I ff;;

. I'
'!

SUPREME
~: COMMAN.D
SOLDIERS.
STATESMEN,
AND
LEADERSHIP
IN WARTIME

* * *

ELIOT A. COHEN

) Anchor Books
~ Dtvision ofRandO~quse, Inc.
New York

,{J;
240 AFTERWORD: RUMSFHD'S WAR

ways of war. A style of conflict predicated on special operations, air

power, and a limited if heavy armored punch on the ground threatened APPENDIX
not only force structure but long-standing military doctrines. Indeed,
some of the criticism of the war indicated just how quickly the military The Theory of Civilian Control
art had progressed in a decade, rendering even seasoned professional ....
judgments by officers only recently retired obsolete and ill-informed.
More importantly, perhaps, as the references to McNamara indicated,
the ghosts of Vietnam had not been laid to rest. "A BODY OF MEN DlSTlNCT
In retrospect, the criticism looked like mere carping. Historians will, FROM THE BODY OF THE PEOPLE'
no doubt, flesh out the story of IRAQI FREEDOM in a variety of ways, many
of which will modify the impression of skillful war direction conducted
through an unequal dialogue. The Iraqi side of the story is as yet un- The issue of civil-military relations is one of the oldest subjects of polit-
told-the command errors of the regime and an array of material and ical science. Plato's Republic discusses the difficulties inherent in creat-
psychological weaknesses that made it a far less formidable opponent ing a guardian class who would at once be "gentle to their own and cruel
than it appeared to be in the fall of 2002. The weaknesses of American to enemies," men who, like "noble dogs," would serve as the ideal city's
1
planning will also receive attention, especially in terms of the aftermath guardians. Fear of military dictatorship plagued English and American
of the war, in which American forces appeared, for at least six weeks or political philosophers, who saw in both classical and recent history the
more, unprepared for the collapse of order in Iraq and the consequent threats to civil liberty that could arise from large standing armies. As a
need for effective military government. Nor is it likely to be clear for British parliamentarian put it in the eighteenth century: "[soldiers] are a
some time just what the long-term consequences of the war will be- body of men distinct from the body of the people; they are governed by
whether Iraq will become a promising example of free government in different laws, and blind obedience, and an entire submission to the or-
the Arab world or a chaotic reproach to Am!!rican ambitions; whether ders of their commanding officer, is their only principle ... it is indeed
the United States will be able to withdraw gracefully from occupation impossible that the liberties of the people in any country can be pre-
and military rule or find itself throwing up its hands in frustration or de- served where a numerous standing army is kept up."2 Despotism often
spair; whether American influence on the Arab world is on the wax or wears a uniform, and even in republics such as early twentieth-century
the wane; whether-it will be able to repair the relationships with former France statesmen urgently pondered ways and means of reducing mili-
allies and friends ruptured by this war; whether it has pacified or in- tary autonomy and ensuring adequate civilian control of the armed
flamed the tense relationship between the Middle East and Persian Gulf forces of the state. Despite the relatively small size of the peacetime mil-
on the one hand and the West on the other. It may be years before these itary establishment of the United States, civil-military relations in this
questions can be answered with certainty; it will surely be as much time country have experienced periodic crises-most notably during the Civil
before a definitive description will appear of American decision-making War, when on more than one occasion President Abraham Lincoln found
during this extraordinary period-the precise role of the president and himself deeply at odds with his generals. The overall record of the Amer-
his immediate subordinates, the amount of planning or improvisation, ican military, however, remains one of complete "subordination and loy-
the quality of information, and the judgments that they made. But one alty" co the Constitution. 3 For the United States, and indeed for most
thing was clear: the planning and conduct of the Iraqi war of 2003 fol- democracies, the central problem of civil-military relations has not been
lowed the model of the unequal dialogue, and though it may have been the most fundamental one-that of preventing a military takeover of che
painful, it yielded a swift and relatively cheap victory on the battlefield. state. For many reasons, including the acculturation of the military itself
In that respect, at the very least, Rumsfeld won his war. and the presence of numerous countervailing forces and instirutions.
242 APPENDIX: THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL
:, ~··r APPENDIX, THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL 243
1,
that specter has never seriously haunted American statesmen. But the
adjustment of relations regarding the preparation and use of force to
! according to this admittedly narrow set of criteria. Neither. by implica-
tion1 are those whose specialty is the direct application of violence rather
serve the ends of policy has proven a very different matter. than its management and planning.
The notion that if there is no fear of a coup there can be nothing seri- Huntington believes in the distinctiveness of the military mindset. It
ously amiss with civil-military relations is one of the greatest obstacles is. he says in a notabl~assage, "pessimistic, collectivist, historically in·
to serious thinking about the subject. The proper roles of the military in dined, power.:oriented, nationalistic, militaristic, pacifist, and instru~
shaping foreign policy, in setting the conditions under which it acts, in mentalist in its view of the military profession. It is, i~ brief, realistic
creating the kind of forces most appropriate for its tasks, in mobilizing and conservative. "7 To be sure, this is an ideal type. But he maintains
civil society to support its activities-these are all contentious issues. that it is powerful nonetheless, and that this mi1itary ethos is a source of
The military is almost invariably the largest single element of national great strength not merely for the military but for society more broadly.
government; it claims a vast chunk of its discretionary spending, and it In The Soldier and the State's concluding pages he draws a striking con-
has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. There is nothing obvious trast between the appearances and the inner reali~ies of the United
or inevitable about the subordination of the armed forces to the wishes States Military Academy at West Point and the neighboring town of
and purposes of the political leadership. Highland Falls, New York-appearances that reflect cultural differences.
Almost half a century ago, in what became a classic work of political The austerity and purposefulness of the military order has something to
science, Samuel P. Huntington set out a theory of civil·military relations teach, or at least complement, the dazzling heterogeneity and anarchy of
to guide both civilians and soldiers in their relationships. The Soldier and democratic society.
the State has ever since set the terms of debate about civil;;.military rela- Huntingtoh offers a recipe for ensuring civilian dominance over the
tions in this country. A simplified .secondhand version of the book has armed forces, arguing as he does for a sharp division between civilian
come, in fact, to be commonly viewed as the "normal" theory of civil- and military roles. "Objective control"-a form of civilian control based
military relations-the accepted theoretical standard by which the cur- on efforts to increase the professionalism of the officer corps, carving off
rent reality is to be judged.• Like most classics T~e Soldier and the State for it a sphere of action independent of politics-is, in his view, -the
is more cited than read, and many of its subtleties have been lost on preferable form of civil-military relations. He contrasts ''o bjec~ive con·
those who have admired it most. But extraordinarily influencial it re· troJ" with what he calls "subjective control," which aims to tame the
mains. military by civilianizing it, thus rendering it politically aware1 or by con-
Huntington begins with an analysis of officership as a profession, trolling it from within with transplanted civilian elites. In the contempo-
much like medicine or the law. Like those vocations, he writes, officer· rary world those who support this latter means qf conuol are
ship is distihguished by expertise in a particular area of human affairs, a "fusionists" who believe that the old categories of political and military
sense of responsibility that lends an importance transcending monetary matters are difficult to distinguish. 8 ln a previous age these fusionists
rewards to one's work, and corporateness or a sense of community and would have asserted civilian conuol by keeping officership the preserve
commitment to members of one's group. 5 For Huntington, the central of the ruling social classi in the current era they seek to blur the au·
skill of the soldier is the "management of violence," the ans of planning, tonomous nature of military professionalism. "-r:he essence of objective
organizing, and employing military force, but not applying it. At least in dviJian control," by way of contrast, "is the recognition of autonomous
ground and naval warfare, officers orchestrate and coordinate the use of military professionalism." 9 There is good news here: soldiers not only
force: they do not, except in extremis, fight themselves. To be sure, this respect the bounds of democratic politics when subject co objective con-
may mean that "not all officers are professional military officers" in the trol, they also fight more effectively. When politicians leave purely mili-
restricted sense of the term.6 Those who specialize in career areas not di- tary matters to officers, and when they draw clear distinctions between
rectly related to the management of violence are not truly. professional their activities and those of civilians, outstanding military organizations
244 APPENDIX• THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL APPENDIX• THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL 245

