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CivilMilitary Relations in the United States and Russia : An Alternative Approach

Dale Herspring Armed Forces & Society 2009 35: 667 DOI: 10.1177/0095327X09332140 The online version of this article can be found at: http://afs.sagepub.com/content/35/4/667

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CivilMilitary Relations in the United States and Russia

An Alternative Approach
Dale Herspring
Kansas State University

Armed Forces & Society Volume 35 Number 4 July 2009 667-687 2009 Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society. All rights reserved. 10.1177/0095327X09332140 http://afs.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

The key to understanding civilmilitary relations in polities such as Russia and the United States is military culture. Military culture includes a variety of characteristics or norms of behavior. Some such as executive leadership, respect for military expertise, and a clear chain of command are critical and exist in both the American and Russian militaries. Looking at two periods in both countries (Yeltsin and George Bush II, and Putin and George Bush I), this article maintains that in those instances when military culture was ignored in either country (e.g., a lack of executive leadership, little respect for military expertise, and lack of a clear chain of command), conflict not only existed but also was acerbated. Conversely, in cases where the civilians were firmly in charge but respected military culture, conflict was minimized. Senior military officers felt free to express their opinions and had the perception that their views were always taken seriously. Keywords: U.S. military; Russian military; civilmilitary relations; military culture

If a lion stands at the head of an army of lions, victory is assured. If a lion stands at the head of an army of asses, the chances are fifty-fifty. But if an ass stands at the head of an army of lions, you can call it quits. General Alexandr Lebed, On Leadership (Russian, no date)

Traditionally, there has been an aversion to the idea of conflict when studying civilmilitary relations in established political systems. To some, its mere existence suggests that those in uniform are either refusing or threatening to refuse to carry out the orders of their civilian masters. This, in turn, can lead to an overemphasis on the idea of control. As James Burk put it, The question raised is whether (or to what degree) uniformed elites follow the command of civilian political elites.1 While there is no question that political control is important, this article argues that conflict is healthy when it is regulated in a mature, stable political system such as the United States or Russia.

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As a consequence, it follows that focus should be on nature of interactions between the military and its civilian masters. The key to healthy civilmilitary relations is to create and maintain a situation in which the relationship between the two sides is constructive and both sides respect the other. That does not mean an absence of conflict. Rather, I am talking about a situation in which the civilian leadership makes the final decision, but senior military officers feel free to express their opinions and have the perception that their views are taken seriously, although not always adopted. Here, the task is not to eliminate conflict, it is to channel it in a positive direction. On the other hand, acerbated or unregulated conflict between the civilian and military leadership can undermine military effectiveness. It can lead to what Zoltan Barany called institutional decay. As Barany defined the term, institutional decay in the American or Russian militaries refers to anything that inhibits the military from carrying out its mission.2

Focus on Conflict
Conflict between civilian officials and the militarys high command is ubiquitous. Every countrys budget is finite, and the civilian leadership must decide how much and on what to spend its treasury. That inevitably brings the civilian leadership into conflict with the military. The navy always believes it needs more ships, the air force more planes, and the army more troops, tanks, and other weapons. The same may be true of the means for achieving national goals. Civilians may prefer more emphasis on the use of force, only to learn that senior military officers are in favor of greater use of diplomatic means. Perhaps the best way to define healthy conflict is to state its primary characteristics. The first characteristic is that military and civilian elites are definable but not necessarily homogenous it their views of the policy process. Civilians tend to look at force and the use of force differently from those in the military. However, some civilians are more hawkish than the military, while others will do almost anything to avoid the use of forceand the same thing is true of the armed forces. In other words, it would be overly simplistic to assume that because a group of individuals all wear the same, or similar, uniforms, they think alike. The second characteristic is that the military agrees with Clausewitz; it is always subordinate to civil authorities, even when policy actions appear wrong headed. After all, every individual who takes the oath of office as an officer in a mature political system agrees to accept civilian supremacy. It is a given.3 For officers in political systems where the process has been bureaucratized and routinized, control is seldom the critical issue. The third characteristic is that civilmilitary relations are interactive; influence is not the critical issue.4 While there is no doubt that military influence is important for example, to what degree a general is able to persuade his or her civilian

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counterpart to purchase this or that weaponif too much emphasis is focused on military influence (which is another word for control), one runs the risk of overlooking the interactive nature of the relationship. It is the interaction between civil and military leaders that helps define healthy conflict.5 The fourth characteristic is that the policy process need not be a zero-sum game. Instead, as Gibson and Snider noted, when it comes to most issues, the two sides will be involved in what they called an Area of Overlap and Tension.6 To effectively utilize military power, it is necessary to relate issues such as national resources, demography, political objectives, and the definition of war, including strategy, to the military tools available to achieve foreign policy goals. This assumes that while civilians are in charge, both sides are interested in learning from the other and that when positions are put forth, they are both prepared to compromise. There are times when both military and civilian officials will be wrong; they will need someone from the other side to point out a policys problems. Indeed, if that is absentperhaps the military is forbidden to speak up or is ignored by political authoritiescivilians run the risk of ordering the military to do something for which it is not prepared. Deborah Avant emphasized the positive impact of the military when she observed that a military that uses its expertise to influence policy may be a good thing if it creates policy more likely to achieve a countrys goals in the international system.7 So where does this leave us? Short of a military coup, the approach that will provide the highest extent of military interaction is one in which there is what Sarkesian and Connor called constructive political engagement.8 As the authors noted, The problem is to develop a relationship that is appropriate and acceptable to both civilians and the military, while insuring that the military has an appropriate and realistic role in the political decision-making process. The goal is to ensure that the interrelationship is symbiotic. In other words, a constructive political engagement is one in which senior officers feel free to express their opinions while accepting civilian supremacy in decision making.

