Civil-Military Reflections: Does the Army Need Its Own Value Code?

Abstract:

Relations between a military and a civilian society belong to the core issue of civil-military studies. This article reflects main ideas and concepts used in theoretical and analytical literature, including seminar works by Samuel Huntington and Morris Janowitz. A military culture, military ethics and influence of new technologies, full-volunteer army and new missions on military culture are discussed. An abstract term "military" can change very significantly in accordance with actual military culture, perceptible to the fact how civilian society accepts military values. Therefore, not only size and equipment determine how particular armed forces look like. The author introduces the term Constabulary Force reflecting the idea that primary purpose of forces today are low-intensity conflicts and operations other than war.

Tomáš Kučera, PhD, born 1985, is an assistant professor at the Institute of Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University. He received PhD at Aberystwyth University, UK, in 2014. His PhD thesis analysed liberal features of military and defence policies of Western European societies, Germany and the United Kingdom in particular. Routledge published the thesis as The Military and Liberal Society in 2018. His teaching focuses on civil-military relations, military sociology, and ethics of armed conflicts.


Country: Czech Republic

25/10/2022

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