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Whether it’s the attack on Pearl Harbor, the outbreak of the Korean War, the start of the Gulf War, or the 9–11 terrorist attacks, the United States has suffered no shortage of strategic intelligence failures in its history. More recently, however, the United States has suffered from a different brand of mishap – a failure of net assessment, where the United States under- or overestimated how our allies would fare in a conflict against known adversaries. This article lays out two competing theories for why these net assessment failures happen – the missing variable hypothesis versus self-delusion. It then tests these theories against three cases of net assessment failures – Iraq in 2014, Afghanistan in 2021 and Ukraine in 2022. This article argues that contrary to popular belief, American net assessment failures are not primarily due a failure to collect the right information or an inability to assess the ‘will to fight’. Rather, American net assessment failures often stem from self-delusion. Because these assessments are often done at the upper rungs of government and include more qualitative judgements about friendly and enemy willpower and proficiency, senior government officials often shape their assessments to best fit their policy preferences. In other words, they fall victim to the confirmation trap. Consequently, if the United States aims to produce better net assessments in the future, then it needs to guard against this bias by professionalizing net assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Journal of Strategic Studies focuses on the theory and practice of strategy, with an emphasis on China, nuclear matters, and strategic theory. The current issue includes articles on China's nuclear revolution, the People's Liberation Army's military strategic guidelines, Chinese decision making in peace and crisis, France's response to the rise of China, the Chinese Communist Party's use of economic statecraft, and nuclear matters from theoretical and historical perspectives. The journal also includes essays on strategic theory and the influence of important strategic thinkers. The editors promise to continue providing insightful and engaging articles in the future. [Extracted from the article]

The question of military command has always been of central concern to scholars, policymakers and military professionals. Indeed, in the last twenty years, many commentators have expressed deep concern about the failure of western command in Iraq and Afghanistan. In their recent books, Lawrence Freedman and Jim Storr contribute to these debates. This article assesses their analysis of command. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea's transition from military-controlled authoritarianism to consolidated civilian-dominated democracy is widely considered a success story. However, civilians' roles within the MND remain severely limited due to the institutional design of the MND. A decentralised structure emerged in the MND, delegating policy decision-making in critical areas to professional soldiers. Data analysis on 1,060 employees in 21 MND departments shows a clear cut between the military domain and the civilian domain within the MND, which enabled the military to thwart 30 years of civilian efforts to reform the military structure without challenging the principle of civilian supremacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

French civil-military relations under the 5th Republic are marked by the imposing figure of the President, because of their role in nuclear deterrence. In that context, the role of the ministry of defence in general, and of its leader (the minister) in particular, is ambiguous: the minister is technically not the highest authority in charge of defence issues (since both the Prime Minister and the President are constitutionally tasked with important responsibilities in the defence realm), but they nevertheless need to find a role between the presidential guidelines and the military demands. In this article, we show that civil-military relations within the French ministry of Defence are therefore characterized by an "unstable equilibrium": the history of the French MoD is rife with regular swings between the primacy of the military or the primacy of civilians. Overall, the French MoD has adopted a model civil-military relations which is structurally unstable, due to the shifting legitimacy of the military elite within the French bureaucracy and the importance of the personality of the political and military actors involved: without fundamentally altering bureaucratic rules and organization, the power balance between civilian and military actors can quickly evolve. To a degree, this shows the plasticity of French civil-military relations and its ability to adapt to the actors involved, especially the President. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses India's Ministry of Defence and its influence on civil-military relations. It argues that, until very recently, the strategic intent of the defence ministry has primarily focused on civilian control over the military. The resultant institutional structure of civilian control compromised the effectiveness of the Indian military. This was due to several features of the country's model of civilian control, including a lack of civilian expertise, bureaucratic procedures underlying civil-military interactions as well as military autonomy. Acknowledging these problems, the government has currently embarked on reforms to maximize military power. It is doing so mainly by infusing military expertise at the ministerial level. However, this may upend the civil-military dynamic in India and the success of this initiative remains to be seen. Conceptually, this article examines a possibly pernicious effect of a civilian dominated ministry and highlights the importance of expertise in enhancing both control and military effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The English translation of Carl von Clausewitz's On War by Michael Howard and Peter Paret has had a major impact on how Clausewitz is read today, especially in the United States and Britain. Howard in particular was determined to make Clausewitz doubly relevant – as one soldier speaking to other soldiers and as an author whose views on war had continuing purchase. However, the result is a text which, in reflecting the issues of its day, is not fully reflective of what Clausewitz himself said and has itself become dated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Routes to reform: Civil–military relations and democracy in the third wave" by David Kuehn and Aurel Croissant is a comprehensive study on civil–military relations in democratic transitions, consolidation, and breakdowns. The authors use quantitative indicators to analyze five decision-making areas, resulting in a Civilian Control Index (CCI) that demonstrates the central role of civil–military relations in democratic processes. The book includes case studies from South Korea, Chile, Spain, Philippines, Madagascar, and Russia, and emphasizes the importance of agency in explaining the success or failure of strategies formulated by elites. The authors also provide recommendations for supporting civilian politicians in democratic transitions. The book focuses on civilian control and does not address military effectiveness, which is a topic covered in another book co-edited by Croissant and Kuehn. The authors suggest future research on military effectiveness, particularly in relation to strategy, implementing institutions, and resources. [Extracted from the article]

Two examples from recent British campaigns, the first from the Falklands War of 1982 and the second from the Iraq War of 2003, are used to consider attempts by civilian policy-makers to influence the conduct of ongoing military operations as a result of frustration with slow progress. Both cases highlight the importance of the higher command structures as providing a buffer between the government and local field commanders, and show the problems that can result when key strategic questions are left unanswered in the run-up to a campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No issue deserves more scrutiny than the mechanisms whereby popular unrest unleashes civil wars. We argue that one institution – two-tiered security systems – is particularly pernicious in terms of the accompanying civil war risk. These systems' defining characteristic is the juxtaposition of small communally stacked units that protect regimes from internal adversaries with larger regular armed forces that deter external opponents. These systems aggravate civil war risks because stacked security units lack the size to repress widespread dissent, but inhibit rapid regime change through coup d'état. Regular militaries, meanwhile, fracture when ordered to employ force against populations from which they were recruited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the positions of the Chinese civilian leaders and military elites on Military Operations Other Than War in order to shed light on their preferences about the use of the armed forces in foreign policy between the late 1990s and the early 2010s. Over time, a significant divergence developed between civilians and soldiers until 2011, when the Libyan crisis happened. The study also prompts important considerations about our understanding of civil–military relations in China and future role of the People's Liberation Army as a tool of statecraft in foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Pakistan Army is a politically important organization, yet its opacity has hindered academic research. We use open sources to construct unique new data on the backgrounds, careers, and post-retirement activities of post-1971 corps commanders and directors-general of Inter-Services Intelligence. We provide evidence of bureaucratic predictability and professionalism while officers are in service. After retirement, we show little involvement in electoral politics but extensive involvement in military-linked corporations, state employment, and other positions of influence. This combination provides Pakistan's military with an unusual blend of professional discipline internally and political power externally – even when not directly ruling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores current developments in Chile, where since the return to democracy in 1990, the elected authorities have reconfigured the nation's military resources in favour of four action pillars: peacekeeping and international conflict management, landmine removal and gun disarmament, emergency and catastrophe response, and a concern for human, economic and social rights. Successive defence policies offer a valuable case study for exploring the trade-offs between security, traditional and non-traditional threat management and institutional capabilities. The article argues that human security policymaking is not free from undesired outcomes; specifically, regarding how to reconvene the role of the armed forces when conventional war seems a thing of the past. The paper focuses on the interagency policy implications and the challenges ahead for civilians and the military. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States has repeatedly intervened militarily in situations where tactical success on the battlefield did not translate into meaningful political resolution of the issues triggering the introduction of military force. Although US military interventions are hardly a recent phenomenon, a series of systemic, political and institutional developments over the past several decades have been particularly conducive to the limited use of force as a policy option. These factors have reduced the costs and risks of military intervention, incentivising the use of force in situations when it may not be the optimal policy response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A constructive and effective interaction between politicians and their military advisers is an essential element in the successful conduct of strategy. The author draws on his own experience at the political-military interface and the operational level to argue that the political-military relationship is inherently problematic and that it has become increasingly so in the twenty-first century in the United Kingdom, partly due to changes in the character of conflict, but also due to an erosion of trust between political decision-makers and their senior military advisers. The article concludes that certain approaches need to be taken to resolve these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the debates in Israel between 2009 and 2013 over Iran’s nuclear programme as a reflection of a particular type of civil–military or civil–security relationship. It analyses how key actors within that relationship – particularly those with an intelligence background – engaged with media outlets in Israel and further afield to influence domestic and international opinion over how best to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In so doing, it seeks to address one fundamental question: are governments in Jerusalem any longer the final arbiters over deciding what is in the national security interests of the State of Israel? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How do countries transition from single service to joint operations? This article engages with the discussion on military innovation to argue that civil–military relations are the most important driver for jointness. In doing so it examines jointness in the Indian military. Relying on archival research and primary interviews this article sheds new light on the operations of the Indian Peacekeeping Forces (IPKF) in Sri Lanka from 1987–1990, the 1999 Kargil War and the Post-Kargil defence reforms. The main argument is that the Indian military’s transition to jointness has been ‘incomplete’ primarily because of its prevailing model of civil-military relations. This model prevents civilians from interfering in the operational issues of the military, including on matters pertaining to jointness. It therefore recommends more forceful civilian intervention to overcome the prevailing single service approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Following the pivotal decision by China’s last paramount leader to change the course of China’s development in the latter years of the previous century, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has undergone profound changes that have enabled it transform itself more quickly than ever before. Under its current commander-in-chief, these developments have become more pronounced, with Xi Jinping taking a noticeably greater interest in harnessing the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) coercive forces as his domestic powerbase and as a foreign policy instrument complementing his country’s hard economic assets. Following the 18th Party Congress, reforms to the PLA’s command and control functions have continued apace. It is thus timely to scrutinize the PLA’s continued efforts to further enhance its operational capabilities, in terms of both itshardware– including its hard power projection and procurement – and itsheartware– the softer aspects of its development, such as its operational doctrine and military ethos. With the CCP keen to continue devoting substantial political and economic capital to strengthen the capabilities of its armed servants, the present period is a critical phase in the reshaping of the PLA into a force on par with the world's other advanced militaries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China’s defense science, technology, and industrial system has been undergoing a far-reaching transformation over the past two decades and the single biggest factor behind this turnaround is the role of external technology and knowledge transfers and the defense industry’s improving ability to absorb these inputs and convert into localized output. China is pursuing an intensive campaign to obtain defense and dual-use civil–military foreign technology transfers using a wide variety of means, which is explored in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the Afghan mission winding down, the German Bundeswehr is in the process of implementing a new doctrinal system, resting on the adoption of NATO doctrine and a new joint operational doctrine. This is a historical first, which this paper argues is explained by two factors: functionally, for armed forces deeply integrated into NATO, the practical need for a joint operational doctrine did not exist. More importantly, culture matters: Germany features a highly institutionalized strategic culture that places distinct limits on some forms of joint doctrine. Thus, while impressive and logical, current doctrinal plans of the Bundeswehr, relying as they do on an ‘alliance shortcut’, raise important questions that need to be answered to ensure continuously functioning civil-military relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The word ‘doctrine’ has been part of military terminology for more than 100 years. Even though the word is ubiquitous in modern military literature, it is still ambiguous and tends to put very different ideas into readers’ mind. In order to make the concept less vague and thus more useful, this paper explores the historical and pragmatic origin of the concept, and points out some of its potential pitfalls. The main message of the article is that, although it can be extremely hard to make a viable doctrine, it is worth the effort. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rather than win hearts and minds, authoritarian counterinsurgency is said to rely heavily on coercion. It has a reputation for effectiveness, if also for its amorality. Still, the research into authoritarian counterinsurgency is surprisingly lacking. By distilling common features from key cases, this article concludes that this approach goes beyond the indiscriminate violence that typically captures the imagination. Like their democratic counterparts but differently, authoritarian regimes also engage in mobilisation, create narratives, and turn military advantage into political gain. The analysis explains how these tasks are undertaken and, by contradistinction, sheds light on more liberal approaches as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to place in historical perspective the latest effort by Colombia’s military (Colmil) to defeat the now half century old insurgency of theFuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo(FARC-EP). It argues that the ‘surge’ initiated under President Álvaro Uribe in 2002 with the assistance of the United States can only be fully analyzed in the context of the Colmil’s intellectual framework for counter-insurgency. Specifically, this article will explain how the protracted engagement with counter-insurgency has shaped the Colmil’s understanding of the nature of the conflict, as well as its attitudes towards its adversary, civil authority and the instrumentality of force. An understanding of the Colmil’s strategic tradition can also help to explain their apprehensions about the ongoing peace negotiations with the FARC-EP. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Extant literature explains Egyptian successes and failures in the October 1973 War by Sadat’s restoration or abolition of ‘objective control’: when restoring ‘objective control’, Sadat succeeded; when abolishing it, he failed. However, Samuel Huntington’s theory cannot account for Sadat’s command performance, not because Sadat zigzagged between this theory’s extremes, but because he never thought or acted according to its recipe. I employ Eliot Cohen’s Supreme Command concepts to argue that Sadat’s command constituted an eccentric combination of military romanticism and politicization of war, whose paradox was reflected in the initial military successes and the achievement of Egypt’s strategic objectives despite the military failures by the war’s final stage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss various reports within the issue on topics including the aftermath of the 1991 military action known as Operation Desert Storm, civil-military relations in Tunisia during the movement known as the Arab Spring, and Egyptian foreign relations with Israel under former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

Scholars have widely adopted the view that the behaviour of the Tunisian military during the ‘Arab Spring’ constitutes a positive case of military defection. This paper argues that, contrary to this dominant interpretation, the military remained loyal to the authoritarian civilian leadership throughout the protests as it had repeatedly done in the past. Defection occurred, however, within the Police and the National Guard, which are mistakenly portrayed as having been loyal to Ben Ali. The paper shows that scholars have sought to explain exactly the opposite of what actually happened and, thus, it questions their conclusions regarding civil-military relations in Tunisia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the nuclear command and control (C2) system implemented in Pakistan since 1998, and discusses its potential consequences for the risk of inadvertent or unauthorised use of nuclear weapons. I argue that troubled civil-military relations and Pakistan's doctrine of 'asymmetric escalation' account for the creation of a command and control system with different characteristics during peacetime and military crises. Although the key characteristics of Pakistan's nuclear C2 system allow relatively safe nuclear operations during peacetime, operational deployment of nuclear weapons during military standoffs is likely to include only rudimentary protections against inadvertent or unauthorised nuclear release. The implication of this study is that any shift from peacetime to wartime command and control procedures is likely to further destabilise Indo-Pakistani relations during the early stages of a diplomatic or military standoff, and introduce a non-trivial risk of accidental escalation to the nuclear level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private security companies (PSCs) currently receive a great deal of attention in the news media, in sensationalist reporting, and increasingly in scholarly books and articles. While the scholarly books and articles make significant contributions to our understanding of this global phenomenon, there are several impediments to analysis that must be recognized and overcome if analysis is to be improved. Three of these impediments are reviewed in this article. The author suggests that US government material is currently available to minimize impediments and offers a framework