Comparing Militaries
In the past, there have been a number of attempts to compare civilmilitary relations in different countries. One of the first was the book cowritten by Samuel Huntington and Zbiniew Brzezinski.9 Huntington wrote the section on the U.S. military, while Brzezinski wrote the chapter on the Soviet military. While it was useful in its day, the book lacked a common conceptual framework. Then there was an effort to look at the impact of revolutions on civilmilitary relations as well as a number of books that looked at geographical regions.10 The latter usually included an introduction that laid out a common conceptual framework (often the question of how democratic civilmilitary relations are). Unfortunately, while some contributors tried to incorporate this conceptual framework, others did not.11

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There also have been efforts to compare civilmilitary relations in different countries; one of the best known is Michael Deschs much acclaimed Civilian Control of the Military. While Desch is to be commended for making the effort to compare this process in four different polities, there are serious problems with the analysis. For example, without having done in-depth research on the topic, Deschs look at civilmilitary relations in Russia during the Yeltsin period was superficial.12

The Problem
The real problem, however, is what kind of a conceptual framework to utilize in comparing civilmilitary relations. How do we ensure that we are looking at the same political processes in the two countries? In a recent book he edited on civilmilitary relations in Latin America,13 David Pion-Berlin suggested in his introduction that the study of civilmilitary relations could be broken down into three parts: the rationalist, which focuses primarily on the decision maker; the structuralist, which studies institutions; and the culturalist, which looks at the subject.14 While rationalist studies, such as the now classic work by Peter Feaver,15 look at rewards and punishment in an effort to determine how and why military officers obey their civilian leaders, it seems to me that many officers obey for neither reason but out of a sense of duty. Furthermore, it is not clear that one will be able to obtain such data in depth in more than one polity.

Comparing the United States and Russia

There are a number of reasons why a comparison of the U.S. and Russian experiences is warranted. First, institutionally, the Russian and American militaries resemble each other in many ways. They are both highly bureaucratized and institutionalized militaries. Second, with the exception of General Douglas MacArthur, neither has faced a serious problem with political obedience from the military. Political obedience has been a sine qua non. Third, both militaries are prepared to (and have) engaged in conflict. I am not suggesting that they are on a equal plane when it comes to war-fighting capability. They are clearly not. Russia is far behind the United States when it comes to modern weapons and equipment, for example. The key question is how to compare these two militaries.

Military Culture
In their study of military culture in the United States, Ulmer, Collins, and Jacobs defined culture as the prevailing values, philosophies, customs, traditions and structure, that over time, have created shared individual expectations within the

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institution about appropriate attitudes, personal beliefs, and behaviors.16 In another study, Nick Jans and David Schmidtchen noted that organizations that endure have distinct and stable personalities that govern most of their behavior, even though they may comprise many, ever-changing individuals.17 In other words, culture is learned behavior. In the case of the armed forces, members are socialized so that they learn how to act properly inside the confines of the various services. To a large degree, military culture is a result of the organizations effort to prepare its members for its end goal. Inside the military, the organizations mission is often referred to as to kill and break things. This means that the militarys organizational culture, by definition, is structured to enable the military to fight wars. In the process of fighting a war, military service is unique because in carrying out his or her mission, the soldier must act in a certain manner and may be required to lay down his or her life. In this sense, military culture is different from culture in other organizations.18 Military culture is a set of norms that regulate the lives of those in uniform. To a large degree, they determine how military personnel interact with each other, how they carry out their missions, how they see the outside (civilian) world, and, perhaps most important, what kind of behavior they expect from the civilians with whom they come in contact. Military culture includes a variety of characteristics or norms of behavior. Some of them exist in all armed forces. Others are unique to a particular country, which is not surprising. After all, some countries share some aspects of political culture but not others. Since military culture is a reflection of civilian society, one would expect the characteristics of military culture to differ as well.19 Military culture is the key for creating the healthy conflict that is critical to operationalize constructive political engagement. There will always be a conflict between the norms of military culture and those of the civilian leadership. Recognition of the norms of military culture is not a panacea for creating a symbiotic civilmilitary relationship. However, if the norms of military culture are respected, military leaders will be more likely to speak openly and provide their views on critical issues to the political leadership. The level of conflict may also decrease because the military officers will come away believing they have had their day in court. The political leadership has the option of treating the military however it wishes, and by and large it will obey. However, civilian respect for these norms will maximize communications and result in healthy conflict that will optimize political and military inputs to policy decisions. The remainder of this article focuses on American and Russian military culture. Now, let us turn to these characteristics or norms. While this writer had identified at least six characteristics in the United States and perhaps ten in Russia, for reasons of space we look at only three shared by both countries.

Critical Characteristics of Military Culture20

1. Executive leadership. This is critical for all militaries. Militaries are based on a hierarchical structure, and it is absolutely critical that the civilian executive and his

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or her deputies lead; this is something the military expects. Failure to do so not only undermines morale but also, more important, creates confusion and even chaos inside the armed forces. 2. Respect for military expertise. While generals and admirals acknowledge the primacy of civilian leadership and are prepared to follow whatever order they receive from such authorities, they also expect civilian officials to show respect for the expertise they have gained in 30 or more years of military service. What that means is that while the military is prepared to carry out whatever order it receives, it expects civilian authorities to listen to what they say and take it into consideration as they make key national security decisions. It was the late Richard Neustadt who, with the American polity in mind, commented that the power of presidential politics, is the power to persuade.21 A president, whether Russian or American, a minister of defense, or secretary of defense will have a better chance of getting senior military officers to accept his policies enthusiastically if the generals and admirals believe they are part of the process. Similarly, key officers who are left out of the decision-making process can become obstacles to the smooth enactment of political decisions through bureaucratic obfuscation. 3. Clear chain of command. Nothing upsets military operations more than unclear orders or a confused chain of command. It creates confusion and even chaos, as the commanders try to figure out what the senior officers or civilian officials wanted them to do or whose orders they should obey.

Comparing U.S. and Russian CivilMilitary Relations

First, the data. The data are taken from a wide variety of sources, primary materials including newspaper articles, official sources, and secondary materials including a variety of articles and books. Second, given space limitations, this study focuses on two different periods in Russia and two in the United States. The commonality between them was that in one case civilmilitary relations were more or less symbiotic (the George H. W. Bush or Bush I and Putin periods), while in the other instance (the Yeltsin and George W. Bush or Bush II periods) relations were very difficult, at times chaotic. The question therefore is, what can military culture tell us about each country individually and, more important, about comparing civilmilitary relations? It is also important to emphasize that the methodology used in this article is qualitative, not quantitative. Each of the characteristics noted above is analyzed during all four periods. Furthermore, rather than attempting to quantify the degree of respect or disrespect, each of the three country discussions evaluates the level of

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respect on a national basis; for example, the preponderance of evidence indicates that the Yeltsin regime showed little respect for military expertise. These conclusions are charted to see what factors were most associated with the creation of constructive political engagement and which ones undermined it.

