1

MELANCHOLY REUNION: A REPORT 

FROM THE FUTURE ON THE 

COLLAPSE OF CIVIL-MILITARY 

RELATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES 

Charles J. Dunlap, Jr. 

INSS Occasional Paper 11 

October 1996 

USAF Institute for National Security Studies 

US Air Force Academy, Colorado 
2

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily 

reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air Force, the 

Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. This paper is approved for 

public release by USSTRATCOM/J020; distribution is unlimited. 

******** 

Comments pertaining to this paper are invited and should be forwarded to: 

Director, Institute for National Security Studies 

HQ USAFA/DFE 

2354 Fairchild Drive, Suite 5D33 

USAF Academy, CO 80840-6258 

Voice: (719) 333-2717 

Fax: (719) 333-2716 

E-mail: hayspl.dfe@usafa.af.mil 

******** 

Visit the Institute for National Security Studies’ home page at 

http://www.usafa.af.mil/inss 
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Foreword iv 

Executive Summary viii 

Introduction 1 

The Civil-Military Environment in the Late 1990s 2 

Vietnam and the Politicization of the Military 3 

Nontraditional Missions and Civil-Military Relations 5 

The Rise of Postmodern Militarism 10 

The Emergence of Neopraetorianism 14 

The New American Model of Civil-Military Relations 19 

Conclusion 28 

Notes 30 
4

FOREWORD 

 Civil-military relations, especially civilian control of the military, have 

always been a significant aspect of U.S. national security policy. The issue 

assumed even greater prominence, however, with the election of Bill Clinton as 

the forty-second president of the United States. President Clinton’s election 

signaled a number of firsts. Besides being the first Democrat to assume the 

presidency since Jimmy Carter, the first chief executive elected after the end of 

the Cold War, and the first president to “come of age” following World War II, 

Clinton was the first commander in chief since Franklin Roosevelt not to have 

served in the U.S. military. More importantly for civil-military relations, 

President Clinton avoided service during the Vietnam War, wrote of his 

sympathy for those who found themselves “loving their country but loathing the 

military,” and took part in demonstrations against the war in Southeast Asia. 

 Together with his plans to cut the defense budget, unsuccessful effort 

to lift the ban on gays in the military, and controversial decisions regarding the 

use of force in places like Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia, the military, to say the 

least, was skeptical about its new commander in chief. Some military members 

went beyond skepticism, however. President Clinton was heckled when he 

visited the USS Theodore Roosevelt, for instance, and one Air Force general 

even went so far as to ridicule the president as a “gay-loving, pot-smoking, 

draft-dodging womanizer” in front of 250 people at an awards banquet. 

 When combined with an increasing number of nontraditional (and 

often domestic) missions for the armed forces and the enhanced power for the 

chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (courtesy of the Goldwater-Nichols 

Defense Reorganization Act), events like those cited above led to a flurry of 

articles about the health of civil-military relations in the United States. Central 

to this literature is Colonel Charles Dunlap’s “The Origins of the American 

Military Coup of 2012.” In that paper, written as a letter from the future, 
5

Dunlap examined how the American people increasingly turned to the military 

to address the problems their elected officials seemed unable to solve. “The 

cumulative effect of these new responsibilities,” Dunlap wrote, “was to 

incorporate the military into the political process to an unprecedented degree.” 

The end result was a military coup, “the beginnings of which were evident in 

1992,” the year Dunlap’s paper was published. 

 “Melancholy Reunion” picks up where “The Origins of the American 

Military Coup of 2012” left off. The year is now 2017, and two years have 

elapsed since the countercoup that returned the U.S. government to civilian 

control. The speaker, addressing the twentieth reunion of the Air University 

classes of 1997, reflects on the civil-military environment in the late 1990s and 

the lessons learned from the Coup of 2012. “Melancholy Reunion,” like 

Dunlap’s earlier paper, is sure to stimulate vigorous debate. It also makes an 

important contribution to the literature on civil-military relations and civilian 

control of the military. We are pleased, therefore, to publish this eleventh 

volume in the Occasional Paper series of the USAF Institute for National 

Security Studies (INSS). 

 

About the Institute 

 INSS is primarily sponsored by the National Security Negotiations 

Division, Plans and Operations Directorate, Headquarters U.S. Air Force and 

the Dean of the Faculty, U.S. Air Force Academy. Its other sponsors are the 

Assistant Chief of Staff for Air Force Intelligence, OSD Net Assessment, the 

Defense Special Weapons Agency (formerly the Defense Nuclear Agency), the 

Army Environmental Policy Institute, Army Space Command, and the 

On-Site Inspection Agency. INSS’ mission is to promote national security 

research for the Department of Defense within the military academic community 

and support the Air Force national security education program. Its primary 
6

purpose is to promote research in those areas of interest to INSS’ sponsors: 

international security policy (especially arms control and 

nonproliferation/counterproliferation), Air Force planning issues, regional 

security policy, conflict in the information age (including the revolution in 

military affairs and information warfare), environmental security, and space 

policy. INSS coordinates and focuses outside thinking in various disciplines 

and across the military services to develop new ideas for defense policy making. 

To that end, the Institute develops topics, selects researchers from within the 

military academic community, and administers sponsored research. It also hosts 

conferences and workshops and facilitates the dissemination of information to a 

wide range of private and government organizations. INSS is in its fifth year of 

providing valuable, cost-effective research to meet the needs of its sponsors. 

 We appreciate your continued interest in INSS and its research 

products and hope you enjoy Colonel Dunlap’s “Melancholy Reunion: A Report 

from the Future on the Collapse of Civil-Military Relations in the United 

States.” 

PETER L. HAYS, Lt Col, USAF 

Director, USAF Institute for National Security Studies 

 

 
7

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

 The year is 2017. The United States has suffered not only defeats in 

the High-Tech War of 2007 and the Second Gulf War of 2010, but also a 

military coup in 2012. That coup, engineered by a highly politicized officer 

corps that blamed these bloody losses on “incompetent” civilian leaders, was 

initially welcomed by a public exasperated with elected government. Only a 

few years of repressive military rule had passed, however, before the 

countercoup in 2015. The chastened electorate placed the thoroughly disgraced 

armed forces under draconian civilian control. 

 The speaker in this essay addresses the twentieth reunion of the Air 

University classes of 1997, a rather melancholy event under the circumstances. 

He examines civil-military relations issues emerging in the 1996-1997 time 

frame that, with the benefit of twenty-first century hindsight, foretold the 

coming catastrophes. 

 The speaker argues that too many analysts in the 1990s wrongly 

concluded that the military’s acceptance of shrinking defense budgets and the 

imposition of social policies on the armed forces “proved” civilian control was 

secure. Actually, America’s still-sizable military, freed from its preoccupation 

with the Soviet threat, was politicizing rapidly. Still haunted by Vietnam 

despite the 1991 Gulf War victory, many in uniform believed that military 

officers needed to be much more active in the political process if “another 

Vietnam” was to be avoided. Eventually, skill at political infighting, not 

warfighting, became the mark of up-and-coming officers. 

 Politicization was hastened by a variety of factors, including the 

military’s institutional drift from warfighting to a complex array of military 

operations other than war. Overlooked was the fact that officers who 

concentrate on activities other than war eventually become something other than 
8

warriors. Such officers also displace their dedication to the warrior ethic with a 

cultish devotion to commerce-oriented fads like total quality management. 

 The ultimately unquantifiable nature of military service was somehow 

reduced to metrics, and this led the new-styled officer/ business executives to 

reject combat-oriented activities as too costly given their notion of an acceptable 

“bottom line.” Indeed, the Pentagon’s aversion to casualties led to a heavy 

reliance on unmanned systems which, in turn, eliminated the rationale (and the 

need) for a separate pilot-based air service, thus leading to the Air Force’s 

disestablishment in 2007. Risky combat operations still requiring personnel on 

the ground were outsourced to private corporations, a move that would prove 

disastrous in twenty-first century conflicts. 

 Just as the military’s politicization was increasing, the nation came 

under the spell of “postmodern militarism.” This phenomenon was not marked 

by overt military domination or even a societal embrace of martial virtues. 

Rather, it was characterized by the growing willingness of a militarily naive 

society to charge those in uniform with responsibilities that a democracy ought 

to leave to civilians. 

 The popular military assumed a wide variety of trendy noncombat 

activities ranging from drug interdiction at home to nation-building abroad, 

thereby leading to further politicization as the military insinuated itself into 

areas that were previously the exclusive province of civilian policymakers. All 

of this occurred as the formal institutions of civilian control--Congress and the 

executive branch--were losing the public’s confidence. These institutions were 

further weakened by partisan squabbling, and this allowed a politically savvy 

military to accumulate enormous political clout. 

 Despite its growing popularity and political power, the professional 

military increasingly viewed civilian society as irresponsibly chaotic, crimeridden, and morally corrupt. The alienated military also began to view itself as a 

higher caste than the society it was supposed to serve. 
9

 An increasingly self-righteous military began to see reforming America 

as its responsibility. This philosophy, termed “neopraetorianism” by the 

speaker, was abetted by officers infatuated with the idea that they were national 

ombudsmen with unlimited portfolios as opposed to military leaders with finite 

responsibilities. Moreover, the armed forces failed to appreciate that it was civil 

society’s largess that insulated the military from the problems that burdened so 

many civilian communities. 

 Chaos and crime are the unfortunate by-products of individualism and 

freedom. However, it is those same qualities that fuel America’s enormously 

successful economy which, in turn, sustains the military. The lesson of the 

Coup Trials of 2016, therefore, was that officers should not be commanders in 

the nation’s culture wars. It is not the military’s role to remake America in its 

own image. 

 To avoid the perils of neopraetorianism, the speaker argues that a 

revised framework for civil-military relations should have been built along the 

lines of what he calls the “New American Model.” Among other things, this 

model contends that civil-military relations prosper when the military is focused 

on functions related to external warfighting. Consequently, most nontraditional, 

noncombat missions should be assigned to civilian government agencies or 

commercial enterprises. 

 The model’s centerpiece is the idea that effective civilian control of a 

large professional military in a democracy requires pervasive transparency, 

especially in peacetime. The necessary oversight can only occur when what the 

military is doing and thinking is made plain to the society it serves. 

