Taren Sylvester

Rants about sports with forays into civmil & intl security | Fmr CNAS | MA ISEC @ScharSchool | they/them | views my own

[Taren Sylvester @tcdsylvester]

Excited to close out the year with the inclusion of my piece with @klkuzminski among the most read War on the Rocks articles of 2024! Truly honored to be among such prodigious authors

[War on the Rocks @WarOnTheRocks]

Which of our articles were read the most in 2024?

https://t.co/NvHItI8XQE

[Rhian Wilkinson @rhirhi8]

History made, I could not be prouder. What a special team, see you soon Switzerland. #TogetherStronger

[Military.com @Militarydotcom]

'It Could Be Very Hard to Do Our Job': Top Military Officers Brace for Trump's Potential Loyalty Review Boards https://t.co/ddy7wmMdJ0

[Taren Sylvester @tcdsylvester]

5. Having yes-men lead the military is a security risk. If you can predict that the ‘best military advice’ will be what Trump wants to hear, there is no strategic advantage. If there is no principled leader to stand up to an unlawful order, there is no check on the abuse of power

[Taren Sylvester @tcdsylvester]

2. The military is not accountable to POTUS alone. By allowing this culling of honorable, disciplined officers, Congress would be both betraying service members of all ranks and giving up their constitutionally empowered oversight role

[Taren Sylvester @tcdsylvester]

4. The foundation of civil-military relations is professionalism over partisanship. Politics is a necessity at the upper echelons of the military but partisanship is antithetical to a healthy civmil relationship. Not that that has ever mattered to Trump.

[Taren Sylvester @tcdsylvester]

A few thoughts:
1. A 3-/4-star general is decades in the making. They’ve been reviewed for leadership potential since they commissioned & their promotion has required Senate approval since they pinned on O5. The preservation of institutional knowledge and tradition is THE POINT

[Konstantin Toropin @KToropin]

I struggle to see how this process, as outlined, is anything more than a thinly veiled attempt to purge the General/Flag officer corps of anyone failing to toe some sort of ideological belief driven by a single person,

But I guess we’ll see…

[Secretary Deb Haaland @SecDebHaaland]

Today we celebrated the expansion of the Winnebago Tribe's bison herd in Nebraska, where this iconic species has been central to cultures and lifeways for millennia. Together, @USFWS & their partners are building a future where bison can thrive on their ancestral lands.

[Kyodo News | Japan @kyodo_english]

FOCUS: Trump win to dampen Japan PM's ambitions for U.S. troop pact change

https://t.co/z3i5nfxbgp

#Japan #US #Trump

[Ben Coxon @BSKCoxon]

An interesting article by @alessionaval analysing the potential fallout of the recent #Japanese election for Japanese and the #IndoPacific security

[Foreign Affairs @ForeignAffairs]

Peter Feaver considers what Donald Trump’s second-term foreign policy will look like—and warns that Trump’s return will present a slew of opportunities for U.S. adversaries, especially Russia and China.
https://t.co/iW3FAGSFbt

[Sasakawa USA @SasakawaUSA]

The momentum for amending Japan's Constitution is weakening as a result of last month's election for the House of Representatives.

https://t.co/4bZRHMnEV0

[Steven Beynon @StevenBeynon]

Also how TBI is treated - it has become the signature wound of recent years with missile and drone strikes. Trump has dismissed those type of injuries before which hurts troops getting Purple Hearts which are key receipts for to get care.

[Steven Beynon @StevenBeynon]

Things I'm looking at in the Army in Trump's administration:

Whether bases will be renamed after confederates

Will trans troops be allowed to continue to serve

Communication with the press, and by extension, the force

Domestic use of force

[Foreign Affairs @ForeignAffairs]

If Trump is reelected, he is likely to upset the balance of civil-military relations—and the United States will face a serious test of its system of civilian control over the armed forces, write Peter Feaver and @HeidiAUrben.
https://t.co/YabjDbJ5Sr

[CNAS @CNASdc]

LIVE: A discussion on quality of life for service members and their families featuring @ASDRonKeohane , ASD for manpower and reserve affairs, and Brendan Owens, ASD for energy, installations, and environment. https://t.co/F8urlAdNpT

[Richard @gaijinthoughts]

🚨
The Tokyo High court rules Japan’s ban on same-sex marriage is “unconstitutional” (違憲)! This is the best possible case for marriage equality advocates & the LGBT community. It’s a “hard” unconstitutional ruling and not an ambiguous “state of unconditionality (違憲状態)”.

[Law in Japan @Colin_P_A_Jones]

Second High Court judgment holding that not recognizing same sex marriage is unconstitutional, this time from the Tokyo High Court.

Note that all of these cases are suits for damages alleging tortious legislative inaction. So the "unconstitutional" ruling is part of the reasoning leading into a decision as to whether the plaintiffs have suffered damages or not. That is the cause of action but seems so important that the news flash doesn't even mention where the high court came out on the subject!

Ultimately these cases will be consolidated into a Supreme Court case, but even if the court finds the lack of same sex marriage to be "unconstitutional" - the only relief requested is damages. More likely result is that the Supreme Court denies relief (damages) in a ruling that says "not unconstitutional at the time the claim was filed, but might be the next time a claim is filed" - a message to the Diet to change the law else next time it might decided differently.

In my framing these cases (and other constitutional cases brought as legislative inaction tort claims) are all ultimately directed at the Diet.

[Pacific Center for Island Security @PCIS_Guam]

Anderson Air Force Base (Guam) is "home to the Air Force’s largest conventional war reserve materiel stockpile and serves as a staging area for Air Force bombers and other American military aircraft operating in the region." https://t.co/4XZPzaKfJa