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Military Leaders and Foreign Policy-Making*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Lewis J. Edinger
Lewis J. Edinger*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Extract

A survey of the literature of the last decade in the burgeoning interdisciplinary field which has come to be known—rather imprecisely—as civil-military relations, reveals a large number of descriptive and prescriptive, operational and theoretical studies, but little unity of focus or method. The interested shopper finds himself in a veritable department store filled with a wide assortment—including those in the bargain basement. Spurred on by wartime experiences and Cold War exigencies, historians and social scientists, physical scientists and journalists—above all in the United States—have covered reams of paper with discussions of the relationship between arms and men, war and peace, strategy and policy, defense and diplomacy. Displaying a great variety of analytical depth, breadth and sophistication, some of these studies have advanced our knowledge of civil-military relations—particularly in contemporary America—while others have failed to survive changes in international politics and weapons technology. Some writers, both of conservative and liberal orientation, have focused on the “appropriate” role for the military in state and society; others have sought to remain detached from such normative questions in order to concentrate on micro-descriptive phenomenal studies or more or less abstract macro-analytical theoretical models. Between the earth-bound descriptive and prescriptive studies on the one hand, and the soaring theoretical efforts on the other has loomed a wide gap, all too familiar to students of international relations, comparative politics, and public administration, waiting to be bridged—if bridged it can be—by empirical theories of civil-military relationships.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , June 1963 , pp. 392 - 405
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1963

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Footnotes

*

A paper delivered at the 1962 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D. C., September 5-8, 1962. I am indebted to the Committee on National Security Policy Research of the Social Science Research Council for financial assistance and to Professors William T. R. Fox, William Hanna, Lloyd Musolf, and Frank Pinner for their comments.

References

1 Huntington, Samuel P., “Recent Writings in Military Politics-Foci and Corpora,” in Hunttington, (ed.), Changing Patterns of Military Politics (Glencoe, Ill., 1962), p. 262Google Scholar. This essay is a first-class review of English-language literature in the field.

2 Snyder, Richard C. and Robinson, James A., National and International Decision—Making: A Report to the Committee on Research for Peace (New York, 1961), p. 86Google Scholar.

3 See Janowitz, Morris, Sociology and the Military Establishment (New York, 1959)Google Scholar, for a discussion of such studies. Janowitz calls the sociological literature “underdeveloped” and his survey lists only a few studies relevant to civil-military relations.

4 E.g Lasswell, Harold, “The Garrison State and Specialists on Violence,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol 46 (01, 1941), pp. 455–468CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “The Garrison Hypothesis Today,” in Huntington (ed)., op. cit., pp. 51-70; Huntington, Samuel P., The Soldier and the State (Cambridge, Mass., 1957)Google Scholar; Rapoport, David C., “A Comparative Theory of Military and Political Types,” in Huntington, , Changing Patterns, pp. 71–100Google Scholar.

5 E.g., Ransom, Harry H., “The Politics of Air Power,” in Friedrich, Carl J. and Harris, Seymour E. (eds.), Public Policy … 1958 (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), pp. 87–119Google Scholar.

6 Probably best known of this genre is Mills, C. Wright, The Power Elite (New York, 1959)Google Scholar. See also Finer, Samuel E., The Man on HorsebackGoogle Scholar.

7 E.g., Lieuwen, Edwin, Arms and Politics in Latin America, rev. ed. (New York, 1961)Google Scholar; Johnson, J. J. (ed.), The Role of the Military in Underdeveloped Countries (Princeton, 1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lt. Col. Wyckoff, Theodore, “The Role of the Military in Latin American Politics,” Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 13 (09, 1960), pp. 745–763CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pauker, Guy, “Southeast Asia as a Problem Area in the Next Decade,” World Politics, Vol. 11 (04, 1959), 325–345CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berger, Morroe, Military Elite and Social Change: Egypt Since Napoleon (Center for International Studies, Princeton, 1960)Google Scholar; Vatikiotis, P. J., The Egyptian Army in Politics (Bloomington, Ind., 1961)Google Scholar; Hinten, Harold, “Political Aspects of Military Power and Policy in Communist China,” in Coles, Harry L. (ed.), Total War and Cold War (Columbus, Ohio, 1962), pp. 266–292Google Scholar.

8 E.g., several of the essays in Coles (ed.), op. cit., and in Huntington (ed.), Changing Patterns; also Sapin, Burton M. and Snyder, Richard C., The Role of the Military in American Foreign Policy (Garden City, N. Y., 1954)Google Scholar, and Sapin, Bruton, Synder, Richard C. and Bruck, H. W., An Appropriate Role for the Military in American Foreign Policy—making (Foreign Policy Analysis Project, Princeton, 1954)Google Scholar.