emerge. Officers motivated by dedication to a politically sterile and neu- trust a doctor with a soothing bedside manner, so too many civilians
tral military ideal-"the good soldier," and "the best regiment"-will look to put their reliance in generals who cultivate a calpi or dominating
turn in a performance superior to those motivated by ideology or merely demeanor and an attitude of command. Paradoxically, perhaps, it is in
personal drives such as ambition or vainglory. 10 matters of life and death that many people become more rather than less
This view has profound implications for strategy. Huntington quotes trustful of the professlwnals. And indeed this, in Huntington's view, is
approvingly a Command and General Staff College 1936 publication: how the United States did so well during the Second World War: "So far
as the major decisions in policy and strategy were concerned, the mili-
Politics and strategy are radically and fundamentally things apart. tary ran the war." 14 And a good thing too, he seems to add.
Strategy begins where politics ends. All that soldiers ask is that A simplified Huntingtonian conception of military professionalism
once the policy is settled, strategy and command shall be re- remains the dominant view within the American defense establishment.
garded as being in a sphere apart from politics ... The line of de- In the mid-1980s the Congress conducted a debate on military reforms
marcation must be drawn between politics and strategy, supply, that led to the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganiza-
and operations. Having found. this line, all sides must abstain tion Act of 1986, which substantially increased the power of the Joint
from trespassing. 11 Staff and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the expense of the
military services and even, to some extent, that of the office of secretary
This sharp separation is possible because military expertise is, indeed, of defense. 15 Not only did the originators of that legislation explicitly en-
definable and isolatable. "The criteria of military efficiency are limited, dorse Huntington's reading of American military history; they saw their
concrete, and relatively objective; the criteria of political wisdom'·are in- responsibility as -one of providing more and better centralized; au-
definite, ambiguous, and highly subjective." 12 Political leaders enhance tonomous military advice to civilian leaders. 16
their control by making the military austerely professional, while reserv- Huntington's theory has particular importance in a period during
ing to themselves alone the passing of judgments on matters of policy as which the United States finds itself chronically resorting to the use of
opposed to teclu,iical military matters. • force. The concept of "objective control" offers a way of coping with the
Many democratic politicians and even more of their fellow citizens dangers that military organizations pose for democracies-what Toc-
find the understanding of strategy as craft reassuring. To believe that queville described as "a restless, turbulent spirit" that "is an evil inher-
war is a professioi;i~ art is to believe that it is not subject to the errors ent in the very constitution of democratic armies, and beyond hope of
and follies, the bickering and pettiness, the upsets and unpredictabili- cure.17 Objective control offers a simple formula for the guidance of
ties that cl}aracterize politics. Military expertise, in this view, is a con- politicians and the education of officers and it promises not merely civil-
stant. ian control and constitutional governance but strategic success.
And yet the theory of objective control does not suffice as a descrip-
The peculiar skill of the military officer is universal in the sense tion of either what does occur or_ what should. Scholarly critics have
that its essence is not affected by changes in time or location. Just taken issue with its assumptions about the nature of military profes-
as the qualifications of a good surgeon are the same in Zurich as sionalism and, as we shall see, these views have some foundation. Fur-
they are in New York, the same standards of professional military thermore, an examination of recent history-including even the
competence apply in Russia as in America and in the nineteenth relatively successful Gulf war-suggests that the Huntingtonian model
century as in the twentieth. 13 of desirable civil-military relations d6es not characterize conflict. The
most successful cases of wartime leadership in a democratic state-Lin-
Such a belief offers reassurance to perplexed politicians and anxious cit- coln's stewardship of the Union cause in the American Civil War, Win-
izens. As many an injured or sickly patient in desperate straits yearils ston Churchill's conduct of British affairs during World War II, or David
246 APPENDIX, THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL APPENDIX, THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CO NTROL 147

