Strategy Essay Competition
     Essays 2001

Huntington Revisited: Is Conservative Realism Still Essential for the Military Ethic?

Kathleen A. Mahoney-Norris

The military ethic is . . . pessimistic, collectivist, historically inclined, power-oriented, nationalistic, militaristic, pacifist, and instrumentalist in its view of the military profession. It is, in brief, realistic and conservative.¹

One of the most widely accepted truisms about the military concerns its supposed preference for a conservative perspective. More specifically, the military professional is assumed to espouse a conservative, realist viewpoint on national security matters. Samuel Huntington has provided perhaps the classical exposition of this outlook in his The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations Furthermore, Huntington has developed what appears to be a powerful argument as to why conservative realism should be considered a fundamental component of the professional ethic of the military officer.²

This essay demonstrates that Huntington is mistaken in assuming that conservative realism is the only rational mindset for the military professional, especially in the 21st century. Diverse factors--from globalization to failing states to technological advances, as epitomized by the revolution in military affairs--increasingly suggest that this type of mindset is often inappropriate. In the worst case, a conservative realist approach may endanger rather than protect the security of the state. For example, realism's preoccupation with the state blinds it to the importance of nonstate actors and transnational or asymmetric threats, which may actually pose the greater danger to national security.

At a minimum, realism's focus on threats may not inculcate the mindset necessary to seize opportunities for engagement and cooperation that could enhance the security of the state. Mounting evidence of the validity of the democratic peace thesis (the notion that democracies do not go to war with one another) could encourage the United States to engage other states to promote democracy. These limitations of realism are magnified by its conservative bent, which suggests an inability to view trends and events in a novel and positive light. Yet creativity and the flexibility to move beyond the status quo are qualities that are critical to enhance U.S. security in the current complex and fluid international system.

These concerns are particularly germane as the Bush administration attempts to reassess national security and military strategies, along with accompanying roles, missions, and force structure for the Armed Forces. The Nation is still floundering to define itself in this nebulous post-Cold War period. The military view of the threats, challenges, and opportunities of the international system will certainly undergird the estimates that it makes and the advice that it offers about its role in national security. Does the professional military have the perspective required to provide the best advice possible to the civilian leadership in these circumstances? Conservative realism probably does not provide an adequate guide.

My analysis expands upon Huntington's view of the concept of conservative realism and its implications for the military and national security. I then consider conservatism and realism separately to better elucidate certain ideas. Next, I compare the relevance of this perspective for the Cold War period by contrasting that time to the current post-Cold War era. Have the threats changed? Has the role of the military evolved in ensuring national security? I contend that the answer to both of those questions is yes and that conservative realism does not provide an adequate basis for the professional military to reorient its thinking. Furthermore, military writings indicate an increasing awareness of the need for a changed perspective. I conclude with speculation about an alternative perspective of globalization that might provide for better defense of the Nation, both now and in the foreseeable future.³

Huntington and Conservative Realism

Huntington's concept of the military rests on the central premise that the modern military officer is a professional. Thus, there is a "military mind" and a "professional military ethic" based on a "constant standard by which it is possible to judge the professionalism of any officer corps anywhere anytime." ⁴ For the military, that standard is a set of values, attitudes, and perspectives that best enables military members to carry out their fundamental function of enhancing the security of the state. Huntington believes that this professional military ethic is unchanging, assuming that the inherent nature of the military function remains static. He does not question this assumption to any extent because he accepts that conflicts among humanity and between the organized entities in which humanity lives (states) are a universal pattern for several reasons. Most prominent among these reasons is the belief that human nature is selfish and greedy, even evil. The insecurities and fears that this belief generates are just as evident in our time to Huntington and other realists as they were to Hobbes and Machiavelli.⁵ That is because classical realism assumes that this pattern is unchanging, cyclical, and ultimately does not allow for progress.

