Honduras: All-Purpose Militarization

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Mani
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The State ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Civic Action ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Military

The Honduran military has a long history of established roles oriented toward both external defense and internal security and civic action. Since the end of military rule in 1982, the military has remained a key political, economic, and social actor. Politically, the military retains a constitutional mandate as guarantor of the political system and enforcer of electoral rules. Economically, its officers direct state enterprises and manage a massive pension fund obscured from public audit. Socially, the military takes on numerous civic action tasks—building infrastructure, conserving forests, providing healthcare, and policing crime—that make the state appear to be useful to its people and bring the military into direct contact with the public almost daily. As a result, the military has ranked high in public trust in comparison with other institutions of the state. Most significantly, the military has retained the role of arbiter in the Honduran political system. This became brutally clear in the coup of 2009 that removed the elected president, Manuel Zelaya. Although new rules enhancing civilian control of the military had been instituted during the 1990s, the military’s authority in politics was restored through the coup that ousted Zelaya. As no civilian politician can succeed without support for and from the military, the missions of the armed forces have expanded substantially so that the military is an “all-purpose” institution within a remarkably weak and increasingly corrupt state.

Argentina: The Journey From Military Intervention to Subordination

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Pion-Berlin
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
The Public ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
Democratic Rule ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Rules Of The Game

Argentina has moved through two defining eras. The first was one of military coups and dictatorships that repeatedly interrupted democratic periods of governance. The second has been one of uninterrupted democratic rule marked by firm military subordination to civilian control. From 1930 to 1976, the Argentine armed forces cut short the tenure of every democratically elected head of state. Eleven of 16 presidents during this period were generals. Military coups in Argentina were brought on by a combination of factors, including societal pressures, tactical and strategic blunders on the part of political leaders, and the military’s own thirst for power and privileges. Militaries would eventually leave power, but their repeated interventions would weaken respect for democratic processes. The last coup, which occurred in 1976, marked a turning point, giving rise to an authoritarian regime that spelled political, economic, and military disaster for the nation. So disgusted was the public with the dictatorship’s incompetence and brutality that it discovered a newfound respect for democratic rules of the game. The demise of the Proceso dictatorship helped usher in a long and unbroken period of democratic rule. Still, contemporary Argentine democratic governments have had to grapple with civil-military issues. Notable progress has been made, including the holding of human rights trials, the enactment of laws that restrict the military’s use in internal security, and the strengthening of the defense ministry. Notwithstanding a few rebellions in the late 1980s, the Argentine armed forces have remained firmly under civilian control since the return of democracy. Nonetheless, administrations have varied in their abilities and motivation to enact reforms.

Lebanon: A Military in Politics in a Divided Society

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oren Barak
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Divided Society ◽  
The Military

Since Lebanon’s independence in the mid-1940s, its military—the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF)—has played a pivotal role in the country’s politics. The political role of the LAF in Lebanon might seem surprising since the Lebanese state did not militarize, and its political leaders have continuously managed to keep their military relatively weak and small. Indeed, in this respect Lebanon has been markedly different from its close neighbors (Syria and Israel), but also from several other Middle Eastern states (especially Egypt and Iraq), where the military, which was large and powerful, was continuously involved in politics. Additionally, both Lebanon and the LAF have persistently striven to distance themselves from regional conflicts since 1949, particularly in relation to the Palestinian issue, albeit not always successfully. Still, and despite these ostensibly unfavorable factors for the military’s involvement in politics in Lebanon, the LAF has played an important political role in the state since its independence. This role, which has been marked by elements of continuity and change over the years, included mediation and arbitration between rival political factions (in 1945–1958, 2008, 2011, and 2019); attempts to dominate the political system (in 1958–1970 and 1988–1990); intervention in the Lebanese civil war (in 1975–1976 and 1982–1984); attempts to regain its balancing role in politics (in 1979–1982 and 1984–1988); and facilitating the state’s postwar reconstruction (since 1991). The political role of the military in Lebanon can be explained by several factors. First, the weakness of Lebanon’s political system and its inability to resolve crises between its members. Second, Lebanon’s divided society and its members’ general distrust towards its civilian politicians. Third, the basic characteristics of Lebanon’s military, which, in most periods, enjoyed broad public support that cuts across the lines of community, region, and family, and found appeal among domestic and external audiences, which, in their turn, acquiesced to its political role in the state.

scholarly journals HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF MILITARY-TECHNICAL COOPERATION UKRAINE-NATO AT THE PRESENT STAGE

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (30) ◽  
pp. 54-60
Author(s):  
Pavlo Prokhovnyk
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Defense Industry ◽  
The State ◽  
Technical Cooperation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Dialogue ◽  
History Of ◽  
Hybrid War ◽  
The Military