21
Ben-Gudon's skillful handling oflsraeli war policy during the country's and thus firmly anchored in the society from which it emerges. Hum-
struggle for existence-revea1 nothing like the rigid separations dictated ington's hopes for creative tension between civilian and military values
by the "normal" theory of civil-military relations. find no re~onance in a military that watches the same television pro-
grams and listens to the same music as society at large.
Sociologist Morris }anowitz and others have made a similar if more
contemporary· argument. The traditional notion of professionalism has
CRITICS OF THE "NORMAL' THEORY weakened, they contend, as war itself has changed. "As a result of the
complex machinery of warface, which has weakened the line , between
military and nonmilitary organization, the military establishment has
The standard conception of military professionalism. despite its general come more and more to display the characteristics typical of any large-
·acceptance, nonetheless attracted criticism from a number of sources. scale organization." 22 While Huntington's 'concept of "objective control"
Historian Allen Guttmann contended that Huntington had misinter- may have made sense in the age of the World Wars, the nuclear revolu-
preted American history in constructing his argument. 18 Rather than be- tion gave birth to "a convergence of military and civilian organization."
ing isolated from the American polity in the late nineteenth and early Janowitz proposes what he calls a "constabulary concept" of officershii>-
twentieth centuries and during the interwar years. Guttmann argued, one dedicated to the limited use of force in careful)y defined circum-
American officers were in fact quite representative of it. And rather than stances.23 He draws a distinction between "heroic leaders, who embody
adhering to a conservative world view at odds with that of the broader traditionalism and glory, and military 'managers,' who are concerned
society, they shared the pragmatic and democratic views of American so- with the scientific and rational conduct of war." 24 There is little doubt in
ciety generally. Huntington detects and approves of a deep tension be- his mind that it is the modern military managers who are winning out,
tween civil and military values, and asserts the value of military and a good thing too, he seems to believe. Janowicz thus appears to have
detachment from society. Guttmann rejects that assessment and depre- accepted Huntington's definition of military professionalism but to have
cates Huntington's endorsement of it. smoothed off its rough edges: where Huntington anticipates-indeed
Hunt~ngton ' s ideal officer is a well-defined ariswcratic type-a Hel- welcomes-a divergence between civilian and ·military values as a by-
muth von Moltke, to take a Continental example-who is at once patri- product of professionalism, Janowitz sees no such necessity.
otic and yet, in some fashion, almost above patriotism in his sense of Other military sociologists have gone even furthet. In 1977 Charles
membership in the brotherhood of arms. Where Huntington noted and Moskos suggested that the military had begun a slow, but steady trans-
celebrated the honor of soldiers as a central aspect of the military way, formation from an institution-"legitimated in terms of values and
Guttmann points out the stubborn pragmacism of American generals. norms"-to an occupation-"legitimated in terms of the marketplace,
Guttmann observes tliat such quintessentially American figures as i.e., prevailing monetary rewards for equivalent competencies." 25 The in-
Stonewall Jackson had little sense of the punctilious chivalry that Euro- creasing harmonization of military and civilian pay scales, the reduction
pean officers admired, and that (in his view) characterize Huntington's of special military perquisites (e.g., the PX and the commissary) seemed
theory. 19 When a Confederate colonel reporting on the successful and to him to weaken the distinctiveness of the military way oflife. Implicitly,
bloody repulse of a Yankee attack expressed his admiration for the en- at any rate, all militaries exist under some form of what Huntington
emy's bravery and his regret at having to kill such courageous foes, Jack- would call "subjective control." Indeed, one optimistic scholar proposes a
son replied, '1 No. Shoot them all. I do not wish them to be brave." 20 theory of "concocdance" in which "the very idea of 'civil' may be inappro-
Other observers of the American military, taking a somewhat different priate."26 lt is a theory of"dialogue, accommodation, and shared values or
tack but arriving at a similar conclusion, note the conventionality of its objectives among the military, the political elites, and society."27 In some
officer corps, which is solidly middle class in its values and aspirations ways, this practically defines away the problem of civil-military relations.
248 APPENDIX: THE THEORY OF C IVILIAN CONTROL APPENDIXo THE THEOR.Y OF CIVILIAN CONTROL 249

Disagree as they might, Huntington and these critics of his ideas An exception is British scholar S. E. Finer, whose critique of Hunting-
both deliver reassuring if conflicting messages. For HuntingtoJ?. the ton is very different from his American counterparts'. He argues that
good news lies in his·discovery that those elements of the military per- Huntington has severely underestimated the problem of civilian control.
sona and outlook that liberal America finds unsettling (indeed, he con- Blessed with the advantages of centralized command, hierarchy, disci-
tends that "liberalism doe; not understand and is hostile to military pline, and cohesionN>nd embodying vinues (bravery, patriotism, and
institutions and the military function") 28 are, in fact, not merely func- discipline, far example) that civil society finds attractive, the military
tional but desirable. For Guttmann, Janowitz, and Moskos the good can resist civilian control effectively. 33 Noting that one of the armies that
news was just the reverse: the military resembles America, shares its Huntington has praised as the most professional-the German-has re-
elite's values and, increasingly, parallels its social origins and way of peatedly intervened in politics, Finer suggests that military professional-
life. As the all-out conflicts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries \ ism could in fact incline militaries to engage in politics rather than not.34
gave way co more limited struggles, the military internalized civilian .i And in wartime in particular civilians are often too insecure about their
views of how it should conduct military operations. The stark differ-
ii knowledge, too fearful of public opinion, and too overawed by their mil-
\I
ences between the military and civilian mind, so central to Hunting- itary's expertise to exercise much control at all. '"War is too important
ton's theory, h.ave blurred. \ to be left to the generals.' Few civilians seem to have agreed with this
For neither Huntington nor his critics, however, is there anything in-
trinsically problematic about combining civilian control and military ef- :~ and still fewer generals,•• Finer writes. 35 A difference i.n national experi-
ence'may have been at work here as well. In the United States the arche-
fectiveness, in peace or in war. Indeed, for more than one writer the term typal civil-military conflict was between the imperious general Douglas
"civilian control" is a falntly absurd echo of dark popular fantasies like MacArthur and the doughty president Harry Truman, a confrontation
the 1964 filrp Seven Days in May, in which the military tries to take over crisply decided by the dismissal of the former by the latter. .for British
the government. 29 .. The concept of civilian contfol of the military has lit- authors, the Curragh mutiny (or. as some would prefer, "incident") of
tle significance for contemporary problems of national security in the 1914, in which a group of cavalry officers (fifty-seven out of seventy in
United States," 30 wrote one author in 1961-a du~ious assertion, it now one brigade) offered their resignations rather than suppress Ulster loyal-
appears, at the beginning of a decade that spawned some of the most de- ists determined to keep Nonhern Ireland pan of the United Kingdom,
structive tensions between civilians and soldiers the United States has presents a more typical and a more disturbing threat to civilian control.36
ever seen. Similarly, in 1985 Congressional staff drawing up legislation More instructive yet in the British experience is the struggle between
aimed at enhancing the power of the military declared that "instances of civilian and military leadership during World War I. Prime Minister
American commanders overstepping the bounds of their authority have David Lloyd George believed himself thwaned and even endangered by a
been rare . .. . None of these pose any serious threat to civilian control of military clique resting on an alliance between the Chief of the Imperial
the military. "31 General Staff, Sir William Robertson, and the commander of British
Neither Guttmann nor Janowicz nor Moskos. we should note, delve forces in France, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, aided by docile civilian
into civil-military relations in wartime. They accept much though not all politicians and joumalists. 37 Finer con~ends that by construing civilian
of Huntington's characterization of America's military history in war. In- control too narrowly, as the formal subordination of the military to the
deed, some of the most influential writings on civil-military relations civilian power, and particularly in peacetime, one may underestimate the
criticizing Huntington barely mention warfare at all.31 And, in fact, most difficulty of controlling the use of military power in wanime. Precisely
of the civil-military-relations literature, with the exception of Hunting- because, unlike most other students of civil-military relations, Finer has
ton, has somewhat oddly steered away from close examination of what looked at war, he has a considerably more pessimistic view of the
happens during wartime. prospect for civilian control.
250 APPEND IX: THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL APPENDIX' THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL 251

