Voting and the American Military (Reposted)
Underlying our research project, here at CivMilBlog, into the political attitudes of American military enlisted personnel, and particularly at issue in it, are long-held assumptions about the voting behavior of the American military. The interest in how military personnel vote, however, is not matched with reliable data. To establish what is known at present, we will review the history of American military voting behavior and issues related to absentee voting. We begin by looking at the role the American Civil War played in the development of absentee voting for military personnel. Then follows, to the extent to which information is available, a more general examination into the identification of military personnel with political parties and their participation in electoral matters during the century between the Civil War and the Vietnam War. We will conclude with an examination of legislation regarding military and overseas voting, with particular emphasis on two specific issues related to military voting: (1) the Federal Voter Assistance Program (FVAP) and how it has affected military voter turnout, and (2) military absentee balloting.
The Civil War and the Soldier Vote
An historical review of American military voting cannot go far without mentioning the impact of the Civil War. For the first time since the end of the American Revolution, a national election was carried out while large numbers of soldiers and sailors were away from their home states. When the war began in 1861, the regular U.S. Army consisted of only 16,367 officers and men. The Navy listed just 9,057 officers and men on its rolls. By July 1, 1862, the Union Army had grown to 186,751 men and by the end of that year its numbers had reached more than half a million (527,204). By the time of the November 1864 general election, the Union Army consisted of approximately one million men in uniform, most of whom were stationed outside their home state. In the last year of the war, the Navy had about 59,000 personnel, nearly all of whom were assigned to ships at sea (Soley, 1887; Davis, 1973; Welcher, 1989; Geary, 1991; Hagan, 1991).
The election of 1862 was the first electoral contest in the history of the United States to raise widespread questions about the voting rights of soldiers and sailors. Before then, with a small regular Army and an even smaller Navy, few local government officials were concerned about absentee voting issues, it being expected that all citizens would simply vote in their local precincts. Many state constitutions restricted voting to locations within state boundaries. Such limitations effectively made voting by soldiers assigned to locations away from their home state illegal. Some state constitutions permitted voting from locations away from the home precinct if the voter was away on official state or federal business. Soldiers, however, were generally excluded from that provision (Benton, 1915; Winther, 1944).
By the election of 1864, steps had been taken by most states to ensure that their soldiers in the field could vote. Some states permitted soldiers to vote by proxy, with vote choices sent home to an individual who would cast votes on the soldier’s behalf. Wisconsin was the first state to legalize absentee voting in 1862, and some states went so far as to send election commissioners to their state regiments in the field to monitor the proceedings.
Support for such measures was not uniform, however, with Democrats generally in opposition on the assumption that soldiers would vote for the Republican Party candidates. The Illinois state legislature, controlled by Democrats, refused to pass a law permitting soldiers to vote by absentee ballot. Indiana refused to permit any soldier to vote. In September 1864, Abraham Lincoln wrote to General William T. Sherman, who was at that time in Atlanta, Georgia, encouraging him to permit Indiana’s soldiers to return home to vote in the state elections (Lincoln, 1894). This pattern of partisan support for military absentee balloting, based on expectations of which political party such measures would support, would be repeated in the future.
Despite provisions by most states, efforts by the Democratic Party ensured widespread disenfranchisement of Union soldiers. Only about 150,000 of the army’s more than 1 million soldiers were able to cast absentee ballots from the field in the 1864 general election. However, many soldiers were able to return to their home states to vote in that election and thus did not submit absentee ballots. No record was kept of the number of soldiers who voted in their home states. Of those soldiers who were able to cast an absentee ballot, 119,754 (or 78 percent) voted for Abraham Lincoln, while only 34,291 (22 percent) voted for McClellan, the Democratic Party candidate (Zornow, 1954; Campbell, 2006).
Party Identification and Political Participation
Information about the party identification of military personnel during the century following the American Civil War is fragmentary. However, there are clues to be found by examining veterans’ organizations and the legislative actions taken by the Republican and Democratic Parties with respect to military voting, and by exploring the assumptions made about which party would most benefit from encouraging the military vote.
Shortly after the Civil War, in 1866, a group of northern veterans formed the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). The first modern veterans’ organization, it essentially functioned as part of the Republican Party by supporting the campaigns of former Union soldiers running for political office. Following a decline in membership which began after 1872 and reached a low of about 26,000 in 1876, the GAR shifted its emphasis to supporting appropriate pensions for veterans and widows of veterans. By 1890, membership had surged to 409,489 and the GAR’s influence and support of the Republican Party remained as strong as ever. The group claimed it had saved the Republic and condemned the Democratic Party as Copperheads, traitors who had been against the war and who would have permitted the southern states to secede from the Union (Dearing, 1952; McConnell, 1992).
While veterans of the American Civil War, as represented by the Grand Army of the Republic, were strongly Republican, the party identification of active-duty military personnel during the late nineteenth century is not as clear. Officers maintained close relationships with members of Congress and state governors, but such behavior was mostly geared to acquire rank or obtain positions within the small Army of the post-war years. There is little evidence to suggest that officers publicly expressed any particular party identification, but since most were Civil War veterans, they were likely to be sympathetic to the Republican Party. There is evidence, however, to suggest that enlisted personnel were largely apolitical, not participating in any partisan activity and likely not voting.
A large percentage of active-duty enlisted personnel during the late 19th century were recent immigrants, comprising as much as a quarter of the Army and even more in the Navy (Gould, 1869; White, 1972; Harrod, 1978; Valle, 1980; Kohn, 1981). While immigrants were often permitted (and even recruited) to vote in the large cities and tended to identify with the Democratic Party, soldiers had little access to the electoral process because they were assigned to remote posts in the American West, fighting in the Indian wars (Rickey, 1999; Campbell, 2006). Most enlisted personnel during the later 19th century were undereducated, came from economically deprived backgrounds, had criminal records, or were running from the law. With soldiers generally considered to be social outcasts, there was little public or political interest in supporting measures to enable soldiers to vote. An October 1866 editorial in The Nation argued that soldiers were not worthy of the right to vote and should not be granted suffrage as they rarely had opportunities to read or to educate themselves on electoral matters and argued further that allowing them to vote would open up new avenues for election fraud. Most worrisome to the editorialist was that the soldier harbored a “spirit of despotism” which would be “incompatible with the preservation of free institutions” (Ought Soldiers To Vote?, 1866, October 25). The combination of these factors ensured that the enlisted man in the decades following the Civil War had little opportunity to participate in elections, regardless of his desires in the matter (Utley, 1973, personal interview April 8, 2008).
Since the end of the Civil War, American military personnel had generally been apolitical, not only in terms of public support for one political party or another but also in terms of whether they voted at all. The Spanish-American War did not involve long-term or large-scale military deployments and the brief 18-month involvement of U.S. troops in World War I encompassed only the 1918 mid-term elections and thus did not involve a presidential vote.
Between the Civil War and the years following World War I, the nature of the American military had not changed significantly. Despite short-term increases in size during the Spanish-American War and World War I, by the 1920s the Army and the Navy were once again relatively small organizations, with most soldiers and sailors assigned to remote outposts or kept onboard ships, largely isolated from society and uninvolved in political activity. The apolitical nature of the military continued through the 1930s, with usually less than 30 percent of the officers voting, indicating their lack of involvement in partisan politics as well. General George C. Marshall, U.S. Army Chief of Staff from 1939 until 1945, even openly questioned whether it was ethical for a military officer to vote for a presidential candidate (Pogue, 1963; Clifford, 1991), and General Dwight Eisenhower apparently never voted until after he left active duty, believing that the military should maintain a strict distance from politicians (D’Este, 2002). There is no data on enlisted voting during that period, but is assumed to have been at even lower rates than for officers.
The rate of voting by soldiers declined further during the war years of 1942 to 1945 and remained low until the early 1950s, when participation began gradually to increase. The officer voting turnout, however, had reached only 40 percent by 1956 and the enlisted turnout rate was probably even lower (Van Riper & Unwalla, 1965; Alvarez et. al., 2007). Military personnel likely did not vote for a reason long common to the armed forces: soldiers and sailors were often stationed at remote bases or overseas with limited access to mail. The stationing of individuals away from home and out of communication resulted in their paying less attention to electoral matters at home and made access to voting procedures problematic at best.
The Federal Voting Assistance Program and Military Voter Turnout
The apolitical nature of armed forces personnel meant that interest in assuring the military could vote remained low to non-existent for quite some time. The ability of the soldier or sailor to vote remained in the hands of the individual states. Although most states had enacted laws permitting military personnel to vote during World War I, the varying state laws made it difficult for military personnel to cast a vote. By 1940, most states required registration to vote, but in 18 of them, registration had to be in person and soldiers were subject to that rule. Adding to the barriers to voters, most southern states also had a poll tax, with only Mississippi and South Carolina exempting soldiers from having to pay it. Some states had constitutions that did not permit absentee voting, and of those that did permit the practice, some specifically prevented soldiers and sailors from taking advantage of the provision. Other restrictions that made it difficult for military personnel to vote included the requirement to obtain affidavits sworn before an officer or to obtain a proxy. Further complicating the matter for deployed troops were the varying deadlines for filing absentee ballots.
