War and Its Surrogates: Male Combat Sports and Women's Roles

1998 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-68
Author(s):  
Margaret Loftus Ranald
Keyword(s):  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Court Order ◽  
Majority Opinion ◽  
United States Armed Forces ◽  
Single Sex ◽  
Service Academies ◽  
Military Institute ◽  
The Military

War and the military life have traditionally been perceived in most cultures as a sacrosanct ex-periental world devoted to masculine maturation and bonding. By definition both these traditionally male organizations have until now excluded women, treating them as objects to be despised (if not feared), and also the target of active opposition. Note, for instance, the gleeful celebrations among cadets when Shannon L. Faulkner, the first woman admitted (after court order) to The Citadel, a single-sex military college in Charleston, SC, decided after one week in August 1995 that she could not survive the harassment, hi refusing to admit her the institution had claimed that her presence ‘would undermine a proud and legitimate tradition dedicated to molding the minds, bodies and spirits of young men’. The counter argument was that she was being denied equal opportunity to take part in ‘a unique academic environment that requires on-campus residence and that is being built around a system of hardship, competition and bonding, […and] also a lifetime of countless, less tangible benefits’. Such was also the basis of the US Supreme Court's majority opinion written by Ruth Bader Ginsberg (1996) mandating the admission of women to the Virginia Military Institute. Though now federal government supported service academies admit women, nostalgia still exists in certain quarters for the days when the comment, ‘If the army had wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one’ summed up the distinctly peripheral position held by wives, who were, and are still, classified as ‘dependants’. But now women are in the United States Armed Forces, in command positions and certain combat units, as well as in the medical corps. The transition is difficult.

scholarly journals Suicide in the Military: Understanding Rates and Risk Factors Across the United States’ Armed Forces

2019 ◽  
Vol 184 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 432-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry D Pruitt ◽  
Derek J Smolenski ◽  
Nigel E Bush ◽  
Jennifer Tucker ◽  
Fuad Issa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Suicide Attempts ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Department ◽  
United States Armed Forces ◽  
Data Elements ◽  
Military Suicide ◽  
The Military

Abstract This paper presents data from the United States Department of Defense Suicide Event Report System for years 2012–2015 to detail descriptive, longitudinal rate data and risk factor profiles associated with military suicide. The annual findings were aggregated from all U.S. military suicide deaths and suicide attempts. Data elements included the most common method of suicide (firearms), most common behavioral health diagnoses (substance abuse/dependence), common life stressors (failed intimate–partner relationships), and an individual’s history of operational deployment. Age- and sex-adjusted rates for the Services were compared with rates for the U.S. adult population. Results showed that the current reporting period (2015) is similar to patterns that have been observed over the preceding years and to patterns reported in the overall U.S. adult population. Suicide rates remain elevated but stable for both the Active and Reserve Components of the Military Services compared to historical levels observed prior to 2003. Finally, we discuss common errors and misinterpretations that can occur when analyzing surveillance data.

The Soviet Factor in the US-China Military-Technical Cooperation during the Cold War

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 12-47
Author(s):  
Yinan Li
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Active Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Technical Cooperation ◽  
Arms Sales ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The development of the PRC’s armed forces included three phases when their modernization was carried out through an active introduction of foreign weapons and technologies. The first and the last of these phases (from 1949 to 1961, and from 1992 till present) received wide attention in both Chinese and Western academic literature, whereas the second one — from 1978 to 1989 —when the PRC actively purchased weapons and technologies from the Western countries remains somewhat understudied. This paper is intended to partially fill this gap. The author examines the logic of the military-technical cooperation between the PRC and the United States in the context of complex interactions within the United States — the USSR — China strategic triangle in the last years of the Cold War. The first section covers early contacts between the PRC and the United States in the security field — from the visit of R. Nixon to China till the inauguration of R. Reagan. The author shows that during this period Washington clearly subordinated the US-Chinese cooperation to the development of the US-Soviet relations out of fear to damage the fragile process of detente. The second section focuses on the evolution of the R. Reagan administration’s approaches regarding arms sales to China in the context of a new round of the Cold War. The Soviet factor significantly influenced the development of the US-Chinese military-technical cooperation during that period, which for both parties acquired not only practical, but, most importantly, political importance. It was their mutual desire to undermine strategic positions of the USSR that allowed these two countries to overcome successfully tensions over the US arms sales to Taiwan. However, this dependence of the US-China military-technical cooperation on the Soviet factor had its downside. As the third section shows, with the Soviet threat fading away, the main incentives for the military-technical cooperation between the PRC and the United States also disappeared. As a result, after the Tiananmen Square protests, this cooperation completely ceased. Thus, the author concludes that the US arms sales to China from the very beginning were conditioned by the dynamics of the Soviet-American relations and Beijing’s willingness to play an active role in the policy of containment. In that regard, the very fact of the US arms sales to China was more important than its practical effect, i.e. this cooperation was of political nature, rather than military one.

