Military Relations Research Articles

The relationship between American civil–military relations and military outcomes

Civilian control of the military is an inflexible requirement of the American republic, but there is contentious debate over how that control should be exercised. Both sides of the divide tend to agree that military results matter. Civil–military relations succeed if healthy discourse results in accomplishing the mission and obtaining optimal outcomes, but fail if the military does not accomplish the political objectives. This article advances the understudied thread of military effectiveness in American civil–military relations by testing the acumen of each side's judgment in 44 use of force decisions since the Second World War. In decisions on whether to use military force, military preferences have not yielded superior outcomes to civilian preferences, but there is evidence that military shirking from armed interventions has helped avoid ill-advised wars. Further studies should investigate decisions on how to use military force.

Power Plays in the Eastern Mediterranean And the Decline of US‐Turkey Relations

AbstractIn the summer of 2020, Turkey and Greece deployed naval vessels in the contested eastern Mediterranean waters, which led first to a standoff and eventually a collision. Soon after, a US warship arrived at Crete. While this move should have been intended to calm tensions between the two historical rivals, some observers saw this as a show of support for Greece, marking a significant shift from the traditional American role of mediator. This article examines the US responses to gas exploration and other disputes in the eastern Mediterranean, including the Greek‐Turkish divide over Cyprus. It argues that Washington's tilt toward Athens has been pushing Ankara to deepen its economic, diplomatic, and even military relations with Moscow. The United States could rebalance with Turkey and drive a wedge between it and Russia, for instance through incorporating its NATO ally into strategies for reducing Europe's reliance on President Vladimir Putin for energy resources. But if the current zero‐sum approach persists, Turkey is likely to continue to look east—which is not in the American interest.

Central Asia in Regional and Global Policies of Russia and China

From a realist perspective, there is a power competition between China and Russia and the US-led West. Russian rulers felt that the very existence of Russia was seriously threatened by the advancement of the West in an anarchic system, and they reacted by launching military intervention in Georgia and Ukraine. The efforts of Russian rulers to firmly bind Central Asian countries to Russia through bilateral economic and military relations as well as regional organizations have also been shaped by their struggle to preserve Russian existence against the West. China’s efforts to bind regional countries to itself through the SCO and the BRI is a power accumulation reaction given by a state that has emerged as a power pole vis-a-vis the dominant power to the possibility of being prevented from strengthening itself within the system. Russia and China’s efforts to act together in regional initiatives have emerged as an effort of balancing the West. Accordingly, China’s becoming more influential in the region has been managed by the two states with the same concern and this has served the interests of regional countries. In this study, Russia and China’s policies towards regional countries and their approaches in regional organizations have been explained and analyzed from the realist perspective.

Unveiling military strategic narratives on social media: a civil–military relations perspective

ABSTRACT Although the armed forces’ social media narratives on operations can significantly influence public support, the rationale behind their decision-making process remains unclear. Drawing on civil–military relations theory, we explain the logic behind military decision-making in crafting these narratives. We argue that the strategic narratives of the armed forces are deeply influenced by their relationship with society. The nature of this relationship determines how the military balances two essential imperatives: promoting the armed forces’ representation within the parent society and highlighting the distinct characteristics of the armed forces. This balance influences the extent to which operations are narrated (circulation or non-circulation) within the overall narration and how they are presented. We test our argument by analysing the Italian Army’s Twitter communication. Tweets are analysed using an unsupervised LDA topic model on the entire corpus, manual coding of a subset on international missions and a mixed-method analysis. Our article contributes to the scholarship on public opinion and war, using an original methodology to analyse the strategic narratives of an overlooked actor. It also contributes to civil–military relations, suggesting an innovative method for studying the relationship between the armed forces and society.

