John Ullyot: Two Lessons on Military Accountability for President Biden

In the wake of the Biden Administration’s decision this week to let a Chinese Communist Party spy balloon make its way across the U.S. unchallenged, including over some of our most sensitive military facilities, it is important to remember two key lessons on military accountability from recent decades.

Mathias Rust (18 years old) was an amateur pilot from Germany. He died in May 1987. A small airport was used for the departure near Hamburg Germany in a small single-engine Cessna to fly over northern Europe and gain some hours toward his professional pilot’s license. Rust flew from Helsinki, Finland to fly his Cessna at 170 degrees and headed straight for Moscow two weeks later. 

Soviet air defense radar immediately picked up the flight. Top generals considered various actions to intercept and destroy the invading aircraft. They tried to scramble a MiG fighter, but they ultimately decided against taking defensive actions. Rust flew several hundred miles through Soviet airspace before circling near Moscow and landing his plane right next to Red Square. Incredulous witnesses watched.

Twenty-five years later, U.S. Air Force ammunition handlers at Minot Air Force Base (North Dakota) were able to operate their weapons in August 2007. Six cruise missiles with nuclear warheads were incorrectly loaded B52H Bomber, in violation of strict controls that prohibit such weapons from flying in U.S. Airspace. The aircraft, carrying its dangerous cargo, took off and flew over 1,000 miles in the U.S. before landing at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana two hours later. Both were not. Neither the pilots nor ground crew knew. The presence of nuclear weapons aboard the plane during flight and for approximately 36 hours after landing.

What does this public incident have in common with the other public incidents? It is failure to lead and dereliction in military responsibility.  Both instances saw top-level accountability for military leadership. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev acted quickly to fire his defense minister, and Air Force chief-of-staff within 48 hours of the Rust aircraft accident. The U.S. Air Force bomber incident was an example of this. Also known as: “Bent Spear” incidentRobert Gates, Defense Secretary relieved both the Secretary of the Air Force and the service’s top general of their duties One year later, there was an additional incident in which nuclear fuses were sent to Taiwan incorrectly.

These incidents show how important accountability is for chief executives to maintain good order and discipline within the military as well as maintaining credibility abroad. In Gorbachev’s case, his bold move burnished his credentials and established a firm grip on power, enabling him to usher in key reforms in subsequent years.  For Secretary Gates’s part, his firings sent a strong signal about civilian control of the military when it came to stewardship of our most lethal weapons, and he later was retained in his position in a rare move by the newly elected president of the opposite Party, Barack Obama.

Biden has not held anyone accountable since the balloon incident last week. This mirrors Biden’s inaction after the balloon incident. disastrous Afghanistan exit The botched pullout at Kabul airport resulted the deaths of 12 Marines, one Navy corpsman and one Navy officer. Ironically, Stuart Scheller, Marine lieutenant colonel, was the only military personnel to be held responsible for the Afghanistan disaster. Who was later released, but who was then jailed and relieved of command for insisting on accountability from the military leadership regarding the operation.

Whether in Afghanistan, or in last week’s balloon incident, Biden’s decision to not take swift action when his national security leaders fail to fulfill their duties at the highest, public level not only demonstrates weakness to domestic audiences, it also emboldens America’s enemies around the world including China, Russia and Iran, who have taken their own belligerent steps since the Afghanistan debacle. Biden has a choice. He can make a clear statement to the rest of the world about accountability or continue to show a lack of seriousness and drift on the global stage.

He is a U.S. Marine Corps Veteran and was National Security Council spokesman under President Trump. 

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