US Civil-Military Relations in the Gray Zone

2020 ◽  
pp. 263-282
Author(s):  
Sarah Sewall
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Gray Zone ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Civilian Leaders ◽  
The Face ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

This chapter argues that the changing character of conflict demands rethinking U S civil-military relations. The United States has long relied on a nuclear deterrent and conventional military superiority to defend itself, but its adversaries have changed the rules of the game to exploit civilian vulnerabilities in the U S homeland using non kinetic tools. To ensure continued civilian control of the military use of force and effective management of competition below the threshold of war, civilian leaders must assume greater responsibility for the political and operational management of hostilities in the Gray Zone. Because civilian leaders are underprepared for this new global competition, they will be tempted to default to conventional military solutions. Traditional civil-military frameworks did not envision permanent conflict or the centrality of civilian terrain, capabilities, and operational responsibilities. The United States needs civilian-led tools and approaches to effectively avoid the dual extremes of national immobilization in the face of non kinetic threats and inadvertent escalation of conflict without civilian authorization or intent. Civilian adaptation could also diminish the traditional role of the armed forces in defending the nation. The United States must rewire the relationship of the military and civilians through its decisions about how to manage Gray Zone competition.

scholarly journals The Militarization of Law Enforcement: Evidence from Latin America

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustavo A. Flores-Macías ◽  
Jessica Zarkin
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Police Reform ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Military Law ◽  
The Military

What are the political consequences of militarizing law enforcement? Across the world, law enforcement has become increasingly militarized over the last three decades, with civilian police operating more like armed forces and soldiers replacing civilian police in law enforcement tasks. Scholarly, policy, and journalistic attention has mostly focused on the first type, but has neglected the study of three main areas toward which we seek to contribute: 1) the constabularization of the military—i.e., when the armed forces take on the responsibilities of civilian law enforcement agencies, 2) the extent to which this process has taken place outside of the United States, and 3) its political consequences. Toward this end, we unpack the concept of militarized law enforcement, develop theoretical expectations about its political consequences, take stock of militarization in Latin America, and evaluate whether expectations have played out in the region. We show that the distinction between civilian and military law enforcement typical of democratic regimes has been severely blurred in the region. Further, we argue that the constabularization of the military has had important consequences for the quality of democracy in the region by undermining citizen security, human rights, police reform, and the legal order.

Georgia: Warlords, Generals, and Politicians

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Darchiashvili ◽  
Stephen Jones
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Executive Authority ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Relationship

The balance between civil and military structures is central to understanding the development of Georgian statehood since the beginning of the 20th century. The first modern independent Georgian state was established after the 1917 Russian Revolution. The Democratic Republic of Georgia declared its independence in May 1918. In February 1921, the young republic was incorporated into the Soviet state and had no separate army of its own. Since regaining its independence in 1991, Georgia has experienced multiple administrations, and despite significantly different policies on the military, the overall pattern has been one of civilian (though not always democratic) control. Georgian militias and paramilitaries, between 1918 and 1921 and again between 1991 and 1995, played important roles in determining political power at times of revolutionary or constitutional crises. Since 1991 there have been three presidents - Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Eduard Shevardnadze, and Mikheil Saakashvili - with strong executive authority. In 2013, the position of president was made semi-ceremonial and a prime-ministerial system was instituted. Since 2013, there have been multiple prime ministers. Bidzina Ivanishvili was the first and the most powerful. All of Georgia’s leaders have shifted from a Soviet to pro-Western orientation. Since the second half of the 1990s, the relationship with NATO has grown closer, which has had a major impact on the structure of the Georgian armed forces and on their relationship with Georgia’s civil authorities. The 2008 war with Russia had a major impact on the Georgian military, and, since then, the level of professionalization of the Georgian armed forces has increased dramatically. Samuel Huntington, Eric Nordlinger, and other Western students of civil-military relations have pointed to the important balance required between civil and military authorities for a stable democracy. Georgia still displays continuing features of nepotism, clientelism, corruption, and dominant political personalities, which has significant consequences for the independence of the Georgian military and for civil-military relations more generally. Western states such as the United States and Germany, and international organizations like NATO continue to urge reform and provide training to the Georgian armed forces

American Military History: A Very Short Introduction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph T. Glatthaar
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Military History ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
American Military ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Strong Position ◽  
The Military

American Military History: A Very Short Introduction outlines the forces shaping the American military for the past 400 years. Since the colonial period, the United States has struggled to balance standing armed forces with citizen soldiers and sailors. Technological developments and two world wars forced the military to embrace professionalism and its increased obligations. The United States emerged from World War II in a strong position but failed to recognize the limits of its power, a legacy that some might say continues. Recent wars highlight some of the problems of a volunteer-dominated force. To succeed, the American military needs improved communication, understanding, and support.

Modeling the Complexity of the Terrorism/Counter-Terrorism Struggle

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 31-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Arney ◽  
Zachary Silvis ◽  
Matthew Thielen ◽  
Jeff Yao
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Asymmetric Warfare ◽  
United States Armed Forces ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Complex Mathematical Model

The United States armed forces could be considered the world’s most powerful military force. However, in modern conflicts, techniques of asymmetric warfare (terrorism) wreak havoc on the inflexible, regardless of technological or numerical advantage. In order to be more effective, the US military must improve its counter-terrorism (CT) capabilities and flexibility. In this light, the authors model the terrorism-counter-terrorism (T-CT) struggle with a detailed and complex mathematical model and analyze the model’s components of leadership, promotion, recruitment, resources, operational techniques, cooperation, logistics, security, intelligence, science, and psychology in the T-CT struggle, with the goal of informing today’s decision makers of the options available in counter-terrorism strategy.

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