Civil-Military Relations: USAID's Role. Technical Publication Series

摘要

Civil-military relations focus on the relative distribution of power between the211u001egovernment and the armed forces of a country. Countries with recent histories of 211u001eauthoritarian rule face particularly onerous challenges in making their military 211u001eestablishments politically neutral and subject to the types of control necessary 211u001efor meaningful democracy. Countries emerging from civil wars also pose a 211u001eparticular problem to the wider discussion of civil-military relations. Balancing 211u001einternal security needs for reconstruction with appropriate civil-military 211u001erelations creates a tension in governance that makes difficult a national 211u001edialogue on the roles and missions of the armed forces. USAID plays a special 211u001erole in analyzing and improving civil-military relations. Its approach to civil-211u001emilitary relations has been to fit them within the broader objectives of 211u001edemocracy-building. It has not made a major analytical effort to relate civil-211u001emilitary relations with the basic precondition for development-security. Civil-211u001emilitary relations appropriate to democratic settings can not be based solely, or 211u001eeven primarily, on the voluntary restraint of the military. The challenge for any 211u001ecivil-military relations program is to address ways in which an appropriate 211u001ebalance can be achieved, where freely elected civilians can ultimately regain 211u001econtrol of their countries. In general, the authors recommend that USAID take a 211u001eregional approach in developing civil-military relations programs, with knowledge 211u001eof the salient issues within each geographic area dictating, to a substantial 211u001eextent, the nature of programming. However, since there is a core of common 211u001eelements in civil-military relations, successful steps should be shared among 211u001ebureaus and other USG agencies.