I have not seen this discussed outside of very narrow circles. The American civil-military relationship is a critical one that needs to have a certain amount of care applied. We have essentially ignored it. There is even some writing coming out that explicitly calls into question that military officers are professionals; the writer wonders if [...]
Winter 2008 (Archive)
Coming Soon: A Crisis in Civil-Military Relations
Richard H. Kohn
When Bill Clinton won the presidency in November 1992, few could have anticipated that his first crisis would be a full-blown clash with the armed forces, unhinging his administration even before it took office. His, after all, was to be a domestic presidency. Clinton inherited [...]
There exists an apparent contradiction between the assumed party identification of the American military (generally Republican) and that which is predicted by demographics. While we know from recent research that the officer corps overwhelmingly identifies with the Republican party and is strongly conservative in belief, less is known about the enlisted ranks. Given that minorities [...]
Despite the near universal opinion that Robert Gates has been an excellent choice as Secretary of Defense, it is a near-certainty that he will not remain in the office upon the arrival of the new president, regardless of which one is elected. His success, however, points to a critical factor in who the new president [...]
Now that I have been cleared hot into my doctoral dissertation research, I have started another webpage. Take a look at CivMil Research to see where I am going. I have a survey developed, currently hosted on Survey Monkey, and I will begin collecting data from that survey shortly. You can check out the survey [...]