The Case Studies22

The key question to be asked is, how similar or different were the four periods? Based on intuition alone, the George W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin administrations would seem to bear striking similarities, as would the George H. W. Bush and the Vladimir Putin administrations. Just how similar were these administrations, and how much does an examination of these four periods tell us about the value of military culture as a vehicle for comparing diverse political systems?

The Yeltsin Administration

1. Executive leadership. Yeltsin provided almost no political leadership for the military during his tenure. Take, for example, the case of military reform. If the generals hoped to be successful, they had to have strong support from the president. Not only was money involved, but also the presidents office would be needed to overcome bureaucratic obstacles within the military. As Colonel General Igor Rodionov put it, If military reform is now at an impasse and the Armed Forces, per se (i.e., the Army and Navy) have been reduced to a desperate state, this is primarily the fault of the countrys political leadership, which has completely removed itself from the management of military reform.23 What is even worse than his lack of leadership is that Yeltsin provided a military budget that created chaos and made military reform impossible. Consider the following: instead of providing the money for military reform and thereby giving the generals the stability and predictability any senior officer needs to plan, Yeltsin repeatedly cut the military budget. When the generals begged him for more money, he ignored them. In 1991 the military budget stood at $324.5 billion. The next year it was down to $86.93 billion; in 1993 it was down to $74.1 billion, and in 1994 it was $71.7 billion.24 Indeed, the situation with the budget would get so bad that soldiers would be sent out to pick mushrooms, and a bank would supply the militarys hats and boots during the first war in Chechnya. In 1997, he cut the budget another 20 percent. As General Rokhlin commented, That amount would not even cover the cost of six months of the salaries and benefits mandated by Russian law.25 By the end of his tenure, the military budget had fallen from $142 billion dollars in 1992 to $4 billion in 1999, a 98 percent decrease!26 The bottom line was that it was disingenuous for him to expect the Army to remain combat capable at a time when he was starving it for funds.

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Take another example. In May 1996, Yeltsin called for the formulation of a National Security Concept. The military was excited. Finally a document that will define the course of Russian security policy! Unfortunately, while it provided some idea of where Yeltsin was taking the country, most of it was vague. The military was looking for leadership, specific guidelines; instead, it was given ambiguous and fine-sounding language. Not the kind of leadership from Yeltsin that the military was seeking. Yeltsins leadership style was too chaotic, too unpredictable, too focused on keeping himself in power to effectively deal with the countrys deep-seated problems. Indeed, when it came to leadership, the generals found Yeltsin seriously lacking. They may not have liked the direction he would have taken the military, and they would probably have fought him behind the scenes. However, Russian officers believed that at least they had a right to expect the president to show leadership. 2. Respect for military expertise. When he came to power, Yeltsin was convinced the cold war was over and therefore did not need the military as might have been the case in the past. With that in mind, he asked himself, why worry about the armed forces? They would not be needed in the immediate future. As a consequence, he made it clear that he did not respect the high command and made no effort to hide it. The military resented Yeltsins attitude. This became evident in the aftermath of his order that Russian Army tanks become involved in the 1993 attack on the state Duma. The generals wanted no part of being involved in politics and felt Yeltsin would not listen to them. This was why General Grachev demanded that Yeltsin put his order in writing. They were not about to have himlike Gorbachevuse military force and then blame them if anything went wrong.27 The generals were especially upset at Yeltsins refusal to consider their advice when it came to the First Invasion of Chechnya. They complained about the operationthe Army was in no condition to carry out such an operation. Yet Yeltsin insisted. The military was so upset about being ordered to invade when there were insufficient weapons, equipment, and, most of all, training that approximately 540 officers resigned rather than serve in the warincluding some of the most senior generals in the army (e.g., Colonel General Eduard Vorobyev, the Deputy Commander of Ground Forces, who was ordered to take command of the operation but refused).28 By April 1995, 557 officers had been fired, and criminal proceedings had begun against 11 of them.29 As the generals had predicted, the invasion was a military disaster. Troops who had never trained together were sent to fight together (e.g., reservists, airborne, regulars, naval infantry, border guards were put in the same unit). By February 24, 1995, 1,146 men had been killed and another 374 were missing and presumed dead.30 Yeltsin then blamed the army for the serious losses suffered by Russian troops in Chechnya. The situation between Yeltsin and the military became so bad that retired General Lev Rokhlin mounted an unsuccessful effort to have him removed.31 Yeltsin further undercut the generals ability to deal directly with their troops in 1994, when he issued a presidential decree that subordinated all force organs to the

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president. As a result, the military lost its ability to be heard by members of the legislative. They now worked directly for the president. 3. Clear chain of command. The First Chechen War illustrated the chaotic nature of command relationships in the Russian Army under Yeltsin. Grachev was not only named commander of a potential invasion but also told to negotiate with the Chechens about the regions future as well. In fact, Yeltsin and the Security Council tied his hands to such a degree that he was unable to be effective. Throughout the Chechen operation, Yeltsin interfered and countermanded the generals orders. To make matters worse, the chain of command constantly changed. At one point it was under the command of the army, at another it was the Interior Ministryand then that changed back to the army, then back to Interior. Between 1994 and 1996, there were over eight changes of senior command in Russian forces.32 It was organizational chaos. The Russian General Staff had a variety of functions, but even if they were operational they were traditionally subordinated to the defense minister. Yeltsin was concerned about this arrangement; it gave the defense minister too much power. So in 1995 Yeltsin told his colleagues that he intended to detach the General Staff from the Ministry of Defense and create two parallel structures. The 1996 Law on Defense did exactly that. Over time this would result in constant confusion and at times even chaos as the line of authority became blurred. The Chief of the General Staff and the defense minister sometimes had differences of opinionand that happened frequently when General Igor Sergeyev was defense minister and General Anatoli Kvashnin was Chief of the General Staff. The consequence was organizational chaos. Who were the soldiers supposed to follow? The defense minister or the Chief of the General Staff? When Yeltsin left the scene, he left behind ten years of neglect. The Armed Forces were in a disastrous condition as a result of Yeltsins refusal to listen to his generals or provide even the minimal amount of money necessary to keep it going, let alone modernize and reform it. Military morale was at rock bottom, and rebuilding the armed forces would be a very long and difficult undertaking.33

The Putin Administration

Compared to Yeltsins, for the military, the Putin administration was a breath of fresh air, a positive change. 1. Executive leadership. Beginning with his emergence as Prime Minister in 1999, it was clear that Putin was prepared to provide executive leadership. One of the first things he did was to call a meeting of all of the agencies involved in the war in Chechnya to try to impose some order on military operations. This was standard procedure for Putinintervene, but only if absolutely necessary. He also announced he would accept personal responsibility for Chechnya.

