A Civil-Military Crisis? Tocqueville's Theory of Civil-Military Relations

Abstract

Recent years have seen a flood of scholarly and popular debate over the declining state of civil-military relations in the United States. Much of this debate suggests deterioration of those relations is in some way related to contemporary geopolitical developments, particularly the end of the Cold War; consequently, most proposals to address this relationship adopt a contemporary perspective. This paper, in contrast, argues that tension between civil society and the armed forces of democratic states is a naturally-occurring phenomenon, with roots in the nature of democracy itself. It draws on the insights of one of our keenest observers, Alexis de Tocqueville, who suggested that democracy affects every aspect of society in some way, and that some of the effects of democracy would be inherently antithetical to democracy itself.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 14, 1998
Accession Number
ADA442403

Entities

People

  • Martin Neubauer

Organizations

  • National War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Human Systems
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Civil War
  • Cold War
  • Governments
  • Military Education
  • National Governments
  • National Security
  • New York
  • Personnel Management
  • Societies
  • State Governments
  • Students
  • Training
  • United States
  • Universities
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Fields of Study

  • Political science

Readers

  • Educational Psychology
  • International Relations and Conflict Resolution