British-Armenian Military Relations in Transcaucasia During the Early Stages of the Russian Civil War (1917–1918): A Critical Analysis

This article offers a critical examination of the British-Armenian military relations in Transcaucasia during the early stages of the Russian Civil War (1917-1918), highlighting the complex interplay between British foreign policy, imperial ambitions, and local nationalisms.The plight of the Armenians resonated deeply with the British public and politicians during the First World War. A crucial moment came when the Russian monarchy fell, triggering a complex scenario in Transcaucasia and necessitating a thorough reshuffle of Britain’s foreign and military strategies in the region. In this context, the present study analyses Britain’s political maneuvers and dealings with Armenians in response to the evolving situation in Transcaucasia after the February Revolution. This article shows that notwithstanding the humanitarian ethos that was prevalent in British political rhetoric after the February Revolution in Russia, the strategic undertakings of Britain on the Caucasus front were heavily influenced by its imperial politics and determination to maintain its role in shaping the future of the Middle East and larger Asia. Highlighting the contradictions in British policies toward the region, it argues that these policies were mainly characterized by a colonial mindset that regarded Armenians and other local forces merely as serviceable instruments for realizing a broader imperialist agenda.

Of Rivals and Enemies: Military–Police Relations in Internal Armed Conflict in Mexico and Colombia

While the dynamics of civil–military relations have traditionally been studied in a dyadic structure, internal deployment changes the relationship between armed agents and their civilian principals. While soldiers fight external wars alone, at home they fight alongside other centrally controlled armed agencies such as police and gendarmeries. This article studies the relationships between militaries, civilians, and centrally controlled police and gendarmeries, which I describe as “alternative security forces (ASFs)” in two democracies with high levels of internal armed conflict, Colombia and Mexico. Based on interview and archival data, I find that while militaries and ASFs will inevitably find themselves in rivalry, the “tone and tenor” of this rivalry matters for civilian governments. While an interservice rivalry allowed for ASF-military cooperation even in the face of competition in Colombia, a zero-sum rivalry in Mexico has hindered the development of law enforcement and perpetuated an unsuccessful over-reliance on the military.

ИЗ ИСТОРИИ СОВЕТСКО-ШВЕДСКИХ ВОЕННЫХ СВЯЗЕЙ В 1920-М – 1930-Е ГГ.

The article is devoted to Soviet-Swedish military relations in the 1920s - 1930s. It is based on sources from the Russian State Archive of Economics and the Archive of Foreign Policy. Most of them are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The relevance of the article is due to its low level of study. As a result of the study, it was found that Soviet-Swedish military ties included transactions for the purchase of weapons, engines for warships, uniforms for military personnel and other goods for the Red Army. Especially impressive was the interaction with the Bofors company, where Soviet representatives ordered light and heavy weapons. Moreover, Turkey assisted in the transportation of goods from this company to the USSR. Some of the transactions with Swedish companies ("Husqvarna " and JSC "Atlas-Diesel") continued the contacts established before the revolution. The article also shows the dynamics of interaction. In 1920, the interest in Moscow and Stockholm in military relations was mutual – the Bolsheviks needed goods for the Red Army, and the Swedes wanted to make money selling them for gold. In subsequent years, the USSR took more initiative in military cooperation. Especially in 1923 and 1927, which was caused in the first case by preparations for the German and, consequently, the world revolution, in the second by the expectation of a military clash with Great Britain and, possibly, with the union of Western countries. Since 1929, the USSR and Sweden have been interested in cooperation to about the same extent. Moscow was interested in the latest weapons, and the Swedes wanted to minimize losses due to the global economic crisis.

Civilian Control, Civil–Military Friction, and Foreign Military Intervention

The relationship between domestic civil–military relations and the use of foreign military force has been long debated. The two primary perspectives on the issue, civilian conservatism and military conservatism, are antithetical. The former maintains that military authorities are more likely to advocate for the use of military force than civilian counterparts, while the latter advances the opposite argument. Empirical research to date has added little clarity to the relationship. We shed new light on this long running controversy through analyses of a different, and arguably more appropriate, set of measures for the key variables of concern: civilian control, civil–military conflict, and the use of foreign military force. In zero-inflated negative binomial estimates of 165 countries from 1946 to 2010, we find consistent support for civilian conservatism. More specifically, when civilian control erodes or civil–military conflict reaches particularly high levels, the likelihood that a state will launch a foreign military intervention increases.

