‘Stranger to Relate yet Wonderfully True’

Building on the preceding chapter’s effort to study war and territorial conquest from the vantage point of peninsular India, this chapter focuses on the Madras presidency at war against the sultans of Mysore (1780–4). In stark contrast to the muted resistance offered by the civilian government of Bombay, when confronted with a vastly expanded military challenge, the Madras civilian power completely imploded. The belligerent Governor George Macartney struggled to wrest control against encroachments over his civilian authority from military commanders, an overweening Bengal administration and the inveterate hostility of the rulers of Mysore. These fissiparous struggles were not merely confined to the high politics of colonial administration. Ideologues like Henry Malcolm argued for the complete inversion of the ideology of civilian control of the military, especially for the local administration in Madras presidency. Taken together—the complete breakdown of civil–military relations at the highest levels of the Madras presidency and the view from the margins of local administration—the experiment of placing the military well above and beyond the civilian components of early colonial rule had taken deep roots in peninsular India.

India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh: Civil-Military Relations

Civil–military relations in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh constitute an interesting puzzle because all three nations are inheritors of the British colonial tradition of military subordination to civilian authority. The patterns that have emerged and evolved in these countries stand out in marked contrast to one another. In India, barring important and marked exceptions, the military has mostly remained away from politics and has, for the most part, been subordinate to civilian authority. In the early part of the 21st century, however, there have been some disturbing developments which call into question the political neutrality of the military. Yet it is unclear if these will lead to an erosion of the mostly apolitical ethos of the military. In Pakistan, in marked contrast, the military took part in four coups (1958, 1969, 1978, 1999), ruled the country for extensive periods of time and has secured a position in the country’s governing structure. Barring extraordinary endogenous or exogenous shocks, it is hard to envisage a dramatic change in the structure of civil–military relations in the country. In Bangladesh, the military led coups in 1975, 1982, and 2007. Even though it does not have a formal role in government, it nevertheless remains an important force in the politics of the country. No national leader can act on critical questions of public policy without taking into account the views of the uniformed military. More to the point, elements within the military have remained restive and have chafed at civilian control. What explains the three divergent pathways in these countries despite their common colonial heritage? What are the salient features of civil–military relations in these states? How have India and Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons affected the scope and dimensions of their civil–military relations? What does the future hold for civil–military relations in all three states? These are the principal questions that will addressed be drawing on a substantial swath of extant literature.

Decolonizing Palestine

This chapter provides an overview of the Palestinian struggle for liberation and describes the author's fieldwork in the Gaza Strip, Israel, and Egypt, conducted between 2013 and 2016. The Gaza Strip as a whole became a place of contradictions when Hamas adopted a dual mode of existence following its historic victory in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections. After the unequivocal triumph of the Islamist faction, Fatah refused to be part of the Hamas government. Over the course of the 2007 Battle of Gaza, Hamas then consolidated its rule over the Gaza Strip while maintaining its commitment to the armed resistance. In doing so, Hamas oscillated between the images of the postcolonial state and an anticolonial movement. As the government in the Gaza Strip, it represented a civilian authority posturing like the future Palestinian state. However, by remaining committed to the armed struggle, Hamas also recognized the fact that Palestine is far from being liberated.

Papua New Guinea: Volatile but Coupless

Before Papua New Guinea’s independence in 1975, its military consisted of a Pacific Island Regiment under the Australian Army’s Northern Command. In preparation for independence, there was considerable debate over whether the independent country should have a military force. Provision was made for the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) in the constitution, with a strong emphasis on the supremacy of the civilian authority. In the first decade of independence, the PNGDF was called out to assist police in internal security operations, but the priority of its role in internal security was not officially recognized until 1991. The deployment of the PNGDF to Bougainville to assist police in operations against what became the separatist Bougainville Revolutionary Army involved a heavy commitment of troops to a long-running conflict and was marked by a number of confrontations between the military and political leaders. This culminated in the Sandline affair, in which the PNGDF commander stepped in to terminate a contract between the government and the military consultants Sandline International and called on the prime minister to resign (but did not attempt to take over the government). After the Sandline affair and with the Bougainville Peace Agreement, relations between government and military improved, but several incidents involving PNGDF personnel led Prime Minister Morauta to speak of a “culture of instability” within the PNGDF and to invite a review by a Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group. Confrontations between the military and government, however, have consistently stopped short of attempted coup. The most plausible explanation for this may lie in the localized, competitive, and fractious nature of political power in Papua New Guinea, the absence of a dominant ethnic group, and the difficulties that even a legitimate, elected government has in maintaining law and order and service delivery across the country.

The Paradoxes of Huntingtonian Professionalism

Samuel Huntington’s objective control model of civil-military relations has had profound effects on contemporary norms of military professionalism. Huntington anticipated that objective control, premised on a clearly defined division of responsibility between the military and civilians, would create an apolitical ethos among officers. The military’s apolitical character then would ensure its deference to civilian authority and reinforce its professional character. The approach would also enable the military to cultivate expertise in the “management of violence” and guarantee its effectiveness in armed conflict. Those norms, however, are more complex than is sometimes appreciated. They exhibit four paradoxes, producing the very behaviors and outcomes they aim to prevent: they can promote actions and mindsets within the officer corps that work to facilitate political behavior, subvert civilian control of military activity, compromise strategic effectiveness, and even undermine some aspects of military professionalism itself.

Mozambican government will maintain bunker mentality

Significance While the Mozambican authorities, bolstered by a South African-based private military company (PMC), appear to have lessened the scale of insurgent attacks in recent months, insecurity remains rife. Meanwhile, civilian authority is increasingly brittle as locals flee various districts fearing renewed insurgent attacks. Impacts International concern will grow over the reported intersection between the insurgency and criminal trafficking networks. The worsening COVID-19 crisis, including related job losses, will aggravate the humanitarian situation in Cabo Delgado. Ongoing insecurity from attacks in central provinces by the splinter ‘RENAMO Military Junta’ will stretch the security forces’ resources.

Egypt’s military will entrench control of public life

Significance The most notable change institutionalises the control by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) over officers’ participation in elections; another extends the military’s reach into local government. These represent a further step in the construction of a parallel state run by the armed forces, and the reduction of civilian authority in all areas. Impacts Elections to the reinstated Senate scheduled for August will result in a major win for pro-Sisi candidates. Local governance and education at all levels will experience greater interference from the armed forces. Activities of international organisations and businesses across Egypt will be increasingly subject to monitoring by military authorities.

The Virtues of Military Politics

Sociologists and political scientists have long fretted over the dangers that a politicized military poses to democracy. In recent times, however, civil–military relations experts in the United States accepted retired or indeed still serving generals and admirals in high-ranking political posts. Despite customary revulsion from scholars, the sudden waivers are an indicator that military participation in momentous national security decisions is inherently political without necessarily being partisan, including when civilian authority defers to a largely autonomous sphere for objective military expertise. Military politics is actually critical for healthy civil–military collaboration, when done prudently and moderately. Janowitz and Huntington, founders of the modern study of civil–military relations, understood the U.S. military’s inevitable invitation to political influence. Here, we elaborate on two neglected dimensions, implicit in their projects, of military politics under objective civilian control based on classical virtues of civic republicanism: Aristotle’s practical wisdom and Machiavelli’s virtú.