Readings on Civil-Military Relations

If anyone has been missing Disunion, the New York Times' ongoing series chronicling the breakup of the Union on the eve of the Civil War, they should stop missing it. It's a fantastic reminder that the road from Dredd Scott to Bull Run was more complicated than "Lincoln's elected - lock and load!" (though come to think of it that's a remarkably accurate account of some quarters' response to a more recent presidential contest). In any case, today's installment addresses the state of civil-military relations in the decades leading up to the war, noting that, owing partly to the Founding Fathers' distaste for a professional standing army, the American military of the early nineteenth century was, well, less professional. Its commanders were overtly politicized, willing to play fast and loose with mandates from civilian officials, and not especially respectful of what most Americans would now recognize as the proper limits to military authority.

It's an interesting piece to read in conjunction with Jonathan Stevenson's piece (paywall) from May's Harpers worrying that the military has slowly expanded its portfolio to include America's overall strategic posture, traditionally the province of civilians. Michael Cohen and Richard Kohn's responses to Andrew Milburn's JFQ Article "Breaking Ranks: Dissent and the Military Professional" are also worth a look. I don't agree with everything Cohen and Kohn write. In particular, I think Cohen's concerns about a military coup are overblown, even over the long term. All evidence is that the American military continues to inculcate an ethic of Constitutional constraint and civilian control. Stevenson's concerns about a coup d'esprit seem closer to the mark.

The overall point one gleans from these accounts, though, is that civil-military relations are never static, and are driven by a complex interaction of norms, institutional strength and political circumstance. The comparatively unprofessional military of the early nineteenth century wasn't the cancer on the Republic that it might otherwise have been because the U.S. at the time wasn't an especially militarized society (though certainly one interested in conquest). Armies were raised on a situational basis, and there were limits to the military's institutional clout in Washington, its economic weight, and thus its overall political power. Today, we have a highly professional military, but one kept permanently in place, robustly funded, globally deployed, and usually fighting. And it's been that way for six decades. And probably will be for several more. In this context, I'd be surprised if the political neutrality of the military didn't begin to degrade, just as a matter of institutional math.

Again, the concern here isn't that some latter-day Caesar will cross the Rubicon and topple the Republic. Neither such malice nor such drama are necessary. The concern is that a defense establishment acting as a de-facto fourth branch of government will achieve practical control over the basic structure of American foreign policy, relegating to civilian authorities only its most superficial and theatrical elements. Food for thought.