The Culture of Military Bureaucracy: Civil-Military Relations in Democracies Today
Author(s)
Foster, Gregory D.
Abstract
Are military professionals unaware of their own civic and strategic illiteracy? One of the most significant issues facing any democracy today, not least the United States, is the current state of civil-military relations. Why should the relationship between the military and society be of such concern to us? There are two principal reasons. First, the military’s relationship to civilian authorities and to society more generally lies at the very heart of what democracy is all about. Second, the three parties to the civil-military relationship–the military, its civilian masters, and the people themselves–are bound to one another by social contract.