A DISSENT: STRATEGIC NIHILISM iced man who shouts "Hurrah!"-a detachment of five thousa.n d is
worth fifry thousand, as at Schongraben, while at other times fifry
thousand will flee from eight thousand, as at Austerlitz. What sci-
There is yet another school of thought, rarely caught in war colleges or ence can there be in a matter in which, as in every practical matter,
countenanced in the corridors of power, which rejects the normal theory nothing can be det~ned and everything depends on innumerable
root and branch. If believed, this view would undermine the very possi- conditions.~ the significance of which becomes manifest at a particu-
bility of civilian war leadership, because it is a doctrine of strategic nihilism, lar moment, ~d no one can tell when that moment will come?40
wh_ich denies the purposefulness of war, and of anthropological determinism,
which substitutes an understanding of the officer as warrior for that of Tolstoy, at times, dispenses with his characters and lectures his readers
the officer as professional. Huntington and his critics understand the use directly on this score, telling them that Napoleon and Alexander of Rus-
of force as an activity subject to rational control: they disagree about the sia had no real conttol of the unfolding of the terrible war between
imponance of professionalism understood as isolation from civil society France and Russia, "because their will depended on that of millions of
and the nature of controlled violence in the nuclear age. This third school men who actually had to do things .... A king is the slave of history.... " 41
of thought actively rejects the premise of rationality. The notion that millions of soldiers were killed or maimed because of
The most famous of strategic nihilists is Leo Tolstoy. Although many politics is absurd, in Tolstoy's view, in part because the causes are so
of his readers have found his philo;ophy merely a diversion from his tale trivial and the actual events so monstrous. 42 Shortly before his death
of the Bolkonskys and the Rostovs, his masterwork, War and Peace, rep- Prince Andrei learns that generals are only called geniuses because of
resents a serious and coherent meditation on war by one who had wit- the prestige of their positions, and because of mankind's overwhelming
nessed~ it close up and studied it at Jength. 38 When Tolstoy's heroes propensity to flatter those in power. "The best generals I have known
encounter battle they learn that it has none of the regularity and form were, in fact, stupid or absent-minded men," Prince Andrei concludes.
that they had expected. Pierre Bezukhov, his hero, comes to the field of And, indeed the most successful general of them all, Kucuzov, is notable
Borodino and is baffled: he "could not even disting~ish our troops from in Tolsoy's account chiefly for his unwillingness to act in any way like a
the enemy's." 39 As he soon learns at first hand, actual fighting is infi- conventional, purposive strategist.
nitely more chaotic than even the preliminary chaos of these initial de- For Tolstoy the falsehood of military history lies in its necessary re-
ployments suggests. ductionism, its deceitful attempt to merge a myriad of actions by indi.
Bezukhov's friend, the doomed Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, is a profes- vidua)s or very small groups into larger coherent aggregates. There is, he
sional soldier whose dreams of high command wither as he learns the observed .-· bitterly, "the necessity of lying" when one discusses the ac-
truth about war. After aspiring to imitate, in some measure. his hero and tions of thousands of fearful men spread over several miles of ground. 43
his country'.s enemy Napoleon, Andrei gradually realizes that military The account of the course of a battle, and no less of the course of a cam-
genius is a fraud. He declares that "there was not and could not be a sci- paign as described by the military historians, is nothing more or less
ence of war, and consequently no such thing as military genius." When than a fraud, imposed by rationalists on a world that escapes under-
asked why, he replies: standing.44 Yet historians and contemporaries alike regard battles as the
building blocks statesmen and generals use to build a strategic edifice.
What theory or science is possible where the conditions and cir- By showing the essential component of strategy....:..the battle, with its
cumstances are unknown and cannot be determined, and especially unities of time, place, and action--:-to be a tissue of lies, Tolstoy calls into
where the strength of the active forces cannot be ascenained? .. . question the very notion of strategy itself. 4s _
You can't foresee anything. Sometimes-when there is not a coward One might say that a novelist's account of war i; bound to underplay
in front to cry: "We are cut off!" and stan running, but a brave, spir- the role of strategy, if only because his story focuses so keenly on the in-
252 APPENDIX' THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL APPENDIX ' THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL 253

dividual rather than the collective predicament. Yet Tolstoy's views res- Here is an argument quite different from Huntington's ascription to the
onate in the writings of formidable military historians as well. Gerhard officer corps of a conservative, and to (democratic) politicians, a gener-
Ritter, the great German historian of civil-military relations and war ally liberal outlook-different world views to be sure, but both serious
planning; Russell Weigley, one of the foremost American military histo- and coherent intellectual positions and moral commitments. In Ger-
rians of the last half century; and John Keegan. perhaps the most widely many's master conce~ for the opening stages of the First World War,
read of late-twentieth-century military historians; each in different ways the Schlieffen Plan, Ritter saw a tragic and more typical case of strategy
questions or even repudiates strategy in our sense of harnessing war to dragging policy along with it." Politicians had a vague concept of what
political ends. By so doing they make the problem of civilian wartime the plan entailed (although the German Foreign Ministry did not learn
leadership out to be insuperable. Theirs is a counsel of despair, but of it from the General Staff until December 1912-at least seven years
worth examination nonetheless. after its inception), but were unable or unwilling to deal with its politi-
Ritter. in his crowning work The Sword and the Scepter: The Problem of cal implications. 50 As appalling a case as the Schlieffen Plan was, the
Militarism in Germany, sympathizes with the Clausewitzian desire to course of German civil-military relations throughout World War I was
subordinate war to politics, but argues that the Prussian theorist sub- even more dramatic testimony to the difficulty of forging strategy.
stantially underestimated the difficulty of doing so. Ritter agrees with Mediocre statesmanship and a blinkered, aggressive 01ilitary class are
fjner in this, saying, "In wartime, politicians always have a hard time the norm, Ritter seems to say, which means that Clausewitzian strategy
gaining and maintaining authority against successful generals." 46 He at- is unlikely co succeed.
tributes some of the intrinsic tension between soldiers and statesmen Weigley, following Ritter, rejects strategy as a near impossibility. In-
from Mohke to Bismarck to a dif(erence in perspective, with the former deed, he cites with approval Ritter's conception of"the essentially demo-
seeking to achieve the maximum possible with the means at hand, the niac character of power,· as a nearly insupepble obstacle to the practical
latter to build and preserve order, albeit through the use of military implementation of political control in war. 51 Weigley believes that "the
means.47 The problem of civil-military relations lies in harmonizing logic that drives war toward remorseless revolutionary struggle" almost
"the military stance and the principle of constructive peace," which are prevents it from being usable as an implement of policy." Indeed, in the
intrinsically at odds. Ritter makes a narrower and"more empirical ob- twentieth century ...warfare sets its own purposes. " 53 No regime, he ar-
servation as well. The harmonization of war and politics runs afoul of gues, be it democratic, monarchical, or totalitarian, has been able to make
human nature, which is considerably less lofty and disinterested than war "a disciplined tool of policy rather than an autonomous force ."" To
Clausewitz assumes. be sure, there have been exceptional civilian leaders like Lincoln who
came close to the classical ideal of a statesman who could make war serve
Clausewitz's theory of war predicates statesmen whose characters political ends. But even he was stretched to the limit, too burdened with
are utterly pervaded by impulses of grandeur, heroism, honor, na- responsibilities "to spend much of his time practicing the art of military
tional power, and freedom, men who are motivated by calm politi· suategy.'' 55 More typical is the sinister tendency of war to militarize civil-
cal reason far above petty intrigue or advantage rather than by ians, to make them succumb to the logic of military operations, forfeiting
blind hatred. He funher presupposes soldiers accustomed to re- long-range political calculations for the imperatives of campaigning to-
gard themselves as loyal servants of their supreme commander, day. Thus, even cases of apparently effective control by civilian politicians
never in danger of being ruled by political ambitions or jealousies, over the exercise of military force are deceiving: statesmen serve as no
military men to whom the thought does not even occur that they more than spokesmen for the gods of battle.
might oppose their sovereign warlord or exploit popular support Ritter and Weigley do not necessarily deplore the attempt to forge
for their own purposes. Not in a single line does Clausewitz even and implement strategy. For Weigley the search for strategy in the eigh-
so much as hint that the situation might be very different." teenth century reflected an understandable but futile desire to avoid the
 254 APPENDIX c THE THEOllY OF CIVILIA N CO N TROL APPENDIXc THE THEOllY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL 255