 Unfortunately, opaqueness, not transparency, was the paradigm in the 

1990s. Believing that another lesson of Vietnam was the importance of 

perception management, the military came to regard the media and information 

more generally as simply things to be manipulated for its own purposes. 

Therefore, the model rejects, for example, the “spin doctoring” this attitude 
10

encourages. Instead, it contends that the military in a democracy should be 

controlled by public opinion, not the other way around. In this regard, the 

model maintains that a vibrant, knowledgeable, and inquisitive press is a vital 

and irreplaceable safeguard of civilian control. 

 The New American Model also argues that overclassification--such as occurred in the 1990s with respect to powerful perceptionmanagement capabilities acquired by the military under the aegis of information 

warfare--dangerously undermines civil-military relations by impairing 

transparency. 

 The model provides a template for the proper role of military officers 

in political discourse. It agrees with Yehuda Meir’s assertion that advisory, 

representative, and executive functions for military officers are clearly 

consistent with proper civil-military relations. The model concedes, however, 

that charges of partisanship are likely to arise even in these areas. It insists that 

these charges are best mitigated by apolitical candor. 

 Nevertheless, candor should never be used to defy or subvert lawful 

orders, excuse disrespectful behavior, or replace the strength of an idea with the 

power of an officer’s position or rank. Additionally, any order to implement a 

decision must be authorized in accordance with properly approved and civiliandirected policy. Thus, public candor is often best expressed prior to a decision 

being made. The model, therefore, starts with a strong presumption that civilmilitary relations are best served by transparency, and that frequently means 

public candor. 

 The New American Model further urges consideration of two inverse 

relationships for weighing the appropriateness of public candor in a given 

situation. The first holds that there generally is an inverse relationship between 

the presumption that public discourse is appropriate and the rank and position of 

the speaker. That is, senior commanders are obliged to be far more circumspect 

than junior personnel. The second holds that there ordinarily is an inverse 
11

relationship between the presumption that public candor is appropriate and the 

proximity to and effect on current operations, especially those involving 

combat. 

 The model explicitly rejects “political correctness” because it replaces 

sound apolitical judgment with opportunistic and often self-serving pandering to 

popular fashion. Likewise, the model maintains that it is not the military’s role 

to be public cheerleaders for the politics of the president or his party. The 

armed forces’ loyalty to their commander in chief does not extend to allowing 

the military’s prestige, not to mention its physical power, to be used by any 

political party. 

 The New American Model views as impractical a return to the draft as 

a means of enhancing civil-military relations. Instead, it recommends 

comprehensive high school and college-level programs on the armed forces in 

general and civil-military relations more specifically. The model also does not 

consider greater reliance on the Guard and Reserve as the solution to civilmilitary relations problems, although turning most aspects of information 

warfare over to citizen-soldiers may further civilian control. Finally, 

substituting pay increases for those so-called “quality-of-life” initiatives that 

encourage military personnel to remain ensconced on their bases will increase 

the use of civilian facilities, with the concomitant benefit of reducing the 

military’s growing alienation from civil society. 

 The speaker concludes that the Air University classes of 1997 could 

have avoided disgrace had they paid greater attention to the proper balance of 

civil-military relations as they assumed senior leadership positions in the 

twenty-first century. 
12

MELANCHOLY REUNION: A REPORT FROM THE 

FUTURE ON THE COLLAPSE OF CIVIL-MILITARY 

RELATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES 

Introduction

 I’d like to start by thanking the authorities for allowing me to address 

this twentieth reunion of the Air University classes of 1997. As you may know, 

last year’s Military Control Act makes assemblages of officers, even retired 

ones, illegal without special permission. Since the Countercoup of 2015, the 

civilians want to keep a close eye on us. 

 Frankly, I don’t blame them. After we lost the High-Tech War of 2007 

and the Second Gulf War just three years later,1

 the coup plotters cleverly laid 

the groundwork for their takeover by blaming these bloody defeats on 

“incompetent” civilians. When General Brutus occupied the White House after 

the president’s mysterious death in 2012, the people welcomed it at first. But it 

took only a couple of years of military rule for everyone to realize how wrong 

they were. 

 Many of you may be familiar with “The Origins of the American 

Military Coup of 2012,” an essay by the Prisoner.2

 The Prisoner’s letter to a 

war college classmate recalled U.S. civil-military relations as they existed in 

1992.3

 It also described the military’s evolution into a highly politicized 

organization that, ironically, couldn’t fight. 
13

 Today, I want to focus on U.S. civil-military relations as they appeared 

later, in the 1996-1997 time frame. With the benefit of 

20-20--no, make that 2012 hindsight--I’d like to talk to you about the lessons 

learned from the coup. All of these lessons are based on circumstances as they 

were over 20 years ago when you were sitting in this very auditorium about to 

begin your studies. What kinds of issues regarding the military’s role in 

American society should you have been thinking about back then? 

The Civil-Military Environment in the Late 1990s

 First of all, just because no one was planning a coup in 1996 didn’t 

justify the complacency too many analysts back then encouraged.4

 They 

simplistically concluded that the military’s acceptance of shrinking defense 

budgets and the imposition of social policies on the armed forces “proved” that 

civilian control was secure.5

 Instead, they should have examined the unique implications of a large 

peacetime military during the late 1990s. Historically, the United States 

organized large forces to fight specific wars and quickly demobilized those 

forces at the end of a conflict.6

 After World War II, the exigencies of the Cold 

War required maintaining a sizable peacetime defense establishment,7

 and this 

probably gave birth to a highly politicized military.8

 Because so much of the 

armed forces’ energy during the Cold War was absorbed by the overarching 

threat of a nuclear-armed Soviet Union, however, the military’s politicization 

didn’t present the pernicious threat then that it did in the twenty-first century.9

 When the Soviet Union collapsed, the U.S. military’s principal raison 

d’être for over 40 years disappeared.10 While it was clear the world remained a 

violent and dangerous place, the absence of a superpower adversary 

disconcerted a defense establishment still possessing enormous resources and 

intellectual vigor. 
14

 The armed forces also changed in an unprecedented way: they now 

were composed primarily of people wanting to stay in the military, rather than 

draftees wanting to leave at the first opportunity. Not only was the all-volunteer 

military undiluted by the liberalizing effect of conscription, it also was the direct 

descendant of the traumatized forces that lost the Vietnam War. True, the U.S. 

military brilliantly rebuilt itself and magnificently triumphed in the First Gulf 

War,11 but there is no question that the cycle of failure and redemption deeply 

affected the outlook of those in uniform. 

Vietnam and the Politicization of the Military

 It is difficult to overstate the influence the Vietnam War still had on 

civil-military relations during the last decade of the twentieth century. Robert 

McNamara’s duplicity, revealed in his 1995 memoir,12 rekindled deeply held 

beliefs that much of the blame for the United States’ defeat in Vietnam lay at the 

feet of inept and mendacious civilians. Officers at every level, therefore, 

believed it was necessary to become far more assertive in the political process 

than ever before if “another Vietnam” was to be avoided.13 To facilitate doing 

so, our war colleges gave increased emphasis to domestic politics, economics, 

and international relations.14 Of particular interest was the emphasis they placed 

on Clausewitzian theory.15

 Although historian John Keegan disagrees,16 Clausewitz’s assertion 

that war is a continuation of politics by other means still resonated in U.S. 

military thinking.17 When taken out of context, Clausewitz’s dictum became 

another rationale for officers to insinuate themselves into the political process.18 

After all, if war is so intimately connected with politics, shouldn’t military 

officers be involved? Wasn’t that the lesson of Vietnam? Clemenceau’s adage 

was turned on its head: to the generals, war and the political decisions that 

surround it are too serious to be left to politicians.19
15

 Accordingly, hundreds of mid-level officers were placed in 

congressional offices to study political techniques.20 As should have been 

expected, they inevitably became entangled in partisan activities, reportedly as 

early as 1996.21 In another politicizing move, Congress turned the promotion 

process into a political football. Back in 1996, for example, the Senate delayed 

the confirmation of thousands of officers’ promotions to exact cooperation from 

the Defense Department for a plan to reorganize the intelligence community.22 

Predictably, this kind of activity encouraged uniformed officers to become 

partisans in political battles. 

 Politicization occurred in other ways as well. For instance, it was 

widely reported that the nomination of General Joseph Hoar to be chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff was scuttled by the protests of gay rights activists.23 

What was his alleged offense? As the commander of Marine Corps Depot 

Parris Island, he enforced the homosexual exclusion policy put in place not by 

military officers but by the civilian leadership. This sent a message the nation 

would later regret: military officers should circumvent or ignore the directives 

of civilian superiors if they think a different course of action might be politically 

expedient in the future. As Colonel Harry Summers observed with respect to 

Vietnam-era protests, targeting the military--the executors rather than the 

makers of policy--politicizes the armed forces and thereby weakens civilian 

control.24

 Gay rights activists also unwittingly facilitated the coup by 

undermining the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). For decades, ROTC 

had been an important source of progressivism in the armed forces. 

Unfortunately, protesters succeeded in driving it from many top universities, 

often the very ones needed to preserve the balance of views so necessary for a 

professional military in a free society. By the mid-1990s, many officers 

privately expressed delight that there were fewer officers from the more liberal 

campuses to challenge their increasingly right-wing philosophy.25
16

 In addition, a new set of qualifications arose for promotion. Skill at 

political infighting, not traditional warfighting, became the mark of up-andcoming officers. Indeed, as far back as 1993, former Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff Admiral William Crowe declared that few officers reached 

senior rank “without a firm grasp of international relations, congressional 

politics, and public affairs.”26 Eventually, our leaders became skilled politicians 

but, as we saw in the Second Gulf War, poor warfighters. 

Nontraditional Missions and Civil-Military Relations

 Another key source of politicization was the explosive growth of 

nontraditional missions in the 1990s. These ranged from drug interdiction, 

disaster relief, and youth programs at home to nation-building, humanitarian, 

and peacekeeping missions abroad. 

