The relationship between American civil–military relations and military outcomes

David J Tier

Conflict Management and Peace Science, 2025, vol. 42, issue 5, 536-558

Abstract: Civilian control of the military is an inflexible requirement of the American republic, but there is contentious debate over how that control should be exercised. Both sides of the divide tend to agree that military results matter. Civil–military relations succeed if healthy discourse results in accomplishing the mission and obtaining optimal outcomes, but fail if the military does not accomplish the political objectives. This article advances the understudied thread of military effectiveness in American civil–military relations by testing the acumen of each side's judgment in 44 use of force decisions since the Second World War. In decisions on whether to use military force, military preferences have not yielded superior outcomes to civilian preferences, but there is evidence that military shirking from armed interventions has helped avoid ill-advised wars. Further studies should investigate decisions on how to use military force.

Keywords: Civil–military relations; defense policy; military effectiveness; security studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/07388942241285608 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:compsc:v:42:y:2025:i:5:p:536-558

DOI: 10.1177/07388942241285608

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Conflict Management and Peace Science from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().