First Duty: A Review

In an age of iron triangles and revolving doors, impossible-to-audit defense budgets and “national security professionals,” does the quality and character of the middle-aged man commanding the military-industrial complex still matter? 

Through his First Duty: Presidents, the Nation’s Security, and Self-Centered Politics, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Stephen M. Duncan answers the question by illustrating the fickleness of the presidential leadership behind America’s post-war national security. As recent American history has shown, a change in presidential administration–and presidential personality–can either fortify this country or generate disastrous ripples that leave its safety in question.

Deploying decades of military and policy experience, Duncan, who earned his master’s degree from the College, composes his First Duty as a survey of the Presidents since Franklin Delano Roosevelt and their respective performances as Commander-in-Chief. 

Holding Winston Churchill’s campaigning against Neville Chamberlain and the massively popular policy of appeasement as the height of leadership, Duncan defines the good Commander-in-Chief as a political figure who disregards politics and polling in geopolitical decision-making, exercises a “ruthless determination,” and finds the courage to prioritize security over all other aspirations.

He deploys the specific criterion of “political will” to formulate his judgements. Holding Winston Churchill’s campaigning against Neville Chamberlain and the massively popular policy of appeasement as the height of leadership, Duncan defines the good Commander-in-Chief as a political figure who disregards politics and polling in geopolitical decision-making, exercises a “ruthless determination,” and finds the courage to prioritize security over all other aspirations.

Churchill forfeited any semblance of a political career in the 1930s to lay out a comprehensive plan of rhetorical and military attack against the German Reich. Judging Presidents on the information and options they had available to them, Duncan asks a simple question of Presidents Truman to Trump: Did they try to do the same in response to threats against the nation they had a responsibility to protect? Did they do what, in their “sincere and considered” judgement, was best for the country? Or for their political careers?

The answers vary.

In Democrat Truman and Republican Eisenhower, the reader finds Presidents who dedicated themselves to the national interest, even when action cost them points in the polls. When North Korea overran the South in the summer of 1950, the American people had grown sick of military mobilization. Even so, Truman promised United States support to the South and delivered it, warning his advisors that they “‘were not going to talk about politics.’”  

When popular support for American involvement in Korea plummeted during the conflict’s last years, Eisenhower escalated military operations, saying “‘I don’t care if I’m reelected or not.’” Threatening 

tactical nuclear warfare and bombing the North, he forced a ceasefire and an honorable end to the war. 

These examples of bipartisan political will serve as some of the most inspiring in First Duty, for the Presidents to succeed Eisenhower often did prioritize their political interests over the nation’s security.

Cuban dissidents and national security planners did not fail the Bay of Pigs, John F. Kennedy’s “charade of no U.S. involvement” and hesitation to provide any meaningful, politically risky support did. In the same vein, Lyndon B. Johnson’s tunnel vision of re-election and a Great Society prevented him from parrying the North Vietnamese threat and reversing the tides of war before America created its own quagmire. He wanted Vietnam to be a “a war without a price, a silent, a politically invisible war” when American interests and his own Joint Chiefs of Staff urged greater commitment, including the activation of Reserve forces. Instead of a war of strategy, Lyndon B. Johnson’s Vietnam became a war of public (and personal) opinion management with no attainable end goal. Duncan summarizes: “A favorable result could have been made if not certain, then at least highly probable. What was lacking was the political will of the President.”

When Iran took hostages, [Carter] took to the floor of Camp David and asked advisors to “‘Tell me what I am doing wrong.’” Duncan considers the Carter presidency a case of a “cautious manager” who simply could not respond to crisis.

Unlike that of his two Democratic predecessors, Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy did not even seem to be informed by politics. In four years, he began unilateral disarmament of American nuclear weapons, ordered the withdrawal of troops from the Korean Peninsula, recognized the People’s Republic of China over the Republic of China, and surrendered the Panama Canal to “‘correct an injustice to Panama.’” When Iran took hostages, he took to the floor of Camp David and asked advisors to “‘Tell me what I am doing wrong.’” Duncan considers the Carter presidency a case of a “cautious manager” who simply could not respond to crisis.

