Search Results

This chapter discusses some of the useful theoretical contributions that inform the study of civil–military relations and democratization in different political environments. The course of democratic transition and consolidation is unique to the country that is experiencing it. There are many different political, economic, and social tasks to accomplish, and how they are approached is inevitably affected by country-specific factors. As such, three things ought to be kept in mind. First, democratization in general and the democratization of civil–military relations, in particular, are always gradual processes. Second, the conception of the ideal democracy and that of the ideal civil–military relations change as societies change. Third, democracy is not some ultimate and clearly defined end result but an elusive goal that can only be approximated, constantly pondered, debated, and enhanced.

Strategy is the art of the possible, as Helmuth von Moltke (the Elder) insisted, and what is possible is revealed by net tactical performance. And the whole military (and other) endeavour must serve not itself, but political purposes which typically will evolve under the pressure of events. Although strategy is possible, it is always difficult. Among the major sources of difficulty, which tend to manifest themselves synergistically, one must recognize the challenge that is strategy itself, the problem many people have understanding its nature and demands; that lies in the inconvenient, but for strategy essential, fact of an enemy with an independent will; of converting military effect into strategic effect, and then into political effect—which is the whole point of the project; of devising and running a strategy‐making process that is fit for purpose; of peopling the process with competent players; of sheer complexity; of friction, of the things, typically unforeseeable in detail, that go wrong; of productive civil–military relations. Remarkably, strategy is feasible, despite its myriad difficulties. Complexity of subject can translate as alternative options, while the self‐willed enemy must face a generically like large basket of challenges to his strategic effectiveness.

This chapter examines three East European states: Slovenia, a small country that has enjoyed a smooth transition to democracy and market economy; Russia, the world's largest state, which has failed to establish democratic rule; and Romania, a medium-sized Balkan country that, following some early stumbling, found its way into NATO and the European Union. The three postcommunist states suggest very different experiences of building democratic armies. No postcommunist country had fewer major problems in establishing democratic civil–military relations than Slovenia, even though it had to create a new army on the rather flimsy foundations of the Territorial Defense Force. Meanwhile, the specific shortcomings of Russian military politics reflect the power relations that have doomed Russia's democratization prospects. Romania's postcommunist record of building civil–military relations falls between the two others in terms of democratic performance, though it is much closer to Slovenia than to Russia.

This chapter focuses on the cases of Spain and Portugal. After decades of authoritarianism, placing the Spanish military under civilian control proved to be a relatively straightforward and brief process. The transformation of Portuguese civil–military relations, on the other hand, was more contentious, took far longer, and did not succeed as completely as Spain's. Greece, the secondary case in this chapter, had a much shorter but more intense experience with praetorianism; its return to democracy and democratic civil–military relations was quick albeit not without some shortcomings. The chapter then assesses the influence of international organizations, particularly NATO, on the democratization of the three states and their defense establishments.

This chapter explores India's nuclear posture. Like China's, India's nuclear posture is classified as one of assured retaliation. There have been various dramatic moments in India's nuclear weapons history that were often driven by domestic political considerations, most notably its nuclear tests in May of 1974 and 1998. Nonetheless, the capabilities, envisioned use, and command-and-control apparatus that Delhi has erected for its nuclear forces have been persistent and consistent with an assured retaliation posture since 1974. The reason for this, as illustrated by optimization theory, is that India is in a relatively secure position but with highly assertive civil–military relations, driving it toward an assured retaliation nuclear posture that emphasizes firm civilian control over the arsenal.

This chapter looks at two pivotal states of South Asia: India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan gained their independence in 1947. India succeeded in placing its armed forces under firm and virtually unchallenged state control right from the beginning of independence. However, civil–military relations in Pakistan have been far more “eventful.” The chapter makes three arguments. First and most important, by the end of the first postcolonial decade, the patterns for the drastically different military politics of India and Pakistan were already set. Second, of the numerous reasons for the evolution of different civil–military relations in the two countries, several lie in the circumstances of the 1947 Partition and in the immediate post-Partition period. Third, the British colonial period left behind profound legacies, most of which have positively influenced military affairs in the Subcontinent. The chapter also addresses Bangladesh—from its independence in 1971 to the military take-over in 2007—and what sets its military politics apart from Pakistan's.