calamities of chronic warfare that had bedeviled seventeenth-century because he believes that the human implementers of scrategy, and not
Europe. "The quest for decisive battle was the educated soldier's ratio- simply the instrumentality of battle, are intrinsically unsuited to their
nalist effon to make war cost-effective, the promptness of the decision task. The warrior spirit is ineluctably opposed to politics and will take
through battle promising to prevent an inordinate drain upon the re- war in directions that make no political sense. Keegan recognizes the ad-
sources of the state. "56 Yet this eighteenth-century quest, which per- mirable qualities of th\.. warrior, and would seek to retain the best of his
sisted through the nineteenth and twemieth. failed. Attrition and virtues, but believes that this can be done only by transforming the tra-
exhaustion, not harmonious adjustment of ends and means, have de- ditional military function. In making this argument Keegan falls back on
cided war's outcomes. War may conceivably avert some developments- a long cradition that celebrates the martial vinues while deploring their
it could block the French or German attempts to achieve Continental manifestation in war, an urge that seeks to retain such vaJues as courage.
hegemony, for example-but it can achieve no positive purpose. 57 It is fidelity, and audacity but to redirect them. William James calling for the
the crudest of the tools that statecraft has at its disposal. Carl von "moral equivalent of war" in strenuous public service or modem stu-
Clausewitz once said that war has its own grammar (combat) but not its dents of the mania! ans celebrating "the new warrior" each, in different
own logic (politics). In the strategic nihilist's view, that grammar over- ways, have attempted to carry through Keegan's project.62
whelms all but the simplest logic. Keegan would regard both Huntington's andJanowitz's conception of
John Keegan rejects the possibility of strategy based on a Huntington- military professionalism as naively optimistic. Much of Keegan's argu-
ian relationship of ends and means for yet a third reason, namely, that ment rests on an attack on-one might almost say a visceral detestation
strategy is incompatible with the nature of the men who wage it. He is, of-the classical Clausewitzian view of the relationship between war
if anything, more acerbic and definitive than his fellow antistrategists. "I and politics. "War ... need not imply politics, since the values of many
am increasingly tempted towards the belief that there is no such thing as of those who make war-warriorism and warriors respectively-reject
;
'strategy' at all."" Or, "Politics played no part in the conduct of the First deterrence and diplomacy for action."" According to Keegan, Clausewitz
World War wonh mentioning. "59 But his reasons for rejecting strategy views military power as a mere scalpel'in the hand of a statesman·

I
differ from those of Tolstoy or Ritter and Weigley'. "War is wholly unlike surgeon, but fails to understand that "warrior values can and do sup-
diplomacy or politics because it must be fought by men whose values plant those of politics."" Strategic nihilists, like nihilists generally, do
and skills are not those of politicians or diplomats." 60 Keegan contends not offer practical prescriptions, of course, but the implications of their
that there is a distinctive military way, one that in many respects tran-
scends cultures ("there is only one warrior culture") and is inimical to
lj views-not altogether unfounded-further undermine the assumptions
required to make Huntington's prescription for sound civil-military rela-
politics. Profoundly ambivalent to soldiers themselves, Keegan argues 1 tions work.
that societies have attempted to tame warriors by putting them in the n
mold of what he calls "the regimental soldier." These "artificially pre- ~
served warrior bands" have served important roles in modern st~Ces, but 1:
Keegan believes that their day is waning-and he has said as much for THE EXCEPTIONAL PROFESSION
some time. In his first and best known book, The Face of Battle, he sug-
gested that classic battle, and with it, the classic warrior, was heading
down the path to obsolescence. The last sentence of that work, in fact, Despite these various rebuttals of Huntington's argument, his general
has it that "the suspicion grows that battle has already abolished it- concept still stands and retains its popularity. Military life has witnessed
self. " 61 many changes, but it nonetheless remains a way apart-a point brought
Keegan rejects what he terms the Clausewitzian model of war-one home to the Clinton administration in 1993, when the president at-
which involves the rational control of violence to serve political ends- tempted to lift the US military's ban on homosexuals serving in uni-
 256 APPENDIX: THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL APPENDIXo THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL h7

