THE SOLDIER AND THE STATE
Samuel P. Huntington
THE SOLDIER AND THE STATE
The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations
THE BELKNAP PRESS OF
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 1957 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
© renewed 1985 by Samuel P. Huntington
All rights reserved
ISBN 0-674-81736-2 (paper)
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 57-6349
Printed in the United States of America
FOR MOTHER
Preface
This book presents a theory of civil-military relations. The reader will find much historical material, on the United States primarily, but also on Europe and Asia. Yet this book does not attempt an historical description of civil-military relations in general nor of any specific aspect of civil-military relations in particular. It is, rather, an effort to develop a way of looking at and thinking about civil-military relations, in short, a theoretical framework. Understanding requires theory; theory requires abstraction; and abstraction requires the simplification and ordering of reality. No theory can explain all the facts, and, at times, the reader of this book may feel that its concepts and distinctions are drawn too sharply and precisely and are too far removed from reality. Obviously, the real world is one of blends, irrationalities, and incongruities: actual personalities, institutions, and beliefs do not fit into neat logical categories. Yet neat logical categories are necessary if man is to think profitably about the real world in which he lives and to derive from it lessons for broader application and use. He is forced to generalize about phenomena which never quite operate according to the laws of human reason. One measure of a theory is the degree to which it encompasses and explains all the relevant facts. Another measure, and the more important one, is the degree to which it encompasses and explains those facts better than any other theory. The study of civil-military relations has suffered from too little theorizing. The only theory of civil-military relations which has had any widespread acceptance in the United States is a confused and unsystematic set of assumptions and beliefs derived from the underlying premises of American liberalism. This collection of ideas is inadequate in that it fails to comprehend many important facts, and it is obsolete in that it is rooted in a hierarchy of values which is of dubious validity in the contemporary world. The present volume is an effort to suggest a more useful and relevant framework and to raise and define the principal theoretical issues involved in the study of civil-military relations. Its most important purpose will be served if it stimulates further thinking about civil-military relations and national security.
Two methodological assumptions underlie this book. First, it is assumed that the civil-military relations in any society should be studied as a system composed of interdependent elements. The principal components of such a system are the formal, structural position of military institutions in the government, the informal role and influence of military groups in politics and society at large, and the nature of the ideologies of military and nonmilitary groups. As parts of a total system no one of these elements can change without producing further changes in the other elements. The different ideologies of the Japanese and German officer corps, for instance, were directly related to the difference in the authority and influence which they exercised in their respective societies and to the different ideological complexions of those societies. Similarly, the changes in the power of the American officer corps from 1935 to 1945 had a tremendous impact on the thinking of that officer corps. Any system of civil-military relations thus involves a complex equilibrium between the authority, influence, and ideology of the military, on the one hand, and the authority, influence, and ideology of nonmilitary groups, on the other. Equilibrium may be achieved in an infinite variety of ways. The second methodological assumption of this book, however, is that, starting from certain premises concerning the nature and purpose of military institutions, it is possible to define in the abstract that particular type of equilibria — “objective civilian control” — which maximizes military security. Utilizing this standard, it is possible to analyze the extent to which the system of civil-military relations in any society tends to enhance or detract from the military security of that society. It is also possible to suggest the changes in the component elements of the system which would be necessary if the system were to approximate closer an equilibrium of “objective civilian control.”
Portions of this book have been published previously as “Civilian Control and the Constitution,” American Political Science Review, L (September 1956), 676–699, and “Civilian Control of the Military: A Theoretical Statement,” in Heinz Eulau, Samuel J. Eldersveld, and Morris Janowitz (eds.), Political Behavior: A Reader in Theory and Research (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1956), pp. 380–385.
