In Conversation: General Mark Milley MIA ’92

On July 25, General Mark Milley MIA ’92 was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the 20th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The appointment is the culmination of years of experience in deployments around the world—in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Egypt, Haiti, Iraq, Panama, and Somalia—and in military leadership, most recently as the U.S. Army’s 39th chief of staff. Milley’s heroism in battle and deep knowledge of military history led President Donald Trump to pick the Massachusetts native and graduate of Princeton University, Columbia SIPA, and the U.S. Naval War College as his top military adviser and leader of the nation’s more than 2.1 million soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen.

Just weeks before he assumed his new role as the military’s highest-ranking officer, Milley spoke by phone with SIPA dean Merit E. Janow about a wide range of topics, from the history of battlefield technology and the seismic shifts in global power to the role of the Joint Chiefs in U.S. democracy and the military’s rich history of leadership training. The interview, which was conducted on September 3, 2019, has been edited for length and clarity.

The military has a unique role in creating leaders. We are trying to create leaders at SIPA as well. How do you think about leadership?

First, I would give great kudos to the U.S. military for being essentially a leadership factory. We train and develop leaders from the earliest time of their entry into the military, and we do it on an industrial scale.

We place great emphasis on formal education in addition to practical experience, and we place great emphasis on competence and character. Can you communicate clear vision and intent? Can you get results? Can you organize and develop teams? Your competence and character are constantly emphasized, evaluated, taught, and reinforced. We expect people to be honest, speak truth to power, selflessly serve the nation and the Constitution, and demonstrate a high degree of humility. These leadership characteristics are not unique to the military but are certainly emphasized within the military.

Is there anything particular to your own vision of leadership that you would like us to better understand?

I think fundamental to the leader is sharing success when there’s victory and immediately and unequivocally taking responsibility and identifying that which went wrong if things fail, your organization fails, or you fail.

For me, it is about the team. I try, to the extent humanly possible, not to use the pronoun “I” or “me” or “my” but “we,” “us,” and “team.”

That is important unless things go badly, which is when you assume responsibility and accountability, fix it, and have a deep, honest, genuine sense of humility.

What do you see as the major geopolitical threats to the United States, and what do you think about the strategic competition with China and Russia?

I believe we are experiencing one of the greatest shifts in geopolitical power in known human history—the incredible “rise over run” with respect to China and its economic development.

Such a fundamental shift in power only happens every couple of centuries. China has experienced extraordinary economic growth since Deng Xiaoping opened its markets and China joined the international trading system. It has become the manufacturing center of the world.

We are seeing an enormous shift from an Atlantic-centric geo-economic world to a Pacific-centric geo-economic world. When you have such a shift, the country developing that economic power quickly develops military power in order to protect its growth, its assets, and its way of life. China has been developing serious and significant military capabilities, and they have been doing it now for several decades.

Does that make China a threat? It is a threat in some areas, such as intellectual property, and it is a potential threat militarily. However, I don’t think China today is the enemy of the United States, and we have to be very careful about using that term. “Enemy” to me means you are engaged in an active form of war of some kind. Great powers are always in competition, and I think it is accurate to say that the United States is in competition with China and that China is a challenge.

We have to be careful as we go forward with this relationship, because I think it is going to be the defining relationship in the world. We have to approach it in a very nuanced, mature, professional way, with a high degree of realism and restraint.

I think we also have to deal with Russia in a very serious, mature, professional way, with a high degree of realism and restraint. They have their own interests, a very capable military, and an incredibly capable nuclear force.

But there are also areas of convergence, and the United States can work with Russia or China to achieve common goals that are of benefit to all three countries. We are in an era of great power competition, and both countries—for different and historical reasons—are a challenge to our national security. We must take them very seriously and monitor them very closely.

How may new technologies transform conflict and the challenges facing the U.S. military? And how should the United States be thinking about and responding to such challenges?

We are in the midst of a fundamental change in the character of war, primarily driven by selected technologies and demographic changes.

Today, 50–60 percent of the six billion people on earth live in urban areas, and it is estimated that by midcentury, there will be eight billion people in the world and more or less 85–90 percent will live in highly dense urban areas. Militaries are going to have to fundamentally shift their doctrine, their equipment, their organizations, and their leadership development in order to prevail in highly dense urban areas.

