McCain on political education of the military

David Kirkpatrick in In ’74 Thesis, the Seeds of McCain’s War Views New York Times 06/15/08 looks at the earlier development of John McCain's early views on military matters. Now, it's obvious that anyone of minimum intelligence will change their opinions on some things in 34 years. But it was also the work of a mature adult; 1974 was the year McCain turned 38.

The thesis was one McCain wrote after a nine-month stint at the National War College, after his release from North Vietnamese captivity as a result of the Paris Peace Accords of 1973. Dan Nowicki and Bill Muller describe this period in McCain's life in Back in the USA The Arizona Republic 03/01/07.

Kirkpatrick's article mostly focuses on McCain's views about POW issues as he experienced them. Near the end, he writes:

Mr. McCain's proposal that the military teach U.S. foreign policy to its recruits may be his most notable recommendation. "Too many men in the armed forces of the United States do not understand what this nation’s foreign policy is," Mr. McCain wrote, adding he did not propose a Soviet-style "indoctrination," but "a simple, straightforward explanation of the foreign policy of the United States."

In his [recent] e-mail message, Mr. McCain stood by the idea. "It is important, not just for P.O.W.’s, but all Americans serving in combat to understand the purpose and reason for the sacrifices they are asked to make for our country," he said.

Such instruction, though, sounds close to heretical to some military officers because it risks instructing the troops in the foreign policy of either one president or another, a prospect that particularly troubles Mr. McCain’s contemporaries who came to opposite conclusions about the Vietnam War.

"It gets to be partisan political positioning and regime support," said Merrill McPeak, a retired Air Force general and another War College classmate of Mr. McCain. ...

But Prof. Richard H. Kohn, a historian of civil-military relations at the University of North Carolina who has taught at the War College, suggested that Mr. McCain’s recommendation was more of a "time warp" back to the 1950s, when he came of age at the Naval Academy. It was an era of staunchly anti-communist foreign policy consensus that was shattered by the debates over the Vietnam War while Mr. McCain was in prison, Professor Kohn said.

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