This book was made possible by a Faculty Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council. I am profoundly grateful to the Council for this assistance, to Pendleton Herring, President of the Council, for his continuing encouragement and interest, and to Professor V. O. Key, Jr., for his sponsorship of me for this fellowship. Although they may not recognize their influence on the pages that follow, my thinking on politics in general owes much to the wisdom and insight of my senior colleagues: Professors Arthur N. Holcombe, William Yandell Elliott, and Louis Hartz. The manuscript was read in its entirety by Professor Morris Janowitz of the University of Michigan, Dr. Paul Y. Hammond of Columbia University, Professor Ernest R. May of Harvard, and Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy, USA, each of whom contributed a variety of helpful criticisms and suggestions, the range of which far transcended their respective fields of sociology, government, history, and military science. Alexander J. Cella also read the manuscript at an early stage. His labors on it, exceeding the demands of friendship, contributed greatly to the ruthless elimination of surplus wordage and the general improvement of the style of that which remained.
I am grateful to Paul H. Nitze and Henry Rosovsky for their comments on portions of the manuscript, to Lewis Hertzman for his assistance in certain aspects of the research, and to Ann Louise Coffin of the Harvard Press for her patient and helpful editorial criticism. I owe special debts to my mother for her careful reading of the proofs and to Nancy A. Arkelyan, Carolyn N. Carpenter, and Martha Ann Kelleran for assisting in this arduous task. Finally, I wish to express my deep appreciation to my comrades at Kirkland House, Howard L. Erdman, Warren B. Harshman, Stephen I. Hochhauser, Howard H. Muson, Roger C. Ravel, and Stanley E. Tobin, for their yeoman work in checking references and quotations. All these friends, critics, and associates facilitated the creative process, but in the end, of course, it remains my book and my responsibility.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
November 1956
S. P. H.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION: National Security and Civil-Military Relations
PART I
MILITARY INSTITUTIONS AND THE STATE:
THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
1. Officership as a Profession
PROFESSIONALISM AND THE MILITARY
THE CONCEPT OF PROFESSION
THE MILITARY PROFESSION
2. The Rise of the Military Profession in Western Society
A NEW SOCIAL TYPE
MERCENARY AND ARISTOCRATIC OFFICERSHIP
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ARISTOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS
PREPROFESSIONAL IDEALS: THE MILITARY CRAFT AND THE NATURAL GENIUS
THE ORIGINS OF PROFESSIONALISM
THE EMERGENCE OF PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS, 1800–1875
&nb
sp; EUROPEAN PROFESSIONALISM: GENERAL UPTON’S SUMMARY, 1875
FORMULATION OF THE PROFESSIONAL ETHIC: THE AUTONOMY AND SUBORDINATION OF WAR IN CLAUSEWITZ’S Vom Kriege
3. The Military Mind: Conservative Realism of the Professional Military Ethic
THE MEANING OF THE MILITARY MIND
THE PROFESSIONAL MILITARY ETHIC
4. Power, Professionalism, and Ideology: Civil-Military Relations in Theory
THE VARIETIES OF CIVILIAN CONTROL
THE TWO LEVELS OF CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
THE EQUILIBRIUM OF OBJECTIVE CIVILIAN CONTROL
THE PATTERNS OF CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
5. Germany and Japan: Civil-Military Relations in Practice
THE GERMAN AND JAPANESE PATTERNS
GERMANY: THE TRAGEDY OF PROFESSIONAL MILITARISM
JAPAN: THE CONTINUITY OF POLITICAL MILITARISM
PART II
MILITARY POWER IN AMERICA: THE HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE, 1789–1940
6. The Ideological Constant: The Liberal Society versus Military Professionalism
THE HISTORICAL CONSTANTS OF AMERICAN CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
THE PREVALENCE OF LIBERALISM IN THE UNITED STATES
THE LIBERAL APPROACH TO MILITARY AFFAIRS
THE MILITARY HERO IN LIBERAL POLITICS
7. The Structural Constant: The Conservative Constitution versus Civilian Control
THE CONSTITUTIONAL ABSENCE OF OBJECTIVE CIVILIAN CONTROL
THE FRAMERS AND CIVILIAN CONTROL
