Mark Alexander Milley, the 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was born on June 20, 1958, and is a United States Army general. He previously served as the Army’s 39th Chief of Staff from August 14, 2015, to August 9, 2019, and has held several command and staff posts in eight divisions and special forces during his military career.
Milley got his commission as an armor officer in 1980 as an ROTC graduate of Princeton University. President Donald Trump named him chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, making him the eighth United States Army officer to hold the position. Milley is the highest-ranking officer in the US Armed Forces and the president’s, secretary of defense’s, National Security Council, and Homeland Security Council’s top military advisors.
PENTAGON is a pentagon that is located in the state of Washington.
The gruff, highly decorated Army General Mark Milley was apparently handpicked by then-President Donald Trump for his “tough guy” swagger and forthright speaking as the 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The president is the commander-in-chief of the US military, not the chairman, according to the US Constitution. And, right from the start in 2019, the Princeton-educated Milley made it clear that his first role was to protect and defend the Constitution rather appease a divisive president.
Milley’s focus has been on “strategic stability” while easing tensions, according to officials close to him.
However, some opponents have misinterpreted the chairman’s efforts to stay apolitical as a politicization of his position. The guy who has stated that the military should be kept out of politics has found himself at the heart of political debate and controversy on numerous occasions.
Marches in 2020
Milley apologized to Trump in June 2020 for walking across Lafayette Square with him, where people were protesting the death of African American George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis.
Before Trump crossed the area with several members of his Cabinet and Milley, riot police and members of the National Guard forcibly ejected demonstrators from the public park in front of the White House. The president then posed for shots with a Bible in his hands in front of a historic church.
Milley later told students at National Defense University, “I shouldn’t have been there.”
A senior defense official told reporters shortly after the incident that neither Milley nor then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper had planned to participate in the photo op and had mistakenly assumed they were simply heading outside to observe troops present at the protests.
Milley also sent a message to the military in the closing days of Trump’s presidency, condemning the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol by Trump supporters trying to reverse President Joe Biden’s election victory.
In a force-wide message, Milley and other chiefs of staff wrote: “The violent riot in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021, was a direct assault on the United States Congress, the Capitol structure, and our Constitutional process.”
“Actions inside the Capitol building were in violation of the rule of law,” he said. “Freedom of speech and assembly does not entitle anyone to use violence, sedition, or insurgency,” the chiefs added.
The film ‘Peril’ has sparked a new debate.
Now, new material from The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Robert Costa‘s book “Peril,” a chronicle of the Trump administration’s final days, has some experts suggesting Milley has harmed the connection between civilian and military leadership once again.
“The general’s actions have strained vital civil-military precedence, and trust must be restored.” Former National Security Council member and retired Army Colonel Jeff McCausland authored an NBC News column this week. “However, they have exposed the ramifications of a president anxious to keep his job.”
Chief of Staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States of America
After the president nominates him and the Senate confirms him, the chairman normally serves a four-year term. While the president is the military’s commander-in-chief, Congress has sole authority to declare war and is responsible for raising and supporting the military.
According to a Congressional Research Service report from June 2020, the Constitution was written to “improve the nation’s security while guaranteeing that tools of force do not undermine the practice of American democracy.”
Reform and modernisation
Milley concentrated substantially on Army modernization efforts during his tenure, including the creation of a new command to unify Army capability delivery mechanisms, similar to the manner taken by the US Special Operations Command. Milley highlighted the categories slated for modernization, including tanks, aircraft, and weapons, during the Association of the United States
Army annual convention in 2017. “Faster outcomes will be achieved…as we change to a SOCOM-like model of buy, try, decide, and acquire rather than the existing industrial-age linear paradigm, which takes years to create specifications, decades to test, and it may take a long, long time to go from idea to delivery,” Milley added. “If we adapt to the changing nature of war and accept the institutional changes that are required, we will remain the world’s most lethal fighting force for the next seven decades and beyond,” he said. We shall lose the next war if we don’t do so.”
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