3. The Pentagon, which gives the White House a headache

The U.S. Department of Defense is a young department, only established in 1947, originally called the Department of War, also translated as the Department of War. With the strength of the navy, the War Department later evolved into the War Department and the Navy Department. Until World War II, the United States still used the War Department and the Navy Department as the two command organs, and later problems arose in the Air Force. At that time, the army had a part of the army aviation, and the navy also had carrier-based aircraft, the navy and air force, and only the air force did not form an independent service. It was not until 1947 that the U.S. Congress passed the National Security Act, established a series of agencies, and formally established the Department of Defense, that the Air Force was separated as an independent service.

Therefore, judging from the military command system of the United States, the Air Force is a very young branch of the military, and the Department of Defense is also a very young department, both of which were born in 1947, and the root cause of their birth is the contradictions in World War II.

In World War II, the United States, as the victorious power, defeated Japan in the Asian theater and Germany in the European theater, and of course many countries of the Allied Powers participated, but the United States undoubtedly made a large part of its contribution. The United States not only won many wars in World War II, but also provided a large amount of material support to other allies, including Britain, the Soviet Union, and China.

Many people feel that the US system was very effective in World War II, but this cup of "bitter wine" is known only to the Americans themselves, and the United States summed up many problems in World War II: the issue of army command, the issue of naval command, the issue of coordination between the army and the navy, the issue of coordination between the army and navy, and the issue of coordination between military policy and foreign policy. For example, in the snatching of resource allocation, everyone wants to dig up outstanding talents, everyone wants to fight for young people of military age, and all branches of the military are fighting for the funds allocated by the Congress, and there are great contradictions. How can we solve this large number of problems and contradictions? It is to set up a Department of National Defense, which will have jurisdiction over the Department of the Army and the Department of the Navy, and set up a separate Air Force Department by the Air Force, and the Department of Defense will coordinate the internal military order system of the US military.

Some media commented that the Pentagon is the biggest headache for the White House, because it often causes trouble, creates incidents, and goes against the Obama administration. For example, Obama had just delivered a friendly video address on the Iranian New Year, and the U.S. military suddenly announced that the U.S. military in Iraq had shot down an Iranian drone.

In fact, the Pentagon is in opposition to the White House, and its power is very limited. The U.S. Constitution clearly stipulates that the President of the United States is the commander-in-chief of the three armed services, and the head of the Department of Defense must be subordinate to the president. From a legal point of view, there is no doubt about it. Sometimes it gives the outside world the illusion that the voice of the Department of Defense is not quite the same as that of the White House, and although there are differences in reality, the Department of Defense does not dare to go beyond the thunder pool in terms of some policy principles.

The Ministry of Defense may make some remarks within the scope of its authority that do not deviate from the major policies and principles, but if it goes beyond the major policies and principles, the defense minister can only step down. It is rare for a US secretary of defense to serve a full term, and Rumsfeld served as secretary of defense for five and a half years from 2001 to 2006, which is rare in the history of the US Department of Defense.

The Department of Defense is not a policymaker, it is one of the participants in high-level policy-making in the United States, not the main decision-maker. Of course, the power of the Minister of Defense himself is not small. For example, the "black box" problem, this black box is not the black box of the plane, but the black box carried by the president's bodyguard, which is the so-called nuclear button. The president of the United States has a nuclear button, the president of Russia also has a nuclear button, and everywhere they go is the most striking and suspenseful thing, as if the fate of the world is in the hands of this nuclear button. Actually, it's not that simple. From the point of view of the United States, launching a strategic nuclear weapons attack requires a "two-man rule," which is not a nuclear war that can be launched by pressing the nuclear button by the president's order, but must be agreed upon by both the secretary of defense and the president. Otherwise, if the president is mentally ill and wants to fight a nuclear war, one person can activate the nuclear button and drag the entire planet into a catastrophe situation, which will definitely not work.

The president has the power to make policies, the right to start a war, and the right to stop war, but the need for both people to agree to start a nuclear war highlights the unique position of the defense minister.

American scholar Priest wrote a book called "Mission: Using the U.S. Army to Wage War and Maintain Peace," in which he argued that the U.S. Department of Defense commanders stationed in various regions of the world play a more diplomatic and political role abroad than the ambassadors sent by the U.S. State Department. He had a point.

