Healthy Civilian-Military Affairs: A Critical Component of Success in War

Common measurements of the likelihood of success of military or national security endeavors tend to be quantitative factors such as budget size, number of personnel, level of technological advancement, or functionality of equipment. However, sociological factors can also be a significant indicator of military success. In an article published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vipin Narang and Caitlin Talmadge of MIT and the George Washington University, respectively, argue that certain “civil-military pathologies”—dysfunctions in the way a nation’s armed forces and civilian populations or governments relate to one another—are key determinants of military success in war.

The United States has traditionally enjoyed relatively healthy civil-military relations. A realistic military coup has never been attempted. There has never been a widespread installation of political commissars in military units. But many other nations have not been so fortunate. Across the world various forms of dysfunction (“pathologies,” in the paper’s parlance) have taken hold from time to time. In their study, Narang and Talmadge explore two broad categories of dysfunction, reflected by their two hypotheses: first, that governments that focus on the possibility of a coup are less likely to win interstate wars, and second, that militaries focused on internal activity are also less likely to win interstate wars.

To gather their data, Narang and Talmadge surveyed all nations that have engaged in interstate conflict over the last century. They compiled answers to a set of thirteen questions about historical phenomena that shed light on militaries’ relationships with their respective political states at the time of conflict. The questions included:

• “Has the country ever experienced a military coup?”
• “Is the country’s top leader a former military officer?”
• “Does military training involve extensive political education or ideological indoctrination?”
• “Has the military been used to repress internal dissent in the last five years?”
• “Is there an internal intelligence apparatus dedicated to watching the regular military?”
• “Is there an institutionalized forum through which civilian leaders and military officers regularly exchange information?”

Narang and Talmadge regressed these variables against the outcome (victory or defeat) of each interstate conflict for each nation studied to identify the causes of the respective war outcomes. Despite the heavy emphasis on psychological indoctrination in most militaries, Narang and Talmadge found that neither ideological military training, nor the presence of paramilitary organizations or heavily armed law enforcement, had a significant effect on war outcomes.

However, the authors did find that several of the factors studied appeared highly correlative with prospects for victory or defeat in war. For example, militaries that exclude officers for nonmerit-based reasons appeared to be three times more likely to be defeated in war than those that do not. Each military that discriminated on a nonmeritocratic (such as ethnic or ideological) basis “lost wars, and lost them in fewer than six months,” according to the authors. Likewise, militaries that participated significantly in domestic administration lost wars at nearly three times the rate of militaries that did not.  Other measurements in the study also support the hypothesis that the larger a military’s role in internal affairs, the larger the probability of defeat in war.

Ultimately, Narang and Talmadge’s study lends data-driven credibility to the idea that healthy civil-military relations is a cornerstone of military success. The authors note that well-functioning militaries need money, personnel, and equipment to operate. However, they add that governments who cultivate pathological relationships with their militaries by sowing distrust, creating discriminatory institutions, or using them for non-military domestic tasks, damage their own battlefield effectiveness if war breaks out.

Article source: Narang, Vipin and Caitlin Talmadge. “Civil-military Pathologies and Defeat in War: Tests Using New Data.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 62(7). (2017): 1-27.

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