Talk:Civilian control of the military

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Civilian control of the military has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (January 2007)

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Contents 1 Rough draft 2 Expansion 3 Possible references/sources/quotables 4 Seeking feedback! 4.1 Current Events? 5 {{Globalize}} 6 Fair use rationale for Image:Little red book.png

[edit] Rough draft

Well, I've just given a basic explanation of the standard American doctrine for why one should have civilian control of one's military, and how it works here. But I'm sleepy, and it's off the top of my head. So it could use some improvement and some different perspectives. I just wanted to at least plant the seed of an article for what I think is an important topic. -- Beland 07:01, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Expansion

I made some initial changes, and a lot of notes for future topics that I intend to expand upon. — MC MasterChef :: Leave a tip — 02:16, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Awesome! I'm glad someone so articulate stumbled across my seed. If you happen to have any references to good books or articles on the topic, or know where the Samual Adams quote comes from, those tidbits would be quite helpful for curious readers. (And probably a lot easier for you to come up with than most of the rest of us.) -- Beland 01:24, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Possible references/sources/quotables

Some quick links to refer back to when I get the chance, have yet to fully digest or vet, so I haven't added them to the article yet:

• An Essay on Civilian Control of the Military by some UNC prof (Richard H. Kohn)
• US DOD Defenselink: Why Civilian Control of the Military?
• National Defense University: Civilian Control of the Military (lots of titles, links at bottom to a number of electronic pdf essays, I've downloaded a handful to peruse)
• Center for Civil-Military Relations - Naval Post-grad program, not sure if there's anything useful here but could dig around at some point

Books -- I don't have access to an English-language library where I'm living now, but if anyone can track down these titles (product of a quick bit of Amazon searching), they might be useful for incorporation into this article:

• Samuel P. Huntington - Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations ISBN 0674817362
• The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics ISBN 0765809222
• Armed Servants : Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations ISBN 0674017617
• Civilian Control of the Military : The Changing Security Environment ISBN 0801860598
• Modernizing China's Military : Progress, Problems, and Prospects ISBN 0520242386 -- my copy of this is currently en route via surface mail, IIRC it probably has something to add on civilian control issues in China... I really need to find more non-US sources, does anyone have any ideas?

I have the Huntington book, unfortunately in storage, but I remember it fairly well. A contemporary work would be Morris Janowitz's The Professional Soldier. A more recent book dealing with the control of the military in general is Ken Grossman's On Killing.

There's a whole area to be discussed about control, by the ulema, of those in lesser jihad.Howard C. Berkowitz 02:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

references not coming out correctly I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but the "notes" seem to be conflicting with numbered references. Howard C. Berkowitz 02:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Seeking feedback!

I think this is approaching a point where I can reasonably submit it to peer review. But before I do, if anyone out there happens to be watching or reading this, is there anything blatantly missing? There are lots of potential illustrative examples, as I've noted in the next, but expanding on all of these would result in a rather heavily lopsided American article, since that's mostly all the examples I know. I'd like to keep it reasonably broad, so maybe those details would be better placed in a separate Civilian control in the United States article. In any case, please comment on possible improvements of this article, and I will see about a peer review at some point in the future. — MC MasterChef :: Leave a tip — 23:52, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Current Events?

I have added a "Current events" section with a subsection on the United States. Specifically, I added text regarding criticism of Rumsfeld. I would be happy to receive feedback. More than anything, I think this section can be greatly expanded. However, moving it to a separate page all together is also possible. Chart123 22:48, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{Globalize}}

I have added the {{Globalize}} tag to the article. Simply put, it is too US-centric at the moment. Hope this doesn't upset anyone; just thought you all ought to know. Batmanand | Talk 00:11, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree.

Quite right, too. StalinsLoveChild 14:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I would counter that point by noting that, having recently spent an entire evening reading much of the content on the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) website, I got a certain similar vibe while reading this entry. One needs to be very careful not to let their politics shine through when editing. Not that anyone has crossed that line quite yet, but if I sensed a little something just as a casual and curious reader of such topics, a more astute political junkie may be tweaked by it enough to make an edit, which may lead to needless animosity among editors. I'm not the lest bit bothered by it, because it's neutral enough for me, I'm just sharing my gut feeling--it's got a mild odor. Clearly, the writings of Mao are a valuable addition to this page, I'm merely suggesting that to keep the tone neutral, even to the point of being robotic, is always best regarding these issues, methinks. Of course this is very difficult to do with one's own writing, but I suppose that's what Wikis are for.

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Little red book.png

Image:Little red book.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 23:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)