Anders Klitmøller

At a time of heightened sensitivity to the military’s role in national security and domestic politics, senior officers are more likely than ever to “play the neutral card” – i.e. to act in ways that simply emphasize their supposedly apolitical role. Two of the dominant schools of civil-military relations theory insist that this is virtually the only card officers can play, positing in effect that any political influence by officers on policy-making is inappropriate. However, a third tradition has long argued the opposite: officers do and should engage in consistent dialogue with civilian principals in the hope of producing better policy outcomes. This article adjudicates between the three perspectives, finding that while the third perspective is most persuasive, it too suffers from serious limitations. We provide a new perspective on how senior officers influence their political environments, highlighting their power and the range of options open to them.

Geopolitical and societal changes are increasingly narrated using the concept of complexity. In a range of policy contexts, from climate to finance and peacekeeping to defence and security, complexity is often prominent. This article explores the contemporary expressions of complexity in defence and security scholarship and policy. To understand the expressions of complexity, we view it as a ‘folk theory’ – what others have called a category of practice. We illustrate how this folk theory has gained prominence in NATO policy regarding the organizing of future war and warfare as one example of a policy context in which expressions of complexity are produced and promoted. Specifically, we examine NATO’s future warfighting concept – multi-domain operations – and explore how the concept offers a way and a new language to make sense of an uncertain future and make it governable from the present. We discuss some consequences of a ‘folk theory’ becoming the explanation rather than one of many explanations of the future defence and security landscape. As a representative of folk theory, complexity offers a strong performative master narrative for a variety of orientations, yet one whose practical relevance for the organization of security can be questioned.

How should senior military officers in democratic states influence their domestic political environments? The flippant answer is that they should not; they should do as they’re told. The American civil-military relations literature, written largely in the shadow of Samuel P. Huntington’s myth of an apolitical military, has consistently downplayed the positive role officers play in politics, to such a degree that we have only a dim outline of what constitutes appropriate and effective political influence by officers Thus, in practice, we fear that too many officers find their professional military education fails to prepare them for the realities of being a commander. They discover to their chagrin that there is no neutral ground available; even doing nothing is a willful political act, rife with significance, which is easily turned against them. We do not believe that officers can remove themselves from politics by “playing the neutral card.” Apolitical neutrality often seems prudent from a traditional perspective, but can fail spectacularly when applied in practice. We argue instead for a new theoretical posture, for soldiers and scholars alike, that foregrounds the political agency of officers. We call this the military politics approach.

n the shadow of various business scandals and societal crises, scholars and practitioners have developed a growing interest in authentic leadership. This approach to leadership assumes that leaders may access and leverage their “true selves” and “core values” and that the combination of these two elements forms the basis from which they act resolutely, lead ethically, and benefit others. Drawing on Heidegger’s work, we argue that a concern for authenticity can indeed instigate a leadership ethic, albeit one that acknowledges the unfounded openness of existence and its inherent relationality. On this basis, we propose an ethics-as-practice approach in which leaders respond to the situation at hand by being “attuned to attunement,” which cultivates an openness to otherness and a responsibility to others.