American Civil-Military Relations: Samuel P. Huntington and the Political Dimensions of Military Professionalism

Samuel P. Huntington died in December 2008, but this Harvard academic continues to have a significant impact on the conduct and state of American civil-military relations. Mackubin Owenss recent US Civil-Military Relations after 911 Renegotiating the Civil-Military Bargain and Suzanne Nielsen and Don M. Sniders 2009 edited work American Civil-Military Relations The Soldier and the State in a New Era both challenge and contextualize Huntingtons work for contemporary theorists and practitioners of civil-military relations. This is indeed a worthwhile effort, as Americas civil-military relations have received much airtime over the past few years. General Stanley McChrystals seeming challenge to the political leadership over proposed Afghanistan troop levels, Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Milburns Joint Force Quarterly article challenging traditional conceptions of civilian control, and Bob Woodwards revelations in Obamas War regarding the 2009 tensions between the Pentagon and the administration over Afghanistan strategy highlight the relationship between the military and our civilian leaders while raising the issue of the militarys participation in political discourse. Do these instances point to the troubled quality of American civil-military relations, or do they serve as continuing proofs of the vitality inherent in the American constitutional system as created by the founders In this article, I will discuss Huntingtons view that the American constitutional system inevitably draws our military leaders into the political process and therefore requires astute and well-developed political expertise on their part in order to maintain the uniquely American civil-military relationship.