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Once he took over as president, Putins primary goal was to reintroduce stability and predictability into the military. It is impossible for senior military officers to plan if they do not know how much money they will receive or what is expected of them. Similarly, most generals tend to be flexible and nonideological. This was also Putins pragmatic approach to leadership: If this idea worked, then use it. Forget about its ideological significance. Putin demonstrated his leadership role in dealing with Chechnya while he was still Prime Minister by flying down to Grozny in a jet fighter, which, if nothing else, emphasized his connection to the war.34 Another observer, in discussing his leadership in dealing with Chechnya, commented, Another factor, perhaps the most important one, for the success of the invasion was the resolve and direction demonstrated by the political leadership in Moscow, namely Vladimir Putin as acting Prime Minister.35 There was one area where Putin pushed the generals, and that was the idea of professionalizing the Russian armed forces. For Putin and many of the generals, large armies based on the use of mass forces backed up by hundreds if not thousands of tanks and artillery were a thing of the past. It not only was out of date (look at the Western militaries) but also cost too much. While some generals (Kvashnin comes to mind) did everything they could to undermine this experiment, others were in favor, believing that the future was in high technologynot in the mass of troops. The important point is that Putin showed leadership, and since that time the Russian military has gradually moved in that direction (in spite of many problems and stops and starts). His approach to making changes in the military was gradualistic. Putin also showed that he was a leader when it came to budgeting money for the military. In 2000, when Putin assumed the presidency, the military budget was (in billions of rubles) R146; by 2006 it was up to R498.76.36 In contrast to Yeltsin, Putin also pushed hard for salary increases. The militarys salary was raised several times, but it remained far below civilian salaries in large part because of inflation. 2. Respect for military expertise. Putins approach in dealing with the high command was in striking contrast to that of Yeltsin. Putin made it clear to the generals that he was interested in their ideas on the use of force. On August 16, 1999, Putin sent Interior Ministry troops to Dagestan, where they, together with local security forces and some military units, engaged the Chechens. Fighting lasted three weeks. It involved Russian heavy aerial bombing, rocket attacks from Russian helicopter gunships and artillery assaults.37 Most pleasing from the generals standpoint was Putins response when they asked to use the highly destructive fuel oil explosives. This was a politically risky action. Putin approved the plan and made it clear to them that they were the ones fighting the war. Many think that it was this decision to use fuel oil explosives that did the trick.38 For Putin, the generals ran the military. Similarly, while Putin may have been the major lever pushing the military to become a professional force, once it appeared that the senior military staff was

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dedicated to the idea, Putin receded in the background and permitted the generals who understood the military to implement the new program. The same was true of training exerciseswhich had been almost nonexistent from 1999 to 2001. He found the money for them, but it was up to the generals to decide what kind of exercises to put on. He gave them time to adapt and listened to them. 3. Clear chain of command. Putin understood the importance of a clear chain of command. Furthermore, it was clear to him that the constant bickering between Kvashnin and Sergeyev had to stop. Early on in his administration, he ordered both generals to silence their debate and come up with realistic policy proposals.39 However, in spite of Putins comments, the battle between the two senior officers raged on. Finally, on March 28, 2001, the Kremlin announced that the defense minister had stepped down to become a presidential advisor.40 He was replaced by Sergei Ivanov, a former KGB general and a close friend and confident of Putin. That removed one part of the problem. Unfortunately, Kvashnin continued to fight with the defense ministerin this case Ivanov. Consequently, on June 14, the Duma changed Article 13 of the Law on Defense to mention only the Defense Ministry: Oversight for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is carried out by the defense minister via the Defense Ministry.41 From now on the Chief of the General Staff worked for the defense minister. Putin then fired Kvashnin. Furthermore, operational matters were taken away from the General Staff and given to the Ministry of Defense. The generals and admirals were not overjoyed at some of the ideas Putin forced on themfor example, a professional militarybut they were appreciative of his leadership. For the first time since 1999 they were getting back to the world of stability and predictability. Putin may have argued with this or that general about what he believed should be done, but from all appearances he appears to have treated all of them with respect. The senior officers also appreciated the clear chain of command that he created. No longer would senior officers have to put up with the confusion and inefficiencies that come from not knowing who to obey.

The Second Bush Administration42

1. Executive leadership. Georg W. Bush is the first president with an MBA, the first who had been a CEO. He let it be known that he favors a corporate model of political leadership.43 For practical purposes, this meant, as Bing West put it, President Bush presided more than decided, acting like the chairman of the board rather than the chief executive. . . . Once he selected an option, he considered his job done.44 The primary result of this leadership style was that it placed primary control of the military in the hands of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Bush was not about to get involved in how Rumsfeld ran the Pentagon. Bush did meet with senior

