Afghanistan and the Managerial Elite

Regardless of what the Constitution says about “high crimes and misdemeanors” and what the “experts” might say that means, Congress can impeach a president for anything. Indeed, they just impeached the last guy because they didn’t like him, (or maybe it was because he had insulted Nancy one too many times). And Trump’s second impeachment trial ran from February 9-13, after he had left office. So Congress can impeach a ham sandwich.

If Congress will not impeach and remove the president, and the president’s cabinet will not invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president, is America doomed to being led by a dangerous incompetent for the next three-plus years?

Note that impeachment and the 25th Amendment are legal remedies. Since so many are doing it, including the president, what about going around the law? Indeed, extra-legal action should have been used to postpone the evacuation until winter, when the Taliban go home to Pakistan. If Biden had insisted on a summer pullout, Defense Secretary Austin and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Milley should have informed Biden that he can’t have that.

What I’m referring to here is disobedience by those who are one step down from the very top of the “chain of command.” When the top of the chain of command is issuing stupid orders, if the military brass bows to the chain of command, then they’re responsible for whatever ensues. They can’t just say they were following orders. The diminished status of America around the world from the disastrous withdrawal is not only on Biden; it’s also on Austin and Milley.

A deeper exploration of the subject would point out that the concept of a "managerial elite" owes much to James Burnham, a long time fixture at National Review in the founding era. Burnham, a well-educated man of ideas and a reformed Trotskyite, pointed out in 1941 in his influential book The Managerial Revolution that capitalism and socialism alike were beginning to be run by managerial experts. Burnham saw this as changing the nature of capitalism and socialism by making them less accountable to their larger ideas and principles.

Despite the attention justly given to the great battles of World War II, the Allied victory depended mostly on the massive industrial and technical mobilization led by the United States. To an extraordinary degree, the Pentagon of WW II and the ensuing Cold War and afterwards became the center of a system more of military production than of war fighting, or more precisely, a system in which war and the development of peacetime national military superiority relied on generals becoming collaborators and even part of the managerial elite running the capitalist economy.

As Burnham pointed out, the problem posed by the managerial revolution is in keeping the managerial elite loyal to the larger ideas and principles of the system they are supposed to serve. Several generations of generals that are more of the managerial elite than traditional warfighters have given us wars defined by the lack of clear victory or even a well-defined strategy.

Biden's Afghan debacle reveals the failure of the managerial elite that dominates the American general officer class to competently serve the country and soldiers they profess to be loyal to. Such men will willing sacrifice the lives of their men and the interests of their country rather than endanger their careers, status, and pensions. I suggest that the problem of our military leadership is worse than incompetence and extends to a shirking of their duty to think and speak speak clearly for the sakle of the country.

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