Pursuing Civilian Control Over the Military Donald S. Travis, 2018

Jul 6, 2026

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The essay addresses Dr. Ionut Popescu’s review of “Saving Samuel Huntington and the Need for Pragmatic Civil-Military Relations,” challenging the value of a pragmatist outlook for managing military relations with civilian superiors in U.S. democracy. Drawing on Morris Janowitz’s concerns, it defends pragmatism through three claims: Cold War-era assumptions mislead wartime decisionmaking between civilian supremacy and professional command; war types emerge from complex political struggles; and Huntington’s civil–military theory distorts “politics,” which is essential to democracy.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages15

Reading Time38 min

Abstract

Response to Popescu’s three concerns

Limits of Huntington’s civil–military theory

Janowitz’s pragmatist approach to security

Two interrelated questions for twenty-first-century governance

Pragmatism and Security

Article Pursuing Civilian Control Over the Military Donald S. Travis 1 Armed Forces & Society 1-15 ª The Author(s) 2018 Reprints and permission: [sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav](sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav)[ ](sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav)DOI: 10.1177/0095327X18781539 [journals.sagepub.com/home/afs](journals.sagepub.com/home/afs) Abstract This essay is responding to Dr. Ionut Popescu’s review of the article “Saving Samuel Huntington and the Need for Pragmatic Civil-Military Relations.” He challenges the pragmatist outlook by questioning its usefulness to “manage relations between the military and its civilian superiors in a democracy such as the United States.” Based on the concerns of Morris Janowitz regarding military relations, three assertions are made in defense of the pragmatic approach. First, the choice between “professional versus civilian supremacy” for making crucial decisions during wartime is misleading because it is based on obsolete thinking from the twentieth-century Cold War. Second, types of wars waged are determined by complex and provisional decisionmaking processes amid political struggle. Third, Huntington’s civil–military theory wrongly maligns the word “politics” by distorting its meaning and purpose. Politics is a natural process and an essential feature of democracy. Keywords coups and conflicts, democracy, militarism, military effectiveness, military organization, public policy, civil–military relations This essay is responding to Dr. Ionut Popescu’s disputatio sine fine for the article“Saving Samuel Huntington and the Need for Pragmatic Civil-Military Relations.”He challenges the pragmatist outlook by questioning its usefulness to “manage relations between the military and its civilian superiors in a democracy such as the 1 Carlisle, PA, USA Corresponding Author: Donald S. Travis, 89 E. Ridge St., Carlisle, PA 17013, USA. Email: [dontravis752@yahoo.com](dontravis752@yahoo.com) United States,” because it fails to deliver answers to three interrelated concerns: (1) debates between “civilian supremacists” and “military supremacists” to resolve “the proper division of labor for strategic supreme command decisions during war”; (2) determining the kind of war being fought, such as distinguishing between “wars of choice” versus “wars of necessity”; and (3) dealing with anxieties about “increasing the politicization of the military by moving away from the Huntingtonian paradigm of the soldier staying outside the political sphere”(Popescu, 2018, p. 6) . Huntington’s (1956a, 1956b)“objective civilian control” theory of civil–military relations decrees that the military must eschew politics and partisanship to reinforce civilian control over the military and maximize the nation’s security. America’s security is not defined by Huntington’s civil–military theories. The title “Saving Samuel Huntington” implies that objective civilian control precepts could apply to conventional-type and hegemonical wars under certain conditions. Huntington documented the history between the military and society to develop his Cold War era theories. Yet the bipolar world pitting capitalism against communism with mutually assured destruction cloaked in military secrets concluded in 1991 . Dr. Feaver’s (2011) assertion that “democratic theory requires civilians to be incharge and the military to be subordinate” is a universally venerated dualism entrenched throughout the defense establishment (p. 93; Kohn, 2009a) . But the real world is not cooperating with the conventional wisdom. Twenty-first-century conditions demand a different model to explain how the American people can maintain control over their government. Because objective civilian control theories are antidemocratic, they help to widen the gap between the national security state and the people. This is referred to here as the “civil-security” gap explained by social, political, and economic fissures between the people an

FAQs

What critique does the essay make of Popescu’s pragmatist outlook?

It contests Popescu’s challenge by arguing that pragmatism remains useful for handling relations between the military and civilian superiors in a democracy.

Why does the essay reject the “professional versus civilian supremacy” framing for wartime decisions?

It argues the dichotomy is misleading because it relies on obsolete Cold War thinking about how crucial decisions should be made.

How does the essay reinterpret “politics” within civil–military relations?

It states that politics is a natural process and an essential feature of democracy, and that Huntington’s theory wrongly maligns the term by distorting its meaning and purpose.

Jul 6, 2026

Upload by Quinn