National Guard Command Authority and the Black Lives Matter Protests of 2020: Domestic Security Debates for a New Generation of Military Veterans

This study explores connections between the military experiences of a new generation of War on Terror (WoT) veterans elected to the U.S. Congress and controversial policy decisions on domestic security during the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests. WoT veterans became the largest cohort of lawmakers with common military experiences on Capitol Hill in 2020, and this article examines their engagement through two original case studies of legislative debates over command and control of the National Guard mobilization during BLM protests. Confrontations between federal law enforcement officers and BLM protestors led some WoT veterans to propose legislation to restrict executive authority over National Guard deployments, including reforms of Titles 10 and 32 of the U.S. Code and the Insurrection Act, but other WoT veterans challenged these positions. This exploratory study of events and circumstances links the timely topic of domestic security to traditional debates in the civil–military relations literature on whether veterans are more or less likely to support the use of military force and try to expand congressional oversight of presidential powers. By bridging the gap between research areas and crossing generations, this article offers lessons for past, present, and potentially future debates about the use of troops for domestic security operations.

Pak-France Relations During 21st Century: Strategic Alliances and Bilateral Cooperation

This research aims to critically analyse the bilateral relations between France and Pakistan during the 21st century. It emphasizes political, economic, social, cultural and military relationships between the two countries. Its purposes are to demonstrate the political ideologies and foreign policy objectives that influence Pakistan-France relations, to examine the nature of economic ties between Pakistan and France, to analyse the patterns of trade and investment that changed over time, to evaluate the Pakistan-France collaboration on military and security matters, and other key areas of cooperation, and to elucidate Pakistan-France political relations, the influence of pressure groups(political and religious) on their relationship, and to imposing allegations on France as a result of religious disparity in Pakistan. This study concludes that Pakistan and France are having high time collaborations in various sectors with a particular focus on working together in the fields of nuclear technology, defence cooperation, and resolving global security issues.

Drafting restraint: Are military recruitment policies associated with interstate conflict initiation?

Are countries that use conscription more restrained in their use of military force? A common argument holds that military conscription restrains leaders from using force because it increases the political cost of war and distributes them more evenly and broadly across the population. Despite this intuition, empirical evidence to support it is at best inconclusive. This article introduces a novel perspective on the relationship between military recruitment (MR) policies and conflict initiation (CI) by arguing that the military’s size relative to society – its military participation rate (MPR) – is an important and overlooked part of this story. MPR is a more direct measure of the population’s exposure to the costs of war, but high MPR may also increase CI by enhancing military capacity. By incorporating MPR into the analysis of CI, both independently and in interaction with conscription, this article provides a more comprehensive understanding of how MR practices shape CI. It tests these new hypotheses about the relationship between MPR, conscription and CI using a variety of time-series models that cover all country-years from 1816 to 2011. The findings do not support the conventional wisdom, instead revealing that neither conscription nor volunteerism is independently associated with restrained initiation of military conflicts abroad. On the contrary, these recruitment practices are more likely to be associated with an increase in the likelihood of CI. These findings indicate that we should be skeptical of traditional arguments that assume conscription leads to restraint in the use of force, either independently or conditional on MPR. These counterintuitive results underscore the need for additional research on the complex relationship between MR practices, civil–military relations and foreign policy.

아시아·태평양전쟁기 한미협회의 외교 활동

This study focused on research about the nature and process of Syngman Rhee’s lobbying association, the Korean-American Council’s military petition during the Pacific War. The Korean-American Council desired to receive military aids from the U.S. Government for the Korean Provisional Government(KPG)’s military operations. Also, the council hoped to build the U.S.-Korea alliance by solidifying the military relationship between the KPG and the U.S. Therefore, the council members highlighted the petition for military assistance for Koreans, rather than only requesting approval of the KPG as the official Korean government during negotiation attempts with the U.S. State Department and U.S. military organizations. In the course of negotiation, the U.S. government largely emphasized its military interests related to U.S.-Korean military associations. The characteristics of the negotiations were found as follows. First, During the negotiations, the U.S. Department of State, which was the main target of the Korean-American Council’s diplomacy, did not disregard the negotiation. However, the State Department delivered information about the Korean-American Council’s military petitions to the U.S. military organizations. Thereby, the State Department, despite its plan of Korean Trusteeship, let the Korean-American Council understand the State Department’s favorable opinions on the KPG’s will of carrying out war operations against Japan. Secondly, the Korean-American Council’s military petitions aligned partially with the Korean-U.S. military operation plan prepared by the OSS at the time. This reflects the council members’ awareness of the need to forge the Korean military operations led by the U.S. government. However, there was a task that Korea’s military capacity and reliability had to be demonstrated before practicing the plan devised by OSS. In the course, the Korean-American Council’s military petitions played a certain important role.