 The Prisoner critiqued this drift into nontraditional missions in his 

letter. What changed from 1992 to 1996, however, was the institutionalization

of these missions. Armed with catchy acronyms like MOOTW,27 a powerful 

constituency arose within the ranks. Make no mistake about it, this was a basic 

change in orientation. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John 

Shalikashvili admitted that “while we have historically focused on warfighting, 

our military profession is increasingly changing its focus to a complex array of 

military operations other than war.”28

 Overlooked was the fact that military officers who concentrate on 

activities other than war eventually become something other than warriors. An 

ever-increasing percentage of the shrinking officer corps “came of age” 

focusing not on the military arts but on decidedly nonmilitary enterprises. All 

of this would prove disastrous. 

 We learned the hard way that assigning military personnel missions 

like domestic drug interdiction inevitably entangles them in policy making, a 

political task best left to civilian authorities. Could we have seen this coming in 
17

1996? Recall that back then a four-star Army general was retired to, along with 

a cadre of active-duty officers, help make domestic drug control policy. 

 Just as disappointment about law enforcement’s inability to stem the 

flow of drugs led to the military’s involvement in counterdrug efforts, a series of 

terror attacks resulted in a similar role in counterterrorism just a few years later. 

Public frustration and fear led to the Suppression of Terrorism Act of 1998.29 

This gave the armed forces significant internal security powers,30 something for 

which the shadowy Special Operations Command had been preparing for 

years.31

 As we now well know, the trend toward nontraditional missions 

ultimately undermined civilian control of the military. In his classic book, The 

Soldier and the State, Samuel Huntington argued for “objective” civilian 

control.32 That condition, I contend, is best realized when the armed forces 

concentrate on professionalizing themselves through truly military endeavors. 

Apologists for nontraditional diversions gushed, rather naively in my view, 

about the “training” such missions were supposed to provide, as if chauffeuring 

Olympic athletes for a couple of months equated to a visit to the National 

Training Center or Nellis Air Force Base.33 Even more significantly, 

involvement in these activities perversely created a generation of military 

personnel much more attuned to and interested in almost anything other than the 

dirty but necessary business of war.34 We paid a terrible price for this in 

twenty-first century conflicts. 

 The etymology of this strange disinclination toward warfighting is 

traceable to the military’s peculiar form of post-Vietnam syndrome. Determined 

to avoid another quagmire, the defense establishment embraced a set of 

prerequisites to the use of armed force. Known as “Weinberger’s rules,”35

military leaders interpreted these mushy standards to, as one commentator put it, 

“subvert civilian controls” by effectively exercising a “veto” over virtually any 

operation they wanted to avoid.36 Despite studies to the contrary,37 the U.S. 
18

military became a prisoner of the notion that public support for the use of armed 

force inevitably erodes (a la Vietnam and later Somalia), even when the number 

of casualties is relatively small.38

 Nevertheless, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General 

Colin Powell created a major controversy regarding the politicization of the 

military when he used Weinberger’s rules successfully to oppose early 

intervention in the Balkans. Though roundly criticized by many as exceeding 

the proper role of a serving officer,39 Powell set a precedent for unabashed 

assertiveness in the political process. Of course, military officers, aware of the 

horror and destructiveness of war, should approach combat operations warily. 

Still, a fundamental tenet of the military profession demands, as General 

Shalikashvili said back in 1996, “extraordinary dedication and sacrifice under 

the most adverse conditions.”40

 But the chairman was appealing to an ethos that was under attack on 

many flanks. Especially insidious was the assault of a new ideology known as 

total quality management or TQM.41 No one back then truly objected to 

teaching better management skills. But TQM and, more accurately, the 

corruption of its beneficial aspects became much more than that. With cultish 

frenzy, its devotees attempted to reduce to metrics the ultimately unquantifiable 

nature of combat readiness and warfighting. Somehow the performance of 

military functions was equated with the production of “products.” 

 TQM’s effect on the military’s self-concept was just as pernicious. 

Traditional superior-subordinate and comrade-in-arms relationships were 

replaced by faddish customer-supplier associations. This eventually 

undermined discipline as military personnel began to believe they were 

“empowered” to ignore orders that didn’t suit them.42 Furthermore, TQM’s 

obsession with unit self-assessments and such encouraged commanders to focus 

too much on subordinate-customer “satisfaction” and so-called “quality-of-life” 

issues. Interestingly, one expert charged that an overemphasis on quality-of-life 
19

issues led to the failure to take appropriate but unpopular security measures 

prior to the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing.43 Plenty of officers in the 1990s 

recognized the lunacy of TQM, but few were willing to confront its powerful 

zealots. 

 TQM was yet another reflection of the nefarious commercialization of 

the profession of arms. What is really an altruistic calling was rapidly turning 

into simply a job where self-seeking opportunism was paramount. As William 

Pfaff wrote in January 1996, 

You do not join the American army or navy today to be a warrior. You 

do it to learn a trade, or earn money for college, or to have a well paid 

retirement after 20 or 30 years. War--even a deployment like Bosnia--

interferes with that. The troops resent it.44

 When the new military “executives” analyzed proposals for risky 

deployments, they quickly voiced their disapproval. Clearly, combat would be 

too costly in terms of “customers” and “products.” It just made no sense; any 

MBA could see that. 

 Edward Luttwak argued back in 1996 that given the military’s 

reluctance to risk casualties, the nation needed to redirect defense spending 

toward unmanned weapons systems.45 Similar arguments directly led to 

cancellation of the Air Force’s F-22 fighter in 1998. Once the “man-in-theloop” premise was broken, the rationale for a separate air service collapsed. 

This became a main reason why the Air Force was the first of the military 

services to be disestablished and combined into the Unified Armed Forces in 

2007. 

 Even in the twenty-first century, however, there were still times when 

it was necessary to send people into harm’s way.46 Eventually, the Pentagon’s 

aversion to fighting compelled the ultimate form of outsourcing:47 hazardous, 

unpopular operations were contracted out to the newly formed Violence 

Applications International Corporation (VAIC). For years, VAIC and its stable 
20

of retirees did the military’s dirty work, thereby allowing the armed forces the 

opportunity to deepen their involvement in popular domestic activities and 

trendy overseas enterprises. But when the Second Gulf War broke out in 2010 

and the Iranian Tenth Armored Corps began crushing everything in its path, 

VAIC defaulted on its contract as its employees scattered. Corporate loyalty, it 

seems, has its limits. 

The Rise of Postmodern Militarism

 At the same time the military’s post-Cold War politicization was on the 

rise, the public’s understanding of and resistance to military influence was 

declining radically. Traditionally, the American people were wary of a 

professional military. The Founding Fathers, for instance, were well aware that 

it could be a source of tyranny.48 Eschewing standing armies, they framed a 

constitution that contemplated a national defense that principally relied on 

militias of citizen-soldiers.49

 Benevolent antimilitarism became a time-honored American virtue.50 

When conflicts called millions into uniform and peacetime conscription gave 

millions more first-hand experience with service life, the American people had 

few illusions about the military. With the end of the draft, however, memories 

of the less attractive aspects of military service faded into nostalgia. 

 The youthful civilian elites who assumed power in the 1990s were 

wholly innocent of any genuine understanding of the powerful imperatives 

intrinsic to the armed forces. Moreover, these elites were not antimilitary, 

despite what many in uniform believed at the time.51 Of course, few of them 

considered military people their social or intellectual equals; rather, they viewed 

the armed forces with the kind of pretentious cordiality usually reserved for 

faithful servants. What they did appreciate was that the military was 

extraordinarily competent, and they reveled in the notion that it could do their 

bidding. 
21

 In actuality, both the elites and the public were in the embrace of 

“postmodern militarism.”52 One writer back in 1994 described this phenomenon 

as follows: 

 Postmodern militarism is not marked by overt military 

dominance or even a societal embrace of martial values. Rather, it is 

characterized by a growing willingness of an increasingly militarilynaive society to charge those in uniform with responsibilities that a 

democracy ought to leave to civilians. It is a product of America’s 

deep frustration and disgust with elected government’s inability to 

work effectively, or to even labor honestly. The reason the military’s 

approval rating far exceeds that of every other institution in American 

society--including, significantly, the ones expected to exercise civilian 

control--is quite simple: it gets good things done. 

 Embattled politicians are ever more frequently turning to the 

military for quick-fixes: Can’t stop drugs? Call in the Navy. FEMA 

overwhelmed? Deploy the Airborne. Crime out of control? Put 

Guardsmen on the streets. Troubled youths? Marine role models and 

military boot camps. Need health care? Military medics to the rescue. 

Diplomats stumble again? Another Air Force mercy mission on the 

way. The unapologetically authoritarian military can “make the trains 

run on time,” but at what price?53 

 That question was never answered; the national discussion we needed 

in the 1990s never took place. This was especially unfortunate because the 

civilian institutions that were supposed to control the military were weakening. 

Congress’ partisanship made it vulnerable to manipulation by politically astute 

military operatives who became expert at playing congressional factions against 

each other. The executive branch didn’t fare much better. At the beginning of 

the Clinton administration, for example, there were numerous reports of open 

contempt by military personnel for their commander in chief.54 Although many 

observers believed the initial hostility later dissipated, President Clinton’s 

continued vulnerability was illustrated by the uproar that followed an attempt by 

his lawyers to characterize him as a member of the armed forces to delay a 

lawsuit.55 Moreover, analysts were still asserting in 1996 that Clinton had not 

yet been able to “command” the Pentagon.56
22

 Instead, the military had become, as one commentator put it, “the most 

powerful individual actor in Washington politics.”57 Part of the reason lay with 

the fact that the executive and legislative branches both labored under the 

shadow of Vietnam. Writing in May 1996, A.J. Bacevich of Johns Hopkins 

University observed the following: 

Thirty years later, now elected to positions of prominence, those who 

evaded service now truckle and fawn to demonstrate the depth of their 

regard for men in uniform. . . . The military itself is only too happy to play along. The moral 

leverage embedded in “the troops” . . . provides the Pentagon with 

enormous political clout. Senior military leaders do not hesitate to 

exploit that clout for their own purposes.58

 Among military leaders, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is 

most senior. By the mid-1990s it was clear, as Defense News contended, that 

the chairman’s “rising clout threaten[ed] civilian leaders.”59 With his power 

dramatically increased by the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act,60 

politicization became a charge levied at every chairman. Admiral Crowe was a 

self-described “political animal,” and General Powell was similarly 

characterized.61 General Shalikashvili also was accused of partisanship when he 

challenged the views of then-Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan 

and later voiced opposition to the Defend America Act, a cornerstone of 

Republican Robert Dole’s presidential campaign.62

 The highly politicized office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff wasn’t converted into the all-powerful Military Plenipotentiary until 2005, 

but we were already slipping toward that in the 1990s. Although prohibited by 

law from acting as a commander, the chairman was engaged in the commandlike function of directing adherence to joint doctrine.63 Likewise, the Joint Staff 

was behaving as if it were the military’s senior headquarters, even though U.S. 

law denied it executive power and prohibited it from functioning as a general 
23

staff. 64 This consolidation of enormous authority would prove catastrophic in 

2012. 

 All of this constituted the first inkling of a tendency within the armed 

forces to consider themselves above the law.65 Indeed, it allegedly was 

frustration with the “restrictions of American democracy” that led some officers 

to break the law during the Iran-Contra Affair.66 Later, there were troubling 

reports of Marines ignoring laws that interfered with what they viewed as their 

“domestic peacekeeping mission” during the Los Angeles riots of 1992.67 A 

similar lack of discipline was revealed by the investigation of the April 1996 

crash of a CT-43. Senior Air Force commanders were found to be ignoring 

orders.68

 Officers had little to fear from the military justice system, however; by 

1996 it was broken.69 To be sure, part of the fault lay with vainglorious lawyers 

who continually tinkered with it until it became one of the most bureaucratic 

and defendant-oriented criminal justice systems in the world. What we were left 

with was a system incapable of handling the kinds of complex, high-profile 

cases that can affect civil-military relations. Consider, for example, that despite 

literally hundreds of witnesses, the Tailhook scandal resulted in not a single 

conviction. Likewise, military courts held no one accountable for the April 

1994 “friendly-fire” shootdown of two U.S. Army helicopters in Northern Iraq, 

the cost of which was 26 lives. 

 Worst of all was the handling of the 1993 case of an Air Force major 

general who publicly denounced President Clinton as a “gay loving, pot 

smoking, draft dodging womanizer.”70 This egregious violation of Article 88 of 

the Uniform Code of Military Justice’s proscription against the use of 

contemptuous language toward the commander in chief merely resulted in 

nonjudicial punishment,71 an administrative action reserved by law for “minor 

offenses.”72 Once that precedent was set, it is little wonder that a malignancy I 

call “neopraetorianism” arose.

73
24

The Emergence of Neopraetorianism

 One of the greatest paradoxes of civil-military relations in the 1990s 

was that a disdain for American society grew within the ranks despite the 

military’s popularity and political “clout.” That alienation created a real gap 

between the armed forces and the society they served. Of course, the military 

had always been a “separate society” with unique customs and organization.74 

Its warfighting mission required that. The gap that emerged in the 1990s, 

however, was one where the military began to regard itself as a higher caste 

fundamentally at odds with civil society.75

 As early as 1991, journalist David Wood reported that military 

personnel were tending to “view the chaotic civilian world with suspicion and 

sometimes hostility.”76 A 1996 Los Angeles Times article noted a similar trend 

and quoted one servicemember’s description of civilians as “thieves, 

bureaucrats, no self-reliance, no integrity . . . substandard.”77 A May 1996 

Harvard study, as well as one by a Naval War College student that same month, 

warned that civil-military relations were threatened by the military’s 

increasingly jaundiced view of civilians and its narcissistic assessment of 

itself.78

 What emerged from this growing antipathy was neopraetorianism 

within the military. Neopraetorianism arises when the armed forces perceive 

themselves not only as the protectors of what is right in civil society but also as 

the self-appointed and, importantly, unelected makers and implementers of the 

same. It is abetted by officers infatuated with the idea that they are national 

ombudsmen with unlimited portfolios, rather than military leaders with finite 

responsibilities. Paralleling the public’s corporate ignorance of military affairs, 

neopraetorianism is marked by the military’s flawed notion of its own cultural 

superiority and its seeming inability to grasp the merits of civil society. 
25

 Like so many problems we faced in the twenty-first century, one 

manifestation of neopraetorianism evolved from a well-meaning idea from a 

bona fide patriot. In 1996, the commandant of the Marine Corps, appalled by 

what he perceived as a disintegration of values, “made morality a major theme 

in his first year in the top post.”79 In doing so, he embraced a then-popular 

thesis of the political right that sought the “restoration” of an idealistically 

“moral” America80--an America that, in the opinion of one expert, “never 

existed and never will.”81

 Commenting on Marine recruits, the commandant insisted that “there 

has got to be a transformation of [a] young man or woman from what they are 

in society.”82 Of course, this was a cruel insult to the parents who raised these 

men and women, especially at a time when the other services were bragging 

about enlisting the highest quality recruits ever.83 Nevertheless, it is imperative 

that the armed forces inculcate new troops with military skills as well as an 

acceptance of the authoritarianism, bellicosity, and anti-individualism necessary 

for survival in combat. But the commandant’s agenda wasn’t that limited. He 

sought to instill recruits with the values he decided were “important for the

Nation.”84 His goal was not just a better Marine; rather, the general declared 

that he wanted his “legacy for the Corps to be literally a transformed 

American.”85 He added that he was “going to go to unbelievable lengths to do 

that.”86

 Where did we go wrong? Unfortunately, subsequent generals 

corrupted the commandant’s concept for their own purposes. We learned that 

whatever the propriety of a professional military setting values for its members, 

it is not charged to do so for society at large. We found that when active-duty 

generals arrogate the prerogative to tell the country which values they should 

embrace and use their vast resources to impose them upon the nation, then 

something is deeply askew in the country’s civil-military relations. 
26

 In fact, we learned at last year’s coup trials that most of the plotters 

wanted to remake the nation in the armed forces’ image. History can teach us 

something here. In his 1994 book, Modern Tyrants, Daniel Chirot argued that 

“Hitler’s appeal to a disoriented German population, beset not only by financial 

and political chaos, but also by open manifestations of new cultural tastes and 

sexual mores, was that he would bring back traditional order, a simple 

comprehensible culture, and a clear public morality.”87 Chirot also noted that 

“military men in particular are prone to [the] delusion” that their nation’s 

problems can be solved by the imposition of martial values.88 The lesson is that 

generals should not be commanders in the nation’s culture wars. The military 

should not attempt to remake society in its own image. 

 The military’s self-concept also fostered neopraetorianism. 

Inexplicably, those in uniform seemed oblivious to their own world. Sure, the 

military enjoyed low crime rates, but why shouldn’t it? Unlike civil society, it 

had the luxury of both selecting its members and casting out even minor 

offenders. Moreover, it could relentlessly scrutinize its members’ personal lives 

and subject them to urinalysis testing, DNA examinations, and sometimes the 

pseudoscience of polygraphs. 

 Life on America’s secluded military bases was idyllic, thanks, 

ironically, to the society we criticized so much. Many installations resembled 

the ultimate Marxist paradise: neat, rent-free homes; free utilities; subsidized 

shopping and day care; extensive, cost-free recreational facilities; and even 

government-furnished preachers. The health care system, for all its faults, still 

outstripped that which was available to most civilians at a similar price. 

Important aspects of the compensation system were a welfare queen’s dream. 

Need a bigger house? Just have another child. Want more money? Find a 

mate. All of this was supported by a huge panoply of government-funded social 

services that helped control problems like alcohol and child abuse.89
27

 The military looked at civil society and saw only chaos, crime, and 

moral decay. True, these are the unfortunate by-products of personal freedom 

and aggressive individualism. But it was freedom and individualism that 

produced the economic boom that fueled the nation’s resurgent military 

machine.90 The genius of American capitalism is its recognition that the pursuit 

of individual self-interest in an atmosphere of free competition ultimately can 

lead to the common good. A fiercely entrepreneurial spirit may be disastrous on 

the battlefield where a premium is placed on unity of purpose, but it is an 

enormously important source of innovation and progress amid the Darwinian 

complexities of most other human undertakings. 

 Before we looked too askance at civil society, we should have 

understood the basically undemocratic and authoritarian nature of military life.91 

Officers find comfort in a hierarchical organization where military rank 

unambiguously defines their privileged place and the chain of command gives 

clear definition, authority, and finality to decision making. They are perplexed 

by the egalitarianism of civil society and uncomfortable with the uncertainty and 

deliberate chaos of the democratic process. Intellectual pluralism is seen as 

divisive and debilitating instead of creative and stimulating. Political 

consensus-building often is viewed as either chicanery or nefarious compromise 

rather than a productively inclusive technique. “Democracy is not,” as General 

Powell accurately observed, “an easy form of government for military 

professionals.”92 

 The neopraetorians never understood that their society was a Potemkin 

village that depended upon the largess of civil society--the society upon which 

they heaped contempt and presumed to lecture about values. The despotic, 

albeit kindly, socialism of the armed forces may suit the peculiar needs of a 

professional military, but it is hardly a model for a free society. Instead of 

following the path of neopraetorianism, we should have built a new framework 

for civil-military relations, one I call the “New American Model.” 
28

The New American Model of Civil-Military Relations

 The New American Model appreciates that effective civilian control of 

the military, as Dr. Richard Kohn concluded,93 emphasizes process, and that 

process can and should evolve over time. That said, the model nevertheless 

recognizes the utility of clearly delineated rules. Accordingly, it attempts to 

complement its theoretical architecture with practical, specific guidance 

whenever possible. 

 The New American Model honors Huntington’s concept of objective 

military control,94 and insists that the military’s energy and resources be focused 

on external warfighting functions. The model also finds persuasive Dr. Michael 

Desch’s research which suggests that civil-military relations prosper under these 

circumstances.95 Those nontraditional missions that really need to be 

accomplished should be performed by civilian government agencies or 

commercial enterprises. 