9 Thus, the military commentator of the New York Times wrote recently that “On the whole, [American] National Guard officers today are probably more highly qualified professionally than the Reserve officers of most, if not all, other nations on earth.” Baldwin, Hanson W., “National Guard-III.” New York Times, 07 6, 1962Google Scholar.

10 Illustrative of this lack of conceptualization is Lincoln P. Bloomfield's reference to a number of non-Communist nations which, in 1960, “were living under regimes which in one way or another have been described as military… .” The United Nations and U. S. Foreign Policy (Boston-Toronto, 1960), p. 173Google Scholar. Janowitz, op. cit., p. 103 includes paramilitary forces, guerrilla units, and resistance organizations under the rubric of “military organization.”

11 So, for example, Mosca, Gaetano, The Ruling Class (New York and London, 1939), p. 53Google Scholar, defines militarism as “the dominance of a warrior class over a peaceful multitude;” while the German historian Gerhart Ritter claims that “one can speak of ‘militarism’ only when the primacy of the political leadership over the military [and] political thinking over military thinking has been challenged,” Staatskunsl und Kriegshandwerk, II (Munich, 1960), p. 32Google Scholar; and Alfred Vagts speaks of militarism as “a domination of the military man over the civilian, an undue preponderance of military demands, an emphasis on military considerations, spirit, ideals, and scales of value, in the life of states … the imposition of heavy burdens on a people for military purposes, to the neglect of welfare and culture, and the waste of the nation's best manpower in unproductive army service.” A History of Militarism, rev. ed. (1959), p. 14Google Scholar. See also Wolfers, Arnold, “National Security as an Ambiguous Symbol,.” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 67 (12, 1952), pp. 481–502CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 In formulating this proposal I accumulated a very large intellectual debt to many historians and social scientists who have labored in related areas—particularly during the past decade. Their number is far too large for me to list here each author and his relevant works, and I find it impossible to identify each way station in a cumulative process of intellectual development. However, I would like to single out as sources of particular inspiration some of the recent work of Gabriel Almond, Karl Deutsch, and Richard Snyder.

13 Deutsch, Karl W., et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton, 1957), p. 13Google Scholar. See also Aron, Raymond, “Conflict and War from the Viewpoint of Historical Sociology,” in International Sociological Association, The Nature of Conflict (Paris, 1957), pp. 177–203Google Scholar, and Hoffmann, Stanley H., Contemporary Theory in International Relations (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1960), pp. 174–184Google Scholar.

14 Weber, Max, “Politics as a Vocation,” in Gerth, Hans and Mills, C. Wright (eds.), From Max Weber (London, 1947), p. 78Google Scholar.

15 This definition does not exclude the performance of other roles by the military—political education of conscripts, for example—but those are considered secondary functions only. The definition deliberately seeks to avoid a time- and culture-bound emphasis on professionalism, vocational “calling,” corporate esprit, and commissioned rank which seems implicit or explicit in many current definitions of “the military.” In most cases, these seem to be based on an “ideal type” derived directly or indirectly from the writings of certain Prussian and German military writers, such as Clausewitz, Moltke the Elder, and Otto Hintze. Excluded from the military by my definition are guerrilla and resistance fighters, except when they are operating on behalf of and under the direction of another state. Excluded, too, are so-called “political” soldiers. Insofar as they are exercising primarily political functions their tasks are entirely different in terms of the social system of the state, though their particular interpretation of their political role may well be influenced by previous military training and experiences. On the other hand, reserve officers on extended active duty and alien mercenaries are members of the military whenever their primary function is the legitimate application of force against other states.

