-PDF Download- A More Perfect Military EBOOK

A More Perfect Military

Author: Diane H. Mazur

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-11-08

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0199780471

Surveys show that the all-volunteer military is our most respected and trusted institution, but over the last thirty-five years it has grown estranged from civilian society. Without a draft, imperfect as it was, the military is no longer as representative of civilian society. Fewer people accept the obligation for military service, and a larger number lack the knowledge to be engaged participants in civilian control of the military. The end of the draft, however, is not the most important reason we have a significant civil-military gap today. A More Perfect Military explains how the Supreme Court used the cultural division of the Vietnam era to change the nature of our civil-military relations. The Supreme Court describes itself as a strong supporter of the military and its distinctive culture, but in the all-volunteer era, its decisions have consistently undermined the military's traditional relationship to law and the Constitution. Most people would never suspect there was anything wrong, but our civil-military relations are now as constitutionally fragile as they have ever been. A More Perfect Military is a bracingly candid assessment of the military's constitutional health. It crosses ideological and political boundaries and is challenging-even unsettling-to both liberal and conservative views. It is written for those who believe the military may be slipping away from our common national experience. This book is the blueprint for a new national conversation about military service.

Military Machines

Author: Parragon

Publisher: Parragon

Published: 2015-02-28

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781472374608

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

From Egyptian war chariots to modern fighter jets, from land to air to sea, Military Machines explores the history and technology of combat vehicles. It dissects over 60 incredible battle-ready machines from throughout history, with 3-D cutaway illustrations.

Civil-Military Relations and Shared Responsibility

Author: Dale R. Herspring

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2013-06-01

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1421409291

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A provocative approach to evaluating civil-military relations. Dale R. Herspring considers the factors that allow some civilian and military organizations to operate more productively in a political context than others, bringing into comparative study for the first time the military organizations of the U.S., Russia, Germany, and Canada. Refuting the work of scholars such as Samuel P. Huntington and Michael C. Desch, Civil-Military Relations and Shared Responsibility approaches civil-military relations from a new angle, military culture, arguing that the optimal form of civil-military relations is one of shared responsibility between the two groups. Herspring outlines eight factors that contribute to conditions that promote and support shared responsibility among civilian officials and the military, including such prerequisites as civilian leaders not interfering in the military's promotion process and civilian respect for military symbols and traditions. He uses these indicators in his comparative treatment of the U.S., Russian, German, and Canadian militaries. Civilian authorities are always in charge and the decision on how to treat the military is a civilian decision. However, Herspring argues, failure by civilians to respect military culture will antagonize senior military officials, who will feel less free to express their views, thus depriving senior civilian officials, most of whom have no military experience, of the expert advice of those most capable of assessing the far-reaching forms of violence. This issue of civilian respect for military culture and operations plays out in Herspring's country case studies. Scholars of civil-military relations will find much to debate in Herspring's framework, while students of civil-military and defense policy will appreciate Herspring's brief historical tour of each countries' post–World War II political and policy landscapes.

How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything

Author: Rosa Brooks

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2016-08-09

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 1476777861

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Inside secure command centers, military officials make life and death decisions-- but the Pentagon also offers food courts, banks, drugstores, florists, and chocolate shops. It is rather symbolic of the way that the U.S. military has become our one-stop-shopping solution to global problems. Brooks traces this seismic shift in how America wages war, and provides a rallying cry for action as we undermine the values and rules that keep our world from sliding toward chaos.

Lead Me, Follow Me, Or Get Out of My Way

Author: Mark R. Shulman

Publisher:

Published: 2013-05-26

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781304074768

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This monograph explains why robust civil-military relations matter and discusses how they are evolving. Part I discusses A More Perfect Military: How the Constitution Can Make Our Military Stronger by Diane Mazur, a book that examines the jurisprudence that has reshaped civil-military relations. Mazur maintains that since the Vietnam era, the U.S. Supreme Court has hewn the armed forces from general society in order to create a separate-and more socially conservative-sphere. Part II discusses The Decline and Fall of the American Republic by Bruce Ackerman, a wise and wide-ranging book which argues that the nation's polity is in decline and that the increasingly politicized armed forces may force a change in government. Part III asks where we go from here. The important books attribute a thinning of civilian control over the military to specific legal and political decisions. They explain some of the most important implications of this transformation.

Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations

Author: Lionel Beehner

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-11-02

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 0197535518

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book explores contemporary civil-military relations in the United States. Much of the canonical literature on civil-military relations was either written during or references the Cold War, while other major research focuses on the post-Cold War era, or the first decade of the twenty-first century. A great deal has changed since then. This book considers the implications for civil-military relations of many of these changes. Specifically, it focuses on factors such as breakdowns in democratic and civil-military norms and conventions; intensifying partisanship and deepening political divisions in American society; as well as new technology and the evolving character of armed conflict. Chapters are organized around the principal actors in civil-military relations, and the book includes sections on the military, civilian leadership, and the public. It explores the roles and obligations of each. The book also examines how changes in contemporary armed conflict influence civil-military relations. Chapters in this section examine the cyber domain, grey zone operations, asymmetric warfare and emerging technology. The book thus brings the study of civil-military relations into the contemporary era, in which new geopolitical realities and the changing character of armed conflict combine with domestic political tensions to test, if not potentially redefine, those relations.

Military Power

Author: Stephen Biddle

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2010-12-16

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1400837820

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In war, do mass and materiel matter most? Will states with the largest, best equipped, information-technology-rich militaries invariably win? The prevailing answer today among both scholars and policymakers is yes. But this is to overlook force employment, or the doctrine and tactics by which materiel is actually used. In a landmark reconception of battle and war, this book provides a systematic account of how force employment interacts with materiel to produce real combat outcomes. Stephen Biddle argues that force employment is central to modern war, becoming increasingly important since 1900 as the key to surviving ever more lethal weaponry. Technological change produces opposite effects depending on how forces are employed; to focus only on materiel is thus to risk major error--with serious consequences for both policy and scholarship. In clear, fluent prose, Biddle provides a systematic account of force employment's role and shows how this account holds up under rigorous, multimethod testing. The results challenge a wide variety of standard views, from current expectations for a revolution in military affairs to mainstream scholarship in international relations and orthodox interpretations of modern military history. Military Power will have a resounding impact on both scholarship in the field and on policy debates over the future of warfare, the size of the military, and the makeup of the defense budget.

Toward a More Perfect University

Author: Jonathan R. Cole

Publisher: Public Affairs

Published: 2016-01-26

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 1610392655

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"Jonathan R. Cole, former provost and current University Professor at Columbia University, addresses some of the biggest challenges facing the modern American university: developing effective admission policies; creating the most meaningful examinations; dealing with rising costs; making undergraduate education central to the university's mission; exploring the role of the humanities; facilitating new discoveries and innovation; determining the place for professional schools; developing the research campuses of the future; assessing the role of sports; designing leadership and governance; and combating intellectual and legal threats to academic freedom."--Publisher description.

Four Guardians

Author: Jeffrey W. Donnithorne

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2018-05-15

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1421425424

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"This book explains who the four US military services truly are and why they make and execute policy as they do. The book focuses on American civil-military relationships, explaining why the services imperfectly satisfy their civilian bosses and why the four services think and act so differently from one another. Ultimately, the book offers three independent but mutually reinforcing contributions to the fields of security studies and American civil-military relations. First, it builds on one of the major theoretical approaches to civil-military relations--agency theory--and identifies key conditions under which agency theory best explains military service behavior. Author Jeffrey W. Donnithorne provides a "principled agent" model that finds four unique condition sets that explain civil-military dynamics with new clarity. Second, the book exposes the importance of service culture in civil-military relations and offers a rich yet concise portrait of each of the four US military services: the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.Third, the book offers two important case studies of civil-military policymaking. These two cases demonstrate the principled agent framework in action, while amply revealing the four services as distinctly different political actors. Finally, the book offers both conclusions and implications for today's security environment, suggesting likely pathways where the services will diverge in their approach to current defense issues. With theoretical novelty, empirical depth, and engaging military history, the book aims to reach academics, practitioners, and general readers alike"--