 The centerpiece of the New American Model is the principle that 

effective civilian control of a large, professional military in a democracy 

requires pervasive transparency, especially during peacetime. The necessary 

oversight can occur only when what the military is thinking and doing is made 

plain to the society it serves.96 The model has faith in the people’s wisdom and, 

therefore, completely rejects the idea that “military and national security issues 

are just too complex [for the general public], and can be understood only by a 

select few.”97

 Unfortunately, opaqueness, not transparency, was the paradigm in the 

1990s. As yet another legacy of the Vietnam War, the politicized U.S. military 

of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries became ever more deeply 

engaged in “perception management.” Convinced that hostile reporters harmed 

the war effort in Southeast Asia,98 buoyed by favorable public reaction to its 

domination of the press during the First Gulf War,99 and capitalizing on the 
29

media’s own negative public image,100 the armed forces came to regard the 

media and information more generally as something to be manipulated for the 

military’s own purposes. 

 The military devoted enormous energy to learning how to manipulate 

the media. As a measure of how far the armed forces were willing to go, 

consider the following 1993 statement by a military instructor: “Learning to deal 

with reporters is just as important as learning to kill the enemy.”101 “Spin 

control” was critical as well. An Army instructor, for instance, insisted that 

soldiers tell not just any story, but a “positive Army story.”102 The New 

American Model rejects “spin doctoring,” however. It contends that “in a 

democracy the military should be controlled by public opinion, not the other 

way around.”103

 The Army, in particular, aggressively sought to maintain spin control. 

It imposed, for example, the so-called “Ricks rule” in 1996 to counter frank, but 

politically incorrect, comments by its troops in Bosnia.104 Ultimately, 

discouraging candor proved to be counterproductive. A participant in a 1996 

Army survey glumly reported that “telling the truth ends careers quicker than 

making stupid mistakes or getting caught doing something wrong.”105 

Ironically, the Army’s success at suppressing the media during the First Gulf 

War planted the seed of its own demise.106 With the public uneducated about 

the Army’s capabilities, the Army was reduced to only four active divisions and 

followed the Air Force into disestablishment in early 2007. 

 In any event, the transparency the model calls for cannot exist when 

security classifications are overused.107 Secrecy, as the New York Times noted 

on the twenty-fifth anniversary of its publication of the Pentagon Papers, can be 

used to hide “bloat, error and corruption in the military.”108 In the mid-1990s, 

the overclassification problem arose with respect to the military’s burgeoning 

involvement in information warfare, particularly offensive information warfare. 

Military leaders coyly declined to discuss the topic, citing high security 
30

classifications. Indeed, the subject was so grotesquely overclassified that even 

within the armed forces and the civilian defense establishment few knew any of 

the particulars. 

 In the beginning, we all knew the reason for much of this 

overclassification: “rice bowls.”109 Information warfare was one of the few 

areas where military budgets were increasing,110 and by controlling access to 

these programs, organizations could control the associated funding. 

Furthermore, by restricting traditional “operators” from this information, 

members of lower-status intelligence and communications career fields could 

engage in Walter Mitty-like delusions and call themselves “warriors,” albeit 

information warriors. 

 No one disputed the need to classify some technical aspects of 

information warfare. However, given its openly stated aim--to “convince, 

confuse, or deceive enemy decision makers”

111--it should have been clear that 

the armed forces were acquiring a capability with tremendous potential to 

influence the domestic political process. When our military schools began 

discussing the use of advanced information technology to “morph” false images 

of enemy political leaders to mislead their publics,112 for instance, we should 

have realized the dangerous potential of this and similar technologies. The New 

American Model asserts that the public needs to know and approve the “who” 

and “what” of information warfare, leaving only the “how” secret. 

 The New American Model also maintains that a vibrant, 

knowledgeable, and inquisitive press is a vital safeguard of civilian control. 

Indeed, with the power of formal government structures diminished, the media 

became the most effective means of civilian control by the late 1990s. Thus, it 

was not helpful when national leaders placed part of the blame for Admiral 

Jeremy Boorda’s suicide on “the relentless glare of the media.”113 In truth, 

military leaders must be subject to this “relentless glare,” since it is virtually the 

only restraint they really fear.114
31

 Addressing the perils of opaqueness does not complete the New 

American Model’s architecture for the military’s involvement in the political 

discourse. The template for that construct can be found in Yehuda Meir’s CivilMilitary Relations in Israel.

115 In this 1995 book, Meir conceived of five 

possible roles for military officers in political affairs. 

(1) Advisory: making their professional expertise available to civilians. 

(2) Representative: advocating the military’s interests in 

intergovernmental councils. 

(3) Executive: implementing government decisions. 

(4) Advocacy: publicly explaining and defending government policies. 

(5) Substantive: attempting to overturn the government’s military or 

national security policy by engaging in overt political activity.116

 Meir believed the first three roles are commensurate with the principles 

of civilian control, while the fifth presents a direct challenge to it. He 

considered the advocacy role a “gray area,” however, since it may lead to 

attempts to convince the public of the wisdom of military policies that conflict 

with those of the government. The trick, he wrote, is to not undermine the 

military’s representative role but constrain it enough so that it does not lead to 

exaggerated advocacy.117

 The New American Model agrees with much of Meir’s proposal. It 

further agrees that the military has no role to play in the electoral process 

beyond voting.118 Indeed, I would recommend that flag officers be prohibited 

from holding any public office for at least five years after retirement. This 

would reduce the temptation to engage in partisan activities to curry political 

favor. The model also recognizes, however, that even “advisory” discussions of 

national security matters can be viewed as partisan. 

 Indeed, it is probably impossible for military personnel who speak out 

on any issue to avoid charges of partisanship. Nevertheless, the New American 

Model values transparency enough to tolerate such allegations and urges 

apolitical candor as the best mitigation. The model believes the military has 
32

information, expertise, and unique insights that should be made available to the 

public. “Generals must be free,” Tom Donnelly asserts, “to explain what 

military means may reasonably accomplish.”119 That requires candor. Of 

course, as another writer put it, “candor must be used in unison with common 

sense, sound judgment, self-discipline, loyalty and other traits.”120

 Candor is always appropriate in the private councils of government. 

The model explicitly rejects the kind of “political correctness,” for example, that 

reportedly led Admiral Boorda to abandon the nomination of Admiral Stanley 

Arthur as commander in chief of U.S. Pacific Command simply because Arthur 

agreed that a female pilot was no longer qualified to fly.121 Political correctness 

can greatly undermine civil-military relations because it replaces sound, 

apolitical judgment with opportunistic and often self-serving pandering to 

popular fashion. 

 Candor also requires a keen sense of accountability on the part of 

military officers. Too often, as A.J. Bacevich noted, military officers use their 

political popularity to “pass off to others the responsibility for failure.”122 This 

occurred, according to Bacevich, when former Secretary of Defense Les Aspin--

unpopular among senior military leaders--was fired following the 1993 Ranger 

raid in Somalia where 18 U.S. soldiers were killed.123 The military allowed the 

public to think that Aspin’s refusal to deploy additional armor caused the 

disaster, when actually it was much more of a doctrine and planning failure by 

an arrogantly overconfident special operations community.124

 We nearly saw a repeat of this scenario following the Khobar Towers 

bombing. Demands arose for the resignation of Secretary of Defense William 

Perry when an Air Force general implied that failing to obtain Saudi approval to 

move the perimeter fence caused the tragedy.125 Like the Ranger raid, however, 

the tragedy was much more attributable to a failure of military judgment 

concerning the nature of the threat than any ineptitude by civilian leaders.126
33

 To ensure accountability, the New American Model calls for a 

reinvigorated military justice system. Administrative actions,127 with their 

propensity towards politicization and stench of back-room deals, are no 

substitute for a public judicial process. In the context of civil-military relations, 

the system needs to be reformed to reserve its most severe punishments not for 

those who try their best and fail,128 but for those who seek to avoid 

responsibility for their actions. 

 The model recognizes that the most difficult issue is determining when 

candor should be publicly expressed. There are several key factors in this 

regard. 

(1) Candor can never be used to defy or subvert direct orders. 

Obedience to lawful orders must be instantaneous. Parenthetically, 

unlawful orders must be ruthlessly exposed. 

(2) Candor can never be an excuse for disrespectful behavior. 

(3) Candor must never be used to replace the strength of an idea with 

the power of an officer’s rank or position. 

(4) There is a fundamental and critical difference between candidly 

expressing one’s views and using government resources to try to 

implement them. The order to implement a decision must be properly 

authorized in accordance with approved policy. Thus, public candor is 

often best expressed prior to a decision being made. 

 All this having been said, the model starts with a strong presumption

that civil-military relations are best served by transparency, and that frequently 

means public candor. Against this backdrop, the model urges consideration of 

two inverse relationships for weighing the appropriateness of public candor in a 

given situation. 

 The first is largely common sense. It generally holds that there is an 

inverse relationship between the presumption that public discourse is 

appropriate on the one hand and the rank and position of the speaker on the 

other. Thus, fewer restrictions should be placed on the First Amendment 

activities of junior personnel. Conversely, a four-star commander is obliged to 

be more circumspect. This goes back to the fundamental tenet of the New 
34

American Model: military officers must not employ the power of their rank or 

position to lend undeserved strength to their views. 

 The second holds that there usually is an inverse relationship between 

the presumption that public candor is appropriate and the proximity to and effect 

on ongoing operations, especially those involving combat. This would mean, 

for instance, that public criticism of a battle plan immediately before its 

execution would be inappropriate. 

 Of course, the two relationships can overlap. A senior field 

commander must not debate the orders of his commander in chief during 

combat, for example. This is where General MacArthur ran afoul of President 

Truman.129

 As a further illustration, consider the case of an Army colonel who was 

disciplined during the early stages of the 1995 Bosnia deployment, a noncombat 

situation, for allowing a reporter to quote him concerning his views that 

Croatians are racist and the deployment’s political objectives could not be 

achieved within the one-year time frame set by the Clinton administration.130 

Applying the New American Model to that incident, the colonel’s public remark 

about the Croatians was inappropriate given the time and place it was made. 

His views on the one-year time frame, however, were appropriate. This is the 

kind of candid judgment the American public needs from its military leaders. 

 Accordingly, the New American Model does not maintain that the 

military should be public cheerleaders for the politics of the president or his 

party. This is wholly distinct from the question of following lawful orders. 

