The soldier and the state; the theory and politics of civil-military relations by Huntington Samuel P

Author:Huntington, Samuel P
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Militarism, Civil supremacy over the military
Publisher: Cambridge, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Published: 1957-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

The Soldier and the State

Both Mahan and Wood attempted to bridge the gap between the military and American society by riding the tide of temporary popular interest in military might and war. Mahan was the military officer become prophet of expansion in the first phase of Neo-Hamiltonianism in the 1890's; Wood was the military officer become prophet of preparedness in a second phase between 1908 and 1917. Mahan attempted to build a link between the Navy and the public, Wood between the Army and the public. Mahan justified expansion on nonmilitary moral, economic, and political grounds; Wood justffied preparedness on nonmilitary moral, economic, and political grounds. Mahan's philosophy was a semi-military explanation of the relation of the United States to the rest of the world. Wood's theory a semi-military explanation of the relation of the armed services to the rest of the country. Each contributed to the development of professionalism in his own service, but was never at home there, and went on to become a political figure. The difference between Luce and Mahan and between Pershing and Wood were the measures of their distances from the professional ideal.

ALFRED THAYER MAHAN. Mahan was, of course, born into the main stream of the American military tradition. His father's military ideals, his early childhood at West Point, his contact with such figures as Lee and McClellan, even his name honoring the father of the Military Academy, all indicated a military career. At an early age he decided upon the Navy, graduating from An-napohs in 1859. During the Civil War and for twenty years afterward, he had a normal naval career, steadily moving up the ladder of rank and responsibiUty. As he himself subsequently stated, he was at this time merely the average officer "drifting on the lines of simple respectability" and very much the prisoner of his professional environment. Politically, he was a staunch anti-imperialist. In 1885, however, the turning point came when he was invited by Luce to join the Naval War College staff. During the following seven years at Newport, he embarked upon a career of thinking and writing which changed him from naval professional to naval philosopher.

This metamorphosis was largely the result of historical study and the impact upon his thinking of the events and currents of

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.