THE concept of civil-military relations is a distressingly woolly abstraction. It conceals important distinctions within each group of partners to the relationship. Military officers can be either line or staff, career or temporary, junior or senior, and numerous other subclasses. The may be a legislator, political executive, or civil servant, and the two latter categories include troublesome hybrids who ply their trade within the defense establishment. It is not easy to say on which side of the line a service secretary falls. He is more likely to appear in his external role as a representative of the armed forces.' He is more likely to appear civilian in his internal role as a critic or goad of the armed forces. The concept of civil-military relations is fuzzy also because it conceals a distinction between two forms of relationships. One is a vertical relationship among officials at different levels of authority. The issue here is who shall rule and how. The other is essentially a horizontal relationship among officials with different types of expertise. The issue here is who is right and why. The correct vertical relationship between and military officials is a chain of command that symbolizes and secures the priority of political ends over administrative means. The essential point is that politically responsible civilians should determine the aims of the armed forces and their share of the national resources. Since force is a servant of policy, its goals should be governed by larger objectives of government. All this is familiar enough to students of public administration. But in the Pentagon, the supremacy of political officials becomes entangled with a second