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officers on more than one occasion, and he provided general guidance on policy, but he left it up to Rumsfeld to decide how and what advice the Pentagon would provide to the president. Unfortunately, from the militarys standpoint, Rumsfeld provided too much leadership. On issues such as transformation and the war in Iraq, he told the military not only what he wanted but also what conclusions he expected them to reach. To make matters worse, the generals were often excluded from meetings with the secretary and the president and therefore in many cases did not know what had been decided. 2. Respect for military expertise. The most notable characteristic of Rumsfelds reign was his almost complete distrust of the uniformed military. He believed the militarys task was simply to carry out his orders. He began his administration by holding secret meetings on the future of the military while excluding the generals from them. He primary concern was implementing a policy of military transformation (e.g., greater reliance on high tech weapons that would compensate for large numbers of troops). It was then up to the military to quietly implement it even if was undefined and even if doing so made it impossible to carry out the missions assigned to it. He did his best to exclude the Armys Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, who had made considerable headway in transforming the army from a tank-heavy force to a lighter force.45 Meanwhile, he cancelled a key weapons program under less than honorable conditions. Rumsfeld was also dismissive of military advice in the lead up to and in the invasion of Iraq. For example, he openly interfered with the Armys massive planning document, the Time-Phased Force and Deployment Data (TPFDD). The TPFDD for Iraq was an unbelievably complex master plan governing which units would go where, when, and with what equipment, on which planes or ships, so that everything would be coordinated and ready at the time of attack.46 As a result, when the U.S. forces arrived in Iraq, they lacked both numbers and the right kinds of troops. Why? Because Rumsfeld had pulled them out of the TPFDD. Furthermore, in planning for the invasion, Rumsfeld was determined to prove the superiority of his transformation policy. The United States would invade Iraq with minimal numbers of troops, thereby showing that his high-tech shock and awe policy was not only viable but also the best way to fight a war. This is why he refused to accept Tommy Franks number of 480,000 troops and instead beat him down until the United States invaded with about 145,000far too few to deal with the postcombat period. He also convinced Franks not to deploy the 17,500 troops of the First Cavalry Division in Iraqan action that deprived the military of troops badly needed to stabilize the country. To make matters worse, Rumsfeld and his colleagues assured the Army that the issue of posthostilities operations (or Phase IV as the military called it) had been fully taken care of prior to the invasion. In fact, almost nothing had been done. The civilians had ignored the militarys concern because they were convinced what an

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Iraqi refugee had told themthat they would be greeted with open arms, that the new Iraqi government would quickly take over, and that the Americans could leave shortly after liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party. Worst of all, Rumsfeld and his colleaguesin particular Jerry Bremer, who had been sent to Iraq to set up the Coalition Provisional Authoritytook two steps opposed by the military that had disastrous resultsthe disestablishment of the Baath Party and the dismemberment of the Iraqi military. The result, especially from the latter action, was an influx of thousands of Iraqis into the insurgency. Rumsfeld continued to ignore those who disagreed with him throughout his time in office. 3. Clear chain of command. There were problems with the chain of command under Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld wanted only officers who agreed with him in key assignments. As a result, he passed on the promotion of all officers at the three-star rank and above. If he did not like a senior officers political views or approach to transformation or leadership, the officer was doomed to retirement. On many occasions, Rumsfeld participated in the selection of officers at the two-star level.47 He also went out of his way to select officers he believed he could controlthe most obvious being General Richard Myers, a devotee of high tech and an Air Force officer who believed in showing deference to the civilian leadership. Another example comes from Iraq. While General Ricardo Sanchez was in command of American troops and Paul Bremer was in charge of the Provisional Command Authority, neither was in charge of operations in Iraq, and neither was on speaking terms with the other. Furthermore, both reported to Rumsfeld. The result was a constant bureaucratic struggle between the army and the State Department. One of the worst examples of the confusion of this situation came from the first attack on the city of Fallujah by the Marines. The Marines reported through a military chain of command, while Bremer was dealing directly with Rumsfeld or Condi Rice at the White House. It is not surprising that the military reacted negatively to Rumsfelds interference and attempts to micromanage its actions in Iraq.

The First Bush AdministrationGeorge H. W. Bush

1. Executive leadership. Although he did not try to micromanage security policies, George H. W. Bush expected to be consulted on policies involving the use or the threat of the use of military force. Bush permitted the military and the defense department to work out policy recommendations, but he was closely involved in making key decisions. This was evident in the invasions of Panama and Kuwait. First, consider the invasion of Panama. After Panamanian strongman Manuel Antonio Noriegas forces had attacked U.S. forces in the Panama Zone, General Colin Powell met with Bush

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the afternoon of December 16, 1989. He brought Bush up to date on what had happened. Bushs prime concern was to avoid a repeat of the failed attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran as well as to preclude the kind of interservice rivalry that had taken place in Grenada. After hearing Powells explanation of the situation on the ground, Bush said, Okay, lets do it.48 The situation was similar when it came to the decision to oust the Iraqis from Kuwait. On August 2, the day after the Iraqis had crossed into Kuwait, the National Security Council met, with the president in attendance. General Norman Schwarzkopf, the individual in charge of U.S. forces in the region, briefed the president on the situation. Bush insisted that the United States respond. The National Security Council (NSC) met again on October 31. At that meeting, Powell laid it out for the president. Now, if you, Mr. President, decide to build upgo for an offensive optionthis is what we need.49 After Powell had discussed the additional resources required, Bush approved and told Powell to get to work on the operation. Finally, it is also worth noting that when it came to terminating the successful effort to oust Saddam, Bush asked for the input of all of his advisors and commanders, but he himself made the decision to break off hostilities. 2. Respect for military expertise. George H. W. Bush was not a micromanager. He allowed the military professionals to handle operational matters, justify the military budget, and work out new force structures and military doctrines. Bush expected the military to come to him with plans. This was evident in both military actions. In planning the invasion of Panama, Powell argued for a massive use of force, and Bush approved. When it became obvious that there was a high probability that military force would be used to get rid of Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega, Powell met privately with Generals Maxwell Thurman and Carl Stiner. He asked them to come up with an invasion plan that the chiefs approved, and Powell briefed it to the president. Bush and Powell met from time to time to polish various aspects of the operation. For his part, Bush asked only to be kept abreast of what was happening while leaving the fighting to the military. As was the case in the invasion of Panama, planning for the First Gulf War was left almost entirely in the hands of Powell and Schwarzkopf. True, Bush would frustrate the military, expanding his charge to the armed forces to not only keep Saddam Hussein from invading Saudi Arabia but also, by suddenly expanding his order, throw the Iraqis out of Kuwait. But the important aspect of this military action was that Bush trusted his commanders. The planning and implementation of military actions was almost entirely in the hands of Powell and Schwarzkopf. Furthermore, as noted above, Bush was careful to get inputs from his generals before calling a truce in this military action. 3. Clear chain of command. During this Bush administration, the chain of command was clear. This is evident from several examples. During the Panamanian invasion, the

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chain of command ran directly from the president, to Powell (with the Joint Chiefs being informed of what was taking place by Powell), to Generals Thurman and Stiner. There were only two attempts to circumvent this chain of command. First, the Marines would have liked to divert some of their forces that were returning from the Far East to take part in the operation. But because they would take too long to arrive in Panama and delay the operations schedule, the Marines offer was politely declined. Second, during the operation, NSC advisor Brent Scowcroft intervened on behalf of a major newspaper to ask Powell to come to the aid of some newspaper reporters who were holed up in a hotel. Powell checked and was told by Thurman that they were not in danger, but Scowcroft insisted. The military sent out a rescue group and extracted the journalistswho were not in danger. However, in the process three soldiers were wounded and a Spanish photographer killed. At Powells request, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney called Scowcroft, asking him not to issue any more orders from the sidelines.

