Militarism is a doctrine or system that values war and accords primacy in state and society to the armed forces. It exalts a function—the application of violence—and an institutional structure—-the military establishment, It implies both a policy orientation and a power relationship.

Although militarists have used violence to silence domestic critics, their ideology rationalizes its use primarily in foreign affairs. War is held to be a divine commandment or an experience that ennobles by developing courage, patriotism, honor, unity, and discipline. Militarists seek to universalize such values by precept, symbol, and ceremony.

A fully militarized society also confers a privileged position on warriors. In the extreme case, possible only in centralized polities, the armed forces unilaterally determine the nature of basic institutions, the choice of regimes, the rights and duties of citizens, and the share of national resources allocated to military functions. In a less extreme but more common case military leaders exercise great power as partners or agents of other social groups rather than as relatively autonomous forces.

Ideal-type militarism was approximated in Japan from 1931 to 1945 and in Germany during the later stages of World War i.

Advocates of militarism

Militarists cannot be identified with military or uniformed personnel. In modern European history officers were often restrained in foreign policy and circumspect in domestic politics. Indeed, Huntington (1957, pp. 69-71) contends that such attributes define the professional officer.

The identification of militarists with men in uniform also fails because civilian militarists have long cherished war and warriors. D’Annunzio, Barres, Carlyle, Theodore Roosevelt, and Treitschke stand as examples.

Because the policy and institutional aspects of militarism can be separated, it is quite possible to emphasize one without the other. For example, though the Nazis regimented Germany to facilitate foreign conquests, they also destroyed the vaunted autonomy of the professional army. Conversely, though officer-aristocrats of the nineteenth century exalted the army, they were not always bellicose. Their “enemies” were often fellow citizens, liberals, or socialists, against whom they sometimes made common cause with foreign officer-aristocrats. Such inward-looking militarism has