Military Advice and Civil-Military Relations

This monograph examined three of the variables that impact the civil-military relationship with regard to understanding how military advice is received by civilian leadership -- combat military experience of civilian leaders, political expertise of military leaders, and service parochialism -- and examined them in the context of the Vietnam War and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The lack military experience of civilian leaders did not detract from the military security of the nation with respect to the health of civil-military relations. The conclusion about political expertise in military leaders largely depends on the type of conflict. Service parochialism is a factor of the civilian leaders' receptiveness to military advice. In the aggregate, politicians will only hear and listen to military leaders if several things manifest themselves simultaneously. First, regardless of the civilian leadership's experience in the military, the political administration must respect military culture as suggested by Herspring. Second, military leaders must have political experience to understand the ancillary functions of irregular warfare as recommended by Janowitz. Finally, there must exist a service culture that is divided enough to offer different opinions and alternatives, but not so divisive that it appears ineffectual and incoherent as indicated by Feaver.