In 1941, the beginning of direct American involvement in World War II, no coordination of access to voting for military personnel existed at the federal level. The War Department required that “everything possible” be done “to enable the personnel of the Army to exercise their right to vote” but did little more than direct soldiers to “write to the Secretary of State of their home state requesting information under the laws of that state." Even President Franklin D. Roosevelt expressed his doubts: “I am not at all certain that much can be done about it,” he said. He suggested that the Army and Navy “remind the boys by posting notices…summarizing the laws in each state" (Anderson, 2001). Apparently, few soldiers were able to negotiate the complex steps required to cast a vote and in November 1942, the first mid-term election conducted during World War II, only one-half of one percent of the five million active-duty service personnel voted (Should Soldiers Have the Vote, 1943).
The first attempt by the national level of government to increase military voter turnout came in July 1942, when Rep. Robert L. Ramsay (D-WV) introduced a national military voting rights bill, which called for special elections on military bases to be supervised by the Secretary of State in each state in which the base was located. The War Department and the National Association of Secretaries of State opposed the bill, as it was introduced. Major changes were made to the bill and provisions were ultimately made for the Army and Navy to provide postcards for each military voter to send to their individual Secretaries of State. The state secretaries, upon receipt of the card, were required to send the soldier a ballot with the names of those running for federal offices. Included was an oath, to be sworn in front of an officer, that the applicant was a qualified voter under the laws of the particular state.
The bill was opposed largely by southern members of Congress because it was said to violate states’ rights and it included a provision to eliminate poll taxes. One southern Congressman argued that voting was not a matter of right, but rather a privilege solely within the purview of the state (Anderson, 2001). Despite significant differences within the Democratic party, largely splitting along regional lines with the southern members of Congress voting against it, the Soldier Voting Act of 1942 (P.L.712-561) passed both houses of Congress on September 16, 1942, and was signed into law by President Roosevelt.
As the 1944 general election approached, some Democratic Party leaders saw an opportunity to benefit from the military vote and pressed for more aggressive military voter legislation. Simultaneously, Republican leaders believed that a reduced military vote would bring advantage to their party and, in a move opposite of that taken by the party in the Civil War, opposed changes to the Soldier Voting Act. The Democratic Party was able to overcome Republican resistance and amendments to the 1942 law were passed and became law on April 1, 1944. The amendments consisted largely of recommendations to the states in the form of requests to ensure all soldiers and sailors were provided with an opportunity to vote. There was little in the form of substantive requirements, but it did include a provision for a limited federal ballot (APSA, 1952; Anderson, 2001).
Of about 9.2 million voting-age personnel on active duty in 1944, 4.4 million requested ballots for the 1944 general election and about 2.6 million returned them, a 29.1 percent voting turnout rate based on the then-minimum voting age of 21. In the same year, the turnout rate among eligible civilians was about 60 percent. The military absentee vote comprised about 5.6 percent of the total popular vote for president. No data exists on the voting patterns of military personnel who happened to be in the United States and in their home precincts (APSA, 1952).
While no data was collected by the government regarding military voting in the 1946, 1948, or 1950 elections, it was generally assumed that military voter turnout had decreased after the 1944 election. In 1951, President Truman asked the American Political Science Association to convene a special committee to examine service voting and make recommendations for legislative and administrative action. The report, published in 1952, resulted in passage of the Federal Voting Assistance Act of 1955 (P.L. 84-296), which provided for voting support not only for overseas-based military personnel but for overseas-stationed civilian government employees as well.
This law also required the President to designate the head of an executive department as the coordinator of federal functions described in the law. President Eisenhower designated the Secretary of Defense, who subsequently delegated authority to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, as coordinator of the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP). The Director of the FVAP was responsible for ensuring that all overseas citizens, whether they are military personnel or employees of the federal government, are provided with the necessary information to be able to vote in all elections.
In 1975, drawing on 20 years of experience, including the Vietnam War, Congress passed the Overseas Citizens Voting Rights Act (P.L.94-203) which repealed and updated the 1955 law to clarify reporting requirements and procedures. It also guaranteed absentee registration and voting rights for citizens outside the United States regardless of whether they maintained a U.S. residence or address. Since then, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act of 1986 (UOCAVA) (P.L. 99-410) has further updated the earlier acts of Congress and ensured certain rights for overseas citizens as well as military and other government personnel assigned overseas, including the unrestrained ability to vote. It specifically directed states to provide overseas personnel with the ability to vote in all elections, including general, primary, special, and runoff elections. Within the 1986 act was a renewed requirement that the President report to Congress on the effectiveness of the program following each election.
Military voter turnout did not immediately change following the FVAP’s inception in 1955. However, as the 1976 law was passed, with renewed interest on the part of Congress, which required reports by the Secretary of Defense on the effectiveness of the program, voting participation by military personnel has increased dramatically. The turnout rate by military personnel in 1976 was less than 40 percent, some 15 percent lower than the civilian turnout rate, but by 1984 the voting turnout rate by military personnel reached 55 percent which, for the first time, exceeded the national voter turnout rate. By 1992, the military voter turnout rate was 67 percent. A decline in military turnout was noted in the 1996 election (64 percent), but the U.S. turnout rate also dropped significantly that year, to 49 percent from 55 percent in the 1992 election. (See Figure 1.)
Figure 1 Military Voter Turnout in General Elections, 1976 – 2004
Compared to U.S. Voter Age Population Turnout
![clip_image002[4]](http://inbody.net/civmilblog2/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/clip-image00241.gif "clip_image002[4]")
Source: Military turnout - Federal Voting Assistance Program, 2009
U.S. turnout - United States Elections Project, George Mason University[1]
The required report to Congress following the 2000 general election showed that 69 percent of all military personnel cast ballots, as compared to 54.2 percent of voting-eligible civilian population. In 2004, the military percentage increased to 79 percent, with 72 percent of overseas personnel and 76 percent of those within the continental United States voting, while the turnout rate among civilians that year was 60.1 percent. Slight increases in both the military and civilian voter turnout are expected in the 2008 general election, and the gap between military and civilian voter turnout rates will probably continue to increase somewhat. (See Table 1.)[2]
Table 1 Military Voter Turnout, 2000 and 2004 (%)
Compared to the Voter Eligible Population [3]
|
2000 |
2004 |
|
|
Military Turnout |
69 |
79 |
|
VEP Turnout |
54.2 |
60.1 |
|
Mil-VEP Gap |
14.8 |
18.9 |
A large body of literature exists describing the changes in absentee voting laws, beginning with the flurry of activity during and immediately after World War I on the part of individual states to grant their soldiers an absentee voting capability. The subsequent writing on the subject was descriptive in nature, generally concentrating on the general processes within each state and on legal and constitutional issues, with little directly relating to military access to absentee balloting (Ray, 1914, 1918a, 1918b, 1919, 1926; Steinbicker 1938). The experience of granting absentee voting rights to soldiers during World War II resulted in some additional comment about procedure and discussion of the congressional partisan infighting that occurred in producing the 1942 bill and the 1944 amendment (Winther, 1944; Martin, 1945). As mentioned above, the American Political Science Association produced a report in 1952, at the request of President Truman, describing the process and for the first time in detail presented some of the barriers preventing soldiers and sailors from actually being able to execute a vote by absentee ballot (APSA, 1952; Keyssar, 2000).
More recently, research has concentrated on methods to increase absentee voting, primarily by reducing the administrative and practical operational barriers to voting, but the unique problems in accessing the overseas military community have not been discussed in detail (Dubin & Kalsow 1996a, 1996b; Oliver 1996; Patterson & Caldeira 1985).
Following the 2000 general election and the attention generated by the handling of absentee ballots in Florida, the specific problems with balloting by military personnel came into the spotlight and prompted detailed recommendations and analysis of alternative methods of casting votes, including various electronic methods (Alvarez et. al 2007, 2008; Hall 2008). The Government Accountability Office (GAO) launched its own investigation, and in a statement before a congressional subcommittee on military and overseas citizens’ absentee voting, David M. Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States, reported that multiple difficulties were posed to absentee balloting by the wide variation in state laws, complex election laws, and different deadline requirements (GAO 2001, May; Hall 2008). In response to some of the GAO’s observations and recommendations, the FVAP developed an electronic registration and voting experiment in time for the 2004 election, but the system was not used due to concerns raised about the system’s security (GAO 2006, September).