Separating the strands of conservatism and realism highlights several weaknesses in Huntington's argument. Realism could continue serving a useful role in shaping the military perspective if it were separated from the adjective conservative. Deleting this modifier removes the moral, or value-based, aspects of realism--essentially, the idea that humanity is evil by nature.⁶ Updating the classical realist perspective⁷ to what is often termed neorealism or structural realism⁸ might be useful. This amended perspective does not attribute conflict in the international system to the weakness of human nature or even to individual actions. Rather, conflict is presumed to occur because of the anarchy that characterizes the international system, which means that each state is sovereign in an insecure world. Thus, states must always look not only to maintain but also enhance their security, particularly by military means. Accepting this version of realism would allow for a more nuanced view of the current international system. It would enable military professionals to continue envisioning the international system as prone to conflict but also to appreciate the growing importance of economic power, institutions, and other nonstate actors. This perspective also allows postulation that states may cooperate and gain in certain kinds of circumstances (as opposed to a classic zero-sum view of interactions). A modified view of realism on this order clearly would encourage at least a modicum of adaptive thinking.

Another limitation of the specifically conservative emphasis in Huntington's argument relates to his analysis of the static nature of the military ethic. According to Huntington, the content of the professional ethic remains unchanged because of the inherent nature of the military function--ensuring security in the face of threats.⁹ He further argues that the prevailing military outlook on foreign affairs has scarcely changed in modern times because "the decisive influence shaping the military outlook was not the actual state of world politics, but rather the level of professionalism achieved by the military." ¹⁰ For Huntington, "the constant nature of the American military perspective reflected the constant character of American military professionalism," ¹¹ regardless of whether the date was 1870 or 1930. He even claims that by the 1930s, the international system had come to reflect the view that the American military had always had about the world.

The fact that the events of the interwar period reflect Huntington's portrayal of the military perspective on the international system is purely fortuitous. If the Wilsonian ideas of freedom and democracy proclaimed at the close of World War I had borne some fruit, would Huntington have reached the same conclusion? If World War II had resulted in a continuing, cooperative relationship between the wartime allies of the United States and the Soviet Union, thus reducing the security threat, should the military perspective have remained the same? The wisdom of adhering to an unvarying viewpoint when fundamental changes may be occurring in the international system is questionable. Thus, having a military with a regimented perspective is not advantageous for maximizing military security, and therefore it does not meet Huntington's own test of fulfilling the functional imperative.

Comparing the Cold War and Post-Cold War Eras

As Huntington stresses, the continuation of the Cold War and the nuclear rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union necessitated large standing American military forces: "Military requirements thus became a fundamental ingredient of foreign policy, and military men and institutions acquired authority and influence far surpassing that ever previously possessed by military professionals on the American scene." ¹² This ascendancy had obvious implications for the military's role in ensuring security. Huntington believed those implications were largely negative, as they meant the increasing influence of the military in society and the concomitant exposure of the military to civilian and political views. They complicated military attempts to remain aloof from liberal society and maintain professional conservatism, while civilians actively attempted to supplant military conservatism with the liberalism of American society. In Huntington's estimation, both of these trends worked against military professionalism.

Huntington's belief that realism was the perspective needed to ensure national security during the Cold War might have had some merit in this period, which was characterized by a relatively stable bipolar balance of power between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, the realist perspective has not been successful in explaining the end of the Cold War, let alone predicting that end in the first place. Considering that the aftermath of the Cold War has meant the greatest changes for U.S. national security and the military's role since World War II, this is a serious shortcoming. Realism has not been able to deal adequately with the wake of the Cold War or outline a comprehensive new security approach that addresses the variety of novel threats now proliferating.

Even a cursory review of academic or policy studies related to the current security environment reveals extensive use of adjectives such as uncertain, dynamic, fluid, unpredictable, unknown, turbulent, asymmetric, and complex. Attempts have been made to define and categorize the variety and level of threats to U.S. national security, but even realists have reached no consensus similar to the one that prevailed about the Soviet threat during the Cold War. Congress has been so concerned about the implications of this new international system that it chartered the bipartisan U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century (also called the Hart-Rudman Commission) in 1998 to examine the entire range of U.S. national security policies and processes.

In February 2001, the Hart-Rudman Commission published the last of its series of three reports, Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change. The commission concluded that the United States faces distinctly new dangers that require rethinking fundamental assumptions from the Cold War period.

