The military is itself at a delicate juncture.

The military is largely seen as supporting policies that failed and became unpopular. The military was used as a partisan prop and a partisan cudgel.

Many perceive the military put Republican loyalties and Right Wing ideology ahead of national interests and loyalty to the U.S. Constitution.

Barack Obama shows signs of being the most popular Democrat since John Kennedy.

If the military does frustrate Obama's objectives there could be a backlash. Congress could ask for military officers to be prosecuted for war crimes, lying to Congress and violating prohibitions against domestic propaganda.

Or Congress could just ask for audits of the DOD Inspector General. There are plenty of officers who could be prosecuted for garden variety fraud, waste and abuse currently being protected by DOD.

It will be tempting for Congress to cut the military budget too. The military is at its lowest level of credibility in decades.

So, there are a bunch of selfish reasons why military leaders want to keep Obama, Democrats and progressives happy or at least not antagonize them.

I'm sure they're relieved to have someone smart and practical in the White House. But my guess is that his assertion of the principle of, and rationale for, presidential Commander-in-Chief authority during Petraeus's attempt to make him knuckle under last year has probably reverberated as well.

My impression is that Gates has done a good job asserting civilian control as well (for example in sacking the Air Force Chief of Staff and Secretary last year).

The military has problems. They seem unable to be accountable. Poor leadership, strategy, torture, tailored intelligence, low ranking service members convicted for actions sanctioned by officers and administration members.

Not a pretty picture. Hopefully these failings will not be whitewashed. I'm not optimistic.

The military is full of foolish ideologues. At the moment their asses are still smarting from the spanking they got in Iraq and Afghanistan. As soon as the pain recedes from that they will be back in full song. It will be much sooner then anyone thinks.

The RIF, reduction in forces, begun under Bush I and intensified by Rumsfeld, was part of a mindset that worked against long-held beliefs in its own authority by the military. There was a very large gap between the executive branch and military hierarchies, not a contribution to the conduct of war. All those contractor awards were hardly easy for the military to take.

The brass should be kissing Obama's ass, not the other way around.
A military that is chalk full of Bu$h yes men, that has failed to deliver a winning strategy on two fronts for 7 full years, and that is by far the most bloated and wasteful bureaucracy of all time, had better be on notice - there's a grown up in town.

I expect serious accountability. I expect resignations from failed Pentagon suits, and I expect some reality to be interjected into the budget.

The military is not to be worshiped; rather, they should be subservient to civilian authority.

During the campaign, Obama showed a lot of respect for his opponents, if not their policy positions. During the Senate hearing a year ago, even though he disagreed with him, Obama was both coureous and respectful of Petreaus. He even praised him on the campaign trail for his work in Iraq. He's the kind of guy you want to work for, and this will be a very historic presidency. Right now, I think the mood is that everyone wants to be part of the solution. Well, OK, not Republican politicians.

I think there is a key difference in military thinking today compared with the last two Democratic admins. The military today is less 'hawkish' in the sense that there is a growing view to think beyond a potential armed conflict to the inevitable lingering commitments.
I'm not for a minute suggesting the military has become a bunch of kumbaya singing peaceniks. Rather, they are more likely to see military action as a component of a broader foreign policy, than simply the enforcement of that policy.

The degree to which the military accepts the broader implications of their role in foreign policy, the closer they are to a progressive world view.

That's not to say there won't serious differences of opinion. But a healthy working relationship seems much more likely

The solution is simple: if they disobey, shoot them. They took an oath; if they are willing to break that oath and not obey their CiC, then they are supporting a coup, have committed treason, and deserve the appropriate punishment - death. Make the Secret Service earn their pay by using the brass as target practice. Pussyfooting around with these guys is stupid - they know the chain of command, they expect obedience from their subordinates, so why they get to mouth-off in public is beyond me (mouthing-off in private is another matter - but when the rubber hits the road, their duty is to shut up and obey). The reason they feel so empowered to do this crap is they suffer no consequences; a couple colonels and generals stood in front of a firing-line would work wonders for disicpline and respect for superiors. They are paid to implement the policy of the President, not to declare themselves a 5th co-equal branch of the goverment.

> The conventional wisdom seems to be that tension
> is unavoidable. Military leaders are, the
> theory goes, bound to be skeptical about a young
> president who didn't serve in the military, and
> who has articulated a withdrawal policy many in
> the Pentagon are skeptical of.
>
> But there are at least two key angles to
> consider here. First, during the ongoing
> transition, Obama seems to be reassuring
> military leaders about his plans, and signaling
> to the brass, through his personnel decisions,
> that "he will do nothing rash and will seek
> their advice, even while making clear that he
> may not always take it."

The unstated premise lurking Cheney-style in the bushes here is that the military officer corps (most notably the Army and Air Force office corps) decides whether or not to obey a President and by extension makes or breaks that President. In other words, that we live under a military junta with a potemkin facade of civilian government.

Cranky

Major corporations control military spending through bribes and "retirement" programs for the admirals, generals, and congressman. Unless this can be broken up we will continue to spend outrageous sums of money on the military and waste our nation's resources.

I'm not certain about shooting them, but Phalamir has the right idea. These people took an oath to support the Constitution and obey all legal orders. If they feel that an order is that detrimental to their service, let them resign. That's something I wasn't allowed as an enlistee.
The idea that the military should be in charge of developing any policy is a something that should be gotten rid of as quickly as possible. Input for proposed policies - fine; developing methods of executing policies, also fine. Anything else, forget it.

After seven years of disastrous policy where the miltary has been thrown from one failure to the next, overextended and underequipped, I would think it is about time for them to talk with people other than chickenhawks.

After Iraq everyone is less hawkish. The President, the think tanks, the pundits, don't you think.

This is a crucial juncture for the military. They must get used tothe idea of a president being a president first and "Commander-in-Chief" second...not the other way around. Rumsfeld and his supporters tried to make the president a permanent member of the joint chiefs and make America a military nation. Most military personnel would welcome civilians staying civilians, looking to the military for advice on carrying out it's policies rather than acting like they are the military ridding themselves of any military man who did not already agree with them.
Obama needs military insiders willing to trust and support his judgment and ensure his policies are carried out with enthusiasm.

BTW...Obama has as much military experience as either AWOL Bush or 7 deferment Cheney have.

It's amazing that when things become "normal" again they seem unusual if not rare because of how badly they were abused by the Bush administration. Finally there is hope that the military will no longer be used as a political arm of the republican party.