scholarly journals The Military Politics of North Sumatra December 1956-October 1957

Indonesia ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 128 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. W. Smail
Keyword(s):  
Military Politics ◽  
The Military ◽  
North Sumatra

scholarly journals Fuller’s theory of war and the changes in the concepts of warfare in the second half of XX century: The rise of "creative" war

Sociologija ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-148
Author(s):  
Nada Sekulic
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary World ◽  
Political Background ◽  
Economic Elites ◽  
Theory Of War ◽  
Military Politics ◽  
Civil Sector ◽  
Global World ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Military Structure ◽  
The Military

Current scientific and scholarly discourse on war, which represents the legitimate knowledge and theory on war today, has been narrowed to the topics and issues related to war doctrine and technology of war. It has become reserved for the privileged ?green collars?, highly skilled professionals and officers inside the military structure, which act in cooperation with the political and economic elites, forming the triumvirate of power in contemporary world. The opportunities for civil critique of military politics and strategies of wars have been decreased enormously, in spite of the fact that contemporary wars have spread deeply into the civil sector of society. By looking into the social context and political background of the knowledge reserved for the military experts, we can develop insights into the process of the ideological framing of wars today, marked by naturalization and purposeful interpretations of wars, as if they are fought in the name of democratization of global world. At the same time, the image of the importance of human factor in war has been decreased, as much as responsibility for causalities. Citizens have been pacified for the silent acceptance of military politics promoted in their countries.

Burundi: Assessing Military Institutional Reforms Post-Arusha

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid Jamar ◽  
Gerard Birantamije
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Military Politics ◽  
The Military

Military politics have been entangled with the trajectory of Burundian public institutions, experiences of violence, and the army formation. From 1994 to 2009, the peace process brought together different political parties, security forces, and rebel groups to negotiate ceasefires and major institutional reforms. Adopted in 2000, the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement contained some of the most ambitious and sophisticated security reforms. While most literature emphasizes mostly on the Arusha Peace Agreement, 22 agreements were signed by different sets of parties, including political parties and rebel groups during these 15 years of peace meditation. The Arusha Peace Agreement provides for complex security arrangements: (a) a strictly defined role, structure, and mandate of the army and other security forces; (b) sophisticated power-sharing arrangements for both leadership and composition of the army and other security forces; (c) demobilization, disarmament, integration, and training of armed forces; (d) transformation of armed groups into political parties; and (e) ceasefires. The peace talks integrated various armed political groups into Burundian institutions. Responding to four decades of violence and military dictatorship, these reforms of the military and other security forces aimed to disentangle the military from politics. Initially contested, the agreements shaped the reading of the historical contexts that justified these institutional military reforms. Indeed, provisions of these agreements also framed a narrative about violence and imposed fixed interpretations of political mobilization of violence. These imposed interpretations neglected key elements that enabled and, continue to enable, the political use of violence as well as the emergence of new forms of military politics. The main institutional approaches adopted to tackle issue of inclusion and correct imbalances in armed forces was the introduction of power-sharing arrangements based on ethnic dimensions. The formulation and further implementation of ethnic quotas reinforced the binary elements of ethnic identities, rather than promote a more fluid understanding that would appreciate intersecting elements, such as gender, political affiliation, and class and regional dimensions in the undertaking of power, alliance, and relations between executive and military institutions. Security reforms continue to affect the functioning of public institutions, with limited effects for disentangling politics and military.

Statistics and the Field Army Loyalty System

1974 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 146-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
William W. Whitson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Statistical Evidence ◽  
Chinese Politics ◽  
Previous Issue ◽  
Chinese Military ◽  
Military Politics ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

Although many readers would probably interpret William Parish's article in the previous issue of The China Quarterly (“Factions in Chinese Military Politics,” CQ, No. 56, pp. 667–699) as an attack on my 1969 assessment of the historic role of the Field Army in post-1950 Chinese politics, I am nevertheless sincerely grateful to him for keeping the dialogue about “loyalty systems” alive. Indeed, I am struck by the irony of our respective positions. He seems to argue that, while the Field Army loyalty system apparently (according to my statistics) had little demonstrable impact on elite assignments before the Cultural Revolution, the same system apparently (according to his statistics) helps clarify factional behaviour within the PLA during and after the Cultural Revolution. The irony of this is doubled since the statistical evidence which I now have available argues that “the old boy net” of the Field Armies actually had a diminishing impact on the domestic politics of China in the late 1960s. By then the Military Region as a geo-political unit had replaced the Field Army as a temporary focus of individual and collective PLA loyalties.