The key to our vision is the need for a culture of coordinated strategic planning to permeate all U.S. national security institutions. Our challenges are no longer defined for us by a single prominent threat. Without creative strategic planning in this new environment, we will default in times of crisis to a reactive posture. Such a posture is inadequate to the challenges and opportunities before us.¹³

This criticism of a reactive posture recalls the status quo nature of realism and its limitations in fashioning new policies for the future. Similarly, the commission stressed that national security no longer could be narrowly defined, but that it had to be broadened and integrated to include economics, technology, education, and other aspects.¹⁴ However, realists would be uncomfortable with broadening national security beyond standard military and defense concerns.

Many issues raised by the Hart-Rudman Commission have been evident in studies produced under the auspices of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) 2001 Working Group. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sponsored this group as an independent and unbiased team charged with building intellectual capital for QDR 2001. The group analyzed 36 existing studies on the future security environment to identify points of consensus and divergence.¹⁵ Among many other items, the group agreed that there would be more nonstate threats to security and a greater threat of asymmetric attack. The group also made a concerted attempt to include dissenting viewpoints because these can "lead to plans that can also cope with alternative futures. The dissenting viewpoints are tools against complacency." ¹⁶ An example of such an alternative viewpoint is the notion that developing cooperative defenses with potential military rivals might be possible. This led to an interesting conclusion:

Perhaps prudent defense planning requires a blend of the two views in order to deal with a sudden change in circumstance--sort of a cooperation-plus-containment approach that seeks to encourage our fondest hopes at the same time it retains the means of prevailing in our worst nightmares.¹⁷

These points underscore the notion that any security perspective having a static and narrowly based approach to the international system is likely to endanger U.S. national security. As the first report of the Hart-Rudman Commission noted, "the very facts of military reality are changing and that bears serious and concentrated reflection. The reflexive habits of mind and action that were the foundation for U.S. Cold War strategy and force structures may not be appropriate for the coming era." ¹⁸ Conservative realism and the mindset that it perpetuates for the military professional fit this straitjacket and do not provide the flexibility necessary to entertain alternative ideas.

The security perspective employed is significant because it affects not only strategy but also force structure, roles, and missions. All of these issues have achieved prominence under the Bush administration, and a number of related studies--both official and unofficial--are under way. Yet even before the Presidential election, knowledgeable observers and sectors within the defense arena itself were attempting to come to grips with these issues. In "Defending America in the Twenty-first Century," Eliot Cohen pointed to failings not only in U.S. strategy (essentially Cold War-derived) but also in military organizational structures, still adapted mainly to a bipolar world.¹⁹ He called for a move from the two-major theater war (MTW) strategy to one based on American predominance in an international system characterized by "the consequent ambiguity and uncertainty of the circumstances in which the United States will use its military power." ²⁰ In Cohen's view, the new strategy should have four components, including defense against weapons of mass destruction, conventional dominance, short-term contingencies, and peace maintenance (a concept advocated in numerous studies but one that would get short shrift from a realist perspective).

The QDR Working Group at the National Defense University found similar concerns, including the need to move away from the two-MTW equation. In its report of November 2000, the group identified 12 strategy decisions that it felt the next administration needed to make, established 4 broad strategy alternatives based on different world views, described alternative approaches to sizing the U.S. military, provided a methodology for assessing risk, examined strategy-driven integrated paths, and concluded with findings and recommendations.²¹ The underlying premise of this analysis is the absolute requirement to question common assumptions and entertain alternative views and strategies for ensuring national security in this complex environment.

Any number of additional, wide-ranging reports and studies could be cited to support these concerns. What is important for this analysis is the nearly unanimous conclusion that current thinking about security, strategy, the use of force, and roles and missions needs to be changed and expanded to include consideration of all options. However, a conservative realist mindset has difficulty displaying the flexibility required for that type of analysis. To continue urging the military to employ that perspective will handicap, rather than ensure, its ability to maximize the security of the United States.

Finally, a comparison of the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war today makes apparent another potentially serious problem in promoting conservative realism as the only appropriate mindset for the military. Huntington contends, "the ideal military man is thus conservative in strategy, but open-minded and progressive with respect to new weapons and new tactical forms." ²² A fundamental disconnect seems to exist between expecting the military to adhere to conservative realism at the strategic, or higher levels, and encouraging innovativeness at the lower levels. The human mind has difficulty coping with the dissonance in moving between a conservative strategic approach and an innovative and adaptive operational or tactical approach. In addition, in the current era of near-instantaneous communication and information, the distinctions between the strategic, operational, and tactical levels become fuzzy:

Simultaneous revolutions in military affairs, technology, and information, and a reordering of the international system, have shattered traditional boundaries, merging the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war into a single, integrated universe in which action at the bottom often has instant and dramatic impact at all levels. Never in history have so many strategic burdens confronted the entire chain of command, ranging from the President in the White House all the way down to the individual rifleman at a security checkpoint in Macedonia.²³

Joint Vision 2020, which is meant to guide the continuing transformation of the Armed Forces, echoes this conclusion: "individuals will be challenged by significant responsibilities at tactical levels in the organization and must be capable of making decisions with both operational and strategic implications." ²⁴

Naturally, the professional military should be innovative and flexible. As Huntington himself states in another context:

Rigid and inflexible obedience may well stifle new ideas and become slave to an unprogressive routine. It is not infrequent that a high command has had its thinking frozen in the past and has utilized its control of the military hierarchy to suppress uncomfortable new developments in tactics and technology.²⁵

However, this is precisely the type of thinking that conservative realism encourages at all levels. This status-quo attitude probably would adversely affect the willingness or ability of the military to entertain fundamental changes to such things as strategy, roles, and missions that are necessary to meet a transformed international security environment. In fact, conservative realism could result in the worst type of "innovation." The military might well be eager to adopt new technologies and weapon systems while still applying the same, dated military strategies and concepts. This could occur without any fundamental rethinking of how military strategy (the conduct of war) might evolve advantageously in line with new capabilities. For example, a service such as the Air Force, which is wedded to the notion of planning an air campaign in a certain way to achieve military objectives, might be prone to continue to use newer weaponry in tactically smart ways without considering the adaptations that should be made for strategic (or political) purposes.

For all of these reasons, moving away from advocating a conservative realist mindset for the professional military is necessary. Huntington's viewpoint that the military ethic depends upon realism as an integral part of military professionalism is mistaken today, if it ever was appropriate. The military can fulfill its role of advancing national security only with an appropriately updated perspective.

A New Security Perspective for the Military?

The professional military ethic would be best served by the adoption of a globalization perspective.²⁶ The use of a nonideological term for this perspective is deliberate, as a political ideology may not be necessary, or even beneficial, for the military's role of ensuring national security.²⁷ A globalization ethic implies that a professional military officer would be attuned to both threats and opportunities that arise at all levels of the international system. In other words, both threats and opportunities would be viewed concurrently to assess the security climate and to develop appropriate military strategies and concepts. A globalization perspective would further demand that, in assessing threats, the military not only would look at capabilities of potential adversaries but also would consider intentions. In other words, the level of threat would be based on an analysis of capabilities plus intentions (unlike the realist tendency to focus purely on capabilities). For example, while the United Kingdom and France possess nuclear weapons and ample military capabilities, they can hardly be considered in the same threat category as a state such as China. Yet realism would take this viewpoint, as it acknowledges no permanent friends or allies in the international system.

In addition, the ability to analyze intentions and understand the perspective of potential enemies is essential to the concept of deterrence. Colin Gray rightfully points out that deterrence is much more problematic for the United States to achieve today than it was during the Cold War. Not only is the Nation unsure of whom it might wish to deter, but also the variety of motivations of state and nonstate actors that could pose a threat is more complicated.²⁸ Yet realism makes no contextual allowance for the different motivations that may impel actors, an understanding that is crucial to devise effective deterrence strategies. Nor does realism give much credence to the increasingly asymmetric threat arising from nonstate actors, all of whom are much more difficult to deter. A globalization perspective that emphasizes an understanding of the variety of actors in the international system, regardless of their category, seems more likely to provide the possibility either to preempt or co-opt potential adversaries.

