Maxwell School News

“There are people whose lives are literally on the line, whether that's service personnel, whether that's intelligence personnel,” says Michael Williams, associate professor of public administration and international affairs. “These guys are supposed to be leaders of the free world, the responsible leaders of the military, the greatest country in the world, and they can't perform basic operational security.”

“This is a mix we haven’t seen before, and it does represent a new wrinkle,” says Vice Adm. Robert Murrett (Ret.), professor of practice of public administration and international affairs, of the types of munitions the Navy is intercepting and the sustained nature of the threat.

"I think, after the dust settles and we've had a chance to look at it in retrospect, Mark's reputation is going to stand up very well, and I'm confident that 20 or 30 years from now, the historians going to be very kind to him," says Vice Adm. Robert Murrett (Ret.), professor of practice of public administration and international affairs.

“What people are seeing now is what people have seen every summer for as long as I’ve been alive,” says William Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs. “Folks are taking their summer National Guard duty right now and riding convoys to wherever they’re going to be. For many of us, it’s a regular scene in the summer on the highways.”

"Recent data from the Department of Defense indicates that one in four service members were food insecure at the end of 2020," says Colleen Heflin, professor and chair of public administration and international affairs.

Both parties have prized veterans as candidates over the years because of the public’s trust in the military and their perceived expertise on foreign policy and government operations, Grant Reeher, professor of political science, tells Military Times.

Earlier this week, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn promoted the idea that the U.S. military should oversee a new nationwide presidential election, ordered under martial law by President Donald Trump. Professor Emeritus William C. Banks calls  the idea "preposterous" and adds, "martial law has no place in the United States absent a complete breakdown of civil governing mechanisms."

According to Professor Emeritus William Banks, sending uniformed troops to the polls, including the [National] Guard, would be unwise. "The overriding point is that we don’t want the military involved in our civilian affairs. It just cuts against the grain of our history, our conditions, our values, our laws."

The new Veterans in Politics program is designed to help veterans and military family members who aspire to public office or another form of a political career.

"On one hand, it is kind of ridiculous because there is nothing approaching an invasion there," says William C. Banks, professor of public administration and international affairs. "There is no indication that there is a force lining the border that [Customs and Border Protection] couldn’t take care of. But on the other hand, if you take the Cabinet order’s language at face value, and take what the president is saying as credible threats, then it becomes grayer."

Responding to immigration influxes has typically been the purview of the National Guard, such as Operation Jump Start from 2006-2008 under former President George W. Bush, says Professor Emeritus William C. Banks.

"If the Guard is deployed as it has been in the past, there would be little those troops could do to stop crime along the border," says William Banks, professor of public administration and international affairs.