The Statistical Evidence for Yang Ch'eng-wu's Manipulation of the Military Elite

1974 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 148-155
Author(s):  
David S. G. Goodman
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Vice Chairman ◽  
Provincial Level ◽  
Chief Of Staff ◽  
Chinese Military ◽  
Military Politics ◽  
Military Posts ◽  
The Military ◽  
Formal Establishment

William Parish in “Factions in Chinese Military Politics,” ( The China Quarterly, No. 56, p. 667) argues that military factions only assumed political importance during the Cultural Revolution. Part of this argument is based on the claim that Yang Ch'eng-wu, when acting chief of staff and secretary-general of the Central Committee's Military Affairs Committee, attempted to influence the appointment of PLA cadres to provincial revolutionary committees in favour of the 5th Field Army. This influence, he demonstrates, by considering the distribution of PLA cadres with known Field Army affiliations on two groups of provincial revolutionary committees: those formed before and those formed after 8 March 1968 – the date of Yang's last public appearance. Parish argues that a significantly greater proportion of military cadres with a 5th Field Army background were appointed to those Provincial Revolutionary Committees formed before 8 March 1968, than one would have expected given the distribution of such cadres in military posts in 1966. Since he had previously argued that military appointments before 1967 were made without reference to Field Army affiliations, he concludes that Yang was engaged in factional politics. However, Parish's account of Yang Ch'engwu's activities is very much open to question on the grounds that the available evidence suggests that most military appointments to the leading positions (i.e. chairman or vice-chairman) on Provincial-level Revolutionary Committees were determined well before the formal establishment of these institutions and before Yang's dismissal.

Factions in Chinese Military Politics

1973 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 667-699 ◽  
Author(s):  
William L. Parish
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Internal Conflicts ◽  
Chinese Studies ◽  
Chinese Military ◽  
Military Politics ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

In Chinese Studies, three themes have acquired new emphasis since the Cultural Revolution: first, the view that China is not a simple monolithic state but one with diversified interest groups and potential internal conflict. Second, the influence of the military throughout society and the extent to which its particular interests and internal conflicts shape the nature of government and society. Third, the fact that bureaucratism, though attacked in the Cultural Revolution, is likely to continue shaping Chinese society and to be a perennial threat to revolutionary ideals. This article touches on each of these themes – first, by an analysis of personal loyalty groups during the Cultural Revolution and the Lin Piao affair and, second, by an account of the changing nature of Chinese bureaucracies and of how these changes impinge on factional politics.

Military Politics and Counter-Insurgency in Peru

1991 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 83-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Mauceri
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Alternative Strategies ◽  
Military Politics ◽  
Military Institution ◽  
The Military

Eleven years after the start of an insurgent war, Peru's military appears no closer to defeating the two insurgencies that have plagued the country since 1980. The promise of greater political stability and a reduced role for the military in politics, which the the return to civilian rule held out, have largely been dashed. The war has meant a new active role for the military in politics which, under emergency decrees, directly rules over half of the country and maintains an influential voice in national policymaking. Under the previous two elected governments and the current Fujimori administration, the military institution has largely designed and implemented counter-insurgency strategy, leaving civilian policymakers aside in the decision-making process. What is more important, military officials have remained largely unaccountable for their decisions due to the lack of any civilian oversight capacity or alternative strategies. More than a decade after the start of the war, civilians have yet to devise methods that can increase military accountability.

scholarly journals Corrupción en el ámbito industrial militar. El caso de España y la dimensión internacional

2018 ◽  
pp. 712
Author(s):  
Pere Ortega Grasa
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Military Industry ◽  
Military Commanders ◽  
The Law ◽  
Military Politics ◽  
The Military