Conclusion: Comparing Russian and American CivilMilitary Relations

For purposes of clarification, permit me to use the following chart (see Table 1).50 So what does this chart tell us? First, in spite of the different Russian and American political systems and political cultures, military culture can be a useful vehicle for isolating or at least pointing to the factors that acerbate conflict in civilmilitary relations. As is evident from the Bush II period, executive leadership is critical but not sufficient, at least in a situation in which civil authorities were in charge. It is hard to imagine a situation similar to that which existed under Yeltsin in which there would be a lack of executive leadership but respect for the military and a clear chain of command. Without executive leadership, one would be presented with a state within a state, with the military enjoying complete autonomy. To produce the kind of constructive relationship discussed above, it is important that executive leadership be followed up by respect for military expertise and a clear chain of command. Second, there is the issue of change. Almost all militaries, and that certainly includes the American and especially the Russian military, tend to resist change. The first question that must be asked is what kind of change. Radical change is one thing; evolutionary change is another thing altogether. If the goal is radical change, then a violation of military culture may be inevitable. In such cases, however, conflicts will ensue, but civilian authorities may be able to minimize conflict by respecting military culture to the maximum degree possible. The most they can do to limit conflict is to find military officers who are respected by their colleagues and leave it up to them not civiliansto implement changes.

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Table 1 Comparison of Military Attitudes

Military Attitude toward: Characteristic Executive leadership Respect for military expertise Clear chain of command Yeltsin - - - Putin + + + Bush I + + + Bush II + -

Note: = military attitude toward regime behavior is generally negative; + = military attitude toward regime behavior is generally positive.

However, as much as Rumsfeld may have been determined to introduce change in the U.S. military, he simply did not care what the military thought. He knew what he wanted and was not concerned about the uniformed militarys response. The result was constant conflict. Evolutionary change is different. Take, for example, Putins approach. He wanted change but in a direction that appears to have coincided with the views of the majority of senior officers. He was careful to respect military culture while pushing for change. For example, when faced with the seemingly never-ending conflict he had between his two most senior officers, he gradually removed the first, then the second, and changed the relationship between the General Staff and the defense ministry. This brings us back to the hypothesis presented in the beginning of this article; namely, that violating the canons of military culture acerbates conflict. This certainly happened under Yeltsin and Bush II. Similarly, the opposite took place under Putin and Bush I. This is not to suggest that there was no conflict in the civilmilitary relationship in either country during those four administrations. There was. Powell had run-ins with Cheney, and Admiral Crowe was furious when he found out that General Woerner had been fired without him having been consulted. Similarly, there were Russian officers who strongly opposed Putins favoritism toward conventional forces over the Strategic Rocket Forces or his strong push for a smaller, more professional military. This kind of disagreement will always be a part of civil military relations in every country. Lest the reader get the wrong impression, despite the foregoing, the level of conflict or institutional decay has not been the same in both countries. It was far worse in Russia under Yeltsin than it was in the United States under Rumsfeld. The U.S. military is continuing to fight two wars despite a plethora of problems. The difference between the two countries is that Yeltsins lack of leadership and disrespect went far beyond that of Rumsfeld, and, just as important, it went on not for six years but for almost ten years. Furthermore, despite Rumsfelds arrogance in dealing with the military, Washington continued to buy weapons systems, bring in new equipment and training techniques, and pay the military well by standards of

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the past. Russia, meanwhile, did little. Planes did not fly, ships did not sail, and the army did not train for more than ten years. Finally, it is important to keep in mind that this story is incomplete. It is based on an in-depth study of civilmilitary relations in two countries during two time periods. But does it hold for other polities? It would, for example, be very useful to look at the experiences of another established, bureaucratized military forcethat of Canada. In 1968, Canadian Forces went through a period when senior civil authorities showed open disrespect for the countrys military leaders as the various services were forced to unify, an action that led to mass resignations on the part of Canadian officers. Similarly, one of the characteristics of civilmilitary relations in Germany has been an effort to civilianize military culture by introducing the concept of Innere Fhrung.51 It would be useful to compare that period using the three characteristics of military culture presented here and compare the Canadian and German experiences with the American and Russian. Other country studies along the same line would also be useful. Someone once said that the comparative approach is the ultimate test for any model or paradigm. Whether we want to admit it or not, all polities are culturally bound. Feavers model mentioned previously represents a major contribution to the field. However, to validate it, it must be applied elsewhere in other polities to determine its universal validity. Unfortunately, such a study would demand the same in-depth knowledge of another polity that Feaver has of the American system. That, in turn, requires languages and in-depth knowledge of another culturefor example, do rewards and punishments mean the same to military officers in Brazil or Ghana or China as they do in the United States? We are scratching the surface when it comes to understanding the dynamics of civilmilitary relations. But at least it is a beginning.

Notes
1. James Burk, Theories of Democratic Civil-Military Relations, Armed Forces & Society 29, 1 (Fall 2002): 7. 2. Zoltan Barany, Democratic Breakdown and the Decline of the Russian Military (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 7. 3. One can, of course, point to the actions of Douglas MacArthur in openly defying the orders of his commander in chiefPresident Harry S. Trumanbut that was a rare exception to the rule in both of the countries discussed here. See Dale Herspring, The Pentagon and the Presidency: Civil-Military Relations from FDR to George W. Bush (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005), 77-78, 81. Some have seen parallels between MacArthur and Soviet Marshal Georgi Zhukov, but as Timothy Colton argued in his major work on the Soviet Main Political Administration, the clash between these two men was more of personality conflict that a civilmilitary dispute. See Timothy Colton, Commissars, Commanders, and Civilian Authority: The Structure of Soviet Military Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979). 4. Richard K. Betts, Soldiers, Statesman and Cold War Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 5; Richard Kohn, The Erosion of Civilian Control of the Military in the United States Today, Naval War College Review 55 (Summer 2002):8-59. 5. For an essay arguing the critical importance of influence, see Kobi Michael, The Dilemma behind the Classical Dilemma of Civil-Military Relations, Armed Forces & Society 33, 4 (2007): 518-46.

