Military Leaders and Foreign Policy-Making

Abstract

A survey of the literature of the last decade in the burgeoning interdisciplinary field which has come to be known—rather imprecisely—as civil-military relations, reveals a large number of descriptive and prescriptive, operational and theoretical studies, but little unity of focus or method. The interested shopper finds himself in a veritable department store filled with a wide assortment—including those in the bargain basement. Spurred on by wartime experiences and Cold War exigencies, historians and social scientists, physical scientists and journalists—above all in the United States—have covered reams of paper with discussions of the relationship between arms and men, war and peace, strategy and policy, defense and diplomacy. Displaying a great variety of analytical depth, breadth and sophistication, some of these studies have advanced our knowledge of civil-military relations—particularly in contemporary America—while others have failed to survive changes in international politics and weapons technology. Some writers, both of conservative and liberal orientation, have focused on the “appropriate” role for the military in state and society; others have sought to remain detached from such normative questions in order to concentrate on micro-descriptive phenomenal studies or more or less abstract macro-analytical theoretical models. Between the earth-bound descriptive and prescriptive studies on the one hand, and the soaring theoretical efforts on the other has loomed a wide gap, all too familiar to students of international relations, comparative politics, and public administration, waiting to be bridged—if bridged it can be—by empirical theories of civil-military relationships.

El papel de los militares en la política exterior colombiana: estudio de caso

“…En este caso, las alternativas de los actores difieren a causa de que sus estrategias giran en torno a su conocimiento experto en un campo específico. Cabe recordar que, de acuerdo con Edinger (1963), los líderes militares son aquellos que poseen más información (p. 398). Sin embargo, este caso presenta a un militar "pura sangre" como Samudio y un militar diplomático como Londoño, lo que provoca, de nuevo, un juego de egos entre los actores principales: "Yo tenía mucho peso en el Consejo de Ministros por la situación del país" (Rafael Samudio, comunicación personal, 20 de septiembre de 2019).…”

“…Lo que resulta interesante para este estudio es comprender, como señalan Benjamin y Edinger (1971), bajo qué circunstancias y por qué los líderes militares, en su capacidad profesional, ejercen influencia sobre la política exterior, algo que además catalogan como un "asunto empírico" (p. 5). Al respecto, no obstante, cabe tener en cuenta el obstáculo planteado por Edinger (1963), en cuanto son pocos los datos confiables, especialmente las fuentes primarias como documentos del Gobierno o diarios inéditos de quienes participaron, lo que ha mantenido un "bajo interés de los académicos en este tema" (Barany, 2018, p. 580).…”

“…Los estudios sobre la participación de los militares en la formulación de la política exterior se remontan al artículo seminal de Lewis Edinger (1963), donde deja al descubierto vacíos metodológicos y dificultades técnicas de tipo empírico. Debido al secretismo característico de la instituciones militares, el autor vaticinó la dificultad de desarrollar una metodología empírica sustentada en estudios de caso.…”

Heart

“…Improvement has been made in mercury strain gauge preparations by use of silastic instead of latex tubing (227) . A circuit for construction of an automatic electronic arterial pressure apparatus which gives readings of systolic pressure similar to those obtained with a mercury manometer (228), and a method for converting an inexpensive mo tion picture camera to a continuous motion camera (229) have been re ported. This simple, inexpensive device permits accurate photographic re cordings of high frequency events of short duration from an oscilloscope.…”