Conclusion

The concluding chapter synthesizes insights from the individual chapters, identifying six overarching lessons: civilian control of the US military is complex and understudied; norms are essential for healthy civil-military relations; the relationship between society and the military is less than healthy; partisanship is corroding civil-military relations; public scrutiny of the military is essential to military effectiveness; and the fundamental character of civil-military relations is changing. In turn, it proposes several questions for future research, suggesting that more could be known about public accountability of military activity; the nature and measurement of military politicization; and changing actors and roles in civil-military relations.

US Civil-Military Relations in the Gray Zone

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.

Cyber Operations, Legal Secrecy, and Civil-Military Relations

What civil-military challenges will arise from the virtual world of cyber warfare? Congress and the president have grown increasingly comfortable with permissive grants of authorities and decentralized delegations—including via classified documents with legal force (secret law)—, allowing military commanders to operationalize cyber tools in both defensive and offensive modes with greater ease and frequency. These cyber tools are unusually complex in their variety, design, and potential uses, at least relative to more traditional and conventional weapons. Their technical attributes render them difficult to monitor and regulate because those responsible for decisions to use such weapons—civilian officials—are often least likely to have experience or familiarity with them. The relatively low-cost, rapid-effect nature of cyberwar also encourages not just use in armed conflict, but also below the standard threshold of war. Cyber operations initiated without careful inter-agency planning, decision process, and presidential review drive up operational risk and undermine civil-military norms. To foster more effective civilian oversight and control of the nation’s military’s cyber sword, and to encourage more deliberative application of ever-evolving technologies, Congress should use its constitutional authorities over “the [cyber] land and naval Forces” to craft better decision processes and better civil-military and legal transparency balances.

Who Has “Skin in the Game”?

This chapter examines how the changing role of the reserve component in the post–Cold War era has affected US civil-military relations. It argues that as the reserve component has transitioned from strategic to operational reserve, the part-time service members of the reserve component have become less distinct from their active-duty counterparts. The blurring of the distinction between citizen-soldier and professional soldier has important implications for key issues in civil-military relations. Policymakers previously assumed the societal disruption caused by mobilizing the reserve component would impose significant political costs on presidents who conduct overseas military operations, but this does not appear to be the case today. In addition, political activity—including serving in Congress—by members of the reserve component who simultaneously publicize their ongoing military service may exacerbate concerns about the politicization of the military.

The Civil-Military Implications of Emerging Technology

This chapter argues that adaptation of emerging technology—artificial intelligence (AI), among other forms—will introduce new stresses and tensions in civil-military relations across a variety of domains and contexts. Specifically, the analysis highlights four areas of potential stress. The first area is the organizational implications of technological change and innovation for military institutions and civilian actors. The second is the opportunities and obstacles emerging technology poses for civilian oversight of the military. A third area includes how the introduction of technology in advisory processes at the senior level may affect tensions in strategic assessment and the provision of military advice in those processes. A final issue is the evolving character of the profession of arms and the diminution of the military’s exclusive domain of expertise relative to civilian actors.

Crisis in the Civil-Military Triangle?

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.

When an Immovable Object Meets an Irresistible Force

In a period in which much conventional wisdom about American politics has been thrown into question two essential facts remain: the public popularity of the US military remains high relative to any other US institution and the level of partisan polarization continues to climb. Recent crises in US civil-military relations suggest it unlikely that both of these facts can continue to simultaneously be true. This essay therefore introduces the concept of affective polarization to the study of civil-military relations. When a population is affectively polarized, multiple social identities reinforce a disdain within a group for members outside of it. In the contemporary United States, these social identities have coalesced within political parties. While the US military may not be interested in affective polarization, affective polarization is definitely interested in the US military. This essay lays out how, as it continues to evolve into an exercise in fiscal rather than social mobilization, the US military may grow more prone, like most other national institutions, to being swallowed.

Civilian Oversight inside the Pentagon

The epicenter of steady civilian oversight of the military is inside the Pentagon, yet the literature on civil-military relations surprisingly gives it little attention. This chapter focuses on civilian oversight inside the halls of the Pentagon by examining the key role played by the secretary of defense—the day-to-day “overseer in chief”—and by extension, his or her staff: the Office of the Secretary of Defense, particularly the policy arm. The chapter argues that the most crucial issues demanding oversight are force management, force employment, and force development, not publicly prominent but regionally focused issues. This chapter outlines three key dynamics essential to effective civilian oversight: capable civilians, consistent dialogue, and an atmosphere of trust and transparency.

Dissents and Sensibility

The architecture of objective control has informed a great deal of the development of civil-military norms and the professional education of military officer corps, particularly in the democratic West. But while this idealized vision of civil-military relations has been influential, it is incomplete in its accounting of the moral, ethical, legal, and political structures surrounding the military service member. In practical terms, it is not a simple task to divide problems into purely military and purely political aspects, nor is it easy to determine how to reconcile conflicting imperatives. This chapter attempts to provide a comprehensive typology of the various loyalty structures within which military personnel are located and the various ways in which these structures can conflict. It discusses how democratic theory and classical principal-agent models may prescribe different outcomes for such conflicts and provide a granular understanding of the sources of civil-military friction.

Confidence without Sacrifice

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.