In his new book, "Supreme Command," Johns Hopkins University professor Eliot Cohen argues that the best wartime civilian leaders are those who don't take the generals' word for it. They prod and question and they don't hesitate to overrule their chiefs when their advice doesn't square either with common sense or the larger political or geopolitical logic. Cohen's thesis got some confirmation in last fall's Afghan war; after Sept. 11, the Joint Chiefs wanted to delay an attack on Afghanistan to await favorable weather conditions and gain time to position extensive assets in the region.

The U.S. Central Command, responsible for Central Asia and the Middle East "wanted very much to wait until the spring to start the operation," says one defense policy analyst in close touch with military and civilian Defense Department officials. "The civilians just said 'No. We want to start in October. We can't let 30 days pass since Sept. 11.'" And, in retrospect, few foreign policy experts would disagree that that was the right course. "I don't think there's any question," says one Clinton Pentagon official, "that Enduring Freedom was fought differently because [Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld] was in there prodding, saying, 'General, that's not creative enough. General, you're not giving me the options I want.' I have no doubt that Rumsfeld was personally responsible for the fact that Special Operations forces were introduced early into Afghanistan."

But Afghanistan was one case. And while nearly everyone agrees -- in theory at least -- that civilians should prod the chiefs for better answers and question their preferred options, there's a fine line between a willingness to overrule military advice and an unwillingness to listen to it at all. And on the peace process, Saudi Arabia and -- most pressingly -- Iraq, Bush Pentagon appointees are increasingly opting for the latter course.

One staff officer who worked under and briefed high-level officials in both administrations describes one administration easily cowed by generals' sober descriptions of the dangers of a military engagement in a country like Iraq and another administration virtually indifferent to them. When discussing a major move like an invasion of Iraq, says this retired officer, "you have to look [a civilian defense appointee] in the eye and say, 'Sir, do you understand that you cannot control the outcome of the enterprise on which we are about to engage?' If he moves his head up and down to that, then you can ask him the second question.

"In the Clinton administration, they'd look at you with that bovine stare. And then their head would start moving laterally," the retired officer said. "But these guys seem to have assumed away that problem. They seem to believe they can control the outcome. Every man in uniform knows that's not true."

Now, many on each side are viewing the other through a prism of caricatures and clichés. The uniformed officers and civil servants tend to espouse establishmentarian views of proper U.S. defense policy in the Middle East and the operational details of how to fight actual wars. They see the difficulties and problems in relations with countries like Saudi Arabia but are more interested in bettering relations with those regimes than ousting them from power. These career professionals see the civilian appointees as uninformed zealots who've spent most of their time in think-tanks and have no actual military experience. The civilians tend to see the generals they command as unimaginative bureaucrats who lack the will to actually fight.

This split is also heating up over what defense policymakers call "transformation" or the "revolution in military affairs" -- a host of budgetary, structural and weaponry decisions aimed at revolutionizing the American military to confront the challenges of the 21st century.

The big push for transformation comes from Rumsfeld (and not Wolfowitz and Co., who focus more on regional policy) and the tight circles of his advisors and aides. Most prominent among them is Stephen A. Cambone, Rumsfeld's chief deputy, who earlier served as the staff director of the Rumsfeld Commission on National Missile Defense. Cambone has earned the fierce enmity of almost every officer at the Pentagon for chewing out generals while remaining unassailable since he has his boss's complete confidence.

Many defense analysts doubt Rumsfeld has a coherent vision of transformation but most believe that his aggressive stance on the issue -- signaled most prominently by the high-profile axing of the Army's new, but costly and unwieldy, Crusader artillery system -- is a positive development. In the complex calculus of civilian military oversight, there are few issues that the military is less capable of addressing on its own than the sort of broad, sweeping changes implied by transformation. Making revolutionary changes to the armed forces necessarily means ditching weapons and ways of operating that the heads of the services have built their careers around.

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