Abstract
If we confront civil–military cooperation as a practice, in order to understand why it takes the particular shape it does, we require some kind of framework to guide our thinking. Building on what we have learned in our examination of the existing literature, any such framework needs to be comprehensive; dynamic; sympathetic to the notion that immaterial factors (such as ideas and norms) matter; and it must allow for a degree of agency, rather than attempting to proscribe action through its very structure. The purpose of this chapter is to develop just such a framework, so that the empirical explorations that follow it can be better understood. The model introduced here seeks to explain the elements that underpin military activity but more importantly to highlight the significance of the dynamic inter-relations between those elements. It introduces the idea that legitimacy is the key to those relationships, and explains how actors seek to establish legitimacy, in order to gain a certain freedom of action. Legitimacy, however, is not some ‘ever fixed star’; rather, it is contingent on several factors, including the particular cultural context within which it can be found. A final element in the model will focus on the indeterminate nature of even a culturally informed system.
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Notes
Carl von Clausewitz, On War. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. and trans. (London: David Campbell Publishers, 1993): Book 1, Chapter 1, §24, Page 99. [Due to the various editions of this work in print, I have included, in addition to the page number, the Book, Chapter, and Section identifiers for easier reference.] 2. Peter Paret and Daniel Moran, eds. and trans. Carl von Clausewitz: Two Letters
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In his introductory essay, Michael Howard cites Wilhelm Rüstow who describes Clausewitz as “well-known but little read”. This may well still be the case. Michael Howard, “The Influence of Clausewitz,” in Clausewitz, 29.
Paret and Moran, Carl von Clausewitz, 21.
Clausewitz, Book 1, Chapter 1, § 25, Page 99. Emphasis in original. 7. See, for a trenchant example, Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War (Oxford:
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Clausewitz, Book 8, Chapter 6, Page 734. 9. Clausewitz, Book 8, Chapter 6, Page 733.
Clausewitz, Book 1, Chapter 1, §24, Page 99.
Clausewitz, Book 1, Chapter 1, §28, Page 101. 12. Several authors refer to these elements as Clausewitz’s ‘secondary Trinity’.
See, for instance, Gert de Nooy, “Introduction,” in Gert de Nooy, The Clausewitzian Dictum and the Future of Western Military Strategy (London: Kluwer Law International, 1997): 2–5.
Clausewitz, Book 1, Chapter 1, §28, Page 101. Emphasis added.
Christopher Coker, The Warrior Ethos: Military Culture and the War on Terror (London: Routledge, 2007): 61.
Douglas L. Bland, “Parliament’s Duty to Defend Canada,” Canadian Military Journal, 1.4 (Winter 2000–2001): 35. 16. Robert Carlyle, “Clausewitz’s Contemporary Relevance,” Strategic and Combat
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Hanson, Why the West Has Won, 438.
Clausewitz, Book 1, Chapter 1, §3, Page 84.
Christopher Coker, “Globalisation and Insecurity in the Twenty-First Century: NATO and the Management of Risk,” Adelphi Paper, 345 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2002): 30.
Clausewitz, Book 1, Chapter 1, §28, Page 101.
Christopher Bassford, “Reclaiming the Clausewitzian Trinity,” Parameters. XXV (Autumn 1995): 4. [Note: the edition used is from Bassford’s website. Therefore the pagination differs from the original.] http://www.clausewitz. com/CWZHOME/trinity/TRININTR.htm; accessed 11 December 2002.
Bassford, “Reclaiming the Clausewitzian Trinity,” 4.
Christopher Coker, Humane Warfare (London: Routledge, 2001): 95.
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Poggi, Forms of Power, 82.
Poggi, Forms of Power, 83.
For an extended discussion on the role of religion in international politics, see Fabio Petito and Pavlos Hatzopoulos, eds. Special Edition, Millennium: Journal of International Studies. 29.3 (2000).
Clausewitz, Book 1, Chapter 1, §3, Page 101.
Bassford, “Reclaiming the Clausewitzian Trinity,” 4.
Poggi, Forms of Power, 50.
Gwyn Harries Jenkins and Jacques Van Doorn, eds. The Military and the Problem of Legitimacy (London: Sage, 1976): 5.
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Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History. (London: Allen Lane, 2002): 5–12. 35. Van Doorn, “The Military and the Loss of Legitimacy,” 22.
Alexandra Kent, “Reconfiguring Security: Buddhism and Moral Legitimacy in Cambodia,” Security Dialogue. 37.3 (September) 2006: 346. 37. Van Doorn, “The Military and the Loss of Legitimacy,” 23.
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Harries-Jenkins, “Legitimacy and the Problem of Order,” 53. 44. Harries-Jenkins, “Legitimacy and the Problem of Order,” 1976, p. 21.
Harries-Jenkins, “Legitimacy and the Problem of Order,” 237.
C.E. Welch, “Civil Control of the Military: Myth and Reality,” in C.E. Welch, ed. Civil Control of the Military: Theory and Cases from Developing Countries (Albany: State University of New York, 1976): 1.
Bobbitt, 6–7. 48. Van Doorn, “The Military and the Loss of Legitimacy,” 21.
Reinforcing the notion that the government is an intended recipient of law, Bobbitt claims that prior to the written constitution of the US, sovereign states were not subject to the laws of their own country. Bobbitt, 262.
Harald Laski, cited in Harries-Jenkins, “Legitimacy and the Problem of Order,” 43.
Gerard Theriault, “Democratic Civil–Military Relations: A Canadian View,” in J. Hanson and S. McNish, eds. The Military in Modern Democratic Society (Toronto: Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, 1996): 11.
Gwyn Harries-Jenkins, “Armed Forces and the Welfare State,” in Morris Janowitz, ed. Civil–Military Relations: Regional Perspectives (London: Sage, 1981): 232.
Philip Windsor, Strategic Thinking: An Introduction and Farewell. Mats Berdal and Spyros Economides, eds. (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reiner Press, 2002): 34.
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Bobbitt, 7.
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Coker, The Warrior Ethos, 35.
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Benjamin Gregg, Coping in Politics with Indeterminate Norms: A Theory of Enlightened Localism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003): 1. 75. Gregg, Coping in Politics with Indeterminate Norms, 19. Emphasis added.
Runciman, Weber: Selections in Translation, 7.
Gregg, Coping in Politics with Indeterminate Norms, 28.
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© 2014 Christopher Ankersen
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Ankersen, C. (2014). A Clausewitzian Framework for Analysis. In: The Politics of Civil-Military Cooperation. Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137003355_4
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