Civil-military relations are vital to the coherence and effectiveness of post-conflict peacebuilding, but have often been problematic. This article argues that civil-military issues vary systematically in relation to the particular civil and military actors in peacebuilding, and that the coercive content of the external military's mission creates special challenges in each of these sets of relationships. Given the significance of the military footprint, the article presents trade-offs for policymakers intending to use military forces to make peace.
A panel discussion on military-civil relations with General Charles Boyd, USAF, retired; Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, USAF, retired; and Professor Ole Holsti; moderated by Professor Mackubin Owens. ; "4 May 2000." ; Mode of access: Internet.
The Center for Civil-Military Relations in Monterey, California, helps nations resolve issues resulting from defense transformation, stability and support operations, terrorism, and other security challenges. In the past two years, the Center has helped educate almost 7,000 foreign military officers and civilians in programs conducted in host countries and in the United States.
This article addresses the relevance of gender to understand the transformations of civil-military relations in advanced democracies. After clarifying the analytical perspective in an opening section, it examines in a second section the debate over women's roles in the military - the so-called 'rights vs. readiness' debate - to show how gender issues have been both an arena for the expression of civil-military tensions and a constitutive element of civil-military relations. Resorting to available empirical information on Western advanced democracies, it focuses in a third section on the topic of women's military integration, highlighting how it has exerted pressures to bring about greater convergence between armed forces and societies. Since these pressures have not been uniform, the article highlights patterns of similarity and difference among countries, showing how varying constellations of circumstances in both armed forces and societies at large have produced different outcomes. The article makes two claims: that gender issues have become an increasingly important indicator of trends in civil-military relations and that both military effectiveness, and congruence between the armed forces and democratic social values can better be achieved if gender issues are addressed and gender integration is promoted in the military. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
The best recent scholarship on Russian civil-military relations explicitly addresses this issue's importance for both domestic and external security. An inquiry into the present state of those relations under conditions of defense reform and the current international situation is of immense analytical and policy relevance for both domestic and external security in Russia. While the Russian regime is serious about military reform, it is encountering severe objections from the uniformed military, and the military has successfully persuaded the government to accept its expansive concept of the threats to Russia, i.e., its threat assessment. Therefore, we must closely follow those developments to understand more clearly current tendencies in Russian politics and policy as a whole. Specifically, this chapter examines issues pertaining to civil-military relations in several areas of Russian national security policies that suggest some disturbing trends for the future. ; https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1586/thumbnail.jpg
This article analyzes Brazilian civil–military relations using a framework that directs attention to the institutions of not only democratic civilian control, but also of military effectiveness and efficiency. The article argues that democratic civilian control over the armed forces in Brazil is exercised by a wide variety of mechanisms, many of which are not specifically designed for this purpose, but are instead part of a vast array of institutions that exercise control and oversight over public bureaucracies in general. Military prerogatives that were once high are now moderate or low, and there is currently no question of civilian control of the armed forces. However, several questions remain regarding the effectiveness of the armed forces. The article also emphasizes the importance of civilian staff assuming responsibilities in defense, as they have in virtually all other areas of government policy.
Research Paper No. #12 ; A Civil-military relation is a poorly defined concept in the academic literature and in popular usage. This paper begins with a conceptualization of civil-military relations as a trinity of dimensions including democratic civilian control, effectiveness in the achievement of roles and missions, and efficiency in the use of resources. Six roles and missions are specified and three different entities – the armed forces, police, and intelligence agencies – are defined as the instruments of security. The paper then highlights the ongoing tensions with regard to democratic civilian control: that chief executives in Latin America are able to fire ministers of defense and senior officers. What is generally lacking, however, in all but a few countries, are institutional mechanisms and sufficient personnel to manage security and defense issues in a routine manner. Just as important, the vast majority of Latin American countries lack the required instruments – strategies, institutions, and resource allocations – to achieve effectiveness. A few countries, including Argentina, Chile, and Colombia, however, are seeking to increase effectiveness through reforms in professional military education.
