Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, is strengthening civilian control of the military in a far more effective method than did Donald Rumsfeld. Instead of running rampant over the Generals or belittling them publicly, as did Rumsfeld, Gates discovered wrong-doing or inefficient behavior, investigates, and then disciplines. This will send a stronger signal to the military [...]
Theoretical thought about "deterrence" falls into the same line as "grand strategy." We essentially have not had any grand strategy in the United States since the fall of the Soviet Union. Perhaps this will help stimulate some theoretical talk and writing on what we ought to be doing in the future. As noted by Dr. [...]
You are invited to participate in a survey, entitled “Survey of American Military Enlisted Personnel Political Attitudes and Behavior.” The study is being conducted by Donald S. Inbody at The University of Texas at Austin. While we are primarily interested in active duty enlisted personnel, we will accept survey responses from officers and those who [...]
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 [...]
The New York Times ad by MoveOn.org portraying General Petraeus as potentially betraying America continues and threatens to exacerbate a trend that has developed over the past thirty years. Democrats have slowly, but surely, alienated themselves from the military. While words of “support for the troops” and “we are patriots, too” are all very likely true, the hard [...]
The recent (well done) article in Foreign Affairs by Michael Desch on the state of American civil military relations brought forth some strong and equally well written counter attacks by General Myers, Richard Kohn, and Mackubin Owens. This sort of very public argument is desperately needed. The last such debate occurred in the 1990s when a [...]