Concordance Theory: A Retrospective on the Creation of New Civil–Military Relations Theory

This piece is part of the 50th Anniversary Armed Forces & Society (AF&S) special issue. I am honored to be a part of this selection of essays. I am grateful to my colleagues at AF&S for their expertise and intellectual insights over the years since my original Concordance theory article—“Civil–Military Relations Reconsidered: A Theory of Concordance”—was published in 1995. Any comments made here that reflect on the current state of the academy and my experience with it over the years are in no way directed at AF&S and the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society (IUS-AF&S). Both AF&S and IUS have been extremely supportive of my work and the scholarship of many students, researchers, and academics around the world. I have been proud to be a part of both the journal and the organization that supports the study of civil–military relations. My Concordance theory and its evolution have only benefited because of my affiliation with AF&S and IUS.

The United States in the World Today: How Sociologists Think About It and Why It Matters

The study of policy alone often means domestic policy, of interest to generalist sociologists interested in how political ideas are turned into domestic legislation, executive action, and/or court litigation. Foreign policy, as the financial, commercial, diplomatic and military relations of a state with foreign states, remains a niche subfield. But foreign relations should be conceived of as the broader set of entanglements between societies, encompassing transnational movements, expert networks, and fields. Then, sociological theories of foreign relations can interest generalist sociologists. In this review, we illustrate how this broad view of foreign relations applies to the study of the United States in the world today (USitWT) by first surveying how sociologists of the world society and world system have focused on transnational relations and the place of the United States in their dynamics, and how they have engaged with the question of power. We then demonstrate how field theorists’ study of transnational fields can allow sociologists to reconceptualize the historical role of the USitWT by highlighting continuities between European colonial governmentalities and current US transnational practices. This field perspective can allow sociologists to understand the USitWT as transnational, postcolonial, or neo-colonial governmentality, depending on the sociological and historical depth and range of its relation with different parts of the world.

Gorkhas’ Recruitment into British Army: A Historical Overview

This article presents a historical overview and analysis of the Gorkhas’ recruitment into the British Army over more than 200 years. The study examines the evolution of the recruitment process, highlighting key periods and changes: the era of the East India Company before 1886, the World War periods, and the present day. The research investigates how the bravery, dedication, and loyalty of Nepalese youths during the Anglo-Nepal Wars (1814-16) led to British authorities encouraging Gorkhali youths to join the British Army, aiming to leverage their skills for future wars and imperial expansion. Despite their valor, Gorkhas faced numerous challenges, and significant improvements in recruitment conditions did not occur until after 1886. Even then, parental consent was a significant barrier. It was not until the 1970s that Gorkha youths openly expressed a desire to join, but by then, the selection process had become much tougher due to decreased demand for their services. Employing a qualitative research approach, the article utilizes a variety of sources including books on Britain-Nepal military relations, journal articles, periodicals, and war history books from Nepal, Britain, and other relevant regions to provide a comprehensive analysis. The study’s findings indicate that the recruitment process was particularly challenging before 1886 and during the World Wars, despite a high demand for Gorkha soldiers. In the present day, while the recruitment process is more transparent, opportunities for Gorkhas have significantly diminished due to a reduced demand for their services.