THE MILITIA CLAUSES AND MILITARY FEDERALISM: THE EMPIRE WITHIN AN EMPIRE
THE SEPARATION OF POWERS: DUAL CONTROL OVER THE NATIONAL FORCES
THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF CLAUSE: THE POLITICAL-MILITARY HIERARCHY
CIVILIAN CONTROL AND CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT
8. The Roots of the American Military Tradition before the Civil War
THE THREE STRANDS OF AMERICAN MILITARISM
THE FAILURE OF FEDERALISM: HAMILTON’S ABORTIVE PROFESSIONALISM
TECHNICISM
POPULARISM
PROFESSIONALISM
9. The Creation of the American Military Profession
THE DOMINANCE OF BUSINESS PACIFISM: INDUSTRIALISM VERSUS MILITARISM
YEARS OF ISOLATION: THE DARK AND THE BRIGHT
THE CREATIVE CORE: SHERMAN, UPTON, LUCE
THE INSTITUTIONS OF PROFESSIONALISM
THE MAKING OF THE AMERICAN MILITARY MIND
10. The Failure of the Neo-Hamiltonian Compromise, 1890–1920
THE NATURE OF NEO-HAMILTONIANISM
MAHAN AND WOOD: THE TRAGEDY OF THE MILITARY PUBLICIST
THE ABORTIVE IDENTIFICATION WITH SOCIETY, 1918–1925
11. The Constancy of Interwar Civil-Military Relations
BUSINESS-REFORM HOSTILITY AND MILITARY PROFESSIONALISM
REFORM LIBERALISM: THE PRAGMATIC USAGES OF MILITARISM
MILITARY INSTITUTIONS
THE AMERICAN MILITARY ETHIC, 1920–1941
PART III
THE CRISIS OF AMERICAN CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS, 1940–1955
12. World War II: The Alchemy of Power
CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS IN TOTAL WAR
MILITARY AUTHORITY AND INFLUENCE IN GRAND STRATEGY
THE MILITARY ADJUSTMENT TO WARTIME POWER
CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS IN ECONOMIC MOBILIZATION
THE FRUITS OF HARMONY AND ACRIMONY
13. Civil-Military Relations in the Postwar Decade
THE ALTERNATIVES OF CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
POSTWAR PERSPECTIVES ON CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
MILITARY INFLUENCE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY
14. The Political Roles of the Joint Chiefs
POLITICAL ROLES: SUBSTANTIVE AND ADVOCATORY
THE JOINT CHIEFS IN THE TRUMAN ADMINISTRATION
THE KOREAN WAR: THE GENERALS, THE TROOPS, AND THE PUBLIC
THE JOINT CHIEFS IN THE FIRST TWO YEARS OF THE EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATION
CONCLUSION
15. The Separation of Powers and Cold War Defense
THE IMPACT OF THE SEPARATION OF POWERS
THE SEPARATION OF POWERS VERSUS THE SEPARATION OF FUNCTIONS
THE SEPARATION OF POWERS VERSUS MILITARY PROFESSIONALISM
THE SEPARATION OF POWERS VERSUS STRATEGIC MONISM
16. Departmental Structure of Civil-Military Relations
THE ORGANIZATION PROBLEMS OF THE POSTWAR DECADE
THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: LEGAL FORM AND POLITICAL REALITY
THE COMPTROLLER: SUPEREGO OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
THE ROLE OF THE SECRETARY
THE NEEDS OF THE OFFICE
17. Toward a New Equilibrium
THE REQUISITE FOR SECURITY
CHANGES IN THE IDEOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT
CONSERVATISM AND SECURITY
THE WORTH OF THE MILITARY IDEAL
Notes
Index
Introduction: National Security and Civil-Military Relations
Civil-military relations is one aspect of national security policy. The aim of national security policy is to enhance the safety of the nation’s social, economic, and political institutions against threats arising from other independent states. National security policy may be thought of as existing in three forms and on two levels. Military security policy is the program of activities designed to minimize or neutralize efforts to weaken or destroy the nation by armed forces operating from outside its institutional and territorial confines. Internal security policy deals with the threat of subversion — the effort to weaken or destroy the state by forces operating within its territorial and institutional confines. Situational security policy is concerned with the threat of erosion resulting from long-term changes in social, economic, demographic, and political conditions tending to reduce the relative power of the state. Each of these three forms of policy has an operating level and an institutional level. Operating policy consists of the immediate means taken to meet the security threat. Institutional policy deals with the manner in which operational policy is formulated and executed. Civil-military relations is the principal institutional component of military security policy.
The immediate operating issues of military policy normally involve:
(1) the quantitative issues of the size, recruitment, and supply of the military forces, including the fundamental question of the proportion of state resources devoted to military needs;
(2) the qualitative issues of the organization, composition, equipment, and deployment of the military forces, including the types of armaments and weapons, the locations of bases, arrangements with allies, and similar questions; and
(3) the dynamic issues of the utilization of military forces: when and under what circumstances force is brought into action.
Public debate usually focuses upon these questions. Yet in the long run the nature of the decisions on these issues is determined by the institutional pattern through which the decisions are made. The fundamental issues of institutional policy are always present; they are continuously redefined but never resolved. The ordering of its civil-military relations, consequently, is basic to a nation’s military security policy. The objective of this policy on the institutional level is to develop a system of civil-military relations which will maximize military security at the least sacrifice of other social values. The achievement of this objective involves a complex balancing of power and attitudes among civilian and military groups. Nations which develop a properly balanced pattern of civil-military relations have a great advantage in the search for security. They increase their likelihood of reaching right answers to the operating issues of military policy. Nations which fail to develop a balanced pattern of civil-military relations squander their resources and run uncalculated risks.
THE IMPERATIVES OF CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
The military institutions of any society are shaped by two forces: a functional imperative stemming from the threats to the society’s security and a societal imperative arising from the social forces, ideolog
ies, and institutions dominant within the society. Military institutions which reflect only social values may be incapable of performing effectively their military function. On the other hand, it may be impossible to contain within society military institutions shaped purely by functional imperatives. The interaction of these two forces is the nub of the problem of civil-military relations. The degree to which they conflict depends upon the intensity of the security needs and the nature and strength of the value pattern of society. Adjustment and balance between the two forces are not inevitable: some societies may be inherently incapable of providing effectively for their own military security. Such societies lack survival value in an era of continuing threats.
For Americans the problem of balancing the functional and societal imperatives has only recently acquired a new significance. From the second decade of the nineteenth century to the fourth decade of the twentieth century, Americans had little cause to worry about their security. Security was a given fact of nature and circumstance, an inheritance rather than a creation. When Americans did consider military policy, they dealt with immediate practical issues such as the size of the Army’s budget or the number of battleships in the Navy. On the other hand, their consideration of civil-military relations was limited to the impact of military institutions upon domestic economic and political values and institutions. One of the more basic and obvious facts of our time is that changes in technology and international politics have combined to make security now the final goal of policy rather than its starting assumption. The functional imperative can no longer be ignored. Previously the primary question was: what pattern of civil-military relations is most compatible with American liberal democratic values? Now this has been supplanted by the more important issue: what pattern of civil-military relations will best maintain the security of the American nation?
The principal focus of civil-military relations is the relation of the officer corps to the state. Here the conflict between functional and societal pressures comes to a head. The officer corps is the active directing element of the military structure and is responsible for the military security of society. The state is the active directing element of society and is responsible for the allocation of resources among important values including military security. The social and economic relations between the military and the rest of society normally reflect the political relations between the officer corps and the state. Consequently, in analyzing civil-military relations, the first necessity is to define the nature of the officer corps. What sort of body is the officer corps? What sort of man is the military officer?
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