Armed Forces & Society

American paratroopers seem to be doing an effective job as peacekeepers in the Sinai. A survey of paratroopers' attitudes in the 82d Airborne Division before and after their deployment as the first peacekeeping unit showed no lessening in their combat orientation. Their estimate of the likelihood of high-intensity combat during the next decade decreased slightly. Our analysis suggests a potential incompatibility between the action-oriented "parachutists' creed" and the constabulary ethic. The troops felt that the peacekeeping mission required special skills, that it could be performed with minimum force, and that it was inappropriate for their unit.

The United States Navy is structured to carry out its most demanding potential assignment: confrontation with the Soviet navy in waters near the Soviet Union. The result is an emphasis on battle groups centered around large aircraft carriers, including sophisticated systems for fleet defense. The Soviet navy is increasingly capable of extended operations far from home waters, in support of growing Soviet interests worldwide. Nevertheless, it does not yet match the U.S. Navy in offensive or defensive capabilities, and in time of war is most likely to pull back into waters nearer the Soviet Union to defend the homeland. These trends are likely to continue into the next century, barring the intervention of political or technological developments.

Military intervention in politics has been a constant factor in Spanish history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The nature of intervention has varied and it can be divided into three distinct periods: 1814 to 1875; 1923 to 1939; and 1976 to the present. The armed forces which emerged from the Franco regime were dominated by an antidemocratic ideology, born of civil war and preserved through the military's isolation from society at large. They have neither fully supported nor wholly rejected the democratic system created by the transition which followed the death of Francisco Franco (in November 1975); they have been a source of perpetual concern. The first governments of the democracy did not take measures to resolve this situation. The socialist government elected in October 1982 has inherited the problem and is aware of the types of major changes needed to solve it.

Typically, military coups occur in crisis situations. No matter whether the resulting military regimes can solve the problems which provided them the opportunity to intervene, or fail to do so, they will-almost inevitably-suffer legitimacy crises over periods of time. This dilemma forces them either to broaden the basis of their regime by sharing power with nonmilitary circles, or to retreat to the barracks with or without reserve powers to control the civilian successor regimes. Which option to select is a question determined by a mixture of exogenous and endogenous reasons and preconditions for withdrawal, as well as a variety of superstructural factors. While reintervention is not only possible but-depending on circumstances-even likely in all options, military regimes basically are seen incapable of finding lasting solutions; their usefulness will, therefore, be increasingly questioned.

Institutional level factors involved in Latin American militaries' decision to seize control of civilian governments are analyzed, including military motivations, capabilities, and risks. Motives behind intervention present unresolved issues for social science research. The utility of "motivation" is discussed; an alternative approach, "strength of motivating factors," may function as a better predictor of behavior. Military assessments of capability seem unrelated to strength in numbers or weapons. Rather, consideration of precoup internal support and postcoup ruling ability is critical. Two types of risk include those involved in the intervention process itself, and those by failing to intervene. The latter contribute to the strength of the motivating factors; the former are dependent on perceived capabilities. A closed model of decision making is presented. A coup equation is ultimately reducible to motivational strength and perceived capabilities.

In the past decade, issues posed by child and spouse abuse have become a national concern, shared by the armed forces. This article traces the development of the military family advocacy movement, from mounting public concern about child abuse and neglect to establishment of formal programs in the services, under guidance from the Department of Defense. Individual services are now working to expand and coordinate their family advocacy efforts. Program policies are being issued and modified, and training directed toward personnel who deal with these issues.

Usable critical incident descriptions of leadership were collected from followers who were freshmen cadets in basic training (n = 400) at the U. S. Military Academy. A content analysis revealed several situational and behavior categories, both typifying and discriminating between "good" and "bad" leadership descriptions. The most notable findings were (1) the concordance between results obtained from the critical incident technique and from rating scales of leadership, and (2) the high correspondence between behaviors identified in good leadership descriptions and lacking (or absent) in bad leadership descriptions. The results support the notion of setting specific leadership typologies; future research using this technique is also proposed.