Pakistan remained under military domination for about 32 years (1958-1971,1977-1988 and 1999 to 2008). The perpetual influence of military overshadowed the civilian in one way or the other. To analyze civil-military nexus accurately, it is necessary to assess how both civil and military leaders handle policy discrepancies between them. The entire concept of the overall civil-military nexus is broadly based on the fact of how to assure civil control over the military. During Musharrafs regime, various nonmilitary practices with the vested interest of the military as a priority encouraged the military greatly while the civilians were kept in the background. But in spite of such defiance towards the army, a sound political leadership could not be brought forward to stand against military power and to keep them confined to their barracks. The civilian power that has governed the country encompasses two families monopoly i.e. the Bhutto and Sharif
Civilian control of the armed forces is a sine qua non for democracy. In Bangladesh, the military has played a crucial role during several authoritarian setbacks on its path to democratic consolidation. Civilian control is understood as the distribution of decisionmaking power between civilians and the armed forces. This article sheds light on the successes and failures in the efforts of civilian governments to establish supremacy over the country's armed forces in order to consolidate democratic rule. The analysis derives from a conceptualization of civilian control that distinguishes five areas of political decisionmaking: elite-recruitment, public policy, internal security, national defence, and internal security. In order to establish control in these various areas civilians have a choice between different strategies for which they need certain resources. In this context, the study shows that civil-military relations in Bangladesh have tended to be affected by historical legacies. Civilian polarisation as well as military factionalism and politicisation have not only hampered the institutionalization of civilian control but also led to the predominance of informality.
This report discusses the Danish experience with civil-military integration in the case of Afghanistan. It places emphasis on the political nature of the challenge in high-conflict areas. It finds that fragile, post-conflict situations such as that found in Badahkshan in Afghanistan should be treated differently from the in-conflict, failed state situation as found in Helmand. Where military and civilian activities are to be integrated in failed state situations, the two activities are said to benefit from being organized separately in fragile situations.
Civil-military relations in Lithuania have serious deficiencies, which have appeared because of the simulation of a recommended Western model of civilian control. After regaining Independence, Lithuania had the difficult task of creating its armed forces and system of national defence following the Western model. At the same time we had to implement two political programs: to create functio-ning armed forces and a institutional-legal system of democratic civil-military control. However, this control is not only proper laws and functioning institutions. Equally, an important role must be given to intellectual reflection, which enables the posing of questions such as: what is war; how is the character of war changing; how does this affect Lithuanian defence policies and the perception of threats? Raising such questions inside the armed forces and in wider political and civil society is an essential condition for having effective and flexible civilian control over the military.
Civil-military relations in Lithuania have serious deficiencies, which have appeared because of the simulation of a recommended Western model of civilian control. After regaining Independence, Lithuania had the difficult task of creating its armed forces and system of national defence following the Western model. At the same time we had to implement two political programs: to create functio-ning armed forces and a institutional-legal system of democratic civil-military control. However, this control is not only proper laws and functioning institutions. Equally, an important role must be given to intellectual reflection, which enables the posing of questions such as: what is war; how is the character of war changing; how does this affect Lithuanian defence policies and the perception of threats? Raising such questions inside the armed forces and in wider political and civil society is an essential condition for having effective and flexible civilian control over the military.
Civil-military relations in Lithuania have serious deficiencies, which have appeared because of the simulation of a recommended Western model of civilian control. After regaining Independence, Lithuania had the difficult task of creating its armed forces and system of national defence following the Western model. At the same time we had to implement two political programs: to create functio-ning armed forces and a institutional-legal system of democratic civil-military control. However, this control is not only proper laws and functioning institutions. Equally, an important role must be given to intellectual reflection, which enables the posing of questions such as: what is war; how is the character of war changing; how does this affect Lithuanian defence policies and the perception of threats? Raising such questions inside the armed forces and in wider political and civil society is an essential condition for having effective and flexible civilian control over the military.
Civil-military relations in Lithuania have serious deficiencies, which have appeared because of the simulation of a recommended Western model of civilian control. After regaining Independence, Lithuania had the difficult task of creating its armed forces and system of national defence following the Western model. At the same time we had to implement two political programs: to create functio-ning armed forces and a institutional-legal system of democratic civil-military control. However, this control is not only proper laws and functioning institutions. Equally, an important role must be given to intellectual reflection, which enables the posing of questions such as: what is war; how is the character of war changing; how does this affect Lithuanian defence policies and the perception of threats? Raising such questions inside the armed forces and in wider political and civil society is an essential condition for having effective and flexible civilian control over the military.
Civil-military relations in Lithuania have serious deficiencies, which have appeared because of the simulation of a recommended Western model of civilian control. After regaining Independence, Lithuania had the difficult task of creating its armed forces and system of national defence following the Western model. At the same time we had to implement two political programs: to create functio-ning armed forces and a institutional-legal system of democratic civil-military control. However, this control is not only proper laws and functioning institutions. Equally, an important role must be given to intellectual reflection, which enables the posing of questions such as: what is war; how is the character of war changing; how does this affect Lithuanian defence policies and the perception of threats? Raising such questions inside the armed forces and in wider political and civil society is an essential condition for having effective and flexible civilian control over the military.
