scholarly journals The sources of military dissent: Why and how the US military contests civilian decisions about the use of force

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Risa Brooks ◽  
Peter M. Erickson
Keyword(s):  
Research Programme ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
The United States ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Policy And Strategy ◽  
Humanitarian Interventions ◽  
Regime Types ◽  
Role Conceptions

Abstract How do militaries push back when they oppose civilian initiatives? This article analyses the sources and character of military dissent, focusing on the United States. It details the sources of military preferences over policy and strategy outcomes, emphasising the interplay of role conceptions with other material and ideational factors. It then presents a repertoire of means – tactics of dissent – through which military leaders can exert pressure, constraining and shaping civilians’ decision-making calculus and the implementation of policy and strategy choices. Empirically, it traces military dissent in the 1990s-era humanitarian interventions; the US's ‘War on Drugs’ beginning in the 1980s; and the Afghanistan surge debate in 2009. In so doing, the article contributes to a broader research programme on military dissent across regime types. It also expands scholars’ understandings of preference formation within militaries and illuminates the various pathways through which military dissent operates and potentially undermines civilian control.

The New Civil-Military Relations

1961 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gene M. Lyons
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Minimum Cost ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Military Establishment ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Historically the character of civil-military relations in the United States has been dominated by the concept of civilian control of the military. This has largely been a response to the fear of praetorianism. As recently as 1949, for example, the first Hoover Commission asserted that one of the major reasons for strengthening the “means of exercising civilian control” over the defense establishment was to “safeguard our democratic traditions against militarism.” This same warning was raised in the report of the Rockefeller Committee on defense organization in 1953. While the overriding purpose of the committee's recommendations was to provide “the Nation with maximum security at minimum cost,” the report made it clear that this had to be achieved “without danger to our free institutions, based on the fundamental principle of civilian control of the Military Establishment.” Finally, during the debate on the reorganization proposals of 1958, senators and congressmen used the theme of a “Prussianized” military staff to attempt to slow down the trend towards centralization in the military establishment.Despite this imposing support, the concept of civilian control of the military has little significance for contemporary problems of national security in the United States. In the first place, military leaders are divided among themselves, although their differences cannot be reduced to a crass contrast between dichomatic doctrines. Air Force leaders who are gravely concerned over the need to maintain a decisive nuclear retaliatory force are by now acknowledging the need to develop a limited war capability.

The Origin of Hmong Entanglement in the Vietnam War

2019 ◽  
pp. 12-25
Author(s):  
Chia Youyee Vang
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Leadership ◽  
Divide And Conquer ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Us Military

Chapter 1 explores how the United States moved in to Indochina to replace the French following the latter’s defeat in 1954, which resulted in those who collaborated with Americans becoming dependent on US military and humanitarian aid from the early 1960s through the mid-1970s. The chapter illustrates calculated decisions by American policy makers to continue colonial policies to divide and conquer their subjects, which enabled decisions made at the highest level to promote the use of ethnic minorities in counterinsurgency operations. Such decisions were precisely what facilitated Hmong men’s participation in the covert Project Water Pump that trained Lao fighter pilots. The chapter further explains how CIA officers circumvented resistance from ethnic Lao military leaders and American officials to establish an air operation in the region under Hmong military leadership.

Confidence without Sacrifice

2020 ◽  
pp. 149-176
Author(s):  
David T. Burbach
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Social Expectations ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
The Public ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Military

The American public expresses more confidence and trust in the US military than in any civil or private-sector institution. Such esteem for the military is notable given that the public also believes recent US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were failures. Confidence may emerge from the military’s professionalism rather than delivery of battlefield results and may also reflect positive sentiments based on social expectations and “cheap” patriotism. The public’s willingness to fund, join, or grant autonomy to the military is more circumscribed than high trust would suggest; the public may be “confident” but is willing to overrule generals and admirals when values are in conflict. Confidence may increasingly reflect political support: both a growing affinity between the military and the Republican Party and a tendency (again, stronger for Republicans) to express more confidence when the president is of one’s own party. Disturbingly, trends in public opinion as well as recent behavior of politicians and retired military leaders all suggest growing politicization, with possible ramifications for weakening civilian control, ultimately causing a loss of the public’s trust.

Civilian Control and Civil-Military Gaps in the United States, Japan, and China

2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 233-271
Author(s):  
Peter D. Feaver ◽  
Takako Hikotani ◽  
Shaun Narine
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Japan And China

scholarly journals Frontlash: Race and the Development of Punitive Crime Policy

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vesla M. Weaver
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
The United States ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Federal Sentencing Guidelines ◽  
State Supervision ◽  
Capital Crimes

Civil rights cemented its place on the national agenda with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, fair housing legislation, federal enforcement of school integration, and the outlawing of discriminatory voting mechanisms in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Less recognized but no less important, the Second Reconstruction also witnessed one of the most punitive interventions in United States history. The death penalty was reinstated, felon disenfranchisement statutes from the First Reconstruction were revived, and the chain gang returned. State and federal governments revised their criminal codes, effectively abolishing parole, imposing mandatory minimum sentences, and allowing juveniles to be incarcerated in adult prisons. Meanwhile, the Law Enforcement Assistance Act of 1965 gave the federal government an altogether new role in crime control; several subsequent policies, beginning with the Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and culminating with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, ‘war on drugs,’ and extension of capital crimes, significantly altered the approach. These and other developments had an exceptional and long-lasting effect, with imprisonment increasing six-fold between 1973 and the turn of the century. Certain groups felt the burden of these changes most acutely. As of the last census, fully half of those imprisoned are black and one in three black men between ages 20 and 29 are currently under state supervision. Compared to its advanced industrial counterparts in western Europe, the United States imprisons at least five times more of its citizens per capita.