This chapter assesses China's civil–military relations, focusing on the post-1989 evolution of the military elite; the impact of the military suppression in Beijing on June 4, 1989; and the broader impact of, and lessons learned from, the roles played by militaries in the collapse of other Communist Party-states. These events affected the civilian and military elite in China profoundly and triggered considerable factional struggle, purges, and courts-martial, as well as promotions of many new officers. During the 1990s, virtually the entire People's Liberation Army High Command was replaced. Toward the end of the decade, some interesting legal developments suggested that interactions among the military, the Communist Party, and the state (or government) were changing and possibly evolving in a direction similar to that taken in other East Asian and developing nations.

This chapter explains the book’s theoretical underpinnings. It begins by discussing the contrasting views of Samuel Huntington and Eliot Cohen on the preferred role and “balance” of civil–military relations. Next, it examines patterns of democratic civil–military relations to argue that they are shaped largely by three factors—the struggle over military autonomy, the issue of civilian expertise, and institutional design, specifically the manner in which the Ministry of Defence interacts with the services. The next section discusses the concept of military effectiveness as adopted in this book. Drawing inspiration from previous works, it examines five processes associated with effective militaries. These variables, analyzed subsequently in separate chapters, are weapons procurement, jointness, professional military education, officer promotion policies, and defense planning. The chapter then discusses the study of the Indian military and its effectiveness and concludes by describing the analytical framework adopted in the rest of the book.

This chapter investigates how variation in the political-military balance of power in a state influences its military activities and effectiveness. It compares two cases of autocratic states that show characteristics of shared power and political dominance, respectively: Egypt in the mid-1960s and Egypt in the 1970s. It is believed that the balance of power between military and political leaders profoundly affected military effectiveness through its influences on structures and processes important to organizing military activity and preparing for war. In 1973, Egypt has been able to obtain significant political, strategic, operational, and tactical integration in its military activity. Its performance made the most of its resources in men and equipment to attain its political objectives. The Egypt case generally indicates that special attention must be paid to the specific dynamics of civil-military relations: power relations between political and military leaders are fundamental in predicting the state's military effectiveness.

This chapter relies on the best available English language sources to detail Chinese nuclear posture over time. China, like India, has persistently adopted an assured retaliation posture against its potential adversaries. Though Chinese strategists have long debated the merits of shifting from what they term a “minimum deterrence” doctrine to a more aggressive “limited deterrence” doctrine that fields theater nuclear capabilities for possible first use, there has in fact been remarkable continuity in China's nuclear posture. China's posture enables its nuclear weapons to survive a first strike and effectively retaliate with nuclear weapons. As in India, China faces no existential land threats and also displays highly assertive civil–military relations, or more accurately, party–military relationship that privileges tight centralized control over China's nuclear assets. These variables have thus pushed China toward an assured retaliation nuclear posture.

This chapter examines the democratization of civil–military relations in two former fascist dictatorships, postwar Germany and Japan, whose armies had destroyed and terrorized large swathes of the surrounding territory. The creation of lasting democratic regimes on the ashes of these dictatorships stands as the signal achievement of democracy promotion. An important part of this process was the building of the new West German and Japanese armed forces. On the other hand, Hungary after World War II illustrates the trajectory of military politics in numerous European states where domestic political forces were defeated by the Soviet Union and its native communist puppets. The chapter then considers the evolution of Hungarian civil–military relations from the end of the war until the March 1953 death of Joseph Stalin, which is a suitable point to mark the consolidation of the Soviet-controlled communist regime and the completion of the armed forces' transformation.

This concluding chapter compares the Venezuelan experience against better-understood cases of democratic civil-military relations: Chile (1989 and after), Argentina (1983 and after), and Spain (1975 and after). These comparative cases illustrate the impact of regime leverage and the process by which political leadership can provide the institutional resources and civilian sources of defense expertise.

