Soldiers, Statesmen, and the Use of Force
SAIS
660.769
Spring Term 2000
Mondays, 1515-1715, Rome 535
Purpose &
themes
The subject of civil-military relations has many aspects. At one extreme, it deals with the intervention by military organizations in political life through coups d’état or other extraordinary means. At the other extreme, it concerns itself with considerably more mundane matters such as responsibility for acquisition of military hardware. This course deals with an intermediate topic, yet one of central importance: the relationship between soldiers and statesmen in wartime. It will explore questions that include (but are not limited to) the following: How have politicians and generals divided their labors in wartime? What have been typical sources of conflict? Is there a connection between military effectiveness and harmony in the high command? What might be a normative theory of how civil-military relations at the top in wartime should operate? The course will examine cases of democratic civil-military relations, primarily, but there will be some attention paid to authoritarian and totalitarian systems as well.
This is an advanced seminar in Strategic Studies and only those students with a good background in the field should take it. With the exception of the first week, the readings listed are primarily suggestive, though most will be on reserve at the library. Students are asked to read widely beyond the reading list, and will be expected to read several hundred pages a week: short bibliographic essays for each session will be distributed at the beginning of the semester to help students arrange in advance for alternative readings, including those obtained through interlibrary loan. They will be made available on the protected page for the class. The class will begin each week with a discussion of the case study, followed by a brief lecture on the next session’s material. Each week, two students picked at random will be expected to open up the discussion. Class requirements include doing the reading, participating in the discussion and preparing a research paper (approximately 30 pages) on a topic of the student’s choice. Papers are due Friday, 5 May, in my office.
Samuel P. Huntington, The
Soldier and the State
Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (New York: Free Press, 1971), Chs. 1-4, 13, 20, pp. 3-78, 257-82, 417-43. (102 pages).
John Keegan, The History of Warfare, Introduction, Ch. 1, pp. xiii-xvi, 1-60 (64 pages).
Charles de Gaulle, The Edge of the Sword, Gerard Hopkins trans. (London: Faber & Faber, 1960), entire, but particularly Ch. 5, “Of Politics and the Soldier,” pp. 95-118 pages. (24 pages).
Gerhard Ritter, The Sword and the Scepter, Heinz Norden, trans. (Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1969), Vol. I, The Prussian Tradition, 1740-1890, Introduction, pp. 5-13. (9 pages).
Ritter, Sword and the Scepter, , Vol. I, chs. 7, 8 pp. 161-260. (100 pages).
Michael Howard, The Franco-Prussian War (London: Methuen, 1961).
Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), Chs. 10-11, Hajo Holborn, "The Prusso-German School: Moltke and the Rise of the General Staff;" Gunther E. Rothenburg, "Moltke, Schlieffen, and the Doctrine of Strategic Envelopment," pp. 281-325. 45 pages.
Stig Förster, "Facing 'People's War': Moltke the Elder and Germany's Military Options after 1871," Journal of Strategic Studies 10:2 (June 1987): 209-30. (22 pages).
Daniel J. Hughes, ed., Moltke
on the Art of War, Daniel J.
Hughes and Harry Bell trans. (San
Francisco: Presidio, 1993).
Gordon Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), Chs. 3-7, pp. 82-298. 217 pages.
James M. McPherson, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), Ch. 4, “Lincoln and the Strategy of Unconditional Surrender,” pp. 23-43. (21 pages).
________, Battle
Cry of Freedom (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1988).
Joseph T. Glatthaar, Partners in Command: The Relationships Between Leaders in the Civil War (New York: Free Press, 1994).
T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals (New York: Knopf, 1952).
Kenneth P. Williams, Lincoln Finds A General 5 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1949-1959). See especially Vols. IV, V.
Archer Jones, Civil War Command & Strategy: The Process of Victory and Defeat (New York: Free Press, 1992).
Ulysses S. Grant, Memoirs and Selected Letters (New York: Library of America, 1990).
Lord Charnwood, Abraham Lincoln (New York: Henry Holt, 1917).
Paul Guinn, British Strategy and Politics 1914 to 1918 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965).
Maurice Hankey, The Supreme Command 1914-1918 2 vols. (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1961).
Tim Travers, “A Particular Style of Command: Haig and GHQ, 1916-1918,” Journal of Strategic Studies 10:3 (1987): 363-76.
Gerard DeGroot, Douglas Haig: 1861-1928 (Winchester, MA: Unwin Hyman, 1989).
Jean Baptiste Duroselle, Clemenceau (Paris: Fayard, 1988). French
David R. Watson, Georges Clemenceau, A Political Biography (London: Eyre Methuen, 1974).
Georges Clemenceau, Grandeur and Misery of Victory trans. F. M. Atkinson (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1930).
Jere Clemens King, Foch versus Clemenceau: France and German Disarmament, 1918 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960).
Charles Burdick and Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, The Halder War Diary, 1939-1942 (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1988).
Larry Addington, The Blitzkrieg Era and the German General Staff, 1865-1941 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1971).
Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 1939-45 (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964).
Joachim Fest, Hitler (New York: 1974).
Allan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (New York: Harper & Row, 1962).
Arthur Bryant, ed.
The Turn of the Tide (New
York: Doubleday, 1957).
Arthur Bryant, ed., Triumph in the West (London: Collins, 1959).
Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (New York: Holt, 1991).
Robert Blake and Wm. Roger Louis, eds., Churchill (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993).
Shabtai Teveth, Ben Gurion: The Burning Ground, 1886-1948 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1987).
Yoav Gelber, “Ben-Gurion and the Establishment of the IDF,” Jerusalem Quarterly 1989 (50): 56-80.
Michael Bar Zohar, Ben-Gurion: A Biography Peretz Kidron trans. (New York: Delacorte, 1979).
Zeev Schiff, A History of the Israeli Army 1874 to the Present (New York: Macmillan 1985).
Yoram Peri, Between Battles and Ballots: Israeli Military in Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
Saad El Shazly, The Crossing of the Suez (San Francisco: American Mideast Research, 1980).
Mohamed Heikal, The Road to Ramadan (New York: Quadrangle, 1975).
Mohamed Abdel Ghani El-Gamasy, The October War: Memoirs of Field Marshal El-Gamasy of Egypt, Gillian Potter, Nadra Morcos, and Rosette Frances, trans. (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1993).
Anwar el-Sadat, In Search of Identity: An Autobiography (New York: Harper & Row, 1977).
Larry Berman, Planning a Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam (New York: Norton, 1982).
________, Lyndon Johnson’s War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989).
George Herring, LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994).
Herbert Schandler, Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam: The Unmaking of a President (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).
William Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (New York: Dell, 1976).
Sandy Woodward, One Hundred Days: Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992).
Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983).
Margaret Thatcher, Downing Street Years (London: Harper Collins, 1993).
Michael Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Generals’ War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995).
Norman Schwarzkopf, It Doesn’t Take a Hero (New York: Bantam, 1992)
TBD (project on civil-military relations of the Triangle Institute on Security Studies).