Congress should pass the waiver that would allow retired Gen. James Mattis to be confirmed as secretary of defense in the Trump administration.
To be sure, it is preferable for the secretary of defense to be more “civilian” than a recently retired four-star general or admiral would be. The secretary of defense and the president constitute the National Command Authority. In healthy democracies, the command authority is civilian, literally embodying the principle of civilian control of the military. That principle is reinscribed by the daily rituals of the uniformed military saluting and obeying civilian superiors — a visible and daily reminder of what civil-military relations in a healthy democracy look like.
Of course, Gen. Mattis took off the uniform when he retired and so became, in a certain way, a civilian. But when you retire as a four-star general or flag officer, you never become fully civilian. You retain many of the courtesies and some of the influence of active military officers. You represent the military profession in the eyes of the public in a way that much more junior veterans do not. You even tend to retain your title as “general” or “admiral.”
So Gen. Mattis is a civilian, but maybe not as civilian as some of the other people President-elect Donald Trump was considering for secretary of defense.
However, in exceptional circumstances, with an exceptional candidate, it makes sense to make an exception. This is one of them.
Gen. Mattis understands civil-military relations and is sensitive to the requirements of civilian control in a way that many of his military peers are not. Given the array of experience in the White House and the array of threats in the rest of the world, having a very strong secretary of defense who has the ear and trust of the president is especially important. Gen. Mattis can be that person.
There is no guarantee that a good general or admiral will be effective in a civilian post. President Barack Obama started his administration with three recent four-stars in top positions. All of his retired four-star appointees ended their tenure in their civilian posts more abruptly than they might have wished. We cannot rule out the possibility that that will happen to Mr. Trump’s picks.
It also is possible to have too many senior retired four-star officers sitting in civilian posts. Right now, Mr. Trump has only formally tapped two, but if all retired general and flag officers currently in the rumor mill land the top-most post their names are matched with, then the senior team would indeed take on a distinctive caste, one where hard questions should be asked and answered.
Yet I am betting that Gen. Mattis will turn out to be a good choice for secretary of defense. Even though I am professionally oriented to care about civil-military relations more than most observers, I am pretty bullish on this appointment.
Peter D. Feaver, a professor of political science and public policy at Duke University, served on the National Security Council staff of the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. He wrote this for The New York Times.
First Published: December 26, 2016, 5:00 a.m.