The United States has nine major joint commands, and the main ones overseas are: Pacific Headquarters, Central Headquarters, European Headquarters, Northern Headquarters, and Southern Headquarters, and there are also Joint Forces Command, Special Operations Command, Strategic Command, and Transportation Command.

Many US media have exposed that the commanders-in-chief of these five major headquarters are living an imperial life, flaunting their military might, having very great power and very sufficient funds. For example, the Central Headquarters, because it has to command the Iraq War, the United States spends $90 billion to $100 billion a year in Iraq, and the Central Headquarters can control $20 billion to $30 billion. The US State Department, on the other hand, spends less than $7 billion a year, less than one-fifth or one-quarter of the cost of a regional command.

I've been to the U.S. Pacific headquarters twice, in Hawaii. How does Pacific Headquarters introduce itself? To begin with a diagram, from the west coast of the United States to the east coast of Africa, the Pacific headquarters governs 56% of the Earth's surface. Isn't this obvious nonsense! Jurisdiction over 56% of the earth's surface, including all of China, part of Russia, all of North Korea, and Vietnam? The cowhide is blown very wide.

The Pacific Command often holds a number of meetings, such as the meeting of defense ministers, army commanders, naval commanders, and air force commanders of various countries in the Pacific Rim region, and the defense ministers, army commanders, and navy commanders of other Pacific Rim countries are asked to come to Hawaii to attend this meeting, and the commander of the US Pacific Command presides over the meeting. Are you saying he's crazy? He was very mad, like the chief of the region.

When the commander of the Pacific Headquarters visited the Chinese People's Liberation Army, we sent out invitations to the commander of the Guangzhou Military Region or the commander of the Nanjing Military Region, because the Pacific Headquarters is one of the five major headquarters of the US military, so we issued an invitation in the name of one of the seven major military regions, but they felt that we should issue invitations in the name of the General Staff Department, and to use the name of the military region was to look down on them.

The Pacific Headquarters claims to have jurisdiction over 56% of the Earth's surface, and the cowhide is very large. We, the Chinese People's Liberation Army, do not have jurisdiction over other people's territory, our seven major military regions have jurisdiction over China's 9.6 million square kilometers of land area, and we do not include other people's territory within the scope of our jurisdiction. Of course, we don't recognize its division. We still insist that the commander of the military district issue an invitation to the commander of the Pacific Headquarters, and that's it.

Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once said to a US State Department official, "We have wasted more money than you have gotten in the appropriations." This reflects the infinite expansion of the Pentagon's power and the militarization of US foreign policy. First of all, I would like to correct that the US State Department is not very accurate in our translation, and the State Council of China has jurisdiction over the entire national economy, internal affairs, foreign affairs, military, economy, and armed police forces, and its scope of power is very large. The U.S. Department of State, on the other hand, is actually the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is only in charge of foreign affairs, and the Secretary of State is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, which has nothing to do with domestic affairs. Therefore, it is very problematic to translate it into the US State Department, because if you compare it with the State Department of our country, the scope of real power is completely different.

The core of this contradiction lies in the fact that the United States is a country that advocates strength and pursues the principle of strength. In layman's terms, whoever has a big fist, who has a big mouth, who has power, and who has the right to speak. It pursues its foreign policy all over the world, either backed by or guided by power. Therefore, although the US State Department has quite a few criticisms of the Department of Defense, it does not have much to do, because the pioneer of US diplomacy is military force, and cleaning up the mess is also military force, and it is a power built on the basis of strength, building the country with strength, and developing by strength. This is also the reason why the Ministry of Defense has the most money, the strongest strength and the largest voice.

The US Department of Defense also has many civilian personnel, except for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is a military man, and most of the secretaries and deputy secretaries of defense are civilians, and the secretaries and deputy secretaries of the Department of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force under the Department of Defense are also civilians, and only the chief of staff of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force are military. Therefore, the contradiction between the Department of Defense and the State Department can hardly be called a contradiction between the military and the people, because the contradiction between civilian officials is not a contradiction between the military and the people, but is actually a contradiction between different governing forces in the United States on a series of issues, such as the means of administration, the concept of governance, and the objectives of governance.