AS I READ THIS ARTICLE, Rumsfeld is reasserting civilian control over the military, and the brass doesn’t like it:

His disputes with parts of the top brass involve style, the conduct of military operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and sharply different views about how and whether to “transform” today’s armed forces. But what the fights boil down to is civilian control of a defense establishment that Rumsfeld is said to believe had become too independent and risk-averse during eight years under President Bill Clinton. . . .

Rumsfeld, say people who have dealt with him over the last two years, saw the Joint Staff as sometimes unresponsive to civilian leadership, even asserting its own policy positions at interagency meetings. He wasn’t alone in that feeling, recalled one officer at the Pentagon, who said that Joint Staff officers sometimes seemed to have the attitude that “the suits don’t need to know this, they stay in our lane, we stay in ours.”

Under Rumsfeld, the civilians are no longer cut out.

It would be foolish of Rumsfeld to ignore the advice of military professionals, notwithstanding his own considerable expertise. It would be equally foolish for military professionals to forget who they actually work for.