Janowitz and Huntington—Better Together: A Response

Abstract

Suzanne Nielsen and Hugh Liebert recently published “The Continuing Relevance of Morris Janowitz’s The Professional Soldier for the Education of Officers” in which they argued that officer education is too enamored with Samuel Huntington’s aging theory of civil–military relations from Soldier and the State. Huntington’s ideal of objective control grants senior military advisors autonomy within their professional sphere, and it best ensures that unvarnished military expertise survives politically charged national security decision making processes intact, regardless of which party controls the White House. While these features explain Huntington’s traditional popularity with the military, Nielsen and Liebert warn that Huntington’s separation between military and civilian matters in theory engenders wishful thinking in practice, so much so that officers neglect, to the detriment of national policy, Morris Janowitz, Huntington’s cofounder of the modern study of civil–military relations. However, the civil–military community should reconsider banishing Huntington in order to appreciate Janowitz.