Understanding Current Threats to Democracy

Although the post-9/11 era has been marked by scholarly angst about what many view as a distinct deterioration in civil-military relations, a review of the evidence suggests that civil-military relations during this period have been complex and sometimes contradictory, rather than unidirectional. But a narrow or formalistic focus on civil-military relations obscures the risks to democracy that stem not from the military but from newer means of coercion that have been enabled by recent technological changes. Concern over civil-military relations and civilian control of the military rests on the presumption that because it possesses the tools of large-scale physical violence, the military is the primary institution capable of subverting democracy through the exercise of raw power. If this was ever true, it is no longer the case today, as recent events have demonstrated

Coercion (linguistics · Cold war · Control (management · Democracy · Focus (optics · Institution · Military threat · Presumption · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Military History and Strategy · Political Conflict and Governance