The Cost of Loyalty

December 15, 2019
A West Point professor deconstructs the many failures of America's most beloved institution: the armed forces. Bakken--the first civilian hired to teach law at West Point who was also a whistleblower and won a retaliation case against the U.S. military--delivers an angry polemic, arguing that America's military is commanded by men of limited intelligence but self-serving loyalty to their institution. This didn't matter before World War II, when peacetime forces were tiny and neglected. Since 1945, however, they have swollen massively, dominating civil society and operating free of constitutional restraints thanks to several Supreme Court decisions and fawning civilian leaders. Fervently admired--approval in polls never drops below 70%--the military has attained untouchable status from its commander in chief. Every president after Dwight Eisenhower has proclaimed unqualified esteem, and Congress, which last declared war in 1942, has surrendered its authority. Yet despite performing with spectacular incompetence in most wars since WWII, no general has been fired. Bakken places much blame on the service academies (West Point et al.), mediocre institutions awash in money whose draconian discipline and teaching methods date from their founding. Most instructors are junior officers with no specialty in their subject who rotate through for a few years, following a rigid syllabus from which they cannot deviate. Readers may pause in their fuming to recall that brilliant people rarely choose a career in the military--or law enforcement. Rather, members of the military join for the action and value courage and loyalty above all. They consider themselves a band of brothers, indispensable defenders of the nation, most of whose effete citizens lack their selfless dedication. Warriors have always believed this, which is a mostly harmless situation unless they are calling the shots, which the author states is happening--and they are making a mess of it. A provocative, disturbing argument that a democracy is in trouble when it venerates the military unconditionally.

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February 7, 2020

In this hard-hitting and timely delve into the culture of the American armed forces, Bakken (law, United States Military Academy at West Point) traces the miltary's long history of prioritizing "loyalty above all else" and its effect on military success, from the end of World War II through the 2019 trial of Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher. Bakken offers withering commentary on the indoctrination that begins in the academies and results in a perverse patriotism that pushes military leaders into an "us vs. them" mentality. This tendency, according to Bakken, combined with resistance to civilian oversight, has cost America countless lives and has resulted in the failure of every major military engagement since the end of the World War II. This is a dense, though often fascinating, read, likely to be viewed as either controversial or enlightening, depending on the audience. VERDICT For readers and scholars interested in civilian-military relations, military law, and military leadership. An excellent companion to Eliot Cohen's Supreme Command; the two stand together in defiance of Samuel P. Huntington's 1957 classic, The Soldier and the State.--Elan Marae Birkeland, Okinawa, Japan

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April 27, 2020
West Point law professor Bakken debuts with a blistering, top-to-bottom critique of America’s armed forces. Placing revelations about the ongoing epidemic of sexual assault within the military and scandals such as the cover-up of the friendly-fire death of former NFL player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan in 2004 in a broader context, Bakken revisits the conspiracy to conceal the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and documents misrepresentation of admissions rates, violent behavior, increased “dissociation from civilian society,” and prioritization of loyalty over truth at U.S. military academies. He also notes the irony that the American public’s increased deference to the armed services has coincided with “seventy-five years of losses” since WWII. Bakken’s insider perspective, litany of shocking examples, and evidence-based approach combine to paint a grim picture of failures by U.S. political and military leaders and their implications for the future. Though his suggestions for reform, including abolishing the Uniform Code of Military Justice and turning service academies into civilian universities, seem far-fetched, this essential and disturbing account illuminates the state of the problem.