Resumen: Los altos precios de los armamentos y el secretismo que rodea las exportaciones de armas, favorecen que este comercio este falto de transparencia, hecho que favorece prácticas corruptas. Los principales beneficiarios de la industria militar y de las ventas de armas es el denominado complejo militar industrial, un entramado donde se dan cita los intereses de los principales accionistas y directivos de las industrias militares, de algunos políticos y de altos mandos militares con el deseo de influir en las decisiones sobre política militar y la adquisición de armamentos de los Estados. España, no está exenta de esta problemática, pues la Ley que regula las exportaciones de armas permite que éstas sean tratadas como materia reservada.Palabras clave: corrupción, complejo militar industrial, exportación de armas, transparencia, militarismo.Abstract: The high prices of armaments and the secrecy that surrounds the exportation of arms encourages a lack of transparency in this industry, given that it favours corrupt practices. The main beneficiary of the military industry and of the sales of arms is the so-called industrial military complex: a framework which brings together the interests of the main shareholders and directors of the industrial military, including some politicians and high military commanders who want to influence the decisions of military politics and of the acquisition of the armaments of the State. Spain is not exempt from this problem, as the Law that regulates the exportation of arms allows it to be treated as a classified matter.Keywords: corruption, industrial military complex, exportation of arms, transparency, militarism.

Syria: Coup Politics, Authoritarian Regimes, and Savage War

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Droz-Vincent
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
The State ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Social Trends ◽  
Military Politics ◽  
The Military

Why did the Syrian army play such a crucial role in the country? How did it change over the years after independence? At first glance, one would look at the post-independence history of coups d’état for an explanation. Such path dependence helps us to understand how the army positioned itself close to politics and how the surge of the military in the state (cor)related with huge changes in Syrian society. The political role of the Syrian military, however, is much more complex to decipher. The officer corps that acted behind many different regimes became a crucible for political scripts in Syria. The military or politicized cliques within it came to control (civilian) politics in Syria. Yet, quite differently from other Arab countries where coups took place, such as in Egypt, the Syrian army was much more subjected to broad social trends active in the modernizing of Syrian society, in particular the role of ethnicity and confessionalism. Closeness to politics had blowback effects on the (civilian) political system and even on the army institution itself, as it literally imploded in politics. Syrian politics was later “de-militarized” in a very specific sense, that is, politics was rebuilt on different grounds larger than just military politics, namely authoritarianism. The coup in November 1970 by Hafez al-Assad was a real break and not just another coup in a long series. A new political system was rebuilt by Hafez, himself an officer, with the army as a crucial pillar of his regime, much more focused on internal security functions than on waging wars with Israel. At the same time, however, Hafez pushed the officer corps away from direct politics and relied on other pillars, especially networks of power in the security services and the state bureaucracy. The Syrian military was transformed and adapted to this new enduring regime, quite a novelty in Syria when compared with the 1950s–1960s. The military was part of the enduring status quo of the Assad regime for 40 years and benefited from it—at least the high officers did. No wonder that in March 2011 and at times of Arab uprisings spreading from Tunisia to Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain, and Syria, the army was pulled by the regime into repression. The role of the Syrian military became all the more crucial as Syria treaded the path toward full-scale civil war after 2012, or after the latter took the form of a proxy war around Syria with huge regional and international interventions. After a substantial number of individual defections, the military was rebuilt during the conflict with Russian and Iranian support, and this support will be a key component of regime reformation in Syria.

After Colonial Rule in Asia: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltan Barany
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
State Control ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Control Right ◽  
Military Politics ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

This chapter looks at two pivotal states of South Asia: India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan gained their independence in 1947. India succeeded in placing its armed forces under firm and virtually unchallenged state control right from the beginning of independence. However, civil–military relations in Pakistan have been far more “eventful.” The chapter makes three arguments. First and most important, by the end of the first postcolonial decade, the patterns for the drastically different military politics of India and Pakistan were already set. Second, of the numerous reasons for the evolution of different civil–military relations in the two countries, several lie in the circumstances of the 1947 Partition and in the immediate post-Partition period. Third, the British colonial period left behind profound legacies, most of which have positively influenced military affairs in the Subcontinent. The chapter also addresses Bangladesh—from its independence in 1971 to the military take-over in 2007—and what sets its military politics apart from Pakistan's.

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