Australia: Expanding and Applying the Field of Civil-Military Relations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Wadham ◽  
Willem de Lint
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conflict Zones ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Civil-military relations research in Australia is limited. There is no field of civil-military relations to speak of, as there is in, for example, the United States tradition. It is this tradition of research that has a significant influence on the Australian Defence Force through the work of Samuel Huntington and Morris Janowitz. Indeed, civil-military relations is used in defense establishment parlance to describe the military encountering nongovernment organizations and the civil sector in conflict zones. However, there is not enough research and writing to represent a body of work within the Australian academy. The use of the term and its traditions are argued to be normative. The concept reproduces an ideal of civil-military relations that does not represent the rich cultural diversity that constitutes this field. Civil-military relations in the United States sense are an appropriate frame for Australian liberal democracy and the place and role of the military. Drawing on cultural theory, and using the phenomenon of scandal, it may be argued that the cultural diversity of the state, the military, and civil society must be conceptualized to improve the explanatory value of this field. The fraternal and contested character of institutional interaction must also be a focus. The lack of attention to the role of the market is also an area for further development. The element of the market in civil-military relations describes the adaptive maneuvers of these entities—state, military, market, and civil society—in sustaining institutional hegemony in Australian liberal democracy.

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.

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.

Crisis in the Civil-Military Triangle?

2020 ◽  
pp. 191-206
Author(s):  
William E. Rapp
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The People ◽  
The Us ◽  
High Regard ◽  
The Government ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Despite the high regard for the US military by the American public, a number of tensions continue to grow in civil-military relations in the United States. These are exacerbated by a lack of clarity, and thus productive debate, in the various relationships inherent in civil and military interaction. By trisecting civil military relations into the relations between the people and the military, the military and the government, and the people and the government on military issues, this chapter examines the potential for crisis in coming years. Doing so allows for greater theoretical and popular understanding and thus action in addressing the tensions, for there is cause for concern and action in each of the legs of this interconnected triangle.

The United States: Politicians, Partisans, and Military Professionals

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Feaver ◽  
Damon Coletta
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Army Corps ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

The United States boasts an enviable record regarding the military’s role in politics: never a coup and never a serious coup attempt. However, this does not mean that the military always played only a trivial role in politics. On the contrary, as the Framers worried, it is impossible for a democracy to maintain a military establishment powerful enough to protect it in a hostile international environment without at the same time creating an institution with sufficient clout to be a factor in domestic politics. The U.S. military’s political role has ebbed and flowed over the nearly 250 years of the nation’s history. The high-water mark of political influence came in the context of the gravest threat the country has faced, the Civil War, when the military enforced emergency measures approved by Congress, beyond the letter of the Constitution, including during Reconstruction when the military governed rebellious states of the former Confederacy. These were notable exceptions. For most of the 19th century, the military operated on the fringes of civilian politics, although through the Army Corps of Engineers it played a key role in state-building. When the United States emerged as a great power with global interests, the political role of the military increased, though never in a way to directly challenge civilian supremacy. Today, the military wields latent political influence in part because of its enormous fiscal footprint and in part because it is the national institution in which the public express the highest degree of confidence. This has opened the door for myriad forms of political action, all falling well below the red lines that most concern traditional civil–military relations theory. Military involvement in the American political system may be monitored and evaluated using a typology built around two columns that highlight the means of military influence—the first column is comprised of formal rules and institutions and the second encompasses the norms of military behavior with respect to civilian authority and civil society. While traditional civil–military relations theory focuses on military coups and coup prevention, theory based on this typology can help explain American civil–military relations, illuminating the warning signs of unhealthy friction under democratic governance and promoting republican vigilance at those moments when the U.S. military takes a prominent role and wades more deeply into domestic politics.

scholarly journals Paradoxes of Professionalism: Rethinking Civil-Military Relations in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Risa Brooks
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Delegation Of Authority ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Civilian Leaders ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

The U.S. military's prevailing norms of professionalism exhibit three paradoxes that render the organization poorly suited to meet contemporary challenges to its nonpartisan ethic, and that undermine its relations with civilian leaders. These norms, based on Samuel Huntington's objective civilian control model, argue that the military should operate in a sphere separate from the civilian domain of policymaking and decisions about the use of force. The first paradox is that Huntingtonian norms, though intended to prevent partisan and political behavior by military personnel, can also enable these activities. Second, the norms promote civilian leaders’ authority in decisionmaking related to the use of force, yet undermine their practical control and oversight of military activity. Third, they contribute to the military's operational and tactical effectiveness, while corroding the United States’ strategic effectiveness in armed conflict. These tensions in Huntington's norms matter today because of intensifying partisanship in society and in the military, the embrace by civilian leaders of objective control and their concomitant delegation of authority in armed conflict to the military, and growing questions about the causes of the inconclusive outcomes of the United States’ recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is time to develop a new framework for military professionalism.

Introduction to Symposium

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia M. Shields
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Security ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Society Symposium ◽  
Senior Officer ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

This Armed Forces & Society symposium on the ethics of senior officer resignation in the United States includes a collection of four papers, each looking at principled resignation in different ways. Two authors, Dubik and Snider, believe principled resignation of senior military officers is sometimes justified, especially in wartime, where their inherent morals clash with their professional demands; these senior officer’s ability to resign in protest distinguishes their service to this nation between stewards and servants. Conversely, Feaver and Kohn believe principled resignation is almost never justified as this action weakens the military profession and ultimately threatens national security. Further, the disastrous effects increase the ever present friction and mistrust in the civil-military process. Each author answers the question in the context of current American civil military relations and it is their hope that this symposium will lead to further discussions, research, and policies regarding the ethics surrounding the issue.

Civil Military Relation and Stabilization in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Pakistan

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tughral Yamin
Keyword(s):  
Paper Briefly ◽  
Conflict Zones ◽  
Stabilization Process ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Salient Points ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military ◽  
Tribal Areas

The importance of civil military relations assumes seminal importance in ensuring the success of all phases of a counter insurgency campaign. In the true tradition of the Clausewitzian dictum that war is the continuation of policy and vice versa; Pakistan Army has been employed as a matter of policy in counter insurgency operations in the erstwhile tribal areas. They have also been used in the stabilization operations to bring about normality in the insurgency ridden areas. In fact the employment of Pakistan Army in the stabilization process defies any previous example in any other country. In all phases of the conflict cycle, the military has worked hand in glove with its civilian counterparts. The civil-military coordination (CIMIC) in the insurgency ridden areas has taken place within the framework of the established ground rules of an organized counter insurgency campaign. It would not be unfair to say that the return to normality in the erstwhile FATA has only been possible because of a well-knit CIMIC architecture. This paper briefly explicates the salient points of the CIMIC aspect of the counter and post-insurgency part of the operations in the conflict zones and highlights the importance of this aspect of dealing with insurgencies.

scholarly journals Introduction to the Special Issue: Soft Power of Civil Society in International Relations

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 473-476
Author(s):  
TAKASHI INOGUCHI
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Policy Makers

This special issue focuses on the role of civil society in international relations. It highlights the dynamics and impacts of public opinion on international relations (Zaller, 1992). Until recently, it was usual to consider public opinion in terms of its influence on policy makers and in terms of moulding public opinion in the broad frame of the policy makers in one's country. Given that public opinion in the United States was assessed and judged so frequently and diffused so globally, it was natural to frame questions guided by those concepts which pertained to the global and domestic context of the United States.

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