With respect to such orders, obedience must, as already noted, be instantaneous 

and complete. That clearly understood, it also must be appreciated that the 

Constitution contemplates that civilian control be a shared responsibility of the 

executive and legislative branches.131 The loyalty the armed forces owe their 

commander in chief does not extend to using the military’s prestige, not to 

mention its physical power, to support any political party. 
35

 There are other important aspects of the New American Model. It 

recognizes that the public’s increasing naiveté about military affairs needs to be 

addressed. It does not, however, argue for a return to the draft. Militarily, it 

would not make sense. Professor Keegan noted, for instance, that the 

performance of Iraq’s conscripts during the First Gulf War demonstrated that 

draftees merely “clutter up” the modern battlefield.132 Thus, any increase in the 

public’s awareness of military affairs would be outweighed by the costs 

involved. 

 What might be helpful, however, is a comprehensive high school or 

college-level program on the armed forces in general and civil-military relations 

more specifically.133 We also need to teach civil-military relations as part of our 

professional military education. This education could be supplemented by the 

publication of books and articles by military officers for the general public.134

 The model also does not see increased reliance on the Guard and 

Reserve as the solution to the problems of civil-military relations. While the 

Guard and Reserve sometimes can support greater civilian control (turning most 

aspects of information warfare over to part-time soldiers, for example), the fact 

remains that modern warfighting, especially ground maneuver warfare, is too 

difficult for other than full-time soldiers to master.135 Consequently, military 

needs will dictate that most combat power remain in the active-duty force. 

Moreover, further integration of the Guard’s--and, to a lesser extent, the 

Reserve’s--unabashed politicization into the regular military would not serve the 

cause of civil-military relations.136

 The model does, however, support limiting those so-called “quality of 

life” initiatives that encourage military personnel to remain ensconced on their 

bases. Translating those benefits into pay increases will encourage greater 

utilization of civilian facilities, with the concomitant benefit of reducing the 

military’s growing alienation from the society it is supposed to serve. 
36

Conclusion

 As I hope you’ve come to understand, the role of the military in 

American society was at a crossroads in 1996. If we could go back in time, we 

could spend our school year discussing how we might address these issues. 

Despite what happened in 2012, the profession of arms is still a most noble 

calling. But for us, we lost our honor. If only we had another chance. If only 

we could go back in time. If only. . . . 
37

NOTES 

 1

 On the former, see Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., How We Lost the HighTech War of 2007, The Weekly Standard, January 29, 1996, at 22. 

2

 Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., The Origins of the American Military Coup of 

2012, Parameters, Winter 1992-93, at 2. 

3

 According to Rear Admiral Eccles, “Civil-military relations can be 

seen as the interaction of a group of related systems and subsystems--social, 

economic, political, military, and information. . . . The relations between these 

systems are dynamic: each system strives to maintain its equilibrium and to 

control its destiny as it adapts to the actions and changes of the associated 

system.” See Rear Admiral Henry E. Eccles, Military Power in a Free Society

(1979), at 125. 

4

 See, e.g., Douglas Johnson and Steven Metz, Civil-Military Relations 

in the United States: The State of the Debate, Washington Quarterly, Winter 

1995, at 197; Mackubin Thomas Owens, Civilian Control: A National Crisis?

Joint Force Quarterly, Autumn/Winter 1994-95, at 80; and Capt Edward B. 

Westermann, USAF, Contemporary Civil-Military Relations: Is the Republic in 

Danger? Airpower Journal, Summer 1995, at 74. See also Staff of Senate 

Committee on Armed Forces, 99th Congress, 1st Session, Defense Organization: 

The Need for Change (Committee Print 1985), at 45 (warning against 

complacency “about the apparent balance in civil-military relations”). 

5

 There is no universally accepted definition of civilian control of the 

military, but it is generally thought to include the notion that the ends of 

government policy are set by civilians with the means (if even that) determined 

by the military. The purpose of civilian control is to ensure that military 

interests are subordinated to those determined by civilian authority. See Charles 

J. Dunlap, Jr., Welcome to the Junta: The Erosion of Civilian Control of the U.S. 

Military, 29 Wake Forest Law Review 341, 343-344 (1994). 

6 See generally, James F. Dunnigan and Raymond M. Macedonia, 

Getting It Right (1993), at 24-26. 

7 See Herbert Emmerich, in Civil-Military Relations in American Life, 

at viii-ix (1948) (Introduction). 
38

 8

 A.J. Bacevich, Civilian Control: A Useful Fiction? Joint Force 

Quarterly, Autumn/Winter 1994/95, at 76, 78. Cf. John M. Swomley, Jr., The 

Military Establishment (1964). 

9 See Michael C. Desch, Soldiers, States, and Structure: Civilian 

Control of the Military in a Changing Security Environment (forthcoming, 

1997), at 67, 69 (arguing that civilian control is enhanced where the military 

faces a challenging international security environment). 

10 Cf. Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, To Keep the Peace, Readers 

Digest, January 1996, at 92-93 (“The lack of a superpower enemy, after the fall 

of Soviet communism, has reduced justification of military spending in the 

public mind”). 

11 On the former, see Dunnigan and Macedonia, supra note 6. See also 

Al Santoli, Leading the Way (1993). 

12 Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect (1995). 

13 See Bruce Palmer, The 25 Year War: America’s Military Role in 

Vietnam (1984), at 45-46, 201-202. 

14 Owens, supra note 4, at 83. 

15 Much of this is the result of Colonel Harry Summers’ brilliant 

Clausewitzian analysis of the Vietnam conflict. See Harry G. Summers, On 

Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War (1982). 

16 John Keegan, A History of Warfare (1993). 

17 “It is clear, consequently, that war is not a mere act of policy but a 

true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means.” 

Carl Von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton University ed., 1976), at 87. 

18 Properly applied, Clausewitzian theory “underlines the need and 

justification for civilian control of the armed forces.” See Yehuda Ben Meir, 

Civil-Military Relations in Israel (1995), at 187. 

19 “War is too serious to be entrusted to generals,” Georges 

Clemenceau as quoted in The New York Times, July 19, 1944 as cited in The 

Macmillan Dictionary of Political Quotations (Lewis D. Eigen and Jonathan P. 

Siegel, eds., 1993), at 689. 
39

 

20 See Rick Maze, Do Military Officers and Politics Mix? Navy Times, 

July 8, 1996, at 10. According to Maze, “hundreds of military officers [are] 

participating in a loose-knit fellowship program.” Id. 

21 House Speaker Newt Gingrich had four military officers serving in a 

congressional fellowship program produce a military-style report to “show why 

the Republicans nearly lost a June vote on their balanced budget plan.” 

Representative Patricia Schroeder complained that “[t]he use of military officers 

for partisan political activity is, in my view, totally improper.” Id. See also 

Were Military Aides Used Politically? New York Times, June 23, 1996, at 17. 

22 Miffed Specter Holds Promotions Hostage, Washington Times, May 

12, 1996, at 5. 

23 See generally, David Martin, Landing the Eagle, Vanity Fair, 

November 1993, at 150. 

24 See Summers, On Strategy, supra note 15, at 170. 

25 Thomas E. Ricks, On American Soil: The Widening Gap between the 

U.S. Military and U.S. Society, Working Paper No. 3, Project on U.S. Post-Cold 

War Civil-Military Relations, John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, 

Harvard University, May 1996, at 11-13. Cf. Daniel Voll, A Few Good Nazis, 

Esquire, April 1996, at 102 (discussing extremism in the ranks). 

26 Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr. and David Chanoff, The Line of Fire

(1993), at 23. 

27 Military Operations Other Than War. See Joint Publication 3-07, 

Joint Doctrine for Military Operations Other Than War, 16 June 1995. 

28 As quoted by John T. Correll, The Murky Edges of Mootwah, Air 

Force Magazine, July 1996, at 2 (emphasis added). 

29 See, e.g., Carla Anne Robbins and John Fiakla, Despite Tough 

Words, Antiterrorism Effort in U.S. Is Still Flawed, Wall Street Journal, July 22, 

1996, at 1. 

30 Compare Paul H. Appleby, Civilian Control of a Department of 

National Defense, in Civil-Military Relations in American Life, supra note 7, at 

63. “When the country comes to any severe internal crisis, it is not uncommon 
40

 

for some conscientious citizens to give thought--even to make plans--about a 

military takeover of the country to preserve order, to avert revolution, and to 

serve other like purposes.” Id. 

31 See, e.g., Joyce Price, Black Copters over Pittsburgh? It’s Just an 

Exercise, Washington Times, June 6, 1996, at 1 (describing U.S. Army Special 

Forces “urban warfare training” conducted in a number of U.S. cities, including 

Pittsburgh, Detroit, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Miami). 

32 Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (1957), at 80-97. 

See also note 94 supra. 

33 Senator Sam Nunn argued that using military personnel to chauffeur 

athletes would deter terrorists. See Rick Maze, Senator Criticizes the Use of 

Troops, Air Force Times, June 24, 1996, at 17. Cf. Robert F. Dorr, Troops 

Have No Business Working at the Olympics, Air Force Times, June 24, 1996, at 

54. 

34 Cf. Samuel P. Huntington, New Contingencies, Old Roles, Joint 

Force Quarterly, Autumn 1993, at 38. “A military force is fundamentally 

antihumanitarian: its purpose is to kill people in the most efficient way 

possible.” Id., at 43. 

35 Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger announced the following 

rules at a luncheon in 1984. See, Colin Powell and Joseph E. Persico, My 

American Journey (1995), at 303. 

(1) Commit only if our or our allies’ vital interests are at 

stake. 

(2) If we commit, do so with all the resources necessary to 

win. 

(3) Go in only with clear political and military objectives. 

(4) Be ready to change the commitment if the objectives 

change, since wars rarely stand still. 

(5) Only take on commitments that can gain the support of 

the American people and Congress. 

(6) Commit U.S. forces only as a last resort. 

Id. Cf. Richard K. Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crisis (1991 ed.), 

at 221-236 and Martin Sieff, Policy on U.S. Force Is Clarified, Washington

Times, March 7, 1996, at 1,3. 
41

 36 See Charles Lane, A Soldiers Story: National Insecurity, New 

Republic, October 16, 1995, at 20. 

37 Eric V. Lawson, Casualties and Consensus (1996). See also Charles 

Moskos, When Americans Accept Casualties, November 1995 (unpublished 

paper). 

38 See, e.g., Chris Black, US Options Seen Fewer as Military Avoids 

Risk, Boston Globe, July 23, 1995, at 12. 

