Change and Continuity? Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations
By Chiara Ruffa
September 29, 2023
DoD photo by Timothy Koster
Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations: Military Society, Politics and Modern War. Edited by Lionel Beehner, Risa Brooks and Daniel Maurer. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2020.
The book Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations does many great things. Among them—as the title suggests—it offers a major reassessment of the state of U.S. civil-military relations. This book is a first systematic attempt I’ve read that seeks to surpass the dominance of Samuel P. Huntington’s model of civil-military relations, introduced in 1957 with his manuscript The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations. Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations focuses, however, on the country in the world that has perhaps been most dominated by Huntington’s influence on theorizing and practicing civil-military relations: the United States. And naturally Huntington’s influence looms very large. Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations embarks on an extensive review of U.S. civil-military relations and unpacks U.S. civil-military relations in systematic ways. The book is structured around four main foci: the military’s roles and responsibilities; the civilian leadership’s roles and responsibilities; the public’s role and responsibilities; and the nature of modern war and civil-military relations. As such, it provides a comprehensive assessment of U.S. civil-military relations. The book also provides a good introduction for the newcomers, which is both informative, concise, and systematic. Perhaps, though, the book’s most important contribution is to open up the conversation about other models(s) of civil-military relations beyond Huntington.
After the introduction, the first chapter by Risa Brooks starts with the iconic statement that “discussions of American civil-military relations have been grounded in Samuel Huntington’s classic formulation of what it means to be a military professional” and continues with a reflection outlining the paradoxes of Huntingtonian professionalism.[1] The starting point of her chapter, of her broader research, and of the book is how much Huntington’s theories have become the normal theory of civil-military relations and how the construct of objective control and Huntington’s distinctive version of apolitical professionalism has had pervasive consequences. Huntington’s idea of objective control is premised on the clearly defined division of responsibility between the military and civilians, a division that would create an apolitical ethos among officers who would abstain from engaging in all dimensions of politics and policy debates. His theory has the appeal of parsimony whilst at the same time addressing itself prominently to the U.S., which partly explains its traction in both the U.S. and abroad.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/09/29/change_and_continuity_reconsidering_american_civil-military_relations_982781.html
