Armed Forces & Society

The Russo-Japanese War holds distinct lessons for historians and national decision-makers alike. It was a remarkable event in human history that demonstrated two totally different ways of waging war, one the antithesis of the other. In addition to the seven critical points, one is struck by the largely human element and personal character of strategy and diplomacy throughout the war. The Japanese were able to make their largely informal and extra-constitutional system of government work because it was composed of highly experienced and dedicated men who understood their objective and were willing to sacrifice their personal agendas to accomplish the task. Their mission, though the particulars were not shared in a democratic process, resonated within the parliamentary body and throughout their public. They conducted their war with rationality and experience one would not have expected of an industrial state so young.

For many young democracies, the institutionalization of civilian control over the military is a crucial task for democratic consolidation. This is especially true for South Korea. After Korea gained independence in 1948, the military was the most powerful player in Korean politics. However, in the 1990s, the pattern of civil-military relations changed dramatically from military dominance over civilian politics to civilian supremacy over the military. This article explores the dynamics of the institutionalization of civilian control in South Korea in four steps. In the first part, the study clarifies the concept of civilian control. The second part formulates an analytical frame of favorable and unfavorable conditions for successful institutionalization of civilian control. Thereafter the evolution and state of civil-military relations in South Korea before and after democratization is illuminated. Finally, some conclusions are drawn about why civilian control successfully became institutionalized in democratizing Korea.

Many have regarded the establishment of civilian and democratic control over the military as a necessary condition for the consolidation of a nascent democracy. Experience from third-wave democracies such as Chile and the Philippines shows us that, in order for democratic consolidation to be achieved, democratic control of the armed forces must be firmly established. Often these nascent democracies face the problem of how to deal with the legacy of the military and security service’s role in authoritarian rule. This article analyses the establishment of civilian control in South Korea and argues that, although semicivilian control was established during the only post-transition presidency, it was with the inauguration of Kim Young-sam in 1993 that firm civilian control was achieved. However, the way this control was achieved raises important questions about the rule of law in South Korea. Finally, the article asserts that due to the continuing dominance of national security and defense policy by the executive, the comprehensive oversight by the legislature needed for true democratic control has yet to be fully achieved.

Peace operations involving modern armed forces require a system of command in which responsibilities and authorities are delegated throughout the command line: mission command. Although mission command is popular in theory, in practice commanders appear to have problems with the delegation of authority. This study analyzed the practice of mission command in four Dutch case studies. The main analysis shows a relation between the granting of autonomy to subordinate commanders, on the one hand, and the clarity of the objectives, the appropriateness of the means, and the mutual trust between commanders at different levels, on the other. Further analysis shows that the possession of good communication means, the slow pace of operations, the development of routines, the required safety of personnel, the political sensitivity, and the deployment of mixed units are obstacles to mission command as well. The conclusion is that mission command is hard to implement.

Conscript military service is a pivotal experience for young Israelis of both genders. Juxtaposing conflicting claims concerning women’s military experience—the women’s marginalization claim and the youth moratorial self-enhancing claim—we compare men’s and women’s retrospective evaluations of six aspects of their service in the Israeli army: hardship, adaptation, motivation, investment, service significance, and personal benefits. Military service was found to be as meaningful and benefiting for women no less than for men. However, the dynamics of the moratorium experience differ by gender, in keeping with the differentiated substance and gendered social construction of their military roles.

By adopting a bold and ambitious strategy and pursuing it aggressively, the Bush administration has divided the Western alliance; altered the nature of international politics in the Gulf, South Asia, and the Middle East; and crystallized popular opposition to the U.S. in many countries. The new Bush strategy impinges on a number of critical social and military issues for the U.S., its allies, and the rest of the world: the suitability of a small, expensive, all-volunteer force for repeated interventions aimed at regime change; the character of relations between the military and society as a whole under the stress of repeated interventions; the tension between a strategy of aggressive, unilateral regime change and an increasingly interdependent global economic and technological order; the clash between unilateral realpolitik, constitutional obligations, and the separation of powers; and the growing contradiction between a conservative domestic political outlook—with its uncompromising insistence on small, weak government—and the vast governmental structures and expenditures necessary to sustain a strategy of global preventive war. Most critics argue that the Bush strategy will fail for political, economic, and strategic reasons: because it needlessly alienates allies; ignores the need of even a hegemonic state for reciprocity, international law, and mutual restraint; overlooks the importance of international assistance in achieving U.S. goals, such as eliminating terrorism; underestimates what will prove to be very heavy long-run costs of nation building; and encourages other governments to wage preventive war and acquire weapons of mass destruction. But there are other and, in the end, more persuasive reasons for opposing the strategy, having to do with domestic as well as international effects. This article develops those reasons and proposes an alternative grand strategy for the U.S., a grand strategy rooted in the defensive rather than the offensive use of a nation’s resources.