Who Decides What? Civil-Military Relations in Canada and the United States

Drawing useful conclusions from comparative studies in civil-military relations is confounded by fact that there are few measures that can be reliably applied across state boundaries, political ideologies, and time. Most studies begin from assumption that civil control of military is desired end state in civil-military relations. They then assess the in civil-military relations in terms of relative degrees of control over policy attributable principal actors--the civil authority and senior military leaders. In some cases where differences between states compared are wide, as between autocratic and democratic systems, some such studies yield practical insights. However, where degree of control is narrow or subtle, as it tends be in like-minded liberal democracies, state-to-state comparisons tend be problematic. The analytical problem stems from weaknesses in civil-military relations theory and concentration by many scholars on coup d'etat, and intrusion of soldiers into a state's political process. But this is only one aspect of several problems that affect how civil-military relations function in all states. Some might suggest that this matter is inconsequential because civil-military relations in liberal democracies, for all their overt differences, produce same outcome: civil control of armed forces. This observation may be true or not, but it is increasingly unsatisfactory for one important reason -- Western leaders are being asked explain their system of civil-military relations leaders in emerging democracies only find that western intellectual and bureaucratic explanations of how liberal democracies control armed forces are inconsistent. Moreover, practices in even closely related NATO states vary considerably and for no reason that can be readily explained by extant Western theory and thought on civil-military relations. On reflection and contrary expectations of academics and most citizens, armed forces in Western democracies are not so much by civil authority as they are accommodated. Reaching for Samuel Huntington(1) provides cold comfort for politicians, officers, and officials who try explain civil-military relations within North Atlantic Alliance leaders of states aspiring join community. It is evident that for all their like-mindedness, control over armed forces is exercised in different ways, and civil-military relations difficulties and crises arise from different causes and produce different consequences. The root cause of this state of affairs, and in comparative studies in civil-military relations generally, lies in weaknesses in Western theories of civil-military relations and in narrow definitions of civil-military relations problem that civil authority is meant control. Civil-military relations are not controlled by a dichotomous relationship between soldiers and duly elected politicians -- civil authority; nor, as some suggest, would such a relationship be particularly effective, even if it could be established.(2) Rather, as will be briefly explained in this paper, civil-military relations in mature liberal democracies function on basis of responsibility between civil authority and military for national defense and control of armed forces. Sharing occurs in decision making about policy, defense management, employment of forces, and in control of armed forces, among other matters. The degree of sharing, or dynamics of civil-military relations, depends on numerous and changing variables such as quality of leaders, nearness of threats and crisis, domestic politics, and organization of armed forces and defense establishment. All civil-military relations exist as a type of anarchy where neither civil authority nor military can dominate other. Thus, by borrowing notions from theories of anarchy in international relations, dynamics of civil-military relations in states can be observed and explained according to a nationally evolved regime of principles, norms, rules and decision making procedures around which actor expectations converge in matters of civil-military relations. …