form. Journalist Tom Ricks may have said it best when he described life exception of the MacArthur controversy, and perhaps not even that. !be
in today's military as "what Lyndon Johnson's Great Society could have Western world has not recently witnessed the kind of virulent antipmhy
been ... . It is almost a Japanese version of America-relatively harmo- between "brass hats" and "frocks" that in 1914-1918 characterizeddril-
nious, extremely hierarchical, and nearby always placing the group military relations in both Britain and France.
above the individual. " 65 With its distinctive way of life on self-contained There is, however, \nother possible critique of Huntington's ~
bases, a perhaps anachronistic commitment to service, discipline, and and that resc.s· on his and his critics' conception of professionalism. Pm.
honor continue to pervade an institution that, for example, will still pe- simply, it is that although officership is a profession, it differs in """".!'
nalize a senior officer for adultery-a sin usually overlooked by the civil- respects from all others: in sqme of the most important respects it does
ian society around it. not, in fact, resemble medicine or the law. Indeed, the Huntin~
Those who predicted a mere constabulary role for the military, hence construct represents a concept of professionalism prevalent in d:ie
its transmutation into a kind of heavily armed police force, have also been 1950s, but since challenged in many spheres as unrealistically pns.m..;
proven wrong. Two real wars-Vietnam and the Persian Gulf-have been "incomprehensibility to laymen, rather than rationality, is the foaDr:h.
fought between the time those predictions appeared and the present day. tion of professionalism," in the acid words of a scholar writing in the
The rarity of large wars is not, of itself, an indication of the obsolescence more cynical 1970s." Officership differs in a number of important w4f5
of the military profession understood as the management of large-scale from other professions. Unlike law, medicine, or engineering, it binds m
force. There are other explanations including the configuration of inter- members to only one employer, the government, and has only one .6m-
national politics in which one country, the United States, dominates all darnental structure-the large service branch. But other differences ~
others, and the possession of overwhelming power by the status quo more important, in particular those bearing on the goals of the pro&s-
dominant nations. Even so, Keegan's curious declaration that "the suspi- sional activity and the nature of the expertise involved.
cion grows that battle has already abolished itself" 66 rings hollow, fol- All professional activities present difficulties of moral choice and~
lowed as it has been by conventional conflicts such as the Falklands, mate purpose co those who practice them. The wrenching choices ~
Lebanon, Persian Gulf, and Yugoslav wars, to nam·e only the larger ones. valved in the treatment of terminally ill patients are well known; so too
Furthermore, and contrary to what proponents of the "constabulary are the ethical dilemmas of a lawyer who becomes privy to knowledgrd'
function" of the military suggest, the minor interventions, demonstra- the criminal activities of his client. But by and large in the professionsd
tions of force, and peacekeeping operations of today do not diverge from law and medicine, on which the classic ccinception of professionalism is
the norms of the past. Soldiers and Marines of a bygone era suppressed based, the ultimate goals are fairly straightforward. They are, for the
hostile Indians and Nicaraguan rebels; their counterparts today have re- doctor, to cure his patients of their diseases, or at least co alleviate thr
't turned to Haiti, invaded Grenada, overthrown a Panamanian dictator, pain they suffer. Occasionally, of course, these two imperatives conf!ia..
~ i dueled with Somali tribesIT}en, and suppressed Serb paramilitaries. The For the lawyer they are, at least within the American legal system. ID
:' ! differences do not look all that great. As intellectually intriguing as the achieve the best possible result (be it acquittal, or, in civil cases, mui-

~f
arguments of the strategic nihilists might be, they too have proven ulti- mum financial and other forms of redress) for his clients.
mately unconvincing. Some wars and lesser uses of force clearly The soldier's ultimate purposes are altogether hazier: they ~ as
achieved their objectives (for example, Egypt's October 1973 campaign Clausewitz and others insist, the achievement of political ends desig-
which broke the Arab-Israeli peace deadlock, or the Gulf war). Beyond nated by statesmen. But because political objectives are just that-polir-
this, nihilism is ultimately a doctrine of irresponsibility that provides no ical-they are often ambiguous, contradictory, and uncertain. It is ooed
standards of conduct for either statesman or soldier. Even Finer's dis- the greatest sources of frustration for soldiers that their political mar
pute with Huntington seems to be confounded by the apparent defer- ters find it difficult (or what is worse from their point of view, merely•
ence of military leaders to their civilian superiors. With the sole convenient) to fully elaborate in advance the purposes for which dlq
 ~l
258 APPENDIX, THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL '
'! APPENDIX' THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CON TROL 259

have invoked military action, or the conditions under which they intend That the good military officer requires technical expenise no one
to limit or terminate it. The "professional" concept of military activity, would deny. But is it indeed true that "the peculiar skill of the military
moreover, depicts political purpose in war as purely a matter of foreign officer is universal" across time, nationality, and place? The qualifica-
policy; and yet in practice the "high" politics of war is suffused as well tions of a good Nonh Vietnamese infantry officer in Indochina in 1965
with "low" or domestic politics. President Lincoln wants a victory at At- would surely have di~ed in some imponant respects from those of a
lanta in the summer of 1864 in order to crush the Confederacy-but also good America!J officer opposing him. The Vietnamese would have
to boost his own chances of reelection, which in tum is necessary for the needed a ruthless disregard for his own men's suffering and casualties
ultimate Vicrnry of the Union. President Roosevelt dismisses profes- that would have rendered an American not merely morally unfit to com-
sional military advice and orders an invasion of North Africa in 1942 mand, but a likely candidate for "fragging" -assassination-by his own
rather than a landing in France in 1943-this, he explains, in order to men. He could have easily remained ignorant of large areas of technical
engage American public opinion in the fight in the European theater, knowledge (for example, the employment of close air suppon, or plan-
rather than in hopes of achieving an early end to the war. Presidentjohn- ning procedures for heliborne movements) that the American required.
son limits air attacks on Hanoi and Haiphong in 1965-1968 in part to More than one author has suggested that the Vietnam failure stemmed
preserve his ability to launch the Great Society, but also to limit the at least in part from the stubborn resistance of American officers to
chances that China will enter the war. adapting their conception of professionalism to the war before them.
The traditional conception of military professionalism assumes that it And American bafflement when facing unconventional opponents like
is possible to segregate an autonomous area of military science from po- Somalia's Muhammad Farah Aideed reflects, in part, the American 111ili-
litical purpose." In many ways one can. Frequently, however, a seemingly tary's reluctance to walk away from an essentially conventional concep-
sharp separation crumbles When it encounters the real problems of war. tion of what it is to be "a professional." 70
Consider the question confronted by the Allies in the late summer and Huntington's assertion that, in the modern age at any rate, profes-
fall of 1944 in France: whether to advance on a wide front or to concen- sional armies are better armies may require at least some revision, al·
trate scarce logistical resources behind a nortl1ern thrust along the though it is a belief in which many regular armies take comfon." The
French, Belgian, and Dutch coasts (directed by a British general) or a more research is done on one of the most fonnidable fighting machines
southern thrust into central Gennany {directed by an American general). of all time, the German Wehnnacht, the greater the role of its ideology
One might say that there was a military "best answer," assuming that the appears to be.n For a generation after World War II scholars attributed
ultimate objective was simply the defeat of Gennany-which in turn in- the fighting abilities of the Germans in World War II to neuttal, profes-
correctly assumes that the word "defeat" lends itself to a simple defini- sional characteristics: small-unit cohesion and careful practices of officer
tion. But in fact the political objectives of even the Second World War and noncommissioned officer selection and recruitmenr.73 More pro-
were far more complex than that; they involved questions of cost in lives longed and careful investigation, however, has revealed that the perme-
and treasure, minimization of damage to Allied civilian populations (in- ation of the German army by Nazi ideology made it a better fighting
cluding Londoners under threat from V-2 missiles launched in Holland), force." Not only did it instill in a large proponion of its men a fanatic
and matters of national prestige. These were not political modifications determination to ~ght-it also .contributed indirectly to the mainte-
to a "military" objective of defeating Germany, but essential to it. "The nance of tactical effectiveness. The ruthlessness of the Nazis allowed for
distinction between politics and strategy diminishes as the point of view the harshest possible repression of dissent or doubt. The Gennans, who
is raised. At the summit true politics and strategy are one. 1169 Careless had executed forty-eight of their own men during World War I, shot
readers of Huntington have missed his awareness that these kinds of somewhere between 13,000 and 15,000 during World War II; ~e com-
mixed .political-military decisions do indeed occur; in truth, they occur parable numbers for the British army were 356 in World War I and 40 in
even more frequently than the "normal" theory would suggest. World War 11.7' At the same time, the Hitler Jugend provided a reserve of
260 APPENDIX' THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL APPENDIX' THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTR()L 261

