Measuring Military Professionalism in Partner Nations: Guidance for Security Assistance Officials

The U.S. spends billions of dollars in its security cooperation program to develop “professional, accountable, and capable security forces” in other nations, part of a grand strategy to improve global stability and counter violent extremism. Despite its great investment in professionalizing foreign militaries, however, the U.S. has no functional definition of military professionalism – a term that until now has been considered too vague and multi-faceted to operationalize. In this article, the author seeks to remedy this oversight, drawing from twenty years of security cooperation fieldwork in Latin America and Africa, as well as a vigorous literature review, to define four important components of military professionalism: (1) formal military education and vocational training, (2) military subordination to elected civilian officials, (3) knowledge and practice of the law of armed conflict and human rights law, and (4) a clearly established program of professional military ethics. This article provides guidelines for U.S. and European officials who work with partner nations to develop more professional military forces and, in particular, for officials managing security assistance programs with developing countries.     

“Flectas non frangas”: revisiting early twenty-first century UK–US defense relations (2000–2005) after five years

Adopting the analytical framework of the established interpretive “schools” of Anglo-American relations, this article offers several reflections on UK–US defense relations as they occurred over the significant years of 2000–2005. During those years, trajectories were established on which UK–US defense relations continue to travel today and outcomes emerged which are still being navigated. This article concludes that the Latin phrase, “Flectas Non Frangas” (essentially translated as: “Bend not Break”), is the most appropriate to adopt to characterize the developments undergone in recent UK–US defense relations. Many historical and strategic lessons with contemporary relevance are drawn.     

From one exceptionalism to another: France’s strategic relations with the United States and the United Kingdom in the post-Cold War era

ABSTRACT

The failed expedition of Suez in 1956 and France’s subsequent strategic ‘divorce’ from the United Kingdom and the United States lies at the heart of a policy paradigm that has dictated France’s defence posture from de Gaulle’s presidency to the end of the Cold War. Some crucial features of the Gaullist posture remain today enduring references for French presidents in the definition of France’s exceptionalism. While it is so, there have been significant changes since the 1990s when it comes to France’s strategic relations with the United States and the United Kingdom. This article demonstrates the extent and mechanisms of this rapprochement by analysing it through three dimensions of policy change: modes of action, institutional commitments and discourses. The article demonstrates the dimensions’ mutually reinforcing effects and argues that France’s exceptional posture has de facto been reversed.     

Homes for heroes? Assessing the impact of the UK’s Military Covenant

The British Military Covenant can be located in and from many sources and from 2011 onwards in primary legislation. This article argues that the provision of military housing amounts to an early test of how the military covenant is understood and used by those involved in defence policy, and those in the armed forces affected by it. It finds that housing was a prominent feature of how service personnel understood how they were valued, but was not explicitly understood as a covenant issue by those personnel or the officials in charge of the Defence Estates. We locate three reasons for this: (1) the covenant has been poorly translated from aspiration into policy practice, (2) the covenant is unevenly understood across its stakeholders which has the effect of generating disappointment through misaligned expectations, (3) those engaged in the reform process surrounding the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) saw the covenant as a means to energise reform. Ultimately housing was seen as a dry and technocratic business area and thus an issue ripe for being refracted through the covenant was ultimately left outside of its remit.     

From the sociology of the (military) profession to the sociology of (security) expertise: the case of European national defence universities

Few would disagree that European militaries have experienced dramatic changes since the end of the Cold War. Much of the discussion on these changes to date has referred to the concept of professionalism. However, this approach became outdated as professions in post-industrialist societies entered a state of crisis as a result of growing competition from a variety of competitors. The present study adapts a new framework from the sociology of knowledge literature – sociology of expertise – into one, sociology of security expertise, which is suitable for study of contemporary armed forces. Its utility is demonstrated through analysis of five European professional military education institutions. The analysis shows that European military organisations are transiting, albeit in various degrees, from one form of social organisation of military knowledge production – associated with the military education model common to traditional military colleges – toward another, which is related to the military education model of national defence universities. Hence it is highly probable that European military organisations lose, either voluntary or unintentionally, their professional character and can no longer be unquestionably assumed to be military professions. Hence, they should be analysed hereafter using the sociology of security expertise framework.     

Parliamentary involvement,party ideology and majority-opposition bargaining: Belgian participation in multinational military operations

This article examines the impact of parliamentary involvement in troop deployment decisions on restrictions on military mandates by examining the Belgian contribution to the 2011 Libya intervention and the coalition against the self-proclaimed Islamic State. More specifically, we analyse (1) the effect of party ideology on mandate preferences, and (2) the impact of bargaining between majority and opposition parties on the outcome of mandate negotiations. Our case study demonstrates that left-wing parties show a strong inclination toward imposing restrictions on the use of military force beyond humanitarian goals, while right-wing preferences tend to depend on the national interests at stake in the operation. With regard to majority-opposition bargaining, our study shows that the impact of opposition parties is dependent on the degree of contention between government and opposition parties, as well as on the extent to which the executive needs to seek support across its own majority.     

Fighter aircraft acquisition in Croatia: failure of policy delivery

The possibility for Croatia to obtain new fighter aircraft is not new, as this option has been publicly debated for at least a decade. A sudden decision to advance the acquisition of a limited number of fighter aircraft was made in 2017 with an international tendering process concluding in early 2018. Through open source material, this paper will look at this procurement process by examining the relationship between policy and strategic thinking on the one side, and policy delivery on the other, and evaluate why the tendering process failed in achieving envisaged results. The paper concludes that the problems facing the Croatian aircraft acquisition process stem from at least two interrelated factors: firstly, at the operational level, the failure of the procurement was the direct result of mismanaged tendering procedures linked to the wider public administration reform process; and secondly, at the strategic level, inherently complex civil-military relations and related cultural aspects which have not been adequately addressed over the past decades. The result was a failure to deliver on government policy, something which this paper argues will need to be addressed over the medium to long term.     

Artificial intelligence & future warfare: implications for international security

Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) suggest that this emerging technology will have a deterministic and potentially transformative influence on military power, strategic competition, and world politics more broadly. After the initial surge of broad speculation in the literature related to AI this article provides some much needed specificity to the debate. It argues that left unchecked the uncertainties and vulnerabilities created by the rapid proliferation and diffusion of AI could become a major potential source of instability and great power strategic rivalry. The article identifies several AI-related innovations and technological developments that will likely have genuine consequences for military applications from a tactical battlefield perspective to the strategic level.     

Military autonomy: its origins,limits, and the politico-military dialectic of war

Military officers often oppose political interference in the conduct of war. Political leaders respond by citing Clausewitz’s contention that “war is the continuation of politics with the addition of other means.” Scholarship in security studies and civil-military relations argues that civilians are right to oppose military autonomy because it serves the parochial interests of the military. However, through the dialectical relationship between the violent essence of war and its political nature, Clausewitz provides an alternative explanation for military demands for autonomy. He shows that military and political leaders are prone to an incomplete understanding of war that can undermine strategy and policy.     

美国退出《中导条约》与俄美关系发展走向

2018年10月,美国宣布单方面退出《中导条约》。《中导条约》是美苏两国在冷战后期达成的,并得到了切实执行的条约,对于维护冷战后全球战略平衡发挥了至关重要的作用。冷战后,俄美曾经企图将《中导条约》多边化,构建俄美新型战略关系,但最终反目成仇,使得俄美关系严重倒退,并迈入新的相互战略遏制的时代。