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6. Christopher P. Gibson and Don M. Snider, Civil-Military Relations and the Potential to Influence: A Look at the National Security Decision-making Process, Armed Forces & Society 25, 2 (1999): 195. A similar argument is contained in Risa A. Brooks, Shaping Strategy: The Civil-Military Politics of Strategic Assessment (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), esp. chap. 1, in which she argues that when divergence over security and corporate interests are not entrenched and profound, importance obstacles to strategic assessment are absent. Ibid., 5. Obviously, if the lines between the military and civilians are entrenched, then a constructive relationship is very unlikely. 7. Deborah Avant, Conflicting Indicators of Crisis in American Civil-Military Relations, Armed Forces & Society 24, 3 (1998): 383. 8. Sam C. Sarkesian and Robert J. Connor, Jr., The US Military Profession into the Twenty-first Century; War, Peace and Politics, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2006), 19. 9. Zbiniew Brzezinski and Samuel Huntington, Political Power: USA/USSR (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1982). 10. Jonathan R. Adelman, Revolution, Armies and War (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1985). 11. E.g., J. Samuel Fitch, ed., The Armed Forces and Democracy in Latin America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); Constantine Danopoulos and Cynthia Watson, eds., The Political Role of the Military (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996); Jonathan R. Adelman, ed., Communist Armies in Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1982); Constantine Danopoulos and Daniel Zirker, eds., The Military and Society in the Former Eastern Bloc (Boulder, CO: Westview, 199); Andrew Cottey, Timothy Edmunds, and Anthony Forster, Democratic Control for the Military in Post-communist Europe; Guarding the Generals (London: Palgrave, 2002); Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner, eds., Civil-Military Relations and Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). There are, of course, hundreds if not thousands of single-country studies. For example, Alfred Stepans Rethinking Military Politics, Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988) has had a major impact on scholars of civilmilitary relations all over the world. 12. Michael Desch, Civilian Control of the Military (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), see esp. 39-66 and compare his analysis with this writers The Kremlin and the High Command (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006). In the end, the Russian military was far less of a threat to political control than Desch assumed. In fact, it was in a state bordering on chaos given Yeltsins lack of leadership and respect for the military. 13. David Pion-Berlin, Civil-Military Relations in Latin America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 1-35. 14. Ibid., 17 15. Peter D. Feaver, Armed Servants; Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). 16. Walter F. Ulmer, Joseph J. Collins, and T. O. Jacobs, American Military Culture in the Twenty-first Century (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies Press, 2000), 3. Also see Edgar Schein, Organizational Culture, American Psychologist 45, 2 (1990): 110. 17. Nick Jans with David Schmidtchen, The Real C-Cubed: Culture, Careers, and Climate and How They Affect Military Capability (Canberra: Australian National Defense University, Strategic and National Studies Centre, 2002), 39. 18. One may argue that paramilitary forces such as the police also require the individual to put his or her life on the line in carrying out his or her duties. That is true, of course, and that is why some of the militarys cultural characteristics are shared by police forces. However, the military is more removed from civilian society and is trained to use more complex forms of violence. For a discussion of civilian military culture, see Thomas Langston, The Civilian Side of Military Culture, Parameters (Autumn 2000): 21 19. For a more detailed discussion of military culture, see Williamson Murray, Does Military Culture Matter? Orbis (Winter 1999): 27; John Hillen, Must US Military Culture Reform? Orbis (Winter 1999): 43; and Williamson Murray, Military Culture Does Matter, FPRI Wire 7 (January 1999): 2, http://www.fpri.org.

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20. The following statement of the main characteristics of U.S. military culture is based on a variety of sources, including many discussions with military officers as well as the authors thirty-three-year association with the U.S. Navy and a variety of academic studies. See, for example, Jans with Schmidtchen, The Real C-Cubed, 42-53; A. J. Bacevich, Tradition Abandoned: Americas Military in a New Era, National Interest 58 (Summer 1997): 3; John Allen Williams, The Military and Modern Society, The World and I 14 (September 1999): 311; Edgar R. Puryear, American Generalship: Character is Everything: The Art of Command (Novato, CA: Presidio, 2002), 1-43; Peter Maslowski, Army Values and American Values, Military Review 70, 4 (April 1990): 10-23; Betts, Soldiers, Statesman and Cold War Crisis, 157-58; Richard H. Kohn, How Democracies Control the Military, Journal of Democracy 4, 8 (1997): 140; Thomas E. Ricks, The Widening Gap between the Military and Society, Atlantic Monthly 280, 1 (July 1997): 66-77; Cultural Demolition in the Military, Washington Times, November 20, 1998; Peter Feaver, The Gap, Soldiers, Civilians and Their Mutual Misunderstanding, National Interest 61 (Fall 2000): 29-37; Gregory D. Foster, Failed Expectations: The Crisis of Civil-Military Relations in America, Brookings Review 15 (Fall 1997): 46-48; and Elliot Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (New York: Free Press, 2002). Also see articles in Peter Feaver and Richard H. Kohn, eds., Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001). For comments on Russian military culture, the author has relied on his own extensive contact with Russian military officers as well as a variety of academic studies. See, e.g., Herspring, The Kremlin and the High Command; Pavel K. Baev, The Challenge of Small Wars for the Russian Military, in Russian Military Reform, 19922000, ed. Anne C. Aldis and Roger N. McCermott (New York: Frank Cass, 2003), 189-202; Alexandr Golts, The Social and Political Condition of the Russian Military, in The Russian Military Power and Policy, ed. Steven F. Miller and Dmitri Trenin (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), 80; Anatol Lieven, Chechnya: The Tombstone of Russian Power (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), citing General Vrobyev, 293; Christopher C. Losksley, Concept, Algorithm, Indecision: Why Military Reform Has Failed in Russia Since 1992, Slavic Military Studies 14, 1 (March 2001): 1-26; Michael Orr, Manpower Problems in the Russian Armed Forces, 19921993, no. D62 (Camberley, UK: Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Conflict Studies Research Centre, February 2002), 8; Michael Orr, Reform and the Russian Ground Forces, 1992 2002, in Russian Military Reform, 19922000, ed. Anne C. Aldis and Roger N. McCermott (New York: Frank Cass, 2003), 136; Brian Taylor, The Russian Military Outside Politics: A Historical Perspective, PONARS Policy Memo, 2 (October 1997); Robert Barylski, The Soldier in Russian Politics (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishing, 1998), 9-12, 57-58. 21. Richard Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern Presidency: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan (New York: Free Press, 1990), 11. 22. It is important to note that the Russians, either civilians or military, have had little to say about military culture or civilmilitary relations. As one Russian writer put it, Russian authors mainly stress the problem of civilian control of the military. Civilian control is defined not only in the narrow sense, as a control of the government over the military and this understanding implies an elected civilian head of the military. So civil-military relations are mainly understood as an interaction between the government and the military, while in foreign studies this term has a broader meaning, for example, the interaction between the whole society and the military. Or as she put it elsewhere in her article, Russian authors tend to view the military as a closed system separated from the rest of society. Olga Filippova, CivilMilitary Relations: The Comparative Analysis of Russian and Foreign Approaches to the Issue, PostSoviet Armies Newsletter 5, 2 (2006). Nevertheless, a reading of Russian materials or discussions with Russian officers makes it very clear that they expect civilian authorities to respect their organizational culture. The critical question is, how similar or different is the process in both countries? Are there certain commonalities that are critical to creating symbiotic civilmilitary relations? If so, what are they and what is their impact in more than one polity? 23. Cited in Michael J. Orr, Rodionov and Reform, no. C92 (Camberley, UK: Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Conflict Studies Research Centre, January 1999), 3.