39 See, e.g., Edward Luttwak, Washington’s Biggest Scandal, 

Commentary, May 1994, at 29 and Richard H. Kohn, Out of Control: The Crisis 

in Civil-Military Relations, The National Interest, Spring 1994, at 3. 

40 General John M. Shalikashvili, Joint Vision 2010 (1996), at 28. 

41 See e.g., Bruce Brocka and M. Suzanne Brocka, Quality 

Management (1992). 

42 Compare, HQ USAF/CC letter, subject: Key Issue Update, 15 July 

1996, at 4 (“[T]he CT-43 mishap starkly pointed out the critical importance of 

complying with higher headquarters directives. Unfortunately, the change from 

Air Force regulations to instructions combined with quality initiatives may have 

given some people the wrong impression about compliance with AFIs” 

[emphasis added]). 

43 Rick Maze, The Blame Game, Air Force Times, July 22, 1996, at 6 

(quoting Lt Gen Bernard Trainor, USMC [Ret.]: “There is a tendency in the 

military today to put too much emphasis on quality of life and comfort. This is 

putting troops at risk”). See also, Don G.D. Bloom, The Price of Quality, Air 

Force Times, August 12, 1996, at 26 (letter). 

44 William Pfaff, Civilian Militarism, Military Civilians, Baltimore 

Sun, January 4, 1996, at 15. 

45 Edward Luttwak, Post-Heroic Armies, Foreign Affairs, July/August 

1996, at 33. 

46 See Alexander Bevin, Future War (1995), at 41. 
42

 47 See John Mintz, “Outsourcing” Goes Right to the Front, 

Washington Post, December 21, 1995, at B13 (discussing the growth of 

outsourcing in the military). 

48 The Framers were influenced by the excesses of Cromwell’s New 

Model Army as well as first-hand experiences with British regulars used to 

suppress growing dissatisfaction with English rule prior to the Revolution. See 

generally, Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., Revolt of the Masses: Armed Civilians and the 

Insurrectionary Theory of the Second Amendment, 62 Tennessee Law Review

643, 646-653 (1995). 

49 See, e.g., Allan R. Millett, The Constitution and the Citizen-Soldier, 

in The United States Military under the Constitution of the United States

(Richard H. Kohn, ed., 1991), at 97-115 and Dave R. Palmer, 1794: America, 

Its Army, and the Birth of the Nation (1994), at 263-277. 

50 Harry G. Summers, Jr., A Tale of 2 Presidents: Call It Poetic Justice, 

Air Force Times, November 8, 1993, at 62 (“Suspicion of the military is no sin. 

Americans have a long and proud history of antimilitarism, and civilian control 

of the military is one of the foundations of American democracy”). 

51 See Richard G. Miles, Those Who Fight, Those Who Decide, 

Newsweek, November 22, 1993, at 12. 

52 See Dunlap, Welcome to the Junta: The Erosion of Civilian Control 

of the U.S. Military, supra note 5, at 387-390; Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., A Fallow 

Challenge to Civilian Control? Joint Force Quarterly, Spring 1995, at 103-104; 

and Colonel Harry G. Summers, Jr., USA (Ret.), The New World Strategy

(1995), at 198-202. 

53 Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., Postmodern Militarism, The National Interest, 

Fall 1994, at 104-105 (letter). 

54 See, e.g., A.J. Bacevich, Clinton’s Military Problem--And Ours, 

National Review, December 13, 1993, at 36. 

55 See, e.g., Bill Clinton, Military Man? Washington Times, May 23, 

1996, at 16 and Clinton’s Legal Claim and Reaction, Air Force Magazine, July 

1996, at 11. 

56 See, e.g., Mary McGrory, Clinton’s Duty to Command the Pentagon, 

Washington Post, April 21, 1996. 
43

 

57 Pfaff, supra note 44. 

58 A.J. Bacevich, What Are Soldiers For? Chronicles, May 1996, as 

quoted in Wilson Quarterly, Summer 1996, at 118. 

59 See Robert Holzer and Stephen C. LeSuer, JCS Chairman’s Rising 

Clout Threatens Civilian Leaders, Defense News, June 13-19, 1994, at 29. 

60 Pub. L. No. 99-433, 100 Stat. 992 (1986) (codified as amended in 

scattered sections of 10 U.S.C.). 

61 See, e.g., Richard H. Kohn, Out of Control: The Crisis in CivilMilitary Relations, The National Interest, Spring 1994, at 3. 

62 On the former, see Bryan Bender, Shalikashvili Blasts Isolationist 

Rhetoric of Primaries, Defense Daily, March 21, 1996, at 434. On the latter,

see Bill Gertz, Shalikashvili Warns Republicans Not to Undermine Arms 

Reductions, Washington Times, May 23, 1996, at 13. 

 63 See 10 U.S.C. §152(c); Cf. Lt Gen John H. Cushman, USA (Ret.), 

Joint Doctrine: The Chairman’s Authority, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, 

April 1995, at 48. 

64 See 10 U.S.C. §155(e) (“The Joint Staff shall not operate or be 

organized as an overall Armed Forces General Staff and shall have no executive 

authority”). 

65 See also Kenneth W. Kemp and Charles Hudlin, Civil Supremacy 

Over the Military: Its Nature and Limits, Armed Forces and Society, Fall 1992, 

at 7, 16-19 (discussing “politically motivated disobedience” in the case of Air 

Force General John D. Lavelle’s secret bombing of North Vietnam). 

66 Lt Col James Callard, The Changing Nature of American 

Democracy: Consequences for the Military, Naval War College, 21 May 1996 

(unpublished thesis), at 16. 

67 See Ricks, supra note 25, at 21-22. 

68 Are Commanders Ignoring Orders? Air Force Times, June 24, 1996, 

at 1. 
44

 69 See, e.g., Keith Hutcheson, The Discipline Crisis, Armed Forces 

Journal, March 1996, at 40. 

70 See David Hackworth, Rancor in the Ranks: The Troops vs. The 

President, Newsweek, June 28, 1993. 

71 10 U.S.C. §888 (1988). 

72 10 U.S.C. §815 (1988). See also Michael R. Gordon, General 

Ousted for Derisive Remarks about President, New York Times, June 19, 1993, 

at 19. 

73 According to Meir, supra note 18, at 192, the traditional concept of 

praetorianism “refers to the military’s tendency to intervene in the affairs of 

state. The term is borrowed from the Roman guard that made and unmade 

emperors.” It was initially discussed by Amos Perlmutter in The Military and 

Politics of Modern Times (1977). Perlmutter contends: 

The client of the professional soldier is clearly the state 

and, hence, the nation. Praetorian symptoms may occur in 

the professional soldier, but only when leaders of the 

military establishment “discover” that there is a 

“contradiction” between the “state” to which they have 

pledged loyalty, and the “regime” that has taken over. 

Perlmutter, id., at 14, as quoted in Meir, supra note 18, at 13. A cardinal feature 

of neopraetorianism is that the contradiction is not so much in reference to any 

regime, rather it is between the military’s assessment of appropriate societal 

values and organization and that which they perceive as existing in society as a 

whole. 

74 See Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 743 (1974) (the military is a 

“separate specialized society separate from civilian society”). Arthur Hadley 

labeled the separation the “Great Divorce” in Straw Giant (1986), at 22. 

75 See generally, Ricks, supra note 25. 

76 David Wood, Duty, Honor, Isolation: Military More and More a 

Force Unto Itself, Star Ledger (Newark, NJ), April 21, 1991, at 1. 

77 Art Pine, U.S. Military Highly Rated, but Strains Begin to Show, Los 

Angeles Times (Wash. ed.), March 19, 1996, at 1. 
45

 

78 See, e.g., Ricks, supra note 25 and Callard, supra note 66, at 46. 

79 See Marines Plan Values Training, Omaha World Herald, July 6, 

1996, at 6 (citing Associated Press report). 

80 See, e.g., Patricia Edmonds and Ann Oldenberg, Chasing the Values 

Vote, USA Today, at 5A (discussing “[w]hy Americans are more upset about 

values than at any time in modern history”). 

81 See Vince Passaro, Dragon Fiction, Harper’s Magazine, September 

1996, at 64, 68. In reviewing the emerging genre of “Christian Thrillers,” 

Passaro says: 

It doesn’t take you long to figure out, reading . . . 

evangelical Christian writers, that the obsession with 

public order, public morality, codes, rules, consensus, and 

sin are American political ideas, religious in origin but not 

in current application. The Christianity of the evangelical 

right is deeply rooted in a political nostalgia, a drive to 

restore an America seemingly lost. Of course, what this 

America has been lost to is reality; it never existed and 

never will, but since the combined landslide votes cast for 

Richard Nixon and George Wallace in 1968, this neverAmerica has been the central idea driving our political life. 

Id. Compare, David T. Courtwright, Violence in America, American Heritage, 

September 1996, at 36 (relating the similarities of nineteenth-century crime on 

the frontier with current crime in the inner city). 

82 General Krulak Warns of “Lack of Values” in Society, National 

Security Law Report (ABA, Washington, D.C.) April 1996, at 9, 10. 

83 See, e.g., Smarter than Ever, Air Force Times, July 22, 1996, at 12 

(discussing the rising education level of enlisted personnel). Additionally, a 

recent national survey revealed that teenagers’ attitudes toward moral and social 

values are much more conventional than widely believed. See Dianne Hales, 

How Teenagers See Things, Parade Magazine, August 18, 1996, at 4. 

84 Supra note 82, at 10. 

85 Id. 
46

 

86 See Marines Plan Values Training, supra note 79. 

87 Daniel Chirot, Modern Tyrants (1994), at 417. 

88 Id. 

89 The rate of heavy drinkers in the military is more than 50 percent 

above that of civilians, a rate that has remained unchanged for over 15 years 

despite extensive substance abuse programs. See Nolan Walters, Today, A 

Good Soldier is a Sober Soldier, in the Military’s Eyes, Philadelphia Inquirer, 

June 26, 1996, at B1. 

90 James Q. Wilson, A Rhythm to the Madness, Time, August 23, 1993, 

at 31. 