In contrast to the three Democratic administrations, Duncan celebrates Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush, Sr. as avatars of political will, each in their own way. 

Despite public clamor against the Vietnam War, Nixon prolonged the conflict, ordering bombing campaigns against the Communists. Against the wailings of the foreign policy establishment, Nixon visited the People’s Republic of China. The risks he took paid off when North Vietnam signed the Paris Peace Accords and when the Soviet Union embraced detente. Instead of treading the path of political expediency, Nixon chose the grinding road of strategy. Despite Watergate, the author makes clear that controversy “does not detract from the foreign policy and national security achievements of his presidency.” The loser-turned president led in a way that few have and few ever will.

When the Khmer Rouge captured the American merchant ship S.S. Mayaguez, Gerald Ford did not hesitate to send the troops in. When North Korean soldiers killed two American officers with axes on the Korean border, Ford raised the DEFCON system to Level Three and deployed a 23-vehicle convoy along with a complement of aircraft. North Korea later apologized. Even when a majority of Americans believed that disgraced President Nixon should face charges, Ford pardoned his predecessor, believing that prosecution would further demoralize a traumatized nation. In each of the major political and geopolitical challenges of his time, Ford had the will to make the best decision he saw fit to make.

President Reagan advocated for missile defense against the recommendations of nearly every “defense expert.” Disregarding the policy of mutually assured destruction, Reagan fought huge backlash to win Congressional support for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The former actor so strongly believed in the importance of missile defense that he refused to disband the SDI when Mikhail Gorbachev offered to abolish the Soviet nuclear arsenal in exchange at the Reykjavik Summit of 1986. Sacrificing his lifelong dream of a nuclear weapon-free world for continued national security, Reagan exercised an uncommon commitment to his role as Commander-in-Chief.

In Duncan’s estimation, George H.W. Bush did not so much engage in politics as he engaged in public service. With an unrivaled resume, Bush, Sr. dedicated his life and legacy to the defense of United States interests.

In Duncan’s estimation, George H.W. Bush did not so much engage in politics as he engaged in public service. With an unrivaled resume, Bush, Sr. dedicated his life and legacy to the defense of United States interests. The author credits him for breaking his campaign promise of “no new taxes” when fiscal responsibility demanded an increase and for launching the swift military action against Sadam Hussein’s Iraq in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Unlike Lyndon Johnson, Bush courted political disaster and activated the Reserves, even when military planners estimated that Desert Storm could incur up to 10,000 American casualties. In the simplest terms, George H.W. Bush’s Presidency was “presidential leadership at its best.”

Duncan’s conclusions turn markedly negative as First Duty moves into analysis of the last four Presidents and their respective national security policies. 

As Commander-in-Chief, Bill Clinton flopped at nearly every responsibility the job put in front of him. From his unilateral push to allow homosexuals to serve in the military to his affair with a White House intern, Clinton damaged American military readiness and failed to earn (or refused to earn) the respect of a military he never served in. Duncan summarizes the Clinton legacy with biting language: a “glaring failure of presidential leadership.”

On George W. Bush’s response to the 9/11 attacks, the author takes a complimentary stance. Despite administrative mistakes that destabilized Iraq after the American invasion in 2003, Duncan credits Bush for rising to unprecedented national security challenges and taking action. “What is indisputable, is that through the exercise of considerable political will,” he writes, “George W. Bush kept America safe during the eight years after 9/11.”

Barack Obama receives the sharpest criticism of all in First Duty, and rightly so. The picture Duncan paints is more alike that of a mercurial celebrity than the 12th greatest President, according to ‘historians.’ When General Stanley McChrystal called for more troops in Afghanistan, Obama “follow[ed] public opinion polls.” In a speech at West Point on December 1, 2011, he announced he would authorize new deployments while simultaneously declaring that he would withdraw them by July 2011. “‘I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party,’” he explained a day later. Such is the story of the Obama Presidency: “feckless[ness]” in place of leadership, politics in place of action or policy.