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24. For the Yeltsin period, this writer relied on Russian Military Budget, Global Security.org, as cited in Steven Miller, Moscows Military Power: Russias Search for Security in an Age of Transition, in The Russian Military Power and Policy, ed. Steven E. Miller and Dmitri Trenin (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), 1-42. 25. Robert V. Barylski, The Soldier in Russian Politics, 478. 26. Brian D. Taylor, Politics and the Russian Army: Civil-Military Relations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 308. 27. Herspring, The Kremlin and the High Command, 74. 28. Olga Oliker, Russias Chechen Wars, 19942000 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001), 9-10. 29. Moscow Times, April 18, 1996. 30. As quoted in Lieven, Chechnya, 111. 31. Herspring, The Kremlin and the High Command, 127-29. 32. Gregory J. Celestan, Wounded Bear: The Ongoing Russian Military Operation in Chechnya (Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies Office, August 1996), 11. 33. This section covers up to March 2007, when Ivanov was replaced by Anatoliy Serdyukov, who continued to serve under newly elected president Dmitri Medvedev. 34. Putin and the Chechen War: Together Forever, Moscow Times, February, 11, 2004. 35. C. W. Blandy, Moscows Failure to Comprehend, in The Second Chechen War, ed. Anne Aldis, Strategic and Combat Studies Institute Occasional Paper 40 (London: Strategic and Combat Studies Institute: September 2000), 17. His approach to making changes in the military was gradualistic. He gradually forced the defense minister out, and a short time latter forced the Chief of the General Staff to retire. He also changed the relationship between the defense minister and the Chief of the General Staff so that the latter was not only clearly subordinate to the former but also forbidden to interfere in operational matters. 36. As cited in Herspring, The Kremlin and the High Command, 174. 37. Paul Murphy, The Wolves of Islam (Washington, DC: Brasseys, 2004), 101. 38. C. W. Blandy, The Storm, Part IThe Invasion of Avaristan, no. P30 (Camberley, UK: Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Conflict Studies Research Centre, March 2000), 41. 39. Hope Glimmers for Reform, Moscow Times, March 29, 2001, via Johnsons Russia List, March 29, 2001. 40. Steven J. Main, The Strategic Rocket Forces, 19912002, no. D66 (Camberley, UK: Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Conflict Studies Research Centre, July 9, 2003), 26. 41. Federalnyi zakon Ob oborone, April 24, 1996. http//www.mil.ru/articles/articles3863.shtml. 42. The primary focus is on Donald Rumsfelds tenure as Secretary of Defense. While Robert Gates adopted a very different approachmuch as Minister of Defense Dmitri Serdyukov has in Russiaevents are too current to permit the kind of conclusions needed for a study of this type. 43. Fred I. Greenstein, The Changing Leadership of George W. Bush: A Pre and Post 9/11 Comparison, in The Domestic Sources of American Foreign Policy, ed., Eugene R. Wittkopf and James McCormick, 4th ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), 359. 44. Bing West, The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq (New York: Random House, 2008), 362. 45. Shinseki would later testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee. When asked by Senator Levin (D-MI) how many troops were needed for an invasion of Iraq, he responded, Something on the order of a hundred thousand. Rumsfeld was furious, and Wolfowitz undercut him by stating that his views were wildly off the mark. Dale R. Herspring, Rumsfelds Wars: The Arrogance of Power (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008), 124-25. There has been a debate on the appropriateness of Shinsekis testimony in Armed Forces & Society: see discussions by Damon Coletta, Courage in the Service of Virtue: The Case of General Shinsekis Testimony before the Iraq War, Armed Forces & Society 34, 1 (October 2007): 109-21; and Paul Camacho and William Hauser, Civil-Military RelationsWho Are the Real Principals? A Response to Courage in the Service of Virtue: The Case of

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General Shinsekis Testimony before the Iraq War, Armed Forces & Society 34, 1 (October 2007): 122-37. 46. James Fallows, Blind into Baghdad, Atlantic Monthly 293, 1 (January-February 2004): 15. 47. Herspring, Rumsfelds Wars, 13. 48. Colin Powell, My American Journey (New York: Random House, 1995), 425. 49. Ibid. 50. As has been stressed previously, I am not trying to quantify the relationship, nor to show correlations. Rather, this is a notional charge, based on the preceding material. 51. This term is almost impossible to accurately translate. Technically it means inner leadership, but in practice it is tied to the German effort to civilianize military culture to the maximum degree possible.

Dale Herspring, a university distinguished professor at Kansas State University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of 12 books and more than 80 articles dealing with U.S., Russian/Soviet, German, and Polish civilmilitary relations. Address for correspondence: Dale Herspring, Kansas State University, Department of Political Science, Waters Hall 240, Manhattan, KS 66506; e-mail: falka@ksu.edu.

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