91 Charles E. Merriam explains: 

[T]he military principle and the democratic principle stand 

in direct opposition to each other. The military hierarchy 

involves authority from the top down, while the 

democratic systems are based on the consent of the 

governed from the grass roots up. The military principle 

develops the idea of discipline and unquestioning 

obedience. Democratic political society is based upon the 

consent of the governed, freely given. 

Charles E. Merriam, Security Without Militarism: Preserving Civilian Control 

in American Political Institutions, in Civil-Military Relations in American Life

(Jerome G. Kerwin, ed., 1948), at 148 (citing Quincy Wright). 

92 Secretary of the Air Force Policy Letter, Dealing with Democracy

(1991), at 4. 

93 See Kohn, supra note 61. 

94 Professor Huntington restated his concept of objective civilian 

control in the February 1996 issue of Current. Specifically, he said that 

objective civilian control involves: 

1) a high level of military professionalism and recognition 

by military officers of the limits of their professional 
47

 

competence; 2) the effective subordination of the military 

to the civilian political leaders who make the basic 

decisions on foreign and military policy; 3) the recognition 

and acceptance that leadership of an area of professional 

competence and autonomy for the military; and 4) as a 

result, the minimization of military intervention in politics 

and of political intervention in the military. 

Samuel P. Huntington, Democracy and Armed Forces, Current, February 1996,

at 17. 

95 Desch, supra note 9. 

96 Compare Professor Eliot A. Cohen. “Civilian control also means 

making sure that in an age of rapid technological change, the services remain 

intellectually open, that thinkers do not suffer for taking time out to reflect on 

their profession and speak out about it” (Emphasis added). Eliot A. Cohen, 

Beyond “Bottom Up,” National Review, November 15, 1993, at 40, 43. 

97 See Roger Charles, It’s a War for Soul of U.S. Military, Baltimore 

Sun, June 2, 1996, at 1F. 

98 William P. Lawrence and Frank A. Aukofer, America’s Team: The 

Odd Couple--A Report on the Relationship Between the Media and the Military

(1995), at viii. 

99 See Charles C. Moskos with Thomas E. Ricks, Reporting War When 

There Is No War, Cantigney Conference Series Special Report, Northwestern 

University (1996), at 8. 

100 See, e.g., James Fallows, Why Americans Hate the Media, Atlantic, 

February 1996, at 45. 

101 As quoted by Chris Murray in Troops Learn How to Deal with 

Shelling from Reporters, Air Force Times, June 7, 1993, at 28. 

102 See Callard, supra note 66, at 120. 

103 Id.

104 See Bill Gertz, Pentagon Tells Reporters in Bosnia Soldiers’ OK 

Needed Before Quotes, Washington Times, May 9, 1996, at 4. 
48

 

105 See Report Shows Distrust Prevalent within the Army, Washington 

Times, May 30, 1996, at 4. 

106 “The Army effectively gave up an opportunity to publicize its 

operations during the Gulf War when it effectively blacked out coverage of its 

biggest triumph since World War II.” See Moskos, supra note 99, at 41 (citing 

John J. Fialka, Hotel Warriors: Covering the Gulf War [1992]). 

107 Despite an executive order aimed at reducing the amount of 

classified material, the U.S. government’s $2 billion secrecy system was, by 

1996, classifying over six million documents annually. See Martin Faga 

Describes Work of Government Secrecy Commission, National Security Law 

Newsletter (American Bar Association), April 1996, at 7, 11. 

108 Max Frankel, Top Secret, New York Times Magazine, June 16, 

1996, at 20. 

109 A rice bowl is a military colloquialism that indicates an inflexible 

allegiance to a project motivated by personal interest. 

110 See U.S. Military Foresees Increase in Spending, Defense News, 

December 4-10, 1995, at 16 (“U.S. military spending on information warfare 

[IW] technologies is projected to increase over the next decade”). 

111 See Joint Vision 2010, supra note 40. 

112 See Peter Grier, Information Warfare, Air Force Magazine, March 

1995, at 34, 35 (quoting Professor Thomas Czerwinski of the School of 

Information Warfare at the National Defense University). 

113 Daniel Schorr, Too Many Rushed to Judgment On Navy Leader’s 

Suicide, Christian Science Monitor, May 31, 1996, at 19 (quoting Hillary 

Rodham Clinton). The reporter who broke the story on Admiral Boorda was 

later fired. See Howard Kurtz, Reporter Who Broke Story On Adm. Boorda Is 

Fired, Washington Post, July 25, 1996, at 11. 

114 Compare Moskos, supra note 99, at 11(“Dan Rather, located in 

Bosnia, asked an Army commander, ‘What is your greatest fear?’ The 

commander replied, ‘Saying the wrong thing to the media’”). 

115 See Meir, supra note 18, at 25. 
49

 

116 Id.

117 Id.

118 See, e.g., Navy Personnel in San Diego Barred from Partisan 

Events, Baltimore Sun, August 8, 1996, at 10 (reporting how military rules 

prohibiting participation in partisan political activities will severely limit 

activities by naval personnel at the Republican National Convention in San 

Diego). 

119 The context is as follows: 

Most importantly, the long-term health of the American 

civil-military relationship will depend on a recognition of 

the dual nature of war. Battlefield means give war its 

grammar, said Clausewitz, but politics supplies the logic, 

the ends. Thus, generals must be free to explain what 

military means may reasonably accomplish (emphasis 

added). 

Thomas Donnelly, Post-Modern Statesmen, Post-Modern Soldiers

(1995) (unpublished paper), at 7-8. 

120 Mike Galloucis, Can You Be Candid in the Military? Air Force 

Times, April 1, 1996, at 33. 

121 See generally Rowan Scarborough, Webb Keelhauls Navy for 

Abandoning Its Men, Washington Times, April 26, 1996, at 1. 

122 Bacevich, supra note 52. 

123 Id. 

124 See generally David H. Hackworth, “Naked” Mission, Newsweek, 

August 12, 1996, at 68 and What Went Wrong in Somalia? U.S. News & World 

Report, October 18, 1993, at 33. 

125 See Joyce Price, Specter Demands Change at Pentagon, 

Washington Times, July 1, 1996, at 1. Cf. Douglas Mackinnon, Clinton 

Enshrined in the Pentagon, Washington Times, March 23, 1996, at C1 (alleging 

that even before the Khobar bombing the military “had lost all respect” for 
50

 

Secretary Perry). See also John Fialka, Defense Chief Perry Faces a Grilling as 

Congress Looks for Answers in Saudi Arabia Bomb Attack, Wall Street Journal, 

July 9, 1996, at 1, 20. 

126 See John Mintz and R. Jeffrey Smith, Military Underestimated 

Terrorists, Perry Says, Washington Post, July 10, 1996, at 1. See also David H. 

Hackworth, Saudi Blast Shows What’s Wrong, Air Force Times, August 12, 

1996, at 54 (arguing that “[m]ilitary leaders are again circling the wagons as 

they go into an it-wasn’t-my-fault-mode and pass the buck”). 

127 Seven Careers Damaged in Black Hawk Review Action, Air Force 

Magazine, October 1995, at 16. 

128 See generally Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., The Military Justice System 

and Command Accountability, Military Review, February 1985, at 45. 

129 See generally Roy K. Flint, The Truman-MacArthur Conflict: 

Dilemmas of Civil-Military Relations in the Nuclear Age, in The United States 

Military Under the Constitution of the United States 1789-1989 (Richard H. 

Kohn, ed., 1991), at 223. 

130 See Effie Bathen, U.S. Colonel Under Probe for Alleged Remarks, 

European Stars and Stripes, December 29, 1995, at 1. Cf. Hello, General? War 

Isn’t Heck, Chicago Tribune, December 30, 1995, at 22 (criticizing the 

recommended disciplinary action). 

131 See Kohn, supra note 61, at 7. 

132 John Keegan, The Warrior’s Code of No Surrender, U.S. News and 

World Report, January 23, 1995, at 47. 

133 See Callard, supra note 66, at 120. 

134 See Lloyd J. Matthews, Censorship and Professional Writing in the 

Army Today, Army, November 1995, at 11. 

 135 See, e.g., Jonathan S. Landay, Pentagon Debates Role of US Citizen 

Soldiers in Combat Overseas, Christian Science Monitor, July 26,1996, at 3 

(citing Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution contending that Guard 

ground units cannot be made combat-ready quickly). 
51

 

136 See Landay, id. (discussing Guard’s “massive political clout”). 

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE ACADEMY 

Lieutenant General Paul E. Stein 

Superintendent 

Brigadier General Ruben A. Cubero 

Dean of the Faculty 

HEADQUARTERS, US AIR FORCE 

PLANS AND OPERATIONS DIRECTORATE 

Major General Donald L. Peterson 

Director of Plans 

Colonel (S) Todd A. Bodenhamer 

Chief, National Security Negotiations Division 

USAF INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES 
52

 

Lieutenant Colonel Peter L. Hays 

Director 

Major Alan R. Van Tassel 

Editor 

Ms Marsha Taylor 

Cover Design 

INSS OCCASIONAL PAPERS

1. Explaining Weapons Proliferation: Going Beyond the Security 

Dilemma. Gregory J. Rattray, July 1994 

2. The Ukrainian Military: Instrument for Defense or Domestic 

Challenge? Oleg Strekal, November 1994 

3. North Korea’s Nuclear Program: The Clinton Administration’s 

Response. William E. Berry, Jr., March 1995 

4. Environmental Assistance as National Security Policy: Helping the 

Former Soviet Union Find Solutions to its Environmental Problems. 

Robert L. Dunaway, November 1995 

5. Economic Power in the Sino-U.S. Relationship. Kevin F. Donovan, 

December 1995 

6. Nuclear Proliferation: Diminishing Threat? William H. Kincade, 

December 1995

7. Nuclear Proliferation: The Diplomatic Role of Non-Weaponized 

Programs. Rosalind R. Reynolds, January 1996

8. Five Minutes Past Midnight: The Clear and Present Danger of 

Nuclear Weapons Grade Fissile Materials. Guy B. Roberts, February 

1996 
53

 

9. The International Legal Implications of Information Warfare. 

Richard W. Aldrich, April 1996 

10. Weapons Proliferation and Organized Crime: The Russian 

Military and Security Force Dimension. Graham H. Turbiville, Jr., June 

1996