”Civil-military relations” is a
term that covers a multitude of sins. Scholars of civil-military
relations write on topics ranging from recruiting and retention to
military coups to norms of professional military behavior. This
week’s Horns of a Dilemma speaker, Dr. Kori Schake, argues that
civil-military relations in the United States have historically
been strong and stable. So why are U.S. civil-military relations an
important topic of study and debate? As Schake observes, Americans
tend to put off addressing potential problems until they are
worried about them. So, especially in light of challenges to the
norms of strong and stable civil-military relations associated with
a highly polarized partisan environment, worrying about healthy
civil-military relations is ... healthy. This talk was delivered at
the Clements Center Summer Seminar in History and Statecraft held
in Beaver Creek, Colorado in July.