Some have argued that military personnel have not and do not face difficulties in voting (Mazur 2007). However, studies conducted since the 2000 general election show that both civilians and military personnel living overseas have a more difficult time casting absentee ballots than those casting absentee ballots in the United States. Citizens living overseas report having difficulty in registering to vote and in meeting deadlines. Furthermore, evidence from studies on absentee balloting in California shows that overseas ballots were twice as likely not to be returned and three times more likely to be challenged as compared to non-overseas absentee ballots. For example, about half of the UOCAVA absentee ballots sent to overseas personnel were not returned. Of those cast, just fewer than 10 percent were challenged and not counted, principally because they arrived after the deadline (Cain et. al 2008; Alvarez et. al 2005, 2007). However, there appears to be little partisan connection with respect to the UOCAVA voters who fail to return their ballots or which ballots are ultimately counted (Alvarez et. al 2007).
The numerous problems posed to overseas voters by the myriad state laws and restrictions have not gone unaddressed by the federal government. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has enforced UOCAVA by bringing suits against various states in federal court. In 2006 alone, lawsuits were filed against Alabama (United States v State of Alabama, 2006), Connecticut (United States v State of Connecticut 2006), and North Carolina (United States v. State of North Carolina, 2006) based on complaints about how each handled election deadlines, transmitted ballots to overseas voters, and established deadlines for receiving absentee ballots (DOJ 2006, June 8).
In the Alabama case, the United States filed a Notice of Dismissal once Alabama enacted legislation to extend the time between primary and run-off elections to 6 weeks, and allowed UOCAVA voters’ ballots to be received and counted until noon on the seventh day after the run-off election. In the Connecticut case, a stipulated agreement between the DOJ and the state resolved the issue by permitting the use of the Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot by UOCAVA voters and allowed extra time for the receipt and counting of ballots. The agreement also required the Secretary of the State of Connecticut to work with the DOJ to develop procedures to ensure compliance with UOCAVA in future elections for federal office. In the North Carolina Case, the DOJ and the state initially entered into a consent decree in time for the May 2006 primary elections. The two parties eventually agreed to a dismissal of the consent decree after North Carolina enacted legislation to provide permanent relief for future elections by expanding the time between primary and run-off elections from four to seven weeks and extended voters’ opportunity to send and receive absentee ballots via facsimile to all categories of voters protected by UOCAVA (DOJ 2008, July 25). Despite these agreements between the federal and state governments, problems for overseas voters continue to surface (Hall 2008).
Voting participation by American military personnel has been minimal for most of the history of the United States. The primary reason is wide variances in state laws that present legal and practical barriers to remotely stationed military personnel and serve to restrict access to a ballot. Coordinated action on the part of the federal government to reduce those barriers began during World War II but only became effective with the enactment of the Uniformed Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act of 1986. The passage of legislation previously enacted by Congress during wartime years exhibited strong partisan differences, apparently based on views about which political party the law would benefit electorally. It was only when legislation was considered during peacetime years, as with the Federal Voting Assistance Act of 1955, that legislators acted in a more non-partisan manner. Other than during the Civil War, there is little evidence to indicate that the American military’s preference for one political party or another was any different from that of the general population.
The primary result of federal absentee voting legislation and enforcement action by the executive branch has been to increase military voting participation dramatically. While historically, the military turnout rate has been significantly lower than that of the civilian population, in recent years military voting exceeds that of the general population by more than 15 percent.
End Notes:
[1] Voter Age Population (VAP) obtained from United States Election Project, George Mason University. Data retrieved 12 January 2009 from http://elections.gmu.edu/index.html. Military voter turnout rates were obtained by personal correspondence from the Federal Voting Assistance Program, Department of Defense on March 2, 2009.
[2] Federal Voting Assistance Program, Seventeenth Report, October 2005. The data for the FVAP reports to Congress are generated by a survey conducted by the RAND Corporation. Voter turnout is self-reported and so may be inflated to some extent; however, even taking into account such over-reporting, it is apparent that the military as a whole votes at a significantly higher rate than does the general population, even in mid-term elections.
[3] Voter Eligible Population (VEP) obtained from United States Election Project, George Mason University. Data retrieved 12 January 2009 from http://elections.gmu.edu/index.html. Military voter turnout rates obtained from Federal Voting Assistance Program, Department of Defense.
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Statutes
18 U.S.C. § 609 (1948).
Overseas Citizens Voting Rights Act of 1975 (P.L.94-203) (42 U.S.C. 1973dd et seq (repealed 1986))
Soldier Voting Act of 1942 (P.L.712-561) (50 U.S.C. § 301 to 303 (repealed 1955))
Uniformed Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-410) (42 U.S.C. § 1973ff to ff6)
Federal Voting Assistance Act of 1955 (P.L. 296-656) (42 U.S.C. 1973cc (repealed 1975))
List of Cases
United States v State of Alabama, (M.D. ALA, May 1, 2006) (No. 2:06-cv-392-SRW). http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/hava/al_hava.php. (Accessed March 12, 2009).
United States v State of Connecticut, (D. Conn. Aug 2, 2006) (No. 3:06-cv-1192). http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/misc/ct_comp.php. (Accessed March 12, 2009).
United States v State of North Carolina, (E.D.N.C. Mar. 20, 2006) (No. 5:06-cv-00118H). http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/misc/nc_uocava_comp.php. (Accessed March 12, 2009).
Note:
This material is based on material previously published by Donald S. Inbody. Original source is available at: http://ecommons.txstate.edu/polsfacp/51/. All rights are retained by the original author and may not be republished in any form unless fully attributed to the author, Donald S. Inbody.
Donald S. Inbody
Department of Political Science
Texas State University
601 University Drive
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The Civil-Military Culture Gap Thesis
Most debate in civil-military relations assumed that a separation between the civilian and military world was inevitable and likely necessary. The argument had been over whether to control the gap between the two (Huntington) or to minimize the gap by enacting certain policies (Janowitz). Following the end of the Cold War in 1989, however, the discussion began to focus on the nature of the apparent gap between civilian and military cultures and, more specifically, whether that gap had reached such proportions as to pose a danger to civilian control of the military. Part of the debate was based on the cultural differences between the more liberal civilian society and the conservative military society, and on the recognition that such differences had apparently become more pronounced than in past years.
Alfred Vagts had already begun the discussion from an historical point of view, concentrating on the German/Prussian military experience. He was perhaps most influential with his definition of militarism, which he described as the state of a society that “ranks military institutions and ways above the prevailing attitudes of civilian life and carries the military mentality into the civilian sphere."[1] Louis Smith, whose work pre-dated Huntington’s, discussed issues of congressional and judicial control over the military as well as executive civilian control of military matters.[2] However, all that discussion predated a general recognition that the American experience was going to change in the post-World War II era. Once it became apparent that the American military was going to maintain historically high levels of active-duty personnel, concerns about the differences between civilian and military cultures quickly came to the forefront. The ensuing debate can be generally divided into three periods with different emphases in each.[3]
The first period, roughly beginning with the end of World War II and ending in about 1973 with the end of the military draft in the United States, was primarily concerned with defining civil-military relations, understanding the concept of professionalism, and learning how civilians actually controlled the military. As discussed above, Huntington and Janowitz dominated the debate.
The second period started in about 1973, with the end of conscription and the establishment of the All-Volunteer Force, and continued until the end of the Cold War. This period was concerned with the supposed lessons of the Vietnam War, how the volunteer force changed the nature of the armed forces, and whether those changes led to wider gaps between military and civilian societies.
The third period, beginning with the end of the Cold War and continuing today, has seen an increasing interest in and concern about the existence of a “civil-military culture gap.” The discussion has centered around three questions:
- Whether such a gap exists in the first place.
- If it does exist, whether its existence matters, and
- If it does matter, what changes in policy might be required to mitigate the negative effects of such gap.
Most agree that a gap does exist, but there is widespread disagreement as to whether the gap matters. There has been even less discussion about what policies may be required to mitigate any such gap. However, few have predicted disaster in civil-military relations and most of the discussion has centered on the nature of the gap and what might be causing it. Most discussion has concentrated on the third period and the debate tended to lay around three principal questions:
- What is the nature of the gap?
- Why does the gap matter?
- How can the problem be corrected?
What is the nature of the gap?
While the debate surrounding a presumed culture gap between civilian and military societies had continued since at least the early 1950s, it became prominent in the early 1990s with the conclusion of the Cold War. The promised “peace dividend” led to a debate over changes in American national security strategy and what that would mean in terms of the transformation of the mission, composition, and character of the armed forces.
The gap debate revolved around two related concepts:
- The notion of a cultural gap, i.e., the differences in the culture, norms, and values of the military and civilian worlds, and
- The notion of a connectivity gap, i.e., the lack of contact and understanding between them.[4]
Few argued that there was no difference between the two worlds, but some were convinced that the difference itself was the primary danger. Charles Maynes[5] worried that a military force consisting primarily of personnel from the lower socio-economic classes would ultimately refuse to fight for the goals of the upper classes. Tarr and Roman,[6] on the other hand, were concerned that the similarities between military elites and civilian elites enabled a dangerous politicizing trend among the military. Chivers[7] represented a small number who believed that the differences between the cultures were so small as essentially to be irrelevant.
