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D. M. Benedek and R. J. Ursano
Military and Politics
Virtually all nations have some form of military force
for protection against external foes, for international
prestige, and often to maintain internal order. The
relationship between a nation’s political life and its
military is a fundamental and enduring problem which
may be understood as a matter of managing the
boundary between them. Civil authorities desire to
control the military; but, militaries are more effective
when they are professionalized, which requires sub-
stantial autonomy and minimal civilian penetration
into their internal operations (Wilensky 1964).
1. Ci
ilian Control of the Military
The scale of the problem of relations between military
and politics differs between modern democracies and
less well developed and differentiated societies (see
Modernization, Political: De
elopment of the Concept).
In stable democratic regimes, widely accepted political
norms and formal institutional mechanisms serve to
maintain the boundary (see Political Culture). Hist-
orically, standing militaries have been viewed as
contributing to tyranny because of the expense of their
maintenance. In modern times they gain political
influence through symbiotic relationships with the
private enterprises that produce their weapons syst-
ems—the ‘military–industrial complex’ that former
United States President Eisenhower warned against in
1961.
Within democracies, institutions of civilian control
include constitutional, legal, and administrative mech-
anisms such as military budgets and establishments,
civilian confirmation of officer commissions, appoint-
ment of top military officials by civilian authorities,
and prohibitions on military employment for domestic
problems. Even powerful and popular military officers
who exceed existing boundaries may be removed from
their positions by their civilian superiors, as when, in
April 1951, US President Harry Truman summarily
relieved General Douglas MacArthur.
Professional, full-time military, consists of members
who devote all of their time to their duties, minimizing
conflicts of interest. In some regimes, civilian author-
ities worry about militaries with a capacity to compete
with their authority. In both communist and fascist
regimes, specialized political officers have been em-
ployed within military units with lines of authority
parallel to military commanders as a means of en-
suring the latter’s compliance with regime dictates.
However, such institutions are not effective absent
an underlying foundation of well-developed and
widely accepted norms in the broader political culture,
which may take centuries to develop (Landau 1971).
Political norms include general acceptance of military
subordination to civilian authorities and specific pro-
hibitions on serving officers engaging in political
activities such as legislative lobbying or standing for
elected or appointed office. These norms constitute
essentially a social contract about the roles and
functions of civil and military authorities, respectively.
The exact character of this contract tends to be
renegotiated over time.
In democratic regimes, such as Britain, a pattern of
norms developed over centuries in which both civilian
and military bureaucracies were subordinated to the
control of Parliament. In the United States, rep-
resentative political institutions were constitutionally
established before any other, with the result that
control of the military by civilian authority has never
been at issue, nor has the legitimacy of representative
institutions relative to the military (see Public Bureau-
cracies). In developing nations, representative poli-
tical institutions may still have to compete with the
military for legitimacy (Stepan 1971).
Development of separate and effective institutions
for domestic law enforcement and state militias,
combined with firmly established political norms
allowing employment of militias internally only in
extreme circumstances of natural disaster or civil
unrest, have reduced pressures to use military forces
internally.
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Military and Politics
2. Military Participation in Politics
In developing nations, the military, because it tends to
be socially conservative, is typically the best organized
of institutions, and controls lethal force, has been both
motivated and able to act as an independent political
factor. It has superseded civil authority by coup d’etat,
influenced public policy by threat of intervention, been
used as an instrument of terror. It has made successful
claims for special privileges, such as special stores and
facilities, achieved large budget allocations, or achieved
direct military control of economic enterprises as in
former communist regimes.
When a nation’s military is dominated by particular
ethnic or racial groups, or by geographic regions, the
probability increases that it will be used in internal
political conflicts, or for repression of certain ethnic
groups, as events during 1999 in Indonesia concerning
East Timor have shown. Only occasionally has the
military acted to facilitate the establishment or res-
toration of democracy in such nations (see Democratic
Transitions).
Following World War II, because the perceived role
of the German and Japanese militaries in causing the
war, and of their role in supporting authoritarian
regimes, the Allies deemed it of utmost importance to
demilitarize both nations, including constitutional
proscriptions against the use of offensive military
force. Efforts by western democratic states to profes-
sionalize the militaries of developing nations in Latin
America, Africa, and Asia have been only partially
successful given the military’s role in internal political
control (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986). It remains to
be seen whether analogous western efforts to assist
former Soviet-bloc militaries to adjust to existence in
democratic states will prove more fruitful (Linz 1996).
3. Autonomy for the Military
The military also benefits from well-defined bound-
aries between it and civilian politics. When militaries
are relatively insulated from civilian intrusion into
promotion and assignment to duty they have proven
more effective (Chisholm 2000). To the extent that
militaries are perceived by their civil societies to be
professional organizations whose members are en-
gaged in service to their nations and are not principally
mechanisms for patronage, nepotism, and informal
welfare, militaries are accorded a relatively higher
status (Janowitz 1960).
The use of force is usually considered at three levels
of analysis: strategic, operational, and tactical. Civ-
ilian leadership typically takes responsibility for the
strategic level of decision, advised by the military. The
mere presence of military capability may indirectly
influence decisions by civilian leaders about strategy.
In 1999, for example, NATO found it politically
feasible to intervene militarily in Kosovo because the
9858
sophistication of its air forces promised military
effectiveness with low risk of casualties. Disputes
between civilian leaders and military officers most
often occur at the operational level of decision. The
military is usually primarily responsible for the tactical
level. In recent years, with dramatic improvements in
communications capacities, civilian leaders have be-
come increasingly involved in operational level deci-
sions, and even in tactical decisions, such as the
ill-fated US effort in 1976 to rescue the crew of the
merchant ship Mayaguez from their Cambodian cap-
tors.
