Civil-Military Relations and US Foreign Policy

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel examines recent and contemporary issues and debates in U.S. civil-military relations. Michael O’Hara examines changes in civil-military relations that will emerge as a result of new information and cyber technologies, which will affect not only how states wage war but also how societies conduct politics and economics. Doyle Hodges and Jessica Blankshain examine the extraordinary levels of public trust in the military (from both parties in an era of resurgent populist tendencies), and the tensions between necessary bureaucratization and the military’s reputation as apolitical and aloof from petty government bureaucratic squabbling. John Garofano’s paper examines the ongoing debate over civil-military relations and US performance in the divisive political era of the Vietnam War, arguing that the results in Vietnam are not adequately explained by the objective-subjective debate over civil-military relations, and that the outcome might have been significantly worse.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 19: International Security

Individual Presentations

• Civil-Machine Relations and the Changing Character of War - Michael O'Hara, Naval War College

• Officers or Office Space? Perceptions of Military Professionalism by the Public - Doyle Hodges, War on the Rocks; Jessica D Blankshain, Naval War College

• Vietnam: Reconsidering Civil-Military Relations - John F Garofano, U.S. Naval War College

• Assessing Differences in Civilian-Military National Security Beliefs - Jeffrey D. Berejikian, University of Georgia; Zachary Zwald, University of Houston

Chair

• Lindsay P. Cohn Naval War College

Discussant

• Naunihal Singh U.S. Naval War College