Civil–military relations

Civil–military relations (Civ-Mil or CMR) describes the relationship between civil society as a whole and the military organization or organizations established to protect it. CMR is an umbrella concept that incorporates a diverse, often normative field, which moves within and across management, social science and policy scales. More narrowly, it describes the relationship between the civil authority of a given society and its military authority. Studies of civil-military relations often rest on a normative assumption that civilian control of the military is preferable to military control of the state, although some analyses are more descriptive in nature.In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive, will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people. Civil–military relations (Civ-Mil or CMR) describes the relationship between civil society as a whole and the military organization or organizations established to protect it. CMR is an umbrella concept that incorporates a diverse, often normative field, which moves within and across management, social science and policy scales. More narrowly, it describes the relationship between the civil authority of a given society and its military authority. Studies of civil-military relations often rest on a normative assumption that civilian control of the military is preferable to military control of the state, although some analyses are more descriptive in nature. A paradox lies at the center of traditional civil-military relations theory. The military, an institution designed to protect the polity, must also be strong enough to threaten the society it serves. A military take-over or coup is a worst-case example. Ultimately, the military must accept that civilian authorities have the 'right to be wrong'. In other words, they may be responsible for carrying out a policy decision they disagree with. Civilian supremacy over the military is a complicated matter. The rightness or wrongness of a policy or decision can be ambiguous. Civilian decision makers may be impervious to corrective information. The relationship between civilian authorities and military leaders must be worked out in practice. The principal problem they examine, however, is empirical: to explain how civilian control over the military is established and maintained. In the broader sense it examines the ways society and military intersect or interact and includes topics such as the integration of veterans into society, methods used to recruit and retain service members, and the fairness and efficacy of these systems, the integration of minorities, women, and the LGBT community into the military, the behavior and consequences of private contractors, the role of culture in military organizations, voting behavior of soldiers and veterans, and the gaps in policy preferences between civilians and soldiers. While generally not considered a separate academic area of study in and of itself, it involves scholars and practitioners from many fields and specialties. Apart from political science and sociology, Civ-Mil (CMR) draws upon such diverse fields as law, philosophy, area studies, psychology, cultural studies, anthropology, economics, history, diplomatic history, journalism, and the military, among others. It involves study and discussion of a diverse range of issues including but not limited to: civilian control of the military, military professionalism, war, civil-military operations, military institutions, and other related subjects. International in scope, civil-military relations involves discussion and research from across the world. The theoretical discussion can include non-state actors as well as more traditional nation-states. Other research involves discerning the details of military political attitudes, voting behavior, and the potential impact on and interaction with democratic society as well as military families. The history of civil-military relations can be traced to the writings of Sun Tzu and Carl von Clausewitz, both of whom argued that military organizations were primarily the servants of the state. Concerns about a growing militarism in society, largely coming from the experiences of the first half of the twentieth century, engendered an examination into the impact of military organizations within society. The ramifications of the Cold War, specifically the American decision to maintain a large standing army for the first time in its history, led to concerns about whether such a large military structure could be effectively maintained by a liberal democracy. Samuel P. Huntington and Morris Janowitz published the seminal books on the subject which effectively brought civil-military relations into academia, particularly in political science and sociology. Despite the peculiarly American impetus for Huntington's and Janowitz's writing, their theoretical arguments have been used in the study of other national civil-military studies. For example, Ayesha Ray used the ideas of Huntington in her book about Indian civil-military relations. In The Man on Horseback, Samuel E. Finer countered some of Huntington's arguments and assumption and offered a look into the civil-military relationships in the under-developed world. Finer observed that many governments do not have the administrative skills to efficiently govern which may open opportunities for military intervention—opportunities that are not as likely in more developed countries. The increased incidence of military coups d'état since World War II, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, brought about a growing interest in academic and journalistic circles in studying the nature of such coups. Political upheaval in Africa led to military take-overs in Dahomey, Togo, Congo, and Uganda, to mention just a few. Political unrest in South America, which involved military coups in Bolivia (189 military coups in its first 169 years of existence), Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay, was largely a result of forces attempting to stem the increasing influence of left-wing and communist led uprisings. The 2006 military coup in Thailand engendered continued interest in this area.