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This essay reviews the following works:Ensaios de grande estratégia brasileira. By João Paulo S. Alsina Jr. Rio de Janeiro: Editora FGV, 2018. Pp. 291. Reais 43.00 paperback. ISBN: 9788522520619. Politics in Uniform: Military Officers and Dictatorship in Brazil, 1960–1980. By Maud Chirio. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. Pp. xii + 280. $28.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822965374. Soldiers of the Nation: Military Service and Modern Puerto Rico, 1868–1952. By Harry Franqui-Rivera. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018. Pp. xiii + 342. $60.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780803278677. Fuerzas armadas, pretorianismo y calidad de la democracia: Ecuador y Uruguay. By Patricio Haro Ayerve. Quito: FLACSO, 2017. Pp. xix + 307. $18.00. ISBN: 9789978674789. Brazil, 1964–1985: The Military Regimes of Latin America in the Cold War. By Herbert S. Klein and Francisco Vidal Luna. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017. Pp. xiii+ 216. $40.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780300223316. Debating Civil-Military Relations in Latin America. Edited by David R. Mares and Rafael Martínez. Eastbourne, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2014. Pp. xii + 224. $69.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9781845195915. Military Missions in Democratic Latin America. By David Pion-Berlin. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. xiii + 218. $119.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781137592699. Soldiers, Politicians, and Civilians: Reforming Civil-Military Relations in Democratic Latin America. By David Pion-Berlin and Rafael Martínez. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. i + 414. $32.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781316604434.

The topic of civil-military relations has high significance for academics, for policy makers, for military commanders, and for serious students of public policy in democratic and other societies. The post-Cold War and post-9-11 worlds have thrown up traditional as well as new challenges to the effective management of armed forces and defense establishments. Further, the present century has seen a rising arc in the use of armed violence on the part of non-state actors, including terrorists, to considerable political effect. Civil-military relations in the United States, and their implications for US and allied security policies, is the focus of most discussions in this volume, but other contributions emphasize the comparative and cross-national dimensions of the relationship between the use or threat of force and public policy. Authors contributing to this study examine a wide range of issues, including: the contrast between theory and practice in civil-military relations; the role perceptions of military professionals across generations; the character of civil-military relations in authoritarian or other democratically-challenged political systems; the usefulness of business models in military management; the attributes of civil-military relations during unconventional conflicts; the experience of the all-volunteer force and its meaning for US civil-military relations; and other topics. Contributors include civilian academic and policy analysts as well as military officers with considerable academic expertise and experience with the subject matter at hand.

Civil-Military Relations in the Modern Middle East explores the political and economic interactions between civilians and the armed forces in the post-World War II Middle East, emphasizing four themes: military and society, the role of the military in political transitions, the military's part in national economies, and the relations between soldiers and civilians in wartime. Covering the greater Middle East-including the Arab States, Israel, Turkey, and Iran-the book establishes how militaries in many Middle Eastern countries influence the national political and economic systems and how, in turn, politics influences the national militaries.

Paper prepared for the 2001 meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington DC, 5-8 September 2001. ; Almost all countries in the Andean region have experienced increased civil-military conflict during the last decade. Venezuela has elected a former coup leader as president who has swiftly militarized public administration, placing over 170 active duty and retired military officers in senior ministerial and vice-ministerial positions (Machillanda 2001). Ecuador witnessed a coup d'etat in January 2000 that led to the deposal of a legitimately elected president and his replacement by his vice-president (Weidner 2000). Peru led the region in this area, experiencing a civilian-led self-coup in 1992 by President Alberto Fujimori, and a transition to democracy from a deeply corrupt civilian semi-authoritarian regime in 2001. A thoroughly complicit military played a leading role in both events (Garcia Calderón 2001). Even Colombia, which has made substantial progress towards democratic control of the armed forces by establishing a civilian Ministry of Defense, has dealt with civil-military tensions over its internal conflict. Over 200 officers were recently dismissed for their suspected links to right wing paramilitary organizations. Even Bolivia, were former dictator, Gen. Hugo Banzer, had served as an elected president, has witnessed some military tension over internal conflicts between the state and indigenous communities over coca policy (Weidner 2000). Taken together, these events suggest that the Andean region may be experiencing a crisis in civil-military relations.

A common concern in the United States is the supposed drift of American society toward militarism. Observers claim to see persuasive evi­dence of a foreign policy dominated by military considerations; of the Armed Forces of the United States essentially beyond the control of the people, Con­gress, and even the executive branch; of a major segment of American industry dependent upon the "war machine."

The authors were invited to prepare a paper for a conference on Civil-Military Relations in the fall, 1994. That paper was translated into an article for the Winter, 1995 edition of The Washington Quarterly under the title "Civil-Military Relations in the United States: The State of the Debate." Although the intensity of interest in this subject has fallen from the front pages of the newspapers, the authors have here suggested that the debate needs to continue and that it should start with identification of the right questions. The basic issues are inherent in the structure and beliefs of American political society, but the questions may be changing as the nature of that society and the manner in which it talks to itself and what it sees its responsibilities to be are also changing. While the authors do not see a current crisis in the relationship, they attempt to explain many of the basic features of that relationship, providing some of its history along the way. They have pointed out several conditions which put the relationship under particular strain and suggest that the Secretary of Defense is, by virtue of several institutional peculiarities, at the nexus of the relationship. It is the author's intent that this study lead to sustained debate within the military and civilian policy-making communities. ; https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1240/thumbnail.jpg

This study uses the postmodern military model to measure how public perception of the military is influenced by self-identification in Taiwan. It unveils the schism that exists between military and society, contributing to low morale and a lack of esprit de corps that puts the island's forces at risk from an increasingly confident China.