to make analytical sense of it. Since contracting out is based on contracts, and unless the complexities of awarding and managing contracts are understood, recommendations made to reform the process of contracting out security are unrealistic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is not too soon to draw cautionary lessons from the inconclusive results of US performance during more than 11 years of Operation ‘Enduring Freedom’ in Afghanistan. As in Vietnam, fundamental difficulties persist in adapting enduring institutions to the requirements of strategy. At the heart of the matter is tension between the assumptions that underlie counterinsurgency as practiced in Afghanistan and organization of the US Armed Forces, State Department, and Agency for International Development. Knowledge of basic principles and necessary changes is available to answer the question, could the US have done better? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the relationship between the White House and the US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) during President Richard M. Nixon's administration. It argues that dysfunctional civil-military relations between 1969 and 1972 undermined the implementation of a sound military strategy during the United States' withdrawal from South Vietnam as Nixon attempted to achieve ‘peace with honor’ during the Vietnam War's final campaigns. By 1972, the relationship between the White House and MACV headquarters had reached the nadir of civil-military relations during the Southeast Asian conflict and had served to undercut the United States' ability to effectively disengage from a long and bitterly contested war. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Bahraini security forces fulfilled their task of defending the regime without any qualms during the uprising that occurred in February and March 2011. The regime's coup-proofing strategy has been efficient. It is notably based on the exclusion of the Shias from the security apparatus in a country where the ruling dynasty comes from the Sunni minority and where the opposition is dominated by Shia Islamic movements. However, the recruitment pattern of the Bahraini security forces also results from the general civil-military relations characteristic of all the Gulf states. The increasingly tense factionalism inside the regime is likely to have an impact on the security forces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many analysts have focused on the Tunisian protests and the economic and political grievances that fueled them. Equally central, however, was the role played by the military leadership and the decision to forgo using force to actively suppress the protesters. Contrary to arguments that stress the reflexively apolitical or professional nature of the military, or its leaders' normative commitment to supporting the protesters, this article explains how the decisions made reflected political calculations and served the military's organizational interests. Although heralded as the savior of the revolution, the Tunisian military acted out of its own organizational self-interest in defecting from the Ben Ali regime. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Saleh's solution to ‘the civil-military problematic’ (to borrow Peter Feaver's phrase) was to build powerful praetorian units and place his relatives in command of them, a counter-productive approach that ultimately increased the risk that Saleh faced. During Yemen's Arab Spring uprisings, sections of the armed forces not controlled by President Ali Abd'allah Saleh's siblings and cousins sought to ride the wave of popular revolt and emerge as a cohesive power-base in the post-Saleh period. To achieve these aims the military establishment made a conscious effort to let the tribes and civil society activists lead the assault on the Saleh government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

National security conception or securitization theory frames threats and conceptualizes the responses towards them. But in many cases, and especially in the Israeli context, there is a tendency to blur the nature and essence of different threats; security threats become strategic threats and then existential threats. In the Israeli context, because the broad concept of security is perceived, in most cases, as equivalent to military security, the meaning of the strategic threat will be framed, mostly, militarily, derived from military thought. The article examines the nature of existential threats in the Israeli context and seeks to find the implications of securitization theory in this regard by analyzing the unique role of the military establishment and the influence of the military thought on strategic thought in Israel. The article also deals with the centrality of 'military wisdom' in the Israeli ethos and the sense of insecurity embedded in the Israeli narrative that leads to an 'intellectual symbiosis' between the political and the military echelons and finds this phenomenon as one of the major explanations for the influence of the military establishment on defining the nature of security threats as well as on the crucial decision to launch wars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pattern of civil-military interaction in India is informed by the notion that civilians should refrain from involvement in operational matters. The emergence of this trend can be traced back to the defeat against China in 1962. In its aftermath, the belief that the debacle occurred because of civilian interference took hold. Thereafter, politicians restricted themselves to giving overall directives, leaving operational matters to the military. The Indian 'victory' in