Reasons for the cultural and connectivity gaps vary widely. The self-selective nature of the All-Volunteer Force is seen by some to have led to the unrepresentative nature of the armed forces.[8] One argument, put forward by a Navy Chief of Chaplains, was that the drawdown in the size of the military was exacerbating differences and making the separation between the military and civilian societies potentially even more divisive. He worried that unless an effective dialogue could be maintained between the military and civilian branches of society, especially in the area of ethical decision-making, the American military risked losing the support of society or becoming dangerously militaristic.[9] Others argued that the increase in diversity among military personnel has actually strengthened ties between society and the military, especially those ties weakened by the results of the Vietnam War.[10] Most were persuaded that the societal effects of the Vietnam War remained central to the cultural differences.[11]
One unique view, which does not neatly fall into either of the cultural- or connectivity-gap categories, centers on the organizational differences between the military and civilian societies. This view claims to explain much as to why the military has been or may be used to press ahead of society’s norms.[12] This view goes beyond the simpler cultural-gap approach and emphasizes the ability of the military society to control the behavior and attitudes of its members in ways not possible in the more open civilian society, as evidenced by such phenomena as desegregation of the military and inclusion of women in the military.[13]
Ultimately, the cultural gap matters only if it endangers civilian control of the military or if it reduces the ability of the country to maintain an effective military force. Those who concentrate on the nature of the gap tend not to be concerned about dangerous trends. However, those who are concerned about the lack of understanding between the civilian and military worlds are uniformly convinced that the civil-military relationship in the United States is unhealthy.[14] Specifically, they have voiced concerns about a military that may become openly contemptuous of civilian norms and values and may then feel free to openly question the value of defending such a society.[15] Others worry whether an inexperienced civilian government will undermine the military by ineffective or inappropriate policies, thus threatening U.S. national security.[16]
This debate has generally settled on whether or not the gap is too wide. If too wide, civilian control of the military may be jeopardized due to serious misunderstandings between the two worlds. While most agree that such a gap is to be expected and, in and of itself, is not dangerous, some do concede the aspects of that gap have led directly to misunderstandings between the two worlds. In particular, some have argued that the culture of political conservatism and the apparent increase in partisanship of the officer corps has approached a dangerous limit.[17] Nearly all agree that it is possible for the cultural gap to be either too wide or too narrow, but there is wide disagreement as to where the current situation rests on that continuum. While Elizabeth Kier[18] argues that “structure and function do not determine culture,” most agree that a difference between the two is necessary because civilian culture was “incommensurate with military effectiveness.”
Assuming that a problem exists, many have offered suggestions for narrowing the gap and correcting the problems arising from it. In general, those suggestions are along three lines. The first is that the military must reach out to the civilian world. Given the essentially universal agreement that civilians must control the military, the duty falls upon the military to find ways to talk to civilians, not the other way around. The second is that civilians must articulate a clear vision of what they expect in terms of the military mission. And the final suggestion is that the most practical and effective means of bringing about dialogue and understanding is to be bilateral education, in which both military and civilian elites would jointly attend specialized schools. Such schooling would emphasize military-strategic thinking, American history and political philosophy, military ethics, and the proper relationship between civil and military authority.[19]
Some argue that the root problem is that the military is self-selecting, rendering the culture a self-perpetuating one. Solutions such as the reinstatement of the draft and a European-style national service obligation have been offered,[20] but none appears to have made any progress toward adoption.
[1] Alfred Vagts. 1937. A History of Militarism: A Romance and Realities of a Profession. New York: W.W. Norton & Company., 11-15.
[2] Louis Smith. 1951. American Democracy and Military Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[3] Lindsay Cohn. 1999. “The Evolution of the Civil-Military “Gap” Debate.” A paper prepared for the TISS Project on the Gap Between the Military and Civilian Society. The organization for this section is based on Cohn’s detailed discussion and survey of the Culture Debate literature.
[4] Lindsay Cohn. 1999. “The Evolution of the Civil-Military “Gap” Debate.” A paper prepared for the TISS Project on the Gap Between the Military and Civilian Society.
[5] Charles William Maynes. 1998. “The Perils Of (and For) an Imperial America.” Foreign Policy. 111(Summer): 36-47.
[6] David Tarr and Peter Roman. 1998, October 19. “The Military is Still in Close Contact with Civilians.” Biloxi Sun Herald.
[7] C.J. Chivers. 1999, September 14. “Military Fights an Imaginary Rift With the Public.” USA Today, 17.
[8] Mark J. Eitelberg and Roger G. Little. 1995. “Influential Elites and the American Military After the Cold War. U.S. Civil-Military Relations: In Crisis or Transition. ed.s. Donald M. Snider and Miranda A. Carlton-Carew. Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies. Andrew J. Bacevich and Richard H. Kohn. 1997. “Grand Army of the Republicans: Has the U.S. Military Become a Partisan Force?” The New Republic 217 (23-8) Dec): 22 ff. Charles William Maynes. 1998. “The Perils Of (and For) an Imperial America.” Foreign Policy. 111(Summer): 36-47.
[9] Donald K. Muchow. 1995. “A Preliminary Analysis of American Values of Life and Community.” JSCOPE 95.
[10] Fred Tasker. 1990, September 27. “Who Are Today’s Soldiers – And Why?” The Seattle Times, F1. Martin Binkin. 1993. Who Will Fight the Next War? Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.
[11] Judith Hicks Stiehm. 1996. “The Civilian Mind.” in Judith Hicks Stiehm, ed. It’s Our Military, Too! Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Don M. Snider and Miranda A. Carlton-Carew. ed.s 1995. U.S. Civil-Military Relations: In Crisis or Transition? Washington DC: The Center for Strategic and International Studies. George Will. 1997, May 25. “Lott, and Others, Need to Butt Out.” The Plain Dealer, 5F. May 25. Richard Danzig. 1999. The Big Three: Our Greatest Security Risks and How to Address Them. Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University.
[12] Elizabeth Kier. 1998. “Homosexuals in the U.S. Military: Open Integration and Combat Effectiveness.” International Security 23(2): 5-39.
[13] Lindsay Cohn. 1999. “The Evolution of the Civil-Military “Gap” Debate.” A paper prepared for the TISS Project on the Gap Between the Military and Civilian Society.
[14] Andrew J. Bacevich and Richard H. Kohn. 1997. “Grand Army of the Republicans: Has the U.S. Military Become a Partisan Force?” The New Republic. 217 (23-8) Dec): 22 ff. C.J. Chivers. 1999, September 14. “Military Fights an Imaginary Rift With the Public.” USA Today. 17. Peter D. Feaver. 1999. “Civil-Military Relations.” Annual Review of Political Science. 2: 211-241.
[15] J.F. McIsaac & N. Verdugo. 1995. "Civil-military relations: A domestic perspective." In D. M. Snider & M. A. Carlton-Carew (Eds.), U.S. civil-military relations in crisis of transition? (pp. 21-33). Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies.
[16] Mark J. Eitelberg and Roger G. Little. 1995. “Influential Elites and the American Military After the Cold War." U.S. Civil-Military Relations: In Crisis or Transition. Donald M. Snider and Miranda A. Carlton-Carew (eds). Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies.
[17] Andrew J. Bacevich and Richard H. Kohn. 1997. “Grand Army of the Republicans: Has the U.S. Military Become a Partisan Force?” The New Republic 217 (23-8) Dec): 22 ff.
[18] Elizabeth Kier. 1999. “Discrimination and Military Cohesion: An Organizational Perspective.” In Mary Fainsod Katzenstein and Judith Reppy, eds. 1999. Beyond Zero Tolerance: Discrimination in Military Culture. New York: Alexshan Books.
[19] Lindsay Cohn. 1999. “The Evolution of the Civil-Military “Gap” Debate.” A paper prepared for the TISS Project on the Gap Between the Military and Civilian Society. Donald S. Inbody. 2009. Grand Army of the Republic or Grand Army of the Republicans? Political Party and Ideological Preferences of American Enlisted Personnel. Faculty Publications-Political Science. Paper 51. Donald K. Muchow. 1995. “A Preliminary Analysis of American Values of Life and Community.” JSCOPE 95.
[20] Thomas E. Ricks. 1997. Making the Corps. New York: Scribner.
Studies Debunk Military Myths: Troops are more moderate and less party-oriented than their civilian counterparts. Tampa Tribune
The following article appeared in the Tampa Tribune, July 26, 2009.
William March. 2009, July 26. “Studies Debunk Military Myths.” Tampa Tribune. Retrieved 27 July 2009 from http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/jul/26/na-studies-debunk-military-myths/
TAMPA - New research on political opinions of U.S. service members suggests the stereotype of the military as uniformly conservative and Republican doesn’t hold true.
Instead, the research portrays America’s troops as more moderate and less party-oriented than the population as a whole, and they are more likely to avoid the extreme ends of the conservative-to-liberal political spectrum.
