Uneasy Balance: Civil-Military Relations in Peacetime America Since 1783 (review)

Something is tense in the current state of American civil-military relations. Evidence of tension has been reported often in the mass media and there is more to it than a clash of personalities among officeholders, whether uniformed or civilian. In response to this tension, scholars have begun to revise our theories of civil-military relations to see if they can account for what is going on. Langston's book is a contribution to the effort.

Langston argues that when wars end, there is inevitably a period of adjustment in which the relationship between civilian leaders and the military is realigned. Such realignments are never easy. After its wars, America has rarely faced a clear threat, whether foreign or domestic, that would help define what the relationship between political and military leaders should be. Without a clear threat, the interests of civilian and military elites diverge. Drawing on Samuel Huntington's theory, Langston contends that military elites in peacetime prefer to reform the military in preparation for future war, while civilians would rather tame the military, using it to serve their goals.

Here is where Langston's contribution lies. He says Huntington wrongly thinks we must make a zero-sum choice between what the military or civilians prefer. Based on a review of nine postwar realignments from the American Revolution to the Cold War, he argues that "the inevitable conflicts of civil-military relations . . . are best resolved when neither civilianizers nor their opponents [military reformers] win a complete victory" (p. 6). Successful postwar realignments balance the military's need to prepare for future war against society's need for a military that serves its interests. But such successful outcomes are not guaranteed. What determines whether a postwar realignment limits the conflict over civil-military relations? Langston thinks two conditions must be met. One is cooperation between civilian and military leaders to achieve military reform needed for future war. The other is political consensus for support of the military's peacetime missions. Stated so baldly, his answer may appear to beg the question, but the appearance is misleading. His case studies in all but one instance (the Mexican War, too briefly discussed) provide persuasive support for his argument, as he explains different outcomes across cases and, more specifically, accounts for the tension in civil-military relations since the end of the Cold War.

Specialists in the study of these cases may be disappointed with the summary treatment they receive. Consideration of the post-Cold War period takes up over forty percent of the text, leaving little space for the details of earlier cases. Comparativists will wonder whether Langston thinks his argument applies only to America or might also apply to countries with different traditions about the value of standing armies in peacetime. (I am thinking of France.) But such questions do not diminish the book's worth. Langston has identified a flaw in Huntington's classic theory; he has shown how to correct the flaw by examining the balance of military and civilian interests; and his correction helps us know when tensions in postwar realignments of civil-
military relations might be reduced, if not entirely resolved.