Soldiers and civilians: the civil-military gap and American national security

Abstract

SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security, Peter D. Feaver and Richard H. Kohn, eds., The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001, 545 pages, $28.95. The national debate on U.S. civil-military relations is alive and heated in Peter D. Feaver and Richard H. Kohn's book Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security. As the title suggests, the book discusses the increasing divide between soldiers, specifically the senior officer corps, and U.S. society, specifically civilian elite society. Although the findings of the book do not substantiate what some have termed a crisis in civil-military affairs, they do find schisms between the two that might, if not addressed, lead to a crisis. The book is a compilation of several multidisciplinary studies that aim to answer the following questions: * What is the nature or character of the civil-military gap today? * What factors shape it? * Does the gap matter for military effectiveness and civil-military cooperation? * What, if anything, can and should policymakers do about the gap? The authors obtained the research data for their work through a survey instrument completed by the Triangle Institute for Strategic Studies. Surveying what they considered military and civilian elites, the authors analyzed the survey data and chose 12 of 21 studies to publish. Those studies make up the chapters in the book and are clustered into three sections, each with four chapters. One section addresses the opinions of the soldiers and civilians surveyed. One section explores the gap in civil-military relations over time-a brief history if you will. The final section explores what implications the gaps have on military effectiveness and the cooperation between civilians and the military. What the reader will find in this important, scholarly work is that there is a chasm between the military and the civilians it serves. The divide, argue the writers, makes it harder to recruit soldiers; makes it easier for midcareerists to leave the military before retirement because of disillusionment; and makes obtaining funds from Congress difficult. The authors also discuss many of the problems the average soldier faces, such as high operating tempo and personnel tempo; the difficulty of integrating policies like ask, don't tell into military values; and the apparent disconnect in military values with those of mainstream society's. …

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