a) Discuss what he means by military professionalism in a pure democratic state sighting clear and applicable examples in international relations.
In his 1957 book on civil-military relations, The Soldier and the State, Samuel P. Huntington described the differences between the two worlds as a contrast between the attitudes and values held by military personnel, mostly conservative, and those held by civilians, mostly liberal. Each world consisted of a separate institution with its own operative rules and norms. The military’s function was furthermore inherently different from that of the civilian world. Given a more conservative military world which was illiberal in many aspects, it was necessary to find a method of ensuring that the liberal civilian world would be able to maintain its dominance over the military world.
Huntington focused his study on the officer corps. He first defined a profession and explained that enlisted personnel, while certainly part of the military world, are not, strictly speaking, professionals. He relegated them to the role of tradesmen or skilled craftsmen, necessary but not professionals in his definition of the term. It was professional military officers, not the enlisted technicians of the trade of violence, or even the part-time or amateur reserve officers extant in the mid-1950s.
Professionalizing the military, or at least the officer corps, which is the decision-making authority within the military world, emphasizes the useful aspects of that institution such as discipline, structure, order, and self-sacrifice. It also isolates the corps in a specialized arena in which the military professionals would be recognized as experts in the use of force. As recognized experts not subject to the interference of the civilian world, the military’s officer corps would willingly submit itself to civil authority. In Huntington’s words, such an arrangement maintained a focus on a politically neutral, autonomous, and professional officer corps.
In order for the civilian authority to maintain control, it needed to have a way to direct the military without unduly infringing on the prerogatives of the military world and thus provoking a backlash. Civilian leadership would decide the objective of any military action but then leave it to the military world to decide upon the best way of achieving the objective. The problem facing civilian authority, then, is in deciding on the ideal amount of control. Too much control over the military could result in a force too weak to defend the nation, resulting in failure on the battlefield. Too little control would create the possibility of a coup, i.e., failure of the government.
Huntington’s answer to the control dilemma was ‘objective civilian control.’ This was in contrast to ‘subjective control,’ in which direction would be more intrusive and detailed. To put it simply, the more ‘objective civilian control,’ the more military security. Civilian control, then, is the independent variable for the subsequent dependent variable of military effectiveness.
If civilian control is the critical variable for military effectiveness, it raises the question of how civilian control is then to be determined. Huntington identified two shaping forces or imperatives for civilian control, functional and societal. He broke the societal imperative into two components, ideology and structure. By ideology, he meant a world-view or paradigm: liberal anti-military, conservative pro-military, fascist pro-military, and Marxist anti-military. By structure, he meant the legal-constitutional framework that guided political affairs generally and civil-military affairs specifically.
According to Huntington, a profession is a peculiar type of functional group with highly specialized characteristics, and those characteristics are expertise, responsibility, and corporate responsiveness. The expertise of professionals lies in their possession of unique specialized skills which can only be acquired through extended education and experience. Unlike other crafts, which can be mastered by learning the techniques only as they exist in the present, professional knowledge must be intellectual in nature, build upon its own history, and be preserved in writing. Professions therefore require their own institutions to record, develop, and pass on knowledge. When the professional fields of practice and education are separated, contact between the two is maintained through meetings, conferences, journals, and the circulation of members between training and operational roles.
As professionals maintain a monopoly on vital expertise, they also have a responsibility to practice their skills in order to benefit society. When they fail to meet this responsibility they can no longer practice within that profession. Furthermore, because those skills are so valuable, pure economics cannot determine the professional’s compensation for service. Rather than desire for economic gain, a sense of service and duty to community must provide the primary motive for entering and practicing a profession. Finally, the profession itself must develop an ethos for fulfilling its responsibility and dealing with its clients.
Corporate responsiveness is the third criteria for professionalism. All members of a profession must imagine themselves as part of a single community sharing a collective sense of responsibility, mutual educational experiences, and the bond of common labor. The community manifests itself as a professional organization which is responsible for regulating the profession. Being a member of the organization is a criterion for being a member of the profession. Thus, the organization has the power and responsibility to decide who can join the profession, enforce collective responsibility, and purge those who fail to meet their professional responsibility.
Politics is beyond the scope of military competence, and the participation of military officers in politics undermines their professionalism. The military officer must remain neutral politically. The area of military science is subordinate to, and yet independent of, the area of politics. In a democratic state, the military profession exists to serve the state.
The idea of the subservience of the military to civilian authority follows a tradition going back to Plato. Huntington challenged the simple identification of civilian control with democratic government, and military control with absolute or totalitarian government: the military may undermine civilian control in a democracy, he argued, acquiring power by legitimate processes, and within a totalitarian system the power of the military may be reduced by such means as creating competing military or paramilitary units or by infiltrating it with ‘political commissars’.
Huntington went on to distinguish five patterns of civil-military relations, based on differing relative degrees of military/anti-military ideology, military power, and military professionalism, but as evidenced in his later study, for Huntington military ‘intervention’ represented an essential breakdown of the liberal democratic political order.
Building on his conception of professionalism, Huntington argues that the military does its best work as an ‘expert advisor’ on security matters and therefore military officers are most effective when completely apolitical. He states that, ‘Politics is beyond the scope of military competence, and the participation of military officers in politics undermines their professionalism’. Thus Huntington argues that military professionalism is not directly linked to military intervention in civilian politics, but that the most important causes of military intervention are the political and institutional structure of society.
