Polarized US puts military under strain

Former defense chiefs, Pentagon top brass air politicization worries in letter

In an extraordinary open letter, eight former defense secretaries and five former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have warned that the "extreme strain of political polarization" in the US and recent events at home and abroad have brought civilian-military relations to a low point.

"We are in an exceptionally challenging civil-military environment," the former top Pentagon officials said in the letter published on Tuesday by War on the Rocks, an online platform in the United States for analysis of national security and foreign affairs issues. "Many of the factors that shape civil-military relations have undergone extreme strain in recent years."

The eight defense secretaries who put their names to the letter served under Democratic and Republican administrations.