16 Coles, , Total War and Cold War, p. 6.Google Scholar

17 This conceptual distinction between different specialists in violence obviously invites exceptions and objections. Like any analytical concept, it cannot be made either too restrictive or too loose, and qualitative judgment is unavoidable. Thus, our concept demands qualitative judgment about the classification of paramilitary forces which may perform military and police functions interchangeably—such as the American National Guard—or simultaneously—such as the Nazi Waffen SS in the Second World War, or the present West German “Border Police.” As in the case of military men temporarily engaged in intrastate warfare against domestic opponents, or in “policing” an occupied state, a protectorate, or a colony, our emphasis on primary function must serve as the basis for qualitative judgment. At the same time, our restrictive definition avoids the conceptual confusion which arises when police formations are called military forces or genuine military units police forces—often for political reasons. Qualitative judgment is also indispensable in distinguishing between genuine military men and individuals who may have received military training, perhaps even wear uniforms, but perform primarily non-military functions, as diplomats, engineers—even band masters. On the other hand, we must also apply qualitative judgment in classifying so-called civilians who are directly concerned with the organization and application of force against other states. The increasing conceptual confusion about the distinction between “civilianized” military men and “militarized” civilians in modern states reflects what appears to be a trend toward a new type of differentiation between specialists and non-specialists in the application of external force which has nothing to do with the wearing of a uniform. The complexities of modern violence require specialists, but, particularly at the top levels of the management of violence, it seems difficult to make an operationally useful distinction between uniformed and non-uniformed war planners, psychological warriors, and missile experts and the like. Take away the assumed unique qualities of the “military mind” or the “military calling” and the non-functional distinction between military and civilian becomes difficult to maintain. Efforts to distinguish between civilian and military “values”—rather than offices or tasks—seem to me of little help in establishing a clear distinction between specialists and non-specialists in violence. When we speak of “military pacifism” and “civilian militarism” we seem to have achieved the ultimate in methodological confusion. There is indeed a distinction between the military and non-military, but it seems to me that it can only be established functionally.

18 See Reitzel, William, Kaplan, Morton A., and Coblenz, Constance G., United Slates Foreign Policy 1945—1055 (Washington, 1956), pp. 472473Google Scholar; Snyder, Richard C., Bruck, H. W., and Sapin, Burton, Decision—Making as an Approach to the Study of International Politics (Foreign Policy Analysis Project, Princeton, 1954), p. 58 f.Google Scholar; Snyder, Richard C. and Paige, Glenn D., “The United States Decision to Resist Aggression in Korea,” Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 3 (12, 1958), 345 fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Simon, Herbert A., Administrative Behavior, 2d ed. (New York, 1957), p. 223Google Scholar. See also Snyder and Sapin, op. cit., pp. 23, 32.

20 See Ritter, Gerhart, Der Schlieffen Plan (Munich, 1956Google Scholar), passim.

21 “The study of the circumstances of the French Revolution leads to this conclusion,” Heckscher continued, “and we probably come to the same result if we go to Latin America, to Germany, to France or to the Middle East, while comparing them with countries living in different circumstances, such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Scandinavia.” Heckscher, Gunnar, The Study of Comparative Government and Politics (London, 1957), p. 118Google Scholar.

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23 Thus, a number of writers have attributed the outbreak of war in 1914 to a general climate of insecurity, combined with a xenophobic attitude, among elites and masses in most European countries. On the other hand, Franco-British “appeasement” policies in the 1930s are said to have been based on fear of war, but not of aggression, among elites and masses in both these countries.

24 I have borrowed the concept from Stanislaw Andrzejewski who, in his book Military Organization and Society (London, 1954)Google Scholar, employs it in a somewhat different sense and context.

24a See, for example, Quincy Wright, A Study of War, Vol. I (Chicago, 1942), Appendix XXII, pp. 666–672Google Scholar.

25 Not only are such “strategic equations” a matter of the External Setting, but they are extremely difficult to ascertain objectively in any international relationship. Insofar as they enter “subjectively” into the consideration of the military and the decision-makers, they should be considered in connection with the attitudes discussed under the Internal Setting.

26 See Dahl, Robert, “A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model,” this Review, Vol. 52 (06, 1958), p. 466Google Scholar.

27 Deutsch, Karl W., “Toward an Inventory of Basic Trends and Patterns in Comparative and International Politics,” this Review, Vol. 54 (03, 1960), pp. 34–57Google Scholar.

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31 Many pertinent sources for the United States are listed in Samuel P. Huntington, “Recent Writing in Military Politics-Foci and Corpora,” op. cit. and in Snyder and Robinson, National and International Decision—Making, passim.

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36 See e.g., Merton, , Social Theory and Social Structure, rev. ed. (New York, 1957), pp. 415–420Google Scholar; Rosenau, James N., Public Opinion and Foreign Policy (New York, 1961), pp. 10–18Google Scholar; Dahl, Robert A., Who Governs: Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven, 1961), pp. 330–343Google Scholar; Cohen, Bernard C., The Influence of Non—Governmental Groups in Foreign Policy—Making (Boston, 1959), pp. 4–5Google Scholar; Simon, Herbert, “Notes on the Observation and Measurement of Political Power,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 15 (11, 1953), pp. 500–516CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 “Critique of the Ruling Elite Model,” op. cit., pp. 463-469.

38 March, James G., “An Introduction to the Theory and Measurement of Influence,” this Review, Vol. 49 (06, 1955), pp. 463ff.Google Scholar

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