Huntington’s argument provides the standard reference for the ‘normal view’ of civil-military relations. He argues that militaries are motivated to involve themselves in politics primarily to support their organizational ideology or interests. While the social structure of a state cannot be ignored, the professional characteristics of a military also have a great deal of influence on its political behavior. However, its important to note that professionalism does not necessarily serve to constrain the political role of a military. In fact profession may, under certain circumstances, do the opposite, that is, encourage militaries to intervene. Therefore it is important to not only measure but also to analyze a military’s professionalism in order to predict its likely political behavior.
In democracies, questions of peace and war or other threats to national security are the most important issues a society faces, and thus must be decided by the people, acting through their elected representatives. A democratic military serves its nation rather than leads it. Military leaders advise the elected leaders and carry out their decisions. Only those who are elected by the people have the authority and the responsibility to decide the fate of a nation. This idea of civilian control and authority over the military is thus, fundamental to democracy.
Civilians need to direct their nation’s military and decide issues of national defense not because they are necessarily wiser than military professionals, but precisely because they are the people’s representatives and as such are charged with the responsibility for making these decisions and remaining accountable for them. The military in a democracy exists to protect the nation and the freedoms of its people. It does not represent or support any political viewpoint or ethnic and social group. Its loyalty is to the larger ideals of the nation, to the rule of law, and to the principle of democracy itself. Civilian control assures that a country’s values, institutions, and policies are the free choices of the people rather than the military. The purpose of a military is to defend society, not define it.
Any democratic government values the expertise and advice of military professionals in reaching policy decisions about defense and national security. Civilian officials rely upon the military for expert advice on these matters and to carry out the decisions of the government. But only the elected civilian leadership should make ultimate policy decisions, which the military then implements in its sphere. Military figures may, of course, participate fully and equally in the political life of their country just like any other citizens – but only as individual voters. Military people must first retire from military service before becoming involved in politics; armed services must remain separate from politics. The military are the neutral servants of the state, and the guardians of society.
Ultimately, civilian control of the military ensures that defense and national security issues do not compromise the basic democratic values of majority rule, minority rights, and freedom of speech, religion, and due process. It is the responsibility of all political leaders to enforce civilian control and the responsibility of the military to obey the lawful orders of civilian authorities.
b) How does he approach the concept of cooperation in civil – military relations?
Cooperation in civil–military relation describes the relationship between civil society as a whole and the military organization or organizations established to protect it. It describes the relationship between the civil authority of a given society and its military authority.
Given the participation of civil society in defining national defense strategies, military expenditures must be under the control of parliaments. Parliaments obviously play a major role in defining a set of rules governing the relationship between civilian authorities and the military, and balancing the financial needs of defense and security with the needs of other sectors. Civilian control of the military should also be regulated, however, because civilian authorities also tend to want civilians to control the military for their own political purposes. In addition, the application of military justice should be limited to military offenses.
There is also the issue of tensions between the principle of free access to information and the confidentiality and secrecy of the military. The necessary discretion associated with military and intelligence issues has often been exercised with no accountability. Depending on the situation, military secrecy should thus be regulated by the government and should be subject to citizen demands for information. The exception should be cases that are identified as secret, but even then the government must regulate declassification.
A democratic society should discuss the issue of integration of women into the armed forces and preventing discrimination. War is unpredictable, but in the meantime, the armed forces are often compelled to participate in non-military tasks related to national development, poverty reduction, environmental protection, and the development of political processes and elections. However, these tasks must be regulated, especially those related to internal security and when the military share roles with the national police, to avoid remilitarizing national development.
In conclusion, according to Huntington, and indeed other political authors, there is need for professionalism in the military as a part of the democratic process. A more professional military has greater corporate cohesion, improved military expertise, and behave less out of self-interest and more out of its sense of social responsibility. This means less corruption and less abuse of its powers, but it also makes the military less likely to intervene directly in politics.
If true democracy is to succeed, the military does not only have to professionalize, it also has to accept a position truly subservient to the civil state. For this to happen, not only must the military sustain its internal desire to reform, but civilian leaders must demonstrate that they have the capability to preserve the strength of the state, provide for the needs of the people, and protect the military’s interests. In any democratic state, the military will have a genuine desire to reform itself, but will only give up its mantle of guardian of the state if it believes another body is ready and able to fulfill that responsibility.
References
- Feaver, Peter. (1999). Civil Military Relations, Annual Review of Political Science 1999.
- Huntington, Samuel. (1957). The Soldier and the State, New York: Vintage Books.
- Janowitz, Morris. (1960). The Professional Soldier, London: The Free Press of Glencoe.
- Nordlinger, Eric A. (1977). Solider in Politics: Military Coups and Governments, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
- Sarkesian, S. (1984). Two Conceptions of Military Professionalism, In Martin and McCrate, eds., The Military, Militarism, and the Polity, New York: The Free Press.
- Vaghts, Alfred. (1937). A History of Militarism, New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.
- Zakaria Haji Ahmad and Harold Crouch, eds. (1985). Military-Civilian Relations in Southeast Asia, Singapore: Oxford University Press.