Courage in the Service of Virtue
The Case of General Shinseki's Testimony before the Iraq War
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2340593 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Damon Coletta (0000-0003-2039-3617, U.S. Air Force Academy,, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 109-121 |
| Publication date | 2007-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Armed Forces & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0095-327X • E-ISSN: 1556-0848 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0095327x07304191 |
| OpenAlex | W2169388802 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 7 |
Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee before Operation Iraqi Freedom that several hundred thousand American Army soldiers were needed to occupy Iraq following a successful completion of the war. In hindsight, after many postwar problems occurred during Army and Marine efforts to stabilize Iraq, General Shinseki's action has been almost universally praised as prescient and courageous. This article counters that, from a civil-military relations perspective, Shinseki's testimony was neither sufficiently accurate nor sufficiently respectful of civilian control to serve as a healthy model for future officers. The U.S. civil-military relationship framed by the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which preserved the power of individual service chiefs to provide independent testimony, is better served when high-ranking officers adopt a notion of courage in light of military authority delegated to regional combatant commands and in consideration of the political vulnerabilities of their civilian masters
Business · Combatant · Courage · Hindsight bias · Management · Military personnel · Military service · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Service (business) · Service member · Sociology · Virtue · Defense, Military, and Policy Studies · Law · Leadership, Courage, and Heroism Studies · Military History and Strategy · Psychology · Public Administration · Social Psychology
Civil–Military Relations—Who Are the Real Principals? A Response to “Courage in the Service of Virtue
How Civilian Control May Breed the Use of Force
The Right to Be Right
Creating Shared Responsibility through Respect for Military Culture
How Afghanistan Influenced the Content of Armed Forces & Society
The Virtues of Military Politics
Elite Military Cues and Public Opinion About the Use of Military Force
Civil-Military Relations in the United States and Russia
The Stuff of Tragedy
| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,47 |
| Citation span | 2007 - 2023 (17) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |