Book Review: Michael C. Desch, Civilian Control of the Military (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1999, 184 pp., £29.00 pbk.)
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| DOI | 10.1177/03058298000290030912 |
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| Author | Glen M. Segell |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Book Reviews
947
cases, (for instance Bush’s in vasion of Panama to overcome the ‘wimp’ label), but
it fail s to con vince this read er when u sed as the sole exp lanation for ev ery single
case. Esse ntially, DeConde is attemp ting to adopt a feminist anal ysis of the
problems of me n and war; h owever, unlik e some of the excellent work do ne by
political theorists suc h as Cynthia We ber and Cynth ia Enloe, it is c lear that he has
an underdeveloped understanding of the strengths, limitations, and universal
applicab ility of feminist theor y.
DOUGLAS A. BO RER
Douglas A. Bo rer is Assistant Professor of Politic al Science
at Virginia Tech., Virginia
Michael C. Desch, Civilian Control of the Military (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins
University Press, 1 999, 184 pp., £29.00 pbk.).
The p rimary aim of this book is to in vestigate the re lationship between the
changing international security environment and one aspect of domestic politics:
civilian contro l of the military. The underl ying notions are not new. There is a basic
understanding that civil-military relations provide the elusive link between the
fields of internati onal relations and comparati ve politics because it is in the civil -
military arena tha t the problems of domestic polit ics and foreign po licy collide most
directly.
The proble m in the modern sta te is not armed revolt b ut the relation of the expert
to the politician. Michael Desch builds upon that much of the contemporary
theoretical and conce ptual literature on civil -military relations and focu ses almost
exclusivel y on do mestic influ ences on civil-milita ry relations, suc h as the charact er
of ind ividual civilian an d military lead ers, the structure s and norms of the milit ary
organisatio n, the instituti ons of civilian government and the nature o f society. Th e
small part of the literature that looks to in ternational variables shares Harold
Lasswell’s premise that the military should be harde r to control in a challenging
internatio nal threat-environment th at in a re latively benign one. These widely held
beliefs at th e end of the Cold War brought widespread opt imism about the future of
civil-milita ry relatio ns. Wit h a d eclining need for military preparedness, it was
thought, civilia n auth orities wo uld be better able to exert control over military
policy and decision making.
In this thought-provok ing v olume Desc h argue s that the truth is precisely the
opposite. This is an innovative thesis. For Desch the root of the problem, at least in
the R ussian and American cases, is that neither military quickl y found new
doctrines a nd missions as co nducive to firm civ ilian control of the military as were
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