the subsequent war with Pakistan was seen as vindicating this arrangement. This essay argues that the conventional reading of the China crisis is at best misleading and at worst erroneous. Further, it contends that the subsequent war with Pakistan actually underscores the problems of civilian non-involvement in operational issues. The historical narrative underpinning the norm of civilian abstention is at the very least dubious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changes in the nature of warfare and its transformation toward Low Intensity Conflict (LIC) intrastate conflict have challenged the patterns of interaction between the political and the military echelons in Israel. It seems that the political echelon's superiority is maintained at the institutional and formal levels, but on the substantive level, which demands relying on knowledge and systematic staff work, the political echelon's position is weakened and loses its validity. Introducing the military echelon in Israel as an epistemic authority regarding the violent confrontation and the main outlines of the military knowledge development process might clarify why the absence of the required dialogue between the echelons and the weakness of the intellectual effort increased the military's influence over the shaping of Israeli conflict-management strategy. The argument's validity and its explanatory power can be found relevant for other countries whose militaries are deeply involved in the management of LIC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During World War I the military campaign in Mesopotamia placed enormous demands on local man- and animal power to provide the logistical resources vital to its conduct. This required the British civil and military authorities to construct a wartime state apparatus that filled the administrative vacuum left by the retreating Ottomans and made possible its downward penetration and mobilisation of local resources for the war effort. This article examines the interaction of politics and logistics in Mesopotamia and views the enhanced wartime levels of resource extraction in light of the British attempts to codify their presence in the country after 1918 and the nationalist backlash that resulted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A nation's structure and culture of civil-military relations are important and largely overlooked factors in explaining the performance of armed forces involved in complex expeditionary operations. The US model of ‘Huntingtonian’, divided civil-military structures and poor interagency cooperation, makes the US military less suited for complex expeditionary operations. British civil-military relations involve a Defence Ministry that conscientiously integrates military and civilian personnel, as well as extensive interagency cooperation and coordination. This ‘Janowitzean’, integrated form of civil-military relations makes the British military more likely to provide for the planning and implementation of comprehensive campaigns that employ and coordinate all instruments of power available to the state, as well as troops in the field displaying the flexibility and cultural and political understanding that are necessary in complex expeditionary operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the military capabilities of the Russia Federation. It presents an operational and tactical analysis of the Second Chechen War, 1999-2002. Russian military has learned valuable lessons from the disaster of the First Chechen War in 1994-96 and is applying those lessons to its conduct of the second. While improvements have come on the tactical and operational level, one should not conclude, however, that the Russians are winning the war. The second war is proving once again that modern warfare is a messy business and that only a political solution can bring an end to a political problem.

The article focuses on the civil-military relations in Great Britain. Compulsory military service has been the rule in Great Britain, but it has softened the divide between the armed forces and society. It follows that the abolition of conscription was a bigger change for civil-military relations than the end of the Cold War, thirty years later. Since then the practices of the forces, justified by the claim that they are necessary for operational effectiveness, have deepened the divide. But professionalism has also rendered Britain's armed services of greater utility.

The goal of this article is to provide a preliminary assessment of civil-military relations in France at the beginning of the full professionalisation of the French armed forces. Using existing data, the author laid out a basis of comparison to evaluate the future evolution of civil-military relations. Since key elements of data, particularly surveys of military personnel about the state of civil-military relations, are missing. A detailed comparison with the U.S. military policy is not always possible. However, the existing data do reveal interesting patterns, beyond a high level of global confidence in the military.

Civil-military relations has always been the heart of military sociological research. This is particularly true for democratic societies. This article, too, focuses on civil-military relations. A study was conducted which shows similarities and differences in the attitudes of the civilian and the military population on several issues. Overall, there is a broad overlap of attitudes, yet differences do exist, especially on issues of foreign policy and things military. It is argued that at the beginning of the 21st century, civil-military relations in Germany are largely uncontested, but will become more strained.