junior officers and leaders while Nazi ideology reinforced the cenual Wars offer examples of great soldiers who spent only brief peacetime pe-
virtues of military leadership, including selflessness, physical· courage, riods of their life in regular milit.,Y·organizations, and then flourished
and initiative." Perhaps the greatest proof of the contribution of ideol- in times of actual war. General Sir John Monash, one of the best generals
ogy lies in the record of the units of the Waffen-SS, which by war's end of World War I, was a civil engineer whose prewar experience consisted
constituted no less than a quarter of Germany's army, and which repeat- solely of militia duty. ~t he rose to command perhaps the most formi-
edly turned in an outstanding fighting performance. Of Theodor Eicke, dable of all Allied units, the Australian Imperial Force.'° There are hardly
the leader of one of the most successful of the Waffen-SS divisions, the any accounts, even a century ago, of self-taught or pan-time doctors and
Totmkopf (Death's Head), one historian notes: "Eicke's style of leader- engineers performing nearly so well.
ship differed little in practice from the methods he had used to adminis- Military professionalism is job-specific, much as business manage-
ter the prewar concentration camp system . ... What he lacked in formal ment is. Brilliant entrepreneurs may prove utterly unable to cope with
training, imagination, and finesse, he attempted to overcome through the problems of running the corporations their creative genius brought
diligence, energy, and a constant effort to master the baffling technical into the world. Skilled managers of a long..,stablished high-technology
intricacies of mechanized war." 77 Eicke was a successful military leader firm like IBM would probably find it difficult to assume equal responsi-
not in spite of those characceristics that would have earned him a trial bilities in an entertainment company like Disney. There is, to be sure,
for his numerous crimes against humanity had he survived the war, but enou·gh commonality in management experience to make it plausible to
because of them. put a former manufacturer of repeating rifles in charge of a large ice
Nor is the German experience unique. Ideological armies-the Chi- cream company (Ben & jerry's). but that does not guarantee success.
nese People's Liberation Army, the international brigades in the Spanish The ruthless churning of higher management in many companies re-
Civil War, and the preindependence Palmach in Palestine are all exam- flects what might be thought of as "wartime" conditions-a ceaseless
ples-have often curned in superior tactical performances against larger turnover of executives who, though qualified by training and experience
and better equipped regular forces. The ideologically motivated fighter for the highest office, nonetheless prove unfit for their tasks, exhausted
may make a good junior officer-he often embodtes the self-sacrifice, in- by their previous work, or merely, but fatally, unlucky. In this above all
tegrity, and drive the leaders of soldiers in battle require. More than a they resemble generals in an intense war. This should not surprise us,
few higher-level commanders as well have-like Eicke, albeit in very dif- for in some sense businesses fight their "wars" every day, unlike military
ferent causes-demonstrated high orders of ability. 78 organizations.
If the content of military professionalism is, as Huntington contends, This observation suggests a deeper problem with the notion of exper-
the "management of violence, .. that is a definition that excludes large ar- tise in the management of violence as the essence of the military profes-
eas of military activity (logistics, for example) which often have consid- sion. Where lawyers continually appear in court or draw up legal
erable civilian analogues and yet are indispensable to military insuuments, where doctors routinely operate or prescribe, medication,
operations." Many of these skills are readily uansferable to or from the where engineers build bridges or computers, soldiers very rarely manage
civilian world. It is no accident that the US Army's chief logistician in violence, or at least not large-scale violence. They prepare to manage vio-
the Persian Gulf, Lieutenant General Gus Pagonis, became, immediately lence; they anticipate its requirements; they study past uses of violence,
upon retirement, an extremely successful executive at Sears, in the same but they very rarely engage in the cenual activity that defines their pro-
way that the military rapidly promoted civilian executives to high mili- fession. Jn the words of one British general writing after World War I:
tary rank during the World Wars. Moreover, although all serious modem
military organizations devote a great deal of effon to schooling and Imagine an immense railway system, created but not in use, held in
training, history is filled with examples of soldiers taken up from civilian reserve to meet a definite emergency which may emerge on any in-
life who very quickly master the essentials of military affairs. The World definite date, a date certain (with the British) to be fixed by the Dt-
262 APPENDIX' THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL APPENDIX' THE THEORY OF CIVILIAN CONTROL 263