The article analyzes the history of the development of military-technical cooperation between Ukraine and NATO as one of the defining areas of international military partnership. Taking into account specific historical circumstances and external aggression by the Russian Federation, the importance of Ukraine’s military-technical cooperation with partner countries for the implementation of political goals and objectives of the state for the development of defense industry and national security is emphasized. Ukraine faced new types of threats in all spheres of the state’s life, in the military in particular, which required active assistance from partner countries. The realities of the hybrid war, which has targeted our country, require new approaches to ensuring the state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including by strengthening military partnerships with the European Union and the United States. In modern geopolitical, socio-economic, international legal, military-political conditions, the nature, forms and directions of Ukraine’s military partnership need to be rethought and clarified. Today, Ukraine’s military cooperation with NATO is of a strategic nature, the tasks of which can be grouped into four key areas: maintaining military-political dialogue; assistance in reforming and developing the Armed Forces of Ukraine; ensuring contribution to international security and peacekeeping; defense and technical cooperation. As a result of this study, NATO membership will open new opportunities for Ukraine’s competitive defense industries and lay the foundation for military-technical cooperation at the international level. In this context, the myth that Ukraine’s accession to NATO will involve the collapse of Ukraine’s defense industry through the introduction of new NATO military standards, requirements for rearmament for our army is completely eliminated.

Warfare in Spanish America

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
The State ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
War Experiences ◽  
The One ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Military

In the same way that it is possible to understand warfare as organized violence with political ends, it is also useful to think of it as a particular condition of a society: a set of radically transforming experiences of individuals and communities; an unpredictable and chaotic process that defines identities and produces new forms of common life; and the creative space of a particular culture marked by different types of relationships between the members of a community. As can be seen from several historiographical traditions, there is a direct relationship between warfare and the process of state building: the state makes war and war makes the state. The regime established in America from the end of the 15th century to the 19th century can be explained by this relationship between institutional construction and the practice of violence. Like any empire of its time, the Spanish monarchy founded its authority, part of its legitimacy, its fiscal and administrative organization, its bureaucracy, its control systems, and its trade opportunities on the ground of warfare, and with these characteristics informed the slow and problematic processes of conquest, colonization, and subjection of the New World. Approaching Spanish America through both warfare and the military offers two major advantages: on the one hand, learning the history of its institutional, social, political, economic, and cultural development, and on the other, identifying the prolific historiography that has studied it. This bibliographical selection expresses both fields: the history of warfare in Spanish America and its changing historiography. The characteristics, pretensions, contradictions, and flaws of the Spanish institutional framework that for three centuries expanded from the Caribbean and came to dominate immense regions of North, Central, and South America until it entered into crisis and collapsed, leading to the emergence of national states, can be understood from its capacity to mobilize economic and human resources for warfare. Likewise, these very diverse armed forces involved in such processes were historical expressions of the societies that produced them. The studies in this bibliography express the historical complexity of Spanish America from the perspective of organization and experience of warfare. Although the sections are thematic, as far as possible the selection seeks to include in each case the broad spectrum of the three centuries of colonial domination; the sections referring to War Experiences do evolve with a more chronological criterion from conquests to independences and the emergence of national states.

scholarly journals The Role of Public Authorities During Mobilization

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-247
Author(s):  
Alexandru Stoian
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
National Defense ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Global Context ◽  
National Values ◽  
High Level ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Military

Abstract Imposed by states in order to defend its own territory and national values during the time of crisis, mobilization of armed forces in a contemporary global context creates new challenges for the public authorities, designers of the national legal framework and for the military authorities. In this regard, extraordinary measures can be taken in political, economic, social, administrative, diplomatic, legal and military fields, planned and prepared in peacetime. The Romanian National Defense System consists of the forces intended for defense, the resources of the national defense and the territorial infrastructure and provides a stable foundation for all types of actions related to mobilization, as long as the procedures involved are implemented at a high level of efficiency

scholarly journals SODELOVANJE SLOVENSKE VOJSKE IN POLICIJE PRI NALOGAH NOTRANJE STABILNOSTI IN VARNOSTI REPUBLIKE SLOVENIJE

2020 ◽  
pp. 67-83
Author(s):  
GREGOR POTOČNIK
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Synergistic Effects ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The State ◽  
Security System ◽  
Internal Stability ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
The People ◽  
The Military

Povzetek Grožnje nacionalni varnosti se preoblikujejo zelo hitro. Prebivalci države pričakujejo, da se bo nacionalnovarnostni sistem učinkovito in uspešno odzval na te grožnje. Izvedbeno se lahko nacionalnovarnostni sistem države odzove samo tako, da v sistem zagotavljanja nacionalne varnosti vključi vse svoje vire v upanju sinergičnih učinkov. Uporaba oboroženih sil za zagotavljanje notranje varnosti je bila izredna naloga oboroženih sil. Obramba oziroma obrambna sposobnost vojske, ki se izvaja v notranjosti države za notranjo stabilnost in varnost države ob zakonskih in primarno konceptualno določenih nalogah vojske in policije, predstavlja zakonodajni in operacionalizacijski izziv države. Ključne besede Slovenska vojska, Policija, izredna pooblastila vojske, operacionalizacija. Abstract Nowadays, threats to national security are transforming extremely rapidly. The people of a country expect the national security system to respond effectively and successfully to these threats. Implementation-wise, a country's national security system can only respond by including all its resources in the national security system hoping to achieve synergistic effects. The use of the armed forces to ensure internal security was an extraordinary task of the armed forces. The defence and the defence capacity of the military, which are in addition to the legal and primarily conceptually determined tasks of the military and the police aimed at ensuring internal stability and national security in the interior of the country, represent a legislative and operational challenge of the state. Key words Slovenian Armed Forces, Police, extraordinary powers of the army, operationalization.

Between Scylla and Charybdis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ozan O. Varol
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Transition Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Democratic Development ◽  
The Military ◽  
Better Than

Following most democratic coups, the military manages to secure exit benefits, which, depending on their degree, may foster various dysfunctions in the political system and undermine long-term democratic development. The dose determines the toxicity. A democratic regime can mature even with prerogatives for the military, as long as those prerogatives don’t interfere with democratic notions of civilian control of the armed forces. Although these prerogatives are often undesirable from civilians’ perspective, any attempts by civilians to immediately march the military back to the barracks empty-handed can prompt a backlash from the military leaders. They may dig in, rather than give in, and derail the transition process. And from civilians’ perspective, the military’s exit with benefits is often better than no exit at all.

Huntington in Canada: The Triumph of Subjective Control

2020 ◽  
pp. 0095327X2097053
Author(s):  
Peter Kasurak
Keyword(s):  
Political Leadership ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Defense Policy ◽  
The State ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Canadian Armed Forces ◽  
Objective Control ◽  
The Military

Samuel Huntington theorized in The Soldier and the State that rather than make the military in the image of society (subjective control), both superior civilian control and military outcomes would result if the military was allowed its own sphere and culture, shaped by military requirements (objective control). Since 1963, the Canadian Armed Forces have argued for objective control, while political leadership and the country have largely paid little attention to military demands for greater social independence. An examination of defense policy, the “civilianization” crisis, the Somalia Inquiry, and diversity legislation and programs demonstrate the triumph of subjective control. This article concludes that subjective control has had costs to civilians in military shirking and to the military in alienation from its parent society. Huntington remains useful, but it is time to consider modern alternatives to understand civil-military relationships.

scholarly journals From the History of the Development of Public Education in the Russian Empire in the Late 19th - Early 20th Centuries (Illustrated by the Example of Altai)

2020 ◽  
pp. 38-46
Author(s):  
T.G. Nedzelyuk ◽  
I.N. Nikulina ◽  
M.N. Potupchik ◽  
O.A. Litvinova ◽  
D.V. Zhilyakov
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Educational Policy ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
The State ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Impact

The article is dedicated to the history of the development of public education in Altai in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The authors focus on the process of establishing primary and secondary schools and vocational education institutions in the region. Economic processes (the decline of mining production in Altai, the intensification of resettlement processes in the region) and sociocultural changes in the country and the region - the growth of the number of educated people in Siberia and democratization of the education system in the Russian Empire as a whole - are considered as objective conditions for the development of education. The authors show the role of the public in the formation of primary schools in Altai. Speaking about the development of primary education in the region, such as the resettlement process, the authors of the article referred to the analysis of the activities of schools in the context of changing ethnic and religious composition of students and to the characterization of the educational policy of the State with regard to migrants of non-Russian origin. Studying the process of formation of gymnasium education in Altai, the authors focused on the opening of a men's gymnasium in Barnaul, considering that this event became a landmark for the development of the city. According to the authors’ opinion, studying the process of opening this gymnasium makes it possible to understand the dialectic of relations of the state and the society, the center and the regions. The article gives special attention to studying the impact of the military situation on the activities of educational institutions, for solving new tasks operating in wartime. In the end of the article, it was concluded that power institutions pursue utilitarian goals in the implementation of educational policy in remote regions.

scholarly journals Participation of the Turkish Military in the Economy of the State: Case of Indirect Praetorionism

Politologija ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 99 (3) ◽  
pp. 8-40
Author(s):  
Valerij Špak
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
The State ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Institutional Autonomy ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
New Phenomena ◽  
The Military ◽  
State Case

Based on the example of the Turkish military’s involvement in the country’s economy, this article seeks to complement the concept of praetorionism and to highlight the mechanisms of indirect praetorionism. The Turkish army plays an important role in the country’s economy, while the military pension fund OYAK is considered one of the country’s business giants. It provides an opportunity to maintain disproportionate institutional autonomy and weakens civilian control mechanisms. This provides the military with additional instruments of political influence and encourages the emergence of hidden mechanisms of praetorianism. The article seeks to understand new phenomena and trends in the interaction between the society and the military, as the involvement of the Turkish army in the country’s economy changes the concept of praetorianism and provides new, indirect ways of intervening in public policy. Because of how the Turkish military controls business companies using a privileged position in the country’s economy, corruption mechanisms that influence the mechanisms of the redistribution of economic resources and the pursuit of rents have an indirect impact on the political system of the state. In this way, military entrepreneurship has transformed the conceptual structure of praetorians and complemented interventions with indirect forms of influence, such as corruption, economic dominance, and the distortion of economic reforms.

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