%0 Journal Article
%T Pursuing Civilian Control Over the Military
%A Donald S. Travis
%J Armed Forces & Society
%@ 1556-0848
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0095327X18781539
%X This essay is responding to Dr. Ionut Popescu¡¯s review of the article ¡°Saving Samuel Huntington and the Need for Pragmatic Civil-Military Relations.¡± He challenges the pragmatist outlook by questioning its usefulness to ¡°manage relations between the military and its civilian superiors in a democracy such as the United States.¡± Based on the concerns of Morris Janowitz regarding military relations, three assertions are made in defense of the pragmatic approach. First, the choice between ¡°professional versus civilian supremacy¡± for making crucial decisions during wartime is misleading because it is based on obsolete thinking from the twentieth-century Cold War. Second, types of wars waged are determined by complex and provisional decision-making processes amid political struggle. Third, Huntington¡¯s civil¨Cmilitary theory wrongly maligns the word ¡°politics¡± by distorting its meaning and purpose. Politics is a natural process and an essential feature of democracy
%K coups and conflicts
%K democracy
%K militarism
%K military effectiveness
%K military organization
%K public policy
%K civil¨Cmilitary relations
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0095327X18781539