rectors of another, and a rival, system, instead of by ics own. Once the US Army Air Forces in World War II embarked upon a ruinous, un·
a year, and once a year only, the railway is allowed to be partially escorted daylight precision-bombing campaign against Germany that
opened to traffic for a week (maneuvers) : for the remaining fifty- collapsed in che Schweinfurt debacles of 1943. The Israelis in 1973 ad-
one weeks not only are there no uain services, but the locomotives hered co a doctrine of tank warfare that proved utterly unsuited against
are stripped, many of their essential pans being stacked in out-of- modem hand-held an~tank weapons, and as a result suffered heavy
the-way pans of the Kingdom. Yet, let the signal be given, and in losses in the first days of fighting against Egyptian infantry armed with
four days' time the pans of the engines have to be assembled, portable missiles and rocket-propelled grenades. The- United States
wheels have to be fixed to dismantled trucks, cushions have to be Army in Vietnam, led by experienced and able veterans of World War II,
fixed to the first-class carriages, the personnel must be tu their adopted a strategy of "search and destroy" predicated on entirely false
posts, the coal-mountains of it-has to be on the spot, and a assumptions about its ability to cont.rel the loss rates of the Vietnamese
huge, complicated, most rapid and crowded process of transporta- Communists.83 These and ocher calamities stem nor from incompetence
tion and movement comes straightway into being-provided-the as normally understood, but from the features that make the waging of
rival company has not sandbagged the manager or dropped a few war different from other professions: the distorting psychological effects
bombs upon the terminus. 81 of fear, hatred, and the desire for glory; the nature of a reacting oppo-
nent; and the absence of rules that bound the activity concerned. As
Many, perhaps most, officers spend entire military careers without par- Clausewitz observed, "every war is rich in unique episodes. Each is an
ticipating in a real way in war. And even those who do fight in wars do so uncharted sea, full ofreefs."" Each age has its "own theory of war, even
for very small portions of their careers, and very rarely occupy the same if the urge has always and universally existed to work things out on
position in more than one conflict. A lawyer may try hundreds of cases, scientific principles. "85 War is coo varied an activity for a single sec of
or a doctor treat hundreds or even thousands of medical problems, of an professional norms.
essentially similar type during the course of several decades; a soldier
will usually have only one chance to serve in a particular capacity. There
are few generals who have had the experience of being divisional or
corps commanders-let alone theater commanders or chiefs of general THE UNEQVAL DIALOGUE
staffs-in more than one war. As a result then, particularly at the begin-
ning of a war, a coumry's most senior leaders-nominally the most sea-
soned veterans-are in a professional position as close to that of the One should not carry such arguments against a rigid division of "profes-
novice lawyer or doctor as to that of the senior panner in a law firm or sional" and "political" too far. Clearly, no one fresh from the office or the
the chief surgeon in a hospital. classroom can command an aircraft carrier or an armored division, much
The lack of practice military people have in their profession at the less pilot a fighter plane or repair an infantry fighting vehicle. The politi-
highest level is only one factor in the astounding, and by no means in- cian who plans his own commando operation will almost surely regret
frequent, catastrophic errors made by supposedly competent military or- it. More than one group of revolutionary leaders, from Bolshevik com-
ganiz.ations.12 The errors of the Schlieffen Plan were not merely political missars in 1919 to Iranian mullahs over half a century later have, willy
but logistical: those who concocted it had assumed away problems of nilly, turned to officer experts whom they may not have trusted but
supply and marching endurance that made it nearly impossible of execu- whose services they required. Enough of the officer's code survives, de-
tion. The highly skilled tacticians of Germany launched in March 1918 spite the allure of a ma,erialistic culmre, to make concepts like honor
the ruinous MICHAEL offensive, which shattered the German army and distinguishing characteristics of the military way. "The officer's honor is
made inevitable their country's defeat. The pioneering air generals of of paramount importance,• write founding members of the Army's Cen-
264 APPENDIX, THE THEORY OF CIVILJAN CONTROL

ter for the Professional Military Ethic. 86 That a profession of arms ex-
ists-even though a more amorphous one than one might at first ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
think-cannot be doubted. Even at the height of the Cold War an emi-
nent British officer could detach the purposes of warfare from profes-
sionalism: '1 suppose there are some. in Western countries, who have
'
1

become professional fighting men to fight Communism, though I hope

l
not." 87 It is a remark instantly comprehensible to other professional sol- I This book rook far too long to write, for reasons which need not be dis-
diers, if not perhaps to most citizens. f cussed here. That it finally saw the light of day is due to the support and
Besides, a repudiation of "objective contro1" carries with it grave ! .r assistance of many friends, colleagues, and co~workers. Above all others,
risks. To reject Huntington's idea of sequestering issues of policy from j i, I owe a debt to my wife, Judy, who nudged without nagging, and whose
those of military administration or operations is to open the way to a J · faith in this book and its author kept him pledged to its completion. A
military that is politicized and, by virtue of its size and discipline, a po- Il ( string of research assistants, who have gone on to various exciting en-
tentially dominant actor in the conduct of foreign and internal affairs. In l' ;f deavors after helping with source-sleuthing, footnote-chasing, and edit-
states with less-established democratic traditions such changes ..;,ould '!, t ing, were indispensable: particular thanks go 10 Luli Aguilera, A.
open the path to direct military intervention in politics. Huntington is Heather Coyne, Richard Do, Seo!! Douglas, Daniel Ginsberg, Lyle Gold-
correCl in his concehtion that such panisanship will eventually diminish stein, Lawrence Kaplan, Gal Luft, Peter McCormick, Sean McDonald, Jo-
military proficiency. hanna Moehring, Tammy Schultz (an indefatigable proofreader as well),
But the "normal" theory still requires emendation in its understand- Jonathan Schwarz, Kevin Tehan, William Young, Kimberlee Zeppegno,
ing of the military profession and hence in its understanding of civilian and Laurence Zuriff. Donna Vandish, Gina Johnson, and Thayer McKell,
control. If, as argued above, officership is a unique profession, military program coordinators for the Strategic Studies program which I direct,
expertise is variable and uncertain, and if the boundaries between polit- , did their best to protect my time for scholarship.
ical ends and military means are more uncert~n than Huntington sug- To my students, and in particular to those who took "Soldiers, States'
gests, civilian control must cake on a form different from that m·· men, and the Use of Force," I owe a debt of gratitude for stimulation and I
"objective control," at least in its original understanding. ., <;onstructive disagreement. Tom Donnelly, Tom Ehrhard, and Mike/ick""
ers have always been panicularly ferocious and distressingly cogent in
·· z:rgurilent. "I have learned much from my teachers, more from rAy COi-
I,
ieagues, and most from my students," said an ancient rabbi, arld fr~m
" diem and so many others I can now confirm the truth of that statem~nL
. Writing is a lone task, but not so the sharing of scholarshlp/Mike
Abnmowitz, Andy Bacevich, Dick Betts, Tami Biddle, Tom Keaney, Dick
'-.- ,~t~:\ ~·Bill Kristo!, Wick Murray, Doug Porch, Tom Ricks, Alex /<Oland,
/·.~>:.t ....·~· Stephen Rosen read this manuscript, discussed its ideas ,rith me,
~.·. ·' .~improved it in many ways with their criticism and sugges?.ons. I am
• ~· bmnate mdeed to have such colleagues and !!'ore, such fri~nds.
~ ,~ "f .•:rhe Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars provided the
i I! t . ~ and resources for the writing of much of this boo,ll. for which I
"' ··• • E:iparticularly grateful to Lee Hamilton, Robert Litwak, and Sam Wells.
,c.
- J:'2; Smith Richardson Foundation funded a good deal of the research: .,

·i'