A Politicized Military?

"A Widening Gap between the U.S. Military and Civilian Society? Some Evidence, 1976-96" by Ole R. Holsti, in International Security (Winter 1998-99), MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 02142.

The talk of a "crisis in civil-military relations" keeps growing louder. In 1997, the volume soared when Wall Street Journal reporter Thomas E. Ricks published Making the Corps, depicting his Marine subjects as increasingly alienated from the "soft" values of civilian society. Holsti, a Duke University political scientist, using poll data to gauge the civil-military breach, suggests that things may not be quite as bad as they seem.

True, his surveys of senior military officers show, there is growing partisanship in the traditionally neutral armed forces. In 1976, nearly half the officers polled called themselves independents and only a third were Republicans; by 1996, independents were down to 22 percent, Republicans up to 67 percent.

When officers were asked about their ideological orientation, the striking change was among the segment calling themselves "somewhat liberal," which shrank from 14 percent in 1976 to three percent in 1996. Yet the proportion calling themselves "very conservative" also fell, from a high of 17 percent in 1984 to 10 percent in 1996.

Indeed, comparing the views of top officers with those of civilian "opinion leaders" on particular questions of policy yields a somewhat more complex picture. As expected, the military leaders are much more socially conservative (on questions such as gay rights, for example), yet they are only somewhat more economically consider "fostering international cooperation" conservative. More significantly, there is no con-very important: 57 percent of civilians in 1996, sistent evidence that the gaps are widening, and 40 percent of officers.) in a few cases the views of the two groups seem Still, the growing partisan character of the to have been converging since the end of the military is a cause for concern, Holsti says. It is Cold War. About 77 percent of both groups now probably without precedent in U.S. history. But think it is vital to enlist the United Nations in he thinks that most of the solutions advanced so settling international disputes, for example, up far, from restoring conscription to restarting from 64 percent of civilians and 56 percent of Reserve Officers’ Training Corps programs at officers in 1976. (However, fewer and fewer elite universities, simply aren’t practical.