Younger enlisted personnel, the least-studied service members, mostly reflect their civilian peers. But at least one researcher says they also are much more likely to vote.
The findings come from a recently published poll concentrating on enlisted personnel in all service branches, and a study about 5 years old, but only recently made public, focusing on Army personnel.
The surveys are unusual, experts say, because historically there have been few reliable polls of the military on political beliefs.
Troops are difficult to contact for traditional, "random sample" telephone polling.
"They’re hard to reach," said Michael Dimock, a researcher for the Pew Center, a polling institute. "There is no white pages for military personnel - at least not one that is publicly shared - not to mention that a large number of them are posted overseas and unreachable."
The two recent studies sought to overcome those difficulties.
One was done last year by a retired Navy captain and a political scientist from Texas, Donald Inbody; the other by a West Point professor, Maj. Jason Dempsey, now deployed to Afghanistan, and Columbia University political scientist Robert Shapiro.
Inbody used statistical techniques to compensate for lack of a random polling sample. He got e-mail addresses for service members and invited them to respond. He then weighted the responses to match the racial, gender and age makeup of the military.
Dempsey and Shapiro used an Army database of addresses, inviting soldiers to respond by mail and e-mail, and also used weighting to correct the results. They have recently been publishing results from their 2004 survey.
Both surveys found that the ratio of Republicans to Democrats is greater among service members than the general population, particularly among officers.
"The stereotype kind of holds up with the officers - more Republican and conservative," said Shapiro. "But the vast majority of the military, which is not officers, is less Republican and less Democratic than the general population and much more independent."
Shapiro and Dempsey found that nearly 60 percent of their respondents called themselves independent of either party.
Enlisted soldiers closely matched the general population in the percentage calling themselves "conservative," 32 percent; "liberal," 23 percent; and "moderate," 45 percent.
Inbody counted those who said they "lean" toward a party as partisans and, therefore, came up with fewer independents - 35 percent of enlisted personnel and 16 percent of officers.
But that’s far more than the 12 percent of civilians who answered the same way in the most recent National Election Survey, a rigorous, census-type poll done after each election.
Inbody also found that younger, enlisted personnel differ little politically from civilians their age but are more likely to be interested in politics and vote.
The perception of service members as heavily Republican and conservative is long-standing.
A 1998 survey by political scientist Peter Feaver of Duke University and Richard Kohn of the University of North Carolina that focused only on officers augmented that stereotype, finding that officers called themselves "conservative" versus "liberal" by an 8-to-1 ratio and Republican instead of Democrat by roughly a 6-to-1 ratio. But Feaver said it was wrong to extend his findings to enlisted personnel. "It’s a lot more likely to be more true of a colonel than a private," he said.
Feaver said the military is somewhat more conservative and Republican-oriented than the general public, but also tends to shift along with broad trends in society and likely has become somewhat less conservative since he did his research. "There may be a return to the historical position of the military as more politically independent," he said.
Reporter William March can be reached at (813) 259-7761.
Survey on American Enlisted Personnel, 2008-2009
The American military is routinely assumed to be a strongly conservative population that tends to identify with the Republican Party. Indeed, Peter Feaver (Duke University) and Richard Kohn (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) demonstrated by use of the Survey on the Military in the Post Cold War Era that such an assumption was true with respect to senior officers. However, as they repeatedly remind their readers, the survey was primarily of military and civilian elites, and did not survey, to any significant extent, junior officers or enlisted personnel.
While it is important to understand the political attitudes of senior officers, as they are the decision-making elite of the American military establishment, to assume that the entire military is but a reflection of them is a grave error in judgment. Enlisted personnel comprise 85 percent of the total military personnel strength and to ignore them is to ignore many years of sociological research and anecdotal observation. Anyone with any experience in the military knows that enlisted personnel are not the same as officers.
This past year the Survey On Enlisted Personnel (SOEP) was completed and the first findings on the contemporary political attitudes of American military enlisted personnel have been released. The purpose of the study was to resolve an apparent conflict between the reported political attitudes of American military personnel and those predicted by demographics. Specifically, we asked the question, “To what extent do the political attitudes and behavior of enlisted personnel differ from or resemble those of the officer corps and the general American population?”
The demographic composition of the American military, especially that of enlisted personnel, is heavily dominated by minority groups that traditionally identify with the Democratic Party…or by groups that at least do not tend to identify with the Republican Party. For example, African-Americans are found in a substantially larger proportion of the military than in the general U.S. population. Despite comprising 12 percent of the age 18-44 population of the United States, African-Americans make up nearly 19 percent of the military and even more in the Army.
An election simulation we conducted based on the 2000 general election surmised that the military actually may have been more likely to have voted for the Democratic candidate than for the Republican candidate. However, there has been no reliable data on how the American military votes and especially on the political attitudes of enlisted personnel. To obtain such data, we created the Survey On Enlisted Personnel (SOEP) and obtained over 2,000 responses.
The findings of that survey tell several stories:
First, the proportion of Republicans in the military is about the same as that found in the general population.
Second, the proportion of Independents in the military is substantially greater than that found in the general population.
Third, the proportion of Democrats in the military is substantially less than that found in the general population.
Fourth, enlisted personnel are less strongly partisan and less strongly ideological than either the civilian population or officers.
The ratio between the Republicans and Democrats, which we call the Partisan Ratio, was perhaps the most interesting finding and most strikingly different from the general population – it is about 1:1 among civilians but nearly 2:1 in favor of the Republicans in the military. Along with that, the ratio between Independents and those with partisan leaning, what we name the Independent Ratio, also showed a marked difference from civilians – the military ratio is about four times that of the civilian.
Table 1: Party Identification
Comparison of Active Enlisted, Veteran Enlisted, Officers (1998), Officers (2008), and Civilians
|
Party Identification |
Active Enlisted |
Veteran Enlisted |
Officers(1998) |
Officers(2008) |
Civilian(ANES) |
|
Strong Republican |
11 |
14 |
- |
12 |
18 |
|
Moderate Republican |
16 |
18 |
- |
32 |
15 |
|
Lean Republican |
14 |
12 |
- |
8 |
9.28 |
|
Total Republican |
41 |
44 |
60 |
52 |
43 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Independent |
35 |
32 |
28 |
16 |
12 |
|
Lean Democrat |
7 |
7 |
- |
12 |
11 |
|
Moderate Democrat |
10 |
8 |
- |
4 |
15 |
|
Strong Democrat |
7 |
9 |
- |
16 |
19 |
|
Total Democrat |
24 |
24 |
11 |
32 |
45 |
|
Total |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
|
N = |
1195 |
1079 |
1086 |
209 |
1617 |
Table 2: Party Identification (PID) Ratios
|
PID Ratios |
Active-duty Enlisted |
Veteran Enlisted |
Officer (1998) |
Officer (2008) |
Civilian (ANES) |
|
Partisan Ratio (R/D) |
1.7:1 |
1.8:1 |
5.5:1 |
1.6:1 |
.95:1 |
|
Independent Ratio (I/R+D) |
.54:1 |
.41:1 |
.39:1 |
.19:1 |
.14:1 |
Table 3: Political Ideology
Comparison of Active Enlisted, Veteran Enlisted, Officers (1998), Officers (2008), and Civilians
|
Political Ideology |
Active Enlisted |
Veteran Enlisted |
Officers(1998) |
Officers(2008) |
Civilian(ANES) |
|
Strongly Conservative |
19 |
18 |
13 |
23 |
24 |
|
Somewhat Conservative |
19 |
30 |
51 |
29 |
15 |
|
Total Conservative |
38 |
48 |
64 |
51 |
38 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Middle of the Road |
34 |
29 |
28 |
19 |
32 |
|
Somewhat Liberal |
18 |
18 |
7 |
15 |
12 |
|
Strongly Liberal |
10 |
5 |
1 |
15 |
18 |
|
Total Liberal |
28 |
23 |
8 |
30 |
30 |
|
Total |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
|
N= |
1200 |
1085 |
1199 |
206 |
1626 |
Table 4: Ideology Ratios
|
Ideology Ratios |
Active-duty Enlisted |
Veteran Enlisted |
Officer (1998) |
Officer (2008) |
Civilian (ANES) |
|
Conservative : Liberal Ratio |
1.4:1 |
2.1:1 |
8:1 |
1.7:1 |
1.3:1 |
|
Moderate Ratio (M/C+L) |
.52:1 |
.41:1 |
.39:1 |
.23:1 |
.47:1 |
These findings may well explain why reports continue of a strongly Republican military. If one runs into two Republicans for every one Democrat, it is easy to come away with the perception that the armed forces are predominately Republican. Independents apparently escape detection below the radar.