Both joint doctrine and the writings of U.S. military leaders increasingly demonstrate awareness of the necessity--indeed, responsibility--for a changing military viewpoint on security matters. The Joint Strategic Planning System specifically formalizes a method for the U.S. military leadership to engage in "continuous study of the strategic environment to identify conditions or trends that may warrant a change in the strategic direction of the Armed Forces." ²⁹ Concepts such as strategic agility underscore the need for adaptation. Joint Publication 1, which is the capstone publication for all U.S. joint doctrine, specifically praises strategic agility as a desirable quality for the military, defining it as "the ability to adapt, conceptually and physically, to changes in the international security environment." ³⁰

At the highest strategic level, the current National Military Strategy situates military responsibilities in meeting national security needs under the rubric of "shape, respond, and prepare now." ³¹ The military realizes that it must have the ability to respond across the spectrum of conflict, which would be a standard realist understanding. However, just as important is the stated need to contribute actively to peace, which runs counter to realist ideas. Joint Vision 2020, which provides the template for the continuing transformation of the Armed Forces, emphasizes that the military must be able "both [to] win wars and contribute to peace." ³² The notion of shaping falls under the general U.S. security posture of peacetime engagement in the post-Cold War period. In public addresses and in military-related writings, numerous senior officers have stressed proactive shaping and engaging as integral functions that the military must perform. The National Military Strategy advocates shaping because it "helps foster the institutions and international relationships that constitute a peaceful strategic environment by promoting stability; preventing and reducing conflict and threats; and deterring aggression and coercion." ³³ The strategy underscores the importance of a multifaceted understanding of the deterrence environment and the actors within it, which a realist perspective does not promote.

Theater engagement plans offer good illustrations of the military's role in proactively contributing to peace. These plans, which the four regional combatant commanders are required to produce for their areas of responsibility, devote great attention to the concept of shaping the environment. This type of strategic approach is particularly striking because such active involvement of the military in engagement and cooperative activities in various regions of the world is contrary to standard realist understandings.

All of these instances demonstrate that military security is a much broader concept than merely preparing to fight major or even limited wars. Thus, the professional military ethic demands that officers have a fuller understanding of security issues and the integrated use of all instruments of power (military, economic, and political) to deal with the multifaceted threat environment.³⁴ A globalization perspective allows the military to take advantage of opportunities to enhance national security rather than to respond to threats that have been allowed to mature unhindered.

Note that these propositions run directly counter to Huntington's view of the professional ethic. He decries what he terms fusionist theory in which the military is supposed to incorporate "political, economic, and social factors into their thinking" and thereby "deny themselves in order to play a higher role [viz., military statesman]." ³⁵ Huntington even speaks disparagingly of the establishment of institutions such as the National War College because not only would they "enable military officers to appreciate the complexities of national policy, but because they would also enable military officers to arrive at their own conclusions concerning political and economic issues." ³⁶ His concern is that this independence would dilute military officer capability to represent military security issues effectively, their primary responsibility.

However, Huntington appears to have this wrong. The complex international system demands that military officers possess a broad understanding of issues to respond effectively to a spectrum of threats and opportunities. It is no longer possible, if it ever was, to separate strands of putatively military issues from political or economic ones. As Army General Richard Chilcoat has convincingly argued, military leaders must have a grasp of all the elements of national power to perform their role of advising on national security strategy. ³⁷ If proactive engagement allows the military to help forestall or resolve actual conflict or war, then surely the security situation for the United States is much improved.

Conclusions

In today's dynamic international environment in which change and the unforeseen are the only givens, a conservative realistic perspective is likely to hamper rather than enhance the military's ability to defend the United States. Because of its preoccupation with threats and maintaining the status quo, realism is far too constricting a mindset for the professional military. Rather, a perspective such as globalization is a much more desirable component of the professional military ethic.

As Huntington has recognized, "the tensions between the demands of military security and the values of American liberalism can, in the long run, be relieved only by the weakening of the security threat or the weakening of liberalism." ³⁸ The specter of worldwide communism seemed real in the mid-1950s when Huntington was writing. But times have changed; the United States has no peer competitors for the foreseeable future, lowering the strategic security threat. In fact, current and proliferating threats demand a proactive strategy by military officers with a broad, geostrategic perspective.

Notes