This concluding chapter identifies the implications of this book's study for both future research and policy makers. One implication of this study is the shedding of light on the forum-shopping process associated with military interventions. Forum shopping occurs when countries have more than one option from which to choose when deciding whether and how to intervene. The experiences of Afghanistan and Libya show that while there may be other outlets for multilateral military operations, NATO, despite its limitations, is almost always the preferred intervention forum for its member states. The second set of implications deals with the use of principal-agency theory in civil–military relations. Ultimately, the cases of Afghanistan and Libya are ideal for comparative analysis on how countries react to various domestic and international pressures.

This chapter challenges the notion that the surge effort emerged from a process characterized by high degrees of internal dysfunction and civil–military discord. Instead, the challenges and frustrations in the Bush administration stemmed primarily from difficulties among the president's civilian advisors, not between civilians and the uniformed military. The president and his closest advisors acknowledged from the outset that removing the bureaucratic impediment of an opposing secretary of defense would be essential and worked that problem in parallel. They allowed misplaced concern about veteran criticism to delay the process, but developing and reaching consensus on the new strategy might have taken as long even without that concern. The president's closest advisors also understood that the president needed a different approach himself to engaging on the issues; he had to become a different kind of commander in chief for the strategy reviews to produce a better outcome in the war. Ultimately, the very different civil–military relationship that produced the 2006 surge was entirely a function of changes on the civilian side of the equation.

The concluding chapter revisits some of the main arguments in this book. It begins by examining the relevance of the absent dialogue framework in describing India's civil–military relations. It thereafter examines whether this framework is unique to India or if resonates with larger debates sorrouding democratic civilian control. Thereafter, relying on insights from India, it revisits the theoretical debates and the problems associated with democratic control and military effectiveness. In terms of theoretical implications, the chapter rejects the Huntingtonian notion of “objective control” and instead argues in favor of what Eliot Cohen calls the “unequal dialogue.” The penultimate section discusses avenues for further research, and the chapter concludes by discussing the prospects for change in India’s pattern of civil–military relations.

This chapter provides an overview of the central claims in the book. It begins by describing some recent vignettes in India’s civil–military relations, which convey the disquiet and its recurring crises. Next, it presents the main argument of this book—India’s pattern of civil–military relations has had an adverse impact on the variables associated with military effectiveness. The pattern, termed an “absent dialogue,” emerges from different factors but, in effect, results in creating strong silos between civilians and the military. Thereafter, the chapter explains why these conditions persist. It then highlights the relevance of this book. The penultimate section describes the sources and methodology, and the chapter concludes with an overview of the rest of the chapters in this book.

This chapter discusses contemporary civil–military relations in India, engaging with, and occasionally refuting, a number of narratives. It begins with an overview of four main controversies—the dispute about withdrawal of troops from the Siachen glacier, the contrasting views over the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), the tenure of General V. K. Singh (chief of army staff from 2010 to 2012), and issues arising from pay commission reports and the equivalence between civilians and the military. These issues highlight the overall theme of this book—that there is considerable distrust and tension between civilians and the military. Next, it briefly discusses civil–military relations under the Modi government. Thereafter, it examines the issue of defense reforms, considered by many as a panacea to overcoming these difficulties. This is followed by an analysis of the divergence in the positions typically taken across all three levels—political, bureaucratic, and the military leaders.

It is not uncommon for the armed forces to turn against the state that they are supposed to protect. Wherever there is a military, there is a risk of a coup. Since 1950 there have been 232 of them in ninety-four countries, and this is only counting the successful ones where an incumbent government was unseated. The coup risk is a function of what Peter Fever famously called the ‘civil–military problematique’: armed forces with the means to defend their state invariably have the means to attack it as well. This chapter argues that citizens should take the risk of a coup seriously for largely the same reasons that they take the threat of foreign aggression and occupation seriously: both can be expected to compromise their communal self-definition and their enjoyment of human rights.

Cardwell and Childers hoped to raise the status of the regular soldier by rooting each regiment in its own local community, and using the depot and its linked militia and volunteer units as bridges between civilian society and the regular army. This chapter explores the paradox that while the regular army continued to be shunned by much of ‘respectable’ society, the soldier in the abstract became an icon standing for all that was best in British society.