The second big driver of the change in the character of war is emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence. We have yet to start thinking about the consequences of artificial intelligence. There needs to be significant intellectual thought put into its national security applications. I also believe that over the next two decades, robots will begin to dominate the conduct of warfare. I could perceive a day in the not too distant future when you’ll have pilotless air forces, sailorless navies, or armies that don’t have people in their tanks.

The last really significant piece is cyber. The whole idea of the speed and scope of cyber is enormous, and the ability of either side to master cyber warfare and to master that domain could be decisive in a future conflict.

You’ve spoken often about the need to modernize the military. What does that mean to you?

When I was chief of staff of the Army, I laid out three fundamental lines of effort: readiness, modernization, and people. Readiness is the ability to fight right now, which involves training, manning, and equipping the military. Modernization is readiness in the future. We have to be able to see and visualize future operating environments as far forward as we can in an uncertain world and marshal our resources. The third priority is people. Our weapons are only as good as the people operating them. We have to invest in people, which goes back to your first question about leadership, development, and training.

The operation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is unknown to most people. What is the decision-making process among the joint chiefs, and how do they offer guidance or ideas to the president of the United States?

The joint chiefs include the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the chiefs of staff of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and National Guard Bureau. Each of the chiefs has a duty and a responsibility to provide their independent best military advice to the president when asked—except the chairman, who has to provide his best military advice all the time. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the principal military adviser to the president of the United States.

The key words there are “principal” and “adviser.” Many people don’t fully realize that the chairman of the joint chiefs and the joint chiefs as a body have no directive authority. They cannot issue orders in their own name. They publish those orders only in the name of the secretary of defense or the president of the United States.

The chairman of the joint chiefs and the joint chiefs as a corporate body are strictly and exclusively advisers on the best employment of the military, and that is important because it underlines one of the fundamental roles of the U.S. system, which is apolitical civilian control of the military. That guards against something that would be anathema to a republic or democracy.

I served as a judge on an international court, and we had to write opinions and try to reach consensus, which sometimes meant we stayed at the table for as long as it took. As you think about the operation of the joint chiefs, do you start with the assumption that there could be a diversity of thought or a difference of views, or do you drive toward consensus?

Driving toward consensus takes time. Sometimes you have time, and in other cases, situations are unfolding rapidly. The joint chiefs will meet, look at a given situation, and analyze it from a military perspective to the best of our ability with the best-known intelligence. Some of us will have different views because of our experience, education, and background, but the chairman is required to present the dissenting views as well as the consensus views.

How do you view the U.S. military’s role in regional conflicts?

The United States has commitments and interests that span the globe. We are engaged in lots of regions—Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America—and we will continue to be until directed otherwise.

The U.S. military needs to have the capabilities to protect those interests in all the domains of war— space, cyber, air, sea, and land—and we need to do this globally, at a very high end against a major power and on the lower end against terrorists and insurgents.

We need to have a wide variety of tools in our kit so that when the president is faced with a crisis or a situation, he has multiple options from which to choose on behalf of the American people. The United States is a global power, and we must have a military that has the capability to project globally, based on the defined role of the United States defined by our civilian leadership.

There are many who think we shouldn’t have to do this globally, but that is a decision for the American people, the civilian policymakers of the United States, and the United States Congress.

Can you share any advice for graduate students pursuing careers in international security?

I think it is important to learn from history. I try to read several books a week if I can to learn from others’ experiences. Everyone’s life experience is limited, but history and the library are unlimited. The basics still apply, so learn a lot from history.

I would also emphasize to any student—whether high school, undergraduate, graduate, PhD, or current serving professional—not to take anything at face value. Apply critical-thinking skills, apply the Socratic method, always ask why, what, who, when, where.

And keep an open mind. Don’t think that you’re the only person who has all the answers. Be a lifelong learner and keep reinforcing the basics, but at the same time recognize, if not master, the changes that are occurring.

This story appears in the most recent issue of SIPA Magazine, published in December 2019.