The question that is raised by these findings is why would there be so few Democrats in the military. Self-selection is a likely vector. A comparison of statistics between Texas and California, two states that combine to produce more than a fifth of all military recruits annually, is revealing. Of all active duty personnel from Texas, about 63 percent reported a Republican PID; 20 percent reported being Independent; 17 percent reported a Democratic PID. From California, only 35 percent of active duty personnel reported a Republican PID while over 50 percent were Independent. Only about 5 percent reported a Democratic PID. This pattern holds true for other states. States that traditionally produce Republican majorities tend to produce Republican recruits. States that traditionally produce Democratic majorities tend to produce Independent recruits.
Political Efficacy Among Military Personnel. Another interesting finding is that of political efficacy. We have observed that military personnel tend to vote at a higher rate than does the general American population, a trend that has been consistent since the mid-1980s. The SOEP asked respondents two political efficacy questions in an attempt to validate the voting reports. While the 2008 National Election Study reported that nearly 70 percent of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “politics and government seem so complicated that a person like me can’t really understand what is going on,” only 28 percent of active duty enlisted personnel agreed with that same statement. Enlisted personnel demonstrate a very high political efficacy.
This study limited analysis to determining the party identification and political ideology of active duty enlisted personnel in an attempt to better understand the relationship of the military to the civilian population. A limited look at political efficacy supported observations of a politically active military population. Remaining unanswered is why those who identify with the Democratic Party participate in the military at a substantially lower rate than do Republicans or Independents. Also unanswered is why Independents are found in the military at a significantly higher rate than is found among civilians.
Several items of conventional wisdom have been challenged with new data that leads to a more detailed analysis of the American armed forces and the relationship of those forces with civilian leaders and democratic society. With the prospect of another decade of fighting in Afghanistan, the American military will remain in the forefront of public attention and will remain the subject of continued public policy debate and scrutiny. A full understanding of the American military, and in particular the enlisted men and women who actually do the fighting, will become more, not less, important in how political decisions will impact American civil-military relations and to enable informed debate on military policy in the United States.
In the middle of the political spectrum Survey: Troops trend moderate, not conservative, in beliefs
|
Reposted from Military Times. July 13, 2009. A8. By William H. McMichael (bmcmichael@militarytimes.com) A new study upends the general notion that the military’s ranks are dominated by staunchly conservative Republicans.
________ Recommended citation: William H. McMichael. 2009, July 6. “In the Middle of the Political Spectrum Survey: Troops Trend Moderate, Not Conservative, in Beliefs. Military Times. A8. |
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Liberal Theory and the American Founding Fathers
At the heart of civil-military relations is the problem of how a civilian government can control and remain safe from the military institution it created for its own protection. A military force that is strong enough to do what is asked of it must not also pose a danger to the controlling government. This poses the paradox that “because we fear others we create an institution of violence to protect us, but then we fear the very institution we created for protection”.1
The solution to this problem throughout most of American history was to keep its standing army small. While armed forces were built up during wartime, the pattern after every war up to and including World War II was to demobilize quickly and return to something approaching pre-war force levels. However, with the advent of the Cold War in the 1950s, the need to create and maintain a sizable peacetime military force engendered new concerns of militarism and about how such a large force would affect civil-military relations in the United States. For the first time in American history, the problem of civil-military relations would have to be managed during peacetime.2
The men who wrote the Constitution of the United States were fearful of large standing armies, legislatures that had too much power, and perhaps most of all, a powerful executive who might be able to wage war on his own authority. All were objects of concern because of the dangers each posed to liberal democracy and a free citizenry. While it is often impossible to “gauge accurately the intent of the Framers”3, it is nevertheless important to understand the motivations and concerns of the writers with respect to the appropriate relationship between civil and military authority. The Federalist Papers provide a helpful view of how they understood the relationship between civil authority, as represented by the executive branch and the legislature, and military authority.
In Federalist No. 8, Alexander Hamilton worried that maintaining a large standing army would be a dangerous and expensive undertaking. In his principal argument for the ratification of the proposed constitution, he argued that only by maintaining a strong union could the new country avoid such a pitfall. Using the European experience as a negative example and the British experience as a positive one, he presented the idea of a strong nation protected by a navy with no need of a standing army. The implication was that control of a large military force is, at best, difficult and expensive, and at worst invites war and division. He foresaw the necessity of creating a civilian government that kept the military at a distance.
James Madison, another writer of several of the Federalist Papers4, expressed his concern about a standing military in comments before the Constitutional Convention in June 1787:
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.5
The United States Constitution placed considerable limitations on the legislature. Coming from a tradition of legislative superiority in government, many were concerned that the proposed Constitution would place so many limitations on the legislature that it would become impossible for such a body to prevent an executive from starting a war. Hamilton argued in Federalist No. 26 that it would be equally as bad for a legislature to be unfettered by any other agency and that restraints would actually be more likely to preserve liberty. James Madison, in Federalist No. 47, continued Hamilton’s argument that distributing powers among the various branches of government would prevent any one group from gaining so much power as to become unassailable. In Federalist No. 48, however, Madison warned that while the separation of powers is important, the departments must not be so far separated as to have no ability to control the others.
Finally, in Federalist No. 51, Madison argued that to create a government that relied primarily on the good nature of the incumbent to ensure proper government was folly. Institutions must be in place to check incompetent or malevolent leaders. Most importantly, no single branch of government ought to have control over any single aspect of governing. Thus, all three branches of government must have some control over the military, and the system of checks and balances maintained among the other branches would serve to help control the military.
Hamilton and Madison thus had two major concerns: (1) the detrimental effect on liberty and democracy of a large standing army and (2) the ability of an unchecked legislature or executive to take the country to war precipitously. These concerns drove American military policy for the first century and a half of the country’s existence. Until the 1950s, the maintenance of a large military force by the United States was an exceptional circumstance and was restricted to times of war. Following every war up to and including World War II, the military was quickly demobilized and reduced to near pre-war levels.
- Peter D. Feaver. 1996. “The Civil-Military Problematique: Huntington, Janowitz and the Question of Civilian Control.” Armed Forces & Society. 23(2): 149-178.
- Donald S. Inbody. 2009. Grand Army of the Republic or Grand Army of the Republicans? Political Party and Ideological Preferences of American Enlisted Personnel. Faculty Publications-Political Science. Paper 51.
- Jack N. Rackove. 1990. Interpreting the Constitution: The Debate Over Original Intent. Boston: Northeastern.
- Gottfried Dietze. 1960. The Federalist: A Classic on Federalism and Free Government. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press.
- Max Farrand. 1911. Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1:465. James Madison. 1966. Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison. Athens: Ohio University Press, 214-215.
Enlisted Personnel Less Conservative Than Officers
Newly obtained data tells us that the American military enlisted person is less conservative and less Republican than members of the military officer corps. Despite anecdotal reports of a highly conservative and staunchly Republican military bastion, we see a diverse community containing about the same spread of political opinions as that found in the general American population.
The American National Election Study, which just released its data for the 2008 election season, reported that about 43 percent of the American population identified with the Democratic Party while about 41 percent identified with the Republican Party. The data obtained by the Survey On Enlisted Personnel (SOEP) reports that about 41 percent of American enlisted personnel identify as Republicans and about 25 percent identify as Democrats. Some 35 percent identify as independents as compared to only 12 percent of the American population. About 52 percent of the officer corps identifies as Republican. Thus, our 1.1 million enlisted personnel report being no more Republican than the general population and more independent.
This is not a surprise to political behaviorists who have noted for some time that the enlisted population is over-represented by minority groups that tend to identify as Democrats. As of December 2008, whites made up about 69 percent of the enlisted force but constituted 74 percent of the entire U.S. population and about 80 percent of the 18-44 age group from which the enlisted force is recruited. Blacks, who are just under 12 percent of 18-44-year-olds, comprised 19 percent of the military population. Thus, relative to all appropriate comparison groups, whites are under-represented within the enlisted ranks of the American military while blacks are over-represented.
Given this information, it would appear that in the November 2008 Presidential election it is entirely possible that more of our military actually voted Barak Obama than voted for John McCain.
Military Deployments inside US
The creation of U. S. Northern Command on 1 October 2002 brought up concerns by civil libertarians and others about the implications of using American military combat forces inside the borders of the United States and raised posse comitatus questions. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prevents military forces from taking on law enforcement roles within the borders of the United States. Some within the Department of Homeland Security are of the opinion that the Act does not rule out the use of any military force and that many concerns are the basis of certain "myths."
At any rate, it is clear that the military is going to be required should some particularly widespread terrorist (or other attack for that matter) occurs within the borders of the United States. Witness the problems of Hurricane Katrina where the introduction of military force was required to initially gain the confidence of the citizens. If weapons of mass destruction are used, only the military has the necessary skills to identify, contain, and clean up such an event. Cooperation with domestic authority will be required and this will certainly bring up civil-military relations issues that will need to be resolved.
Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security
By Spencer S. Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 1, 2008; A01The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.
The long-planned shift in the Defense Department’s role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.
There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military’s role in domestic law enforcement.
But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, dedicating 20,000 troops to domestic response — a nearly sevenfold increase in five years — "would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable," Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, said in remarks last month at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But the realization that civilian authorities may be overwhelmed in a catastrophe prompted "a fundamental change in military culture," he said.
