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| THE CIVILIAN-MILITARY GAP | |
 November 10, 1999 
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MARGARET WARNER: Through much of American history, the United States relied on citizen soldiers drawn from every strata of society, who fought the nation's wars, then returned to their civilian lives. The end of the Vietnam War brought an end to the draft, in favor of an all-volunteer professional force. SOLDIER: Keep going, keep going, keep going!
SOLDIER: You shoot two shots in the same place -- |
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| Multiple tensions | ||||||||||||||||||||
 MARGARET
WARNER: Another point of tension touching social and legal issues has
involved the military's adjustment to the growing presence of women in
its ranks. That was highlighted during the 1997 controversy over the discharge
of Air Force lieutenant Kelly Flynn on charges of adultery and disobeying
orders, a move that prompted a public outcry and a Senate hearing into
the matter.  Other
points of tension have involved the very essence of the military's mission,
particularly over where and when to deploy troops. In 1993, the Pentagon
resisted arguments by some in the White House and State Department to
use force in Bosnia. General Powell complained later in his memoirs that
American GIs were not toy soldiers to be moved around on some sort of
global game board. U.S. air strikes were eventually launched in 1995 and
ground troops deployed later that year.
In 1997, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, in a speech at Yale University, spoke about the growing gap between civilians and the military. "One of the challenges for me is to somehow prevent a chasm from developing between the military and civilian worlds," Cohen said, "where the civilian world doesn't fully grasp the mission of the military, and the military doesn't understand why the memories of our citizens and civilian policy makers are so short, or why the criticism is so quick and so unrelenting."
Civilians are more receptive than military leaders to seeing women in combat and homosexuals serving openly in the military; top military officers tend to be more politically conservative than civilian society and more pessimistic about its moral health. They are also critical of the quality of civilian leadership and of civilian institutions like the press. In the past 25 years, top military officers have largely abandoned political neutrality, the study said, and have become more heavily Republican than civilian society as a whole. |
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MARGARET
WARNER: One thing remained constant, however. The nation's soldiers,
while led by military officers, all serve under a civilian. The president,
with oversight by a popularly elected Congress, a system designed by
the framers of the Constitution to maintain civilian control of the
military. Now, since the end of the Cold War, a number of articles and
studies have suggested there is a growing gap -- political and social
-- between the military and the civilian society it serves. 
The
gap was apparent in differences over social and cultural issues, highlighted
by the confrontation over gays in the military in the first days of
the Clinton administration. General Colin Powell and the Joint Chiefs
of Staff publicly challenged the president's desire to let gays serve
openly in the armed forces. Congress eventually compromised with legislation
that allowed gays to serve, only if they weren't open about their homosexuality.
Responding
to that, and to the raft of articles, a consortium of universities in
North Carolina undertook a study of the military-civilian gap. The first
phase of its study has just been released. Among its key findings: Fewer
American civilian leaders -- including members of Congress -- have military
experience; military and civilian leaders hold different views on the
use of force; and military leaders are less tolerant of casualties than
civilian leaders or the public.