president and cabinet the major initiatives happening. This might allow the Secretary of State to chime in about how moving masses of troops to Poland affects his department and what they deal with - obviously need to talk to the Polish government, yada yada. The finance guy might chime in about how it affects the budget. If there’s serious issues, the CEO is the decider and sorts out the main problem. (I.e. “give Little Marco a month to deal with the Poles…”) The secretary handles the details, and his lower staff handle logistics.
If there’s an emergency, can’t wait until the next cabinet meeting, then they will call the PoTUS at 3AM as usual to discuss it.
Each person on the totem pole has a level of authority to do and decide certain things, and an obligation to make sure his superior is not blind-sided by those decisions or other issues. Obviously moving a huge army is a top-level decision, and if the SecDef is going to decide it, he certainly would tell PoTUS and the rest of the cabinet. Whether PoTUS is awake and it sinks in is a separate issue, and the Secretary of State would certainly be involved to deal with the Polish government.
Theoretically(!) any big moves are discussed by the chiefs of staff and have input from underlings who are well versed it the implications of what they do, the logistics involved, how it would interact with neighbours, which resources go to where, how reliable the data about the action is, etc.