Where civilian leaders have heeded their profes-
sional military officers on questions concerning the use
of force, ill-advised adventures and misuse of the
military have been less likely. As the technology of
warfare has become more complex, the need for expert
military advice to civilian decision makers has become
more acute. Civilian leaders have not always shown
themselves capable of seeking advice, or listening to it,
or understanding it. Ironically, senior military officials
are frequently less prone to use force than their civilian
counterparts. Changes in warfare have also effectively
doomed the hastily thrown together citizen army as an
effective means of national defense and created press-
ure for standing militaries.
4. Interpenetration of Military and Politics
Established boundaries do not mean impermeable
barriers, however. Historically, there has been concern
that a military set completely apart from civil society
might prove dangerous to the latter. In the late
nineteenth century the United States Navy relied
predominately on citizens from other countries to staff
its ships, and sailors were considered social pariahs to
be excluded from polite society, while officers were
drawn disproportionately from higher social strata.
Both factors contributed to separation of that service
from American civil life (Karsten 1972).
Universal conscription has lessened such separ-
ation, as have reserve officer training programs in
civilian universities, both of which create a regular
flow of individuals in and out of the military. This at
once increases civilian influence on the professional
military, enhances civilian understanding of the mili-
tary, and provides mechanisms by which militaries can
expand and contract in response to external threats.
Ironically, it also increases the potential political cost
of military actions, as the United States found with
Vietnam, and Russia discovered in its Chechen en-
deavors during the 1990s, in which parents of con-
scripts pressured the government to end the action.
Development of smaller, all-volunteer, career mili-
taries runs counter to this historical trend, and to the
extent that in the generations following World War II
fewer top civilian leaders in western nations have
performed military service, trust between civilian and

military leaders appears to have diminished (Ricks
1997). Moreover, it may mean reduced understanding
by civilian leaders of the appropriate uses of and
limitations on military force as an instrument of
national policy, especially as nations expand the use of
their militaries for limited armed conflicts and for
operations other than war. Employment in the 1980s
of the United States Marines in Lebanon at the behest
of the State Department and against the opposition of
senior military officials exemplifies the misuse of
military forces at the operational level. Pressured to
act by domestic constituencies during various inter-
national crises, civilian leaders appear to turn to the
use of military force, even if they cannot achieve
the ends sought.
As a relatively closed institution and with socially
conservative inclinations, the military has often had
difficulty adjusting to changes in civil society. How-
ever, changes of values in the broader society do
penetrate the military, evidenced by improved treat-
ment of enlisted personnel. Desegregation and the
integration of women and gays into the military have
proceeded at a faster pace than in civilian institutions,
perhaps because of its hierarchical, command organi-
zation. Changes have been instituted by the command
of civilian authorities, an approach impossible in most
sectors of civil society.
Militaries also have acted as interest groups with
their own political agendas. In stable democracies,
they must compete with other institutions for legit-
imacy and for scarce resources. The influence of
militaries waxes and wanes with the centrality of
external threats to their societies, the perceived ability
of the military to contend with threats, and in some
cases, the degree of internal political unrest. A mili-
tary’s failure, as the Argentine military found in its
war with Britain over the Falkland Islands in 1982,
may have profound consequences for its domestic
standing, even where it has previously functioned to
suppress political dissent.
Militaries have historically also served as a mech-
anism for social mobility for less advantaged groups,
particularly during economic recession and following
wars when veterans have received pensions, tax relief,
health care, and education and real estate subsidies.
For example, the US GI Bill following World War II
provided college education for a broad sector of
society that was previously excluded, contributing to
the sustained growth of the postwar American econ-
omy. Military training in technical specialities such as
aviation or electronics also provides skilled personnel
at subsidy to private economies. The importance of
this has increased as technical skills in demand by
military and civilian sectors have converged. Con-
vergence makes it more difficult for militaries to retain
skilled personnel, especially during periods of strong
economic growth.
Political dictators have been educated and trained
in the military, but in democratic regimes this has not
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
Military Geography
been a problem because of their inherent flexibility
and because agents of change come from a range of
institutions.
See also: Democratic Transitions; Military Psych-
ology: United States; Military Sociology; Modern-
ization, Political: Development of the Concept; Poli-
tical Culture; Public Bureaucracies; War: Anthro-
pological Aspects; War: Causes and Patterns
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Karsten P 1972 The Na
al Aristocracy: The Golden Age of
Annapolis and the Emergence of Modern American Na
alism.
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Landau M 1971 Linkage, coding, and intermediacy. Journal of
Comparati
e Administration 2: 401–29
Linz J J 1996 Problems of Democratic Transition and Con-
solidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Com-
munist Europe. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore,
MD
O’Donnell G, Schmitter P C (eds.) 1986 Transitions from
Authoritarian Rule: Tentati
e Conclusions About Uncertain
Democracies. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore,
MD
Ricks T E 1997 Making the Corps. Scribner, New York
Stepan A 1971 The Military in Politics: Changing Patterns in
Brazil. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
Wilensky II 1964 The professionalization of everyone? American
Journal of Sociology 87: 548–77
D. Chisholm
Copyright # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Military Geography
Military geography is the subfield of geography that
deals with the impact of geography on military affairs.
Its purpose is to provide understanding and appreci-
ation of the significance of geographic concepts and
realities to military plans and operations at the tactical
andoperationallevelsofwar,andtomilitaryconcernsat
the strategic level. Thus in using geographic methods
and information, military geography ‘concentrates
on the influence of physical and cultural environments
over political-military policies, plans, programs, and
combat\support operations of all types in local,
regional, and global contexts’ (Collins 1998).
While military geography is accepted by recognized
scholars in the discipline as a viable subdivision of
geography, its growth and contribution to scholarship
has been marked by periods of intense activity and
9859
ISBN: 0-08-043076-7