Barack Obama receives the sharpest criticism of all in First Duty, and rightly so. The picture Duncan paints is more alike that of a mercurial celebrity than the 12th greatest President, according to ‘historians.’ When General Stanley McChrystal called for more troops in Afghanistan, Obama “follow[ed] public opinion polls.”

The world that Obama left to his successor was a “world in turmoil.” In judging President Trump’s response to the crises that plagued his term, Duncan strikes a balanced tone. Trump, he writes, appointed a masterful team of advisors but let his lack of discipline stymie proper decision-making. His lack of commitment to American interests in Syria and Afghanistan and his inaction against Russian election interference both receive their fair share of criticism. Nevertheless, Duncan also recognizes that Trump showed considerable political will in his foreign policy reforms, from revoking the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to browbeating NATO allies and reversing course on a withdrawal from Afghanistan. History will have to judge Trump,  Duncan believes, giving the 45th President a more nuanced assessment than he has received from most self-declared national security experts over the last four years. 

One might consider First Duty, a work covering one man’s judgement of more than 70 years of American defense and diplomacy, to be too expansive. But national security is an issue so deeply embedded in its own evolution that an expansive study might be the only worthy one. Duncan’s organization of the book by President compartmentalizes their specific accomplishments and failures, making his points about individual political will easy to grasp. However, First Duty is not a Goodwin-style history of American Presidents in the slightest. The chapters read like analytical essays, more suited to a textbook than to one’s current-affairs reading list.

Unsurprisingly, Duncan’s analysis operates at the expert level. However, he crafts his reviews of presidential decision-making in clear, jargon-free language. Ever respectful, Duncan lets his sources do the bulk of the criticizing for him. At times, he refuses to excoriate even when the actions of his subjects warrant it, such as Jimmy Carter’s surrender of the Panama Canal. Duncan’s restraint only sharpens his reprovals, on the rare occasions he deploys them.

His tact illustrates a consummate military professionalism. However, one wonders why First Duty often seems like a story of Republican competence and Democratic ineptitude in securing the nation. Only in Duncan’s analysis of the Trump Administration does a Republican President receive significant chiding for a failure of political will. As much as some would like to remove partisan glare from the study of national security, it seems that Presidents from a certain political party have–on balance–left the nation less safe than Presidents from another party. At least, according to the criteria of this former Assistant Secretary of Defense.

As much as some would like to remove partisan glare from the study of national security, it seems that Presidents from a certain political party have–on balance–left the nation less safe than Presidents from another party. At least, according to the criteria of this former Assistant Secretary of Defense.

Duncan ends his work with an exhortation for American leaders to recognize the same which Winston Churchill expounded last century that “‘public safety is…the prime object for which governments have come into existence.’” But the author extends the responsibility of national security to the American electorate as well. “We can never permit the presidency to become an entry-level job for amateurs,” Duncan writes, “The responsibility for becoming fully informed on all matters which may affect our security, and for ensuring the election of Presidents of the required caliber…cannot be delegated or evaded.”

Is this a revolutionary idea? Perhaps not. American ethics emphasize relentlessly that the President should put national interest over political interest and that the people should evaluate their choices for President on such a basis. However, this book does not need to make some groundbreaking addition to political philosophy to play a vital role in a time of upheaval. Grand principles have lost their luster in favor of politicized worldviews that leave no room for nuance, disinterested judgement, or responsible decision-making. Duncan’s First Duty reminds the reader of one fundamental tenet underlying the American system: that beyond politicker-in-chief, legislator-in-chief, or celebrity-in-chief, he is the Commander-in-Chief. Americans would do well to treat and elect him as such.