Military Responses to the Arab Uprisings and the Future of Civil-Military Relations in the Middle East


Book Description

This book explains Arab military responses to the social uprisings which began in 2011. Through a comparative case study analysis of Egyptian, Tunisian, Libyan, and Syrian militaries, it explains why militaries fractured, supported the regime in power, or removed their presidents.




Civil-Military Relations in Lebanon


Book Description

This volume examines Lebanon’s post-2011 security dilemmas and the tenuous civil-military relations. The Syrian civil war has strained the Lebanese Armed Forces’ (LAF) cohesion and threatens its neutrality – its most valued assets in a divided society. The spill-over from the Syrian civil war and Hezbollah’s military engagement has magnified the security challenges facing the Army, making it a target. Massive foreign grants have sought to strengthen its military capability, stabilize the country and contain the Syria crisis. However, as this volume demonstrates, the real weakness of the LAF is not its lack of sophisticated armoury, but the fragile civil–military relations that compromise its fighting power, cripple its neutrality and expose it to accusations of partisanship and political bias. This testifies to both the importance of and the challenges facing multi-confessional armies in deeply divided countries.




Civil–Military Relations in the Islamic World


Book Description

Since the Arab Spring, militaries have received renewed attention regarding their intervention into politics of Middle Eastern and South Asian states. This book examines the factors which influence military intervention and withdrawal from politics—namely, United States and Soviet/Russian economic and military aid—and how this affects democratic transitions and consolidation. The militaries of Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey, have used nationalism to justify their interventions into politics while ensuring that withdrawal would only occur if national identity were protected. This book examines important states in the Islamic World which have experienced similar historical trajectories, briefly experimented with democracy, and had the military become a dominant institution in the state. All four countries differ in their levels of ethnic conflict, importance placed on the country by the international community, and internal security concerns. The common result of international influence on political development, however, is that the military will take a keener interest in politics and be more reluctant to disengage.




Civil-military Relations in Israel


Book Description

In Civil-Military Relations in Israel, Yehuda Ben Meir examines the reasons preventing Israel from becoming a "garrison state". A former deputy minister for foreign affairs and longtime member and analyst of the Israeli political scene, Ben Meir is uniquely qualified to give a behind-the-scenes picture of the intimate relationship between Israel's civilian and military leaders. Civil-Military Relations in Israel examines the changing face of the military over the years from an idealistic defense force to a professional army. Ben Meir also views the great divisiveness in Israeli politics as a threat to the unified strength of purpose that in the past characterized the nation's civil authority, and he examines present and future threats to continued civilian control of the military. The book also delves into the legal and constitutional foundations of Israel's civil-military relations, providing a valuable perspective on the organization and role of the current defense establishment, as well as the informal relationship between the key players in the system. In addition, Ben Meir pinpoints the areas in which the military is involved in key political decision making. Despite continuing efforts to resolve the pattern of violence and conflict in the Middle East, the long-standing hostility between Arab and Jew in the region is unlikely to disappear in the near future. And as long as such animosity lingers, Israel's military will remain a strong force in Israeli politics.




Military Courts, Civil-military Relations, and the Legal Battle for Democracy


Book Description

"The interaction between military and civilian courts, the political power that legal prerogatives can provide to the armed forces, and the difficult process civilian politicians face in reforming military courts remain glaringly under-examined. This book fills a gap in existing scholarship by providing a theoretically rich, global examination of the operation and reform of military courts in democracies. Drawing on a newly-created global dataset, it examines trends across states and over time. Combined with deeper qualitative case studies, the book presents clear and well-justified findings that will be of interest to scholars and policymakers working in a variety of fields"--




Civil–Military Relationships in Developing Countries


Book Description

This book examines two sides of civil–military relations in developing countries. One is the place of civil-military relations within a state’s political and economic systems; the other is the role of the military on a state’s maintenance of peace and stability. The book thus proposes that the function of soldiers is not only to defend and deter, but also to develop. The chapters provide a comprehensive analysis of civil-military relationship with comparative cases on Botswana, China, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, and The Arab Spring Countries of the Middle East including Bahrain, Sudan, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Libya. Each chapter analyzes the historical, cultural and political factors that shape the direction of the man on the white horse (military elite) and the politician. In doing so, this book reveals the potential impact of the nature of civil military relations on democratization, political and economic development, and on regional/international security. Dhirendra Vajpeyi and Glen Segell discuss and critique the current models and literature on civil-military relations. The innovative framework and careful choice of case studies, presented in a jargon-free, accessible style, makes this book attractive to scholars and students of civil military relations and development studies, as well as policymakers.




The Soldier and the State


Book Description




Civil-military Relations


Book Description

"This carefully conceived collection focuses on an important, but often overlooked, aspect of civil-military relations: military effectiveness. Insightful and informative ... the chapters form a cohesive whole. Those interested in military politics, from the novice student to the seasoned expert, will find the book useful and thought provoking." -Zoltan Barany, University of Texas at AustinHow does civilian control affect military effectiveness? Can a balance be achieved between the two? In-country experts address these questions through a set of rich comparative case studies. Covering the spectrum from democracies to authoritarian regimes, they explore the nexus of control and effectiveness to reveal its importance for national security and the legitimacy of both political order and the military institution.




Warriors and Citizens


Book Description

A diverse group of contributors offer different perspectives on whether or not the different experiences of our military and the broader society amounts to a "gap"—and if the American public is losing connection to its military. They analyze extensive polling information to identify those gaps between civilian and military attitudes on issues central to the military profession and the professionalism of our military, determine which if any of these gaps are problematic for sustaining the traditionally strong bonds between the American military and its broader public, analyze whether any problematic gaps are amenable to remediation by policy means, and assess potential solutions. The contributors also explore public disengagement and the effect of high levels of public support for the military combined with very low levels of trust in elected political leaders—both recurring themes in their research. And they reflect on whether American society is becoming so divorced from the requirements for success on the battlefield that not only will we fail to comprehend our military, but we also will be unwilling to endure a military so constituted to protect us. Contributors: Rosa Brooks, Matthew Colford,Thomas Donnelly, Peter Feaver, Jim Golby, Jim Hake, Tod Lindberg, Mackubin Thomas Owens, Cody Poplin, Nadia Schadlow, A. J. Sugarman, Lindsay Cohn Warrior, Benjamin Wittes




Armed Servants


Book Description

How do civilians control the military? In the wake of September 11, the renewed presence of national security in everyday life has made this question all the more pressing. In this book, Peter Feaver proposes an ambitious new theory that treats civil-military relations as a principal-agent relationship, with the civilian executive monitoring the actions of military agents, the armed servants of the nation-state. Military obedience is not automatic but depends on strategic calculations of whether civilians will catch and punish misbehavior. This model challenges Samuel Huntington's professionalism-based model of civil-military relations, and provides an innovative way of making sense of the U.S. Cold War and post-Cold War experience--especially the distinctively stormy civil-military relations of the Clinton era. In the decade after the Cold War ended, civilians and the military had a variety of run-ins over whether and how to use military force. These episodes, as interpreted by agency theory, contradict the conventional wisdom that civil-military relations matter only if there is risk of a coup. On the contrary, military professionalism does not by itself ensure unchallenged civilian authority. As Feaver argues, agency theory offers the best foundation for thinking about relations between military and civilian leaders, now and in the future.