Misusing historical analogies limits US policy options

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle East ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Content Type ◽  
White House ◽  
Decision To Leave ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Future

Significance The Vietnam analogy implies that President Joe Biden’s decision to leave Afghanistan will have deeply negative consequences for the United States. However, Afghanistan is not Vietnam and the Biden withdrawal needs to be considered within the wider context of his administration’s review of US commitments abroad. Impacts The White House will be pressured to clarify the future of other US military commitments, particularly in Iraq. Biden will seek to reassure allies, particularly those in NATO, that his commitment to multilateralism will not diminish. Biden may seek an opportunity for a military show of force, possibly in the Middle East, to refute accusations of weakness.

Protocol to the Convention on the Prohibition of Bacteriological (Biological) Weapons – History, Main Provisions, Significance and Reasons for Not Signing

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-21
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
The United States ◽  
Biological Weapons ◽  
Pharmaceutical Companies ◽  
Special Role ◽  
International Agreement ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Weapons Control

Received 30 January 2021. Accepted for publication 20 March 2021 The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction (BTWC) does not have a legally binding verification regime. An attempt by the Ad Hoc Group of Experts, created by the UN Committee on Disarmament, to strengthen the BTWC by developing a legally binding document – the Protocol, was blocked by the United States in July 2001. The purpose of this work is to study the history, main provisions, significance and reasons for not signing the Protocol to the BTWC. The attention is paid to the events in biological weapons control, which have led a number of countries to the understanding of the necessity to develop the Protocol. The background of the US actions to block this document is the subject of special consideration. During the Second Review Conference on the Implementation of the Convention (8–25 September 1986, Geneva) the USSR, the German Democratic Republic and the Hungarian People's Republic proposed to develop and adopt the Protocol as an addition to the BTWC. This document was supposed to establish general provisions, definitions of terms, lists of agents and toxins, lists of equipment that was present or used at production facilities, threshold quantities of biological agents designed to assess means and methods of protection. The proposed verification mechanism was based on three «pillars»: initial declarations with the basic information about the capabilities of each State Party; inspections to assess the reliability of the declarations; investigations to verify and confirm or not confirm the alleged non-compliance with the Convention. The verification regime was to be under the control of an international organization – the Organization for the Prohibition of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons. However, the US military and pharmaceutical companies opposed the idea of international inspections. The then US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, John Robert Bolton II, played a special role in blocking the Protocol. During the Fifth Review Conference in December 2001, he demanded the termination of the Ad Hoc Group of Experts mandate for negotiations under the pretext that any international agreement would constrain US actions. The current situation with biological weapons control should not be left to chance. Measures to strengthen the BTWC should be developed, taking into account the new fundamental changes in dual-use biotechnology. It should be borne in mind, that the Protocol, developed in the 1990s, is outdated nowadays.

scholarly journals The Relationship Between Soldier Height, Weight and Army Combat Fitness Scores

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Palmer ◽  
Mark DeBeliso
Keyword(s):  
United States Army ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
National Guard ◽  
Pearson Correlation ◽  
Correlation Coefficients ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Physical Fitness Test ◽  
Fitness Test ◽  
The Relationship

The United States Army recently implemented the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) which was designed to more accurately measure functional-combat fitness constructs. The ACFT replaced the former Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT). The three advent APFT consisted of: two-minute push-ups (PU), two-minute sit-ups (SU), and a timed two-mile run (RUN). The ACFT consists of six events; 3 Rep Max Deadlift (MDL), Standing Power Throw (SPT), Hand Release Push-up (HRP), Sprint-Drag-Carry (SDC), Hanging Leg Tuck (LTK), and a timed two-mile run (2MR). This study investigated the relationship between Soldier height and body mass kg on ACFT scores of 655 male U.S. Army National Guard Soldiers in a Field Artillery Brigade. For the purpose of the investigation body mass index (BMI) was calculated as the metric representing the Soldier(s) height and weight. The mean and standard deviation (sd) were calculated for the ACFT event and total scores. Pearson correlation coefficients (PCCs or r) were calculated between BMI and ACFT event and total scores. Likewise, PCCs were calculated between the ACFT event and total scores. The ACFT mean(sd) scores were as follows: MDL=92.2(31.8) (3 maximum repetitions), SPT=9.5(2.2) (meters), HRP=24.6(13.1) (repetitions), SDC=119.8(21.7) (seconds), LTK=6.2(5.4) (repetitions), 2MR=1095.0(233.7) (seconds), ACFT total score=442.3(54.4) (points). Significant positive correlations were found between the ACFT total score: MDL (r=0.70), SPT (r=0.50), HRP (r=0.74), and LTK (r=0.76) events. Conversely, significant negative correlations were identified between ACFT total score: SDC (r=-0.68) and 2MR (r=-0.53) events. Within the parameters of this study, Soldier BMI demonstrated no to weak association with individual ACFT event or ACFT total scores. Further, the range of PCCs between the ACFT event scores were no to moderately high. Military leaders may consider the results provided as combat and fitness tests continue to evolve.

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