The Pentagon’s plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces to be ready for emergency response by September 2011. The first 4,700-person unit, built around an active-duty combat brigade based at Fort Stewart, Ga., was available as of Oct. 1, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of the U.S. Northern Command.
If funding continues, two additional teams will join nearly 80 smaller National Guard and reserve units made up of about 6,000 troops in supporting local and state officials nationwide. All would be trained to respond to a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attack, or CBRNE event, as the military calls it.
Military preparations for a domestic weapon-of-mass-destruction attack have been underway since at least 1996, when the Marine Corps activated a 350-member chemical and biological incident response force and later based it in Indian Head, Md., a Washington suburb. Such efforts accelerated after the Sept. 11 attacks, and at the time Iraq was invaded in 2003, a Pentagon joint task force drew on 3,000 civil support personnel across the United States.
In 2005, a new Pentagon homeland defense strategy emphasized "preparing for multiple, simultaneous mass casualty incidents." National security threats were not limited to adversaries who seek to grind down U.S. combat forces abroad, McHale said, but also include those who "want to inflict such brutality on our society that we give up the fight," such as by detonating a nuclear bomb in a U.S. city.
In late 2007, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed a directive approving more than $556 million over five years to set up the three response teams, known as CBRNE Consequence Management Response Forces. Planners assume an incident could lead to thousands of casualties, more than 1 million evacuees and contamination of as many as 3,000 square miles, about the scope of damage Hurricane Katrina caused in 2005.
Last month, McHale said, authorities agreed to begin a $1.8 million pilot project funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency through which civilian authorities in five states could tap military planners to develop disaster response plans. Hawaii, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Washington and West Virginia will each focus on a particular threat — pandemic flu, a terrorist attack, hurricane, earthquake and catastrophic chemical release, respectively — speeding up federal and state emergency planning begun in 2003.
Last Monday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates ordered defense officials to review whether the military, Guard and reserves can respond adequately to domestic disasters.
Gates gave commanders 25 days to propose changes and cost estimates. He cited the work of a congressionally chartered commission, which concluded in January that the Guard and reserve forces are not ready and that they lack equipment and training.
Bert B. Tussing, director of homeland defense and security issues at the U.S. Army War College’s Center for Strategic Leadership, said the new Pentagon approach "breaks the mold" by assigning an active-duty combat brigade to the Northern Command for the first time. Until now, the military required the command to rely on troops requested from other sources.
"This is a genuine recognition that this [job] isn’t something that you want to have a pickup team responsible for," said Tussing, who has assessed the military’s homeland security strategies.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute are troubled by what they consider an expansion of executive authority.
Domestic emergency deployment may be "just the first example of a series of expansions in presidential and military authority," or even an increase in domestic surveillance, said Anna Christensen of the ACLU’s National Security Project. And Cato Vice President Gene Healy warned of "a creeping militarization" of homeland security.
"There’s a notion that whenever there’s an important problem, that the thing to do is to call in the boys in green," Healy said, "and that’s at odds with our long-standing tradition of being wary of the use of standing armies to keep the peace."
McHale stressed that the response units will be subject to the act, that only 8 percent of their personnel will be responsible for security and that their duties will be to protect the force, not other law enforcement. For decades, the military has assigned larger units to respond to civil disturbances, such as during the Los Angeles riot in 1992.
U.S. forces are already under heavy strain, however. The first reaction force is built around the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, which returned in April after 15 months in Iraq. The team includes operations, aviation and medical task forces that are to be ready to deploy at home or overseas within 48 hours, with units specializing in chemical decontamination, bomb disposal, emergency care and logistics.
The one-year domestic mission, however, does not replace the brigade’s next scheduled combat deployment in 2010. The brigade may get additional time in the United States to rest and regroup, compared with other combat units, but it may also face more training and operational requirements depending on its homeland security assignments.
Renuart said the Pentagon is accounting for the strain of fighting two wars, and the need for troops to spend time with their families. "We want to make sure the parameters are right for Iraq and Afghanistan," he said. The 1st Brigade’s soldiers "will have some very aggressive training, but will also be home for much of that."
Although some Pentagon leaders initially expected to build the next two response units around combat teams, they are likely to be drawn mainly from reserves and the National Guard, such as the 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade from South Carolina, which returned in May after more than a year in Afghanistan.
Now that Pentagon strategy gives new priority to homeland security and calls for heavier reliance on the Guard and reserves, McHale said, Washington has to figure out how to pay for it.
"It’s one thing to decide upon a course of action, and it’s something else to make it happen," he said. "It’s time to put our money where our mouth is."
On the motives in Mumbai
Thomas P. M. Barnett, whose writing on the "non-integrating gap" has been gaining interest, has some insightful notes about the recent incidents in Mumbai. This man is one to watch for inclusion in the new administration and the national security staff.
It couldn’t get much clearer: the terrorists wanted to sever India’s growing globalization ties in general and specifically those with the West. While India is no stranger to such terror (indeed, it can claim to have endured more experience in this regard than any other great power over the last quarter-century, with no other even coming close), these attacks seem to signal a new era for the nation: like a China, India becomes increasingly targeted for its role in embracing and spreading globalization. Thus its need to have a globally conscious and responsible military–meaning an end to the strategic myopia over Jammu & Kashmir.
If the upshot of these attacks is that India makes such a decision to recast its grand strategic vision so as to make it more commensurate with its expanding global economic presence, then this System Perturbation will have served its historic purpose–just not in the way its perpetrators imagined.
In that sense, the cruel realist in me says the timing could not have been better–on many levels.
Originally published at: http://thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2008/11/on_the_motives_in_mumbai.html
Strategic Environment 2025 (Reprise)
A recent article by Greg Grant discussing the strategic vision of Frank Hoffman caught my eye. In it he notes that Hoffman warns against getting too hung up on China as the next “near peer” rival of the United States. Hoffman argues that the U.S. Navy needs to develop a “tri-modal” capability which would include (1) power projection, i.e., aircraft carriers, (2) an expeditionary capability to offset the decline in overseas basing, and (3) an ability to operate in the littoral environment. The last capability is brought home most distinctly as we are seeing a rise in piracy off the coast of Africa.
It seems a good time to reprise an earlier post on this blog, about where we see the United States strategically in another fifteen to twenty years. Much of what Hoffman calls for we thought a good idea, too. While we have a slightly different idea about the future of aircraft carriers, we are not far from each other. Building an armed force that is preparing to fight World War III is not in the best interests of the United States. It is important to understand what the world will look like in the next few decades to best decide how to develop a military force that will be effective and useful. We call it the Strategic Environment 2025. It is reprinted below with some modification from its original form.
The principle issues of the strategic environment which will impact military planning by the year 2025 are (1) decreased forward basing, (2) increased anti-access tactics, (3) increased asymmetric attack, and (4) increased technological development, particularly in information systems. This will drive the American force structure to obtain an ability to assure access to anywhere in the world without the requirement of permanent basing.
Building a force designed to fight a specific number of Major Theater Wars is a mistake. The force should be designed to respond to a realistic assessment of requirements and have certain capabilities built in and based on a realistic estimate of future conflict. Most of that conflict will occur within the region of the world described by Thomas P. M. Barnett as the “non-integrated gap.” It is the locations within this “gap” wherein the United States will find itself increasingly fighting and involving itself in humanitarian operations.
The US must be able to discern developing problems in time to do something about them, i.e., information dominance, then move the necessary power, be that combat or humanitarian, to the needed point of crisis. This information dominance must not be restricted to agencies within the Department of Defense. Other agencies, such as the Department of State, U.S.A.I.D., and Department of Energy, among others, must have the capability of input as well as retrieval of data from this information dominance “system.” While such a “system” will have a technical component, it is a mistake to believe that it is entirely such, as input from people on the ground within those regions as well as from non-traditional sources like academia, humanitarian agencies, non-governmental organizations, and the United Nations will be critical.
Once taking full advantage of Information Dominance, the Force of the Future will have three fundamental characteristics: (1) Strategic Agility, (2) Precision Strike, and (3) Integrated Defense. Exploiting information dominance made possible by advances in technology will enhance all of these characteristics.
Strategic Environment.
Decreased Forward Basing. By 2025, Europe will have continued the maturation progress already demonstrated. The need to maintain American forces in Europe will have passed. The Koreas will have reunited and the need to maintain forces in Northeast Asia will have been reduced considerably. Should the European and Korean/Japanese bases become unavailable, which is likely, the United States military must be able to transport itself anywhere in the world in sufficiently short a time to be strategically useful. This will also entail increased and innovative use of pre-positioned equipment and stockpiles.
Increased Anti-Access Tactics. Potential enemies recognize that they can make military access to their countries more difficult by using various relatively inexpensive anti-access tactics. Cruise missiles, mines (both land and sea), anti-aircraft artillery and missiles, and small surface craft make forced entry into any area problematic. The increasing sophistication of improvised explosive devices (IED) will require continued scientific and tactical innovation to reduce that threat. The United States military must be able to counter these tactics in order to assure access to strategically critical areas.
Increased asymmetric attack. Most potential enemies will recognize that they cannot meet the United States in conventional military combat. They will increasingly resort to asymmetric tactics. Such attacks will be by conventional terrorism (bombings, shootings, kidnapping), unconventional terrorism (NBC attacks or holding cities or areas hostage to NBC attack), small unit attacks (irregular paramilitary units and raids by specially trained military units), use of IEDs, and information attacks (computer hacking, destructive viruses, stealth-spy viruses, conventional espionage). It will also take the form of piracy, arms trade, drug trafficking, and trafficking in human beings.
Increased technological development. Technology will continue to develop and faster rates in the next quarter century. Computer and network-related technology in particular will drive the developed world. Use of the technology will enhance an ability to counter anti-access tactics and asymmetric attack. This will also require an increasingly technologically capable and highly trained force structure.
Force Structure Characteristics. In 2025, the military of the United States will be a smaller, essentially CONUS-based force. It must be able to see the enemy first, decide what to do quickly, get to the scene with sufficient force to be decisive, sustain and protect itself while doing the job, and be able to extract when complete. Central to the entire force and the peg upon which the national defense hat will be hung is Information Dominance. This will entail revitalizing national intelligence gathering and processing, to include collection and exploitation of new communication technologies such as the Internet, computer encryption, and cellular communications. This will include national and joint level sensors that can be used by tactical units for targeting and a system of communications that can allow small combat units to call in fires from remote areas. From the central position of information dominance, the three legs of the National Military Strategy can then be brought to bear.
Strategic Agility. It will be essential that the force be able to deploy quickly to anywhere in the world. This will necessarily involve both air and sea lift capability. The force itself must be easily moved and easily formed into combat-effective units upon arrival. The force must also be agile enough to counter anti-access tactics, preferably by-passing such defenses either by maneuver or fire. Strategic agility also includes the ability to sustain such a force at a distance from the United States.
Precision Strike. Application of fires on the precise targets necessary to bring about the desired effects has always been the goal of military leaders. By use of increased information dominance and technology, US forces will be able to accurately decide which targets are critical and then place the necessary force exactly where needed. This will take the form of conventional precision guided munitions. These munitions, launched from ships and aircraft (both crewed and un-crewed), and land-based launchers, will be guided by an integrated system that combines sensors, launchers, and targeting sources. Better precision weapons will be necessary to isolate the damage to just that required to accomplish the mission and reduce collateral damage to a level less than has been accepted today. However important this capability will be, we must maintain the ability to put specially trained soldiers and operatives on the ground to accomplish particularly difficult missions.
Integrated Defense. Defending the force from anti-access tactics and asymmetric attack as well as conventional attack will be the new challenge. Information technology will greatly assist by integrating various systems and providing protection and warning. By integrating systems, the resultant flexibility of response and better sharing of information will better enable local commanders to understand the nature of security problems. Integrated defense begins at the national level, combining service-centric systems into national or joint systems providing service to all forces. National intelligence systems will be combined and streamlined to provide better indications, warnings, and recommendations.
The Force of the Future. The US military of 2025 will be lighter (better able to be strategically transported and providing less of a footprint when deployed), more mobile (strategically, operationally, and tactically), more lethal (better able to deliver precise fires), and better protected (taking advantage of stealth, integrated defenses, and new countermeasure technologies). The force will not be platform-centric, i.e., based upon the concept that the only effective way to deliver fires is to take them into battle on one’s own platforms. The ground force will be optimized to fight in close, urbanized terrain under confusing conditions. The air force will be optimized to provide air domination and precise fires. The naval force will be optimized for forcible entry, counter anti-access tactics, and provide precise fires. The Special Operations Force will be optimized to execute unconventional warfare, but also include Civil-Military Affairs, countering asymmetric attack.
Transition Plan. In order to achieve the Force of the Future, transition must begin now. The first priority is to establishing the information dominance necessary for the plan to work that will require resources to begin RDT&E.
Army. Pull the Corps out of Europe and maintain only one heavy Corps in Fort Hood. Stop production of M1 tanks and use existing tanks to maintain the heavy Corps in the near to mid-term. The heavy Corps will eventually be phased out. The Army will develop six medium highly mobile Divisions, organized to be easily deployable as separate brigades.
Navy. Stop production of large aircraft carriers. Maintain the current carrier force for the near and mid-term, but as they age and retire, do not replace them. Eventually, they will be phased out. Stop production of the DD21. Continue production of the DDG-51 as the near and mid-term solution. Develop and produce a new Low Observable High Speed (LOHS) amphibious assault ship/craft, that can operate in or near littoral areas, supporting the Marine OMFTS concept. Develop the Streetfighter concept or a follow-on concept that permits low observable craft to operate in a dangerous littoral environment, while able to provide or direct precision fires. Except for a few hulls, decommission the SSBN fleet and convert them to SSGN (strike arsenal ships). These vessels will be used in the near and mid-term, but as they age and are retired, they will be replaced by a submersible, high speed, arsenal ship armed with precision guided munitions. Maintain the SSN force and continue development of smaller more capable submersibles, as these ships are most useful in providing access to contested littoral areas. Maintain development of the F/A-18E/F, stop development of the JSF(Navy), and concentrate on the JSF(STOVL) or next generation beyond that. Combine all sealift under the Military Sealift Command and produce more RORO type ships capable of lifting Army or Marine Corps forces and operating offshore.
Marine Corps. Continue development of the JSF(STOVL) and V-22 or next generation. Stop production of the AAAV, and work with the Navy on a LOHS concept of ship and craft capable to delivering combat power ashore. Concentrate on how to deliver precision munitions to areas with a minimum of personnel and equipment on the ground. The Marine Corps will take over the traditional UDT functions formerly provided by the SEALS.
Air Force. Stop production of the F-22 and concentrate on the Joint Strike Fighter or a next generation beyond that. Maintain production of the F-15/F-16 as the near and mid-term solution. Decommission B-1 and B-52 bombers. Maintain the current B-2s, but replace with unmanned, high altitude, precision bombers. Build more C-17 aircraft and develop a low cost replacement of the C-130.
Special Operations Forces. Eliminate the SEALS and combine USAF special forces into the Army, operating under the auspices of SOCCOM, in effect creating a separate special forces service. Develop a new “Cyber Force” capable of countering Internet and computer virus attack and able to conduct offensive cyber attack. The SOF must be able to move quickly and unobtrusively around the world in order to carry out “black” operations either in conjunction with other organizations (CIA), or by themselves. Regular forces must be trained to be able to provide the necessary support to SOF operations in their vicinity. Most counter-terrorism work in the future will be carried out by these forces in conjunction with the CIA and similar forces from other countries.
National Missile Defense and Strategic Nuclear Weapons. Cancel NMD and reduce strategic nuclear weapons to a small number (as low as 100 or 200 by the Turner plan). NMD does little to ensure the security of the United States and requires the use of resources better applied into development of Information Dominance. With the reunification of Korea a principle ballistic missile threat will disappear. China has shown no propensity to develop a large number of strategic missiles.
Intelligence Forces. While all services will maintain tactical intelligence forces specializing in supporting operating forces, all military intelligence functions will be combined under the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. This function will take advantage of the information dominance and provide joint intelligence support to the theater CINCs and better enable cooperation with the CIA. This, combined with the newly invigorated SOCCOM, will enable better work against terrorist and global criminal/pirate organizations.
Chairman, JCS. The Chairman (or possibly SECDEF) will control programming for all information systems within DOD. By controlling such systems, he can drive the development of the force structure necessary to take full advantage of the new information dominance. The services will have to develop forces that can effectively use the information systems provided by the Chairman. This will take legislation by Congress to effect and should be an early priority of the SECDEF and CJCS.
Summary. The Force of the Future will be able to deploy from CONUS to anywhere in the world quickly and with sufficient combat power available to be decisive. Not all of the combat power will necessarily be with the deployed force, but may be on remote platforms or locations supported by remote sensors and targeting systems. The forward forces will be able to integrate with the combat power and sensors increasing effectiveness.
Heavy forces will be maintained in the near term, but replaced by lighter forces in the long term. Some early force retirements and program elimination will be used to begin the transformation. As information dominance is realized, other legacy forces can be replaces by the newly developed forces and capabilities.
Information Dominance will enable the US to see the problem early, define the problem accurately, and begin action in time to make a difference. The force selected will be able to move quickly to the scene and be effective upon arrival, taking advantage of integrated information systems to precisely place combat power (fires) where it will be most decisive and protect itself while employed.
We will see the enemy earlier than ever before and clearer than ever before. We will deliver combat power more quickly than ever before and with more precision than ever before and the force will be better protected than ever before. But, above all, we will be smarter in when we apply such force.