Melancholy Reunion. A Report from the Future on the Collapse of Civil-Military Relations in the United States
Abstract
I'd like to start by thanking the authorities for allowing me to address this 20th reunion of the Air University classes of 1997. As you may know, last year's Military Control Act makes assemblages of officers, even retired ones, illegal without special permission. Since the countercoup of 2015, the civilians want to keep a close eye on us. Frankly, I don't blame them. After we lost the High-Tech War of 2007 and the Second Gulf War just three years later, the coup plotters cleverly laid the groundwork for their takeover by blaming these bloody defeats on "incompetent" civilians. When General Brutus occupied the White House after the president's mysterious death in 2012, the people welcomed the change at first. But after only a couple of years of military rule, everyone realized how wrong they had been. Many of you may be familiar with "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012," an essay by the Prisoner. The Prisoner's letter to a war college classmate recalled US civil-military relations as they existed in 1992. It also described the military's evolution into a highly politicized organization that, ironically, couldn't fight. Today, I want to focus on US civil-military relations as they appeared later--in the 1996-97 time frame. With the benefit of 20/20--no, make that 2012--hindsight, I'd like to talk to you about the lessons learned from the coup. All of these lessons are based on circumstances as they were over 20 years ago, when you were sitting in this very auditorium about to begin your studies. What kinds of issues regarding the military's role in American society should you have been thinking about back then?
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1996
- Accession Number
- ADA529839
Entities
People
- Charles J. Dunlap Jr.
Organizations
- Air University