Building a National Army: The Paradoxes of Civil–Military Relations in Ethiopia

The nature of civil–military relations in postconflict states where rebel groups won a civil war and built the national army anew is underappreciated and undertheorized. Drawing from a comprehensive analysis of Ethiopia’s experience of building a national army from 1991 to 2018 as a case study, this article attempts to fill this gap. The article argues that the rebel-origin of the regime and the army, the ideology underpinning the regime, and its aspiration to emerge as a hegemonic political force determine the nature of civil–military relations in a postconflict state where the rebel won the war. The article adopts a qualitative case study methodology and relies on data collected through key-informant interviews, government archives, and extensive survey of the state-owned daily newspaper, Addis Zemen. The article contributes to the body of knowledge on civil–military relations in postconflict states in general, and the study of civil–military relations in Africa in particular.

Policing the police: Why it is so hard to reform police departments in the United States?

Why has it been so difficult to reform U.S. policing? We provide a theoretical argument that understanding of the entrenched militarisation and accountability problems of U.S. police departments would benefit from using theory in comparative research on civil–military relations. American police forces undermine local democracy by encroaching upon the decision-making powers of city officials in ways that resemble militaries in fragile democracies. Applying historical and contemporary evidence and existing scholarly research on policing, we explain police militarisation was initiated by civilian leaders of city governments to garner governmental legitimacy, and by-proxy police support, in racialised contexts. Trading off city governments’ institutional strength in order to maintain legitimacy produced opportunities for police insubordination or subversion of city government oversight of police activity. Consequently, cities with low public legitimacy and/or weak municipal institutions, faced with high demands by militarised police departments, may be more likely to experience police subversion of democratic accountability over police activity.

Fighting the next pandemic? Civil–military collaboration in health emergencies after COVID–19

Abstract Over the past decade, militaries have been highly visible elements in the response to health emergencies and in particular disease outbreaks. Although there has been a long tradition of civil–military collaboration in health, COVID–19 saw an unprecedented worldwide use of militaries which occurred within a permissive environment established by narratives of global health, humanitarian intervention and multi-sectorality. This creates a dilemma: militaries will likely be an important element in responding to a major health emergency and this risks not only militarizing health emergencies, but affects the balance between society and the military more generally. Moreover, the response to the COVID pandemic suggested that current emergency planning is often poorly prepared for the use of militaries in health crises, thereby reducing the effectiveness of a response. This article engages with how concerns over the securitization of health have evolved into concerns over militarization, and the question of how militaries might be used effectively in future health emergencies without risking the militarization of health or damaging civil–military relations more widely.

Organizational Culture and Big Data Analysis as antecedents to Swift Trust in Civil- Military relations during National Disaster Management

This study investigates the inter-relational effects of Big Data Analytics (BDA) and Swift Trust (ST) on Collaborative Performance (CP) during disaster management, framed within the Chaos and Complexity Theory. It focuses on both formal and informal organizational cultures, exploring the mediating role of organizational culture on the ST-CP relationship and the moderating role of BDA on the relationships between ST, organizational culture, and CP. The study highlights the critical importance of BDA capabilities for effective collaboration, providing insights for policymakers and administrative officials. Additionally, it underscores the significance of ST creation for military and civil leadership to achieve desired collaborative outcomes. Disasters, characterized by natural chaos, necessitate swift decision-making and resource management through predictive analysis.

The War in Ukraine: Challenges to Just War Doctrines in Eastern Orthodoxy

The sequence and escalation of Russian–Ukrainian political and military conflicts since 2014, culminating in Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, have reopened interest in and debates on just war theory and practice in general and specifically in historic and modern Eastern Orthodox cultures and Orthodox-majority states. These debates have significant repercussions in areas like church–state and church–military relations in these cultures; ecclesial involvement in these conflicts has varied from war-justification rhetoric (in the case of the Russian Orthodox Church) to reiterations of the inherited traditions of ecclesial pacifism/condemnation of all violence (the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, a number of Orthodox Churches, clerical and theological networks, etc.). The Russian ecclesial involvements in the justification of war/military necessity and formulation of just war narratives have triggered divisions and antagonisms in the Eastern Orthodoxy. The development and course of the ecclesial conflicts involving Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox churches and parishes (and other Orthodox ecclesiastic bodies) will show whether Orthodox religious actors may begin to play a more significant role in the articulation and application of newly emerging trends in areas like the theology of just peace, just peace-making and Christian realism, Orthodox social ethics and the dynamic praxis of just peace-making.