The State and the Soldier: A History of Civil-Military Relation in the United States

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Kori Schake’s The State and the Soldier is an engaging, compact, and comprehensive examination of U.S. civil-military relations history. The book recounts the defining moments in the relationship between civilian political leadership and the military from the perspective of a scholar and think-tanker who is well-known for her commentary on a wide range of defense policy-related topics. The State and the Soldier is an important and timely resource—amidst increasing public discourse regarding the current state of norms in civil-military relations, Schake provides much-needed historical perspective on what constitutes a civil-military crisis, and how worried we should be.

Throughout the nearly 250-year history of the United States, the military has been a bulwark of democracy, despite the Founding Fathers’ original fears about a standing army. The U.S. military has consistently passed Schake’s two essential tests of healthy civil-military relations: can the president fire military leaders with impunity, and will the military carry out policies with which it does not agree? Even so, current public discourse suggests that we are at a perilous point for civil-military relations. Schake provides context for general readers as well as military professionals who seek to better understand what is at stake and how to navigate the tricky relationship between military and civilian leadership.

Most military professionals’ understanding of civil-military relations is based on Samuel Huntington’s 1957 The Soldier and the State. Professional military education still relies heavily on Huntington’s theory of objective civilian control, which posits that civil-military relations are best maintained when there is strict separation between military and civilian spheres. In the Huntingtonian formulation, military leadership should remain technically expert, providing “best military advice” to civilian leadership, but otherwise refrain from politics and civilian decisionmaking. Yet any military professional who has served in the National Capital Region knows that military leaders are frequently asked to engage in political-level decisions.

Navigating civil-military relations today requires more than a reading of The Soldier and the State. Schake weaves the scholarship of prominent voices in civil-military relations into her historical retrospective, highlighting the works of Peter Feaver, Risa Brooks, and Eliot Cohen, among others. The strong theoretical work—providing a new perspective on Huntington and his contemporary rival, Morris Janowitz—is left for the epilogue. There, Schake notes the impracticality of both Huntington’s strict separation and Janowitz’s desire for complete integration. Informed by history, she concludes that both are “extreme models at variance with what has actually worked, and worked well, in American history.”

Schake advocates for a more practical and modern conceptualization of healthy civil-military relations. The key to military subservience to civilian authority and the integrity of the profession in the United States begins with General and President George Washington, who set numerous important precedents that today’s military carries forward as norms of civil-military relations. Schake recounts Washington’s scrupulousness in honoring Congress’s role in both strategy and managing the purse strings, even when he disagreed with its decisions or lamented the slowness with which it operated. Washington’s willingness to step away from his leadership roles was also remarkable at the time, impressing onlookers including King George III.

Schake’s admiration for Washington is based on his political acumen, not his apoliticism. Understanding the politics of the moment (and perhaps the future), Washington made deliberate decisions to strengthen certain institutions over others, clarifying the subordination of the military to civilian authority and signaling to the public the importance of adherence to the Constitution. It was Washington, not Huntington, who laid out the tenets of American military professionalism.

Though the foundation for the stability of the U.S. civil-military relationship originated with Washington, it took time for these norms to take root. Here, The State and the Soldier makes a significant contribution by exploring the numerous often-overlooked instances of general officers challenging elected political authority within the first 100 years of U.S. history, including insubordination from future Presidents such as Ulysses S. Grant and Zachary Taylor. Even so, the staying power of the norms established during Washington’s tenure carried through the tough early years to serve as the better example from early U.S. history.

The most dangerous event in U.S. civil-military history might have been the failed conspiracy of former Vice President Aaron Burr and the Commanding General of the U.S. Army, James Wilkinson. However, Schake believes the most trying moment was when Congress compelled General Ulysses Grant to testify against the President and the Secretary of War. In December 1867, the House was considering President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment, posing tough questions to Grant about the President’s policies. Although Grant had a checkered history regarding civil-military relations, in this critical moment he followed in Washington’s footsteps by siding with Congress in its Constitutional oversight role, regardless of the effect on the military and commander-in-chief.

According to Schake, two major efforts contributed to a transformation in civil-military relations: the passage of the Posse Comitatus Act in 1878 and the professionalization of the military around the turn of the century, following the example of the Prussian school. The result was a military that invested in its own technical competence and ethos, designed for employment primarily overseas. Schake is just as meticulous about retelling the history of civil-military relations in the United States after these first 100 years, through the modern era and until today, including an entire chapter devoted to the past decade, but notes that these events pale in comparison to the potential threats posed in the early years.

Despite the professionalization of the military that inculcated many of the norms Washington pioneered, the civil-military relationship today is far from perfect. Using historical cases, Schake performs some course-correction on prevailing narratives regarding more recent events in civil-military relations. She provides examples of general officers staying above the political fray and mistakes that general officers have made in attempting to constructively engage in inherently political conversations. Ultimately, it is the civilian leadership’s responsibility to make and own strategic decisions. For example, while H.R. McMaster wrote that military officers were derelict in their duty to push back on bad civilian strategy during the Vietnam War, Schake questions whether his preferred approach would be appropriate as civil-military relations advice. 

Instead of outright defiance, the civil-military relationship in the modern era has been mostly characterized by Feaver’s concept of “shirking”—that is, military leadership’s placing bureaucratic obstacles in the way of implementation of civilian political decisions. While military professionals are taught to remain “apolitical,” adept bureaucratic maneuvering is often lauded as an important skill set for senior officers. Military leaders are often called on to navigate political worlds, requiring a more sophisticated understanding of the history and context in which military professionals are operating today. The State and the Soldier is essential reading for any military professional who anticipates an assignment in the National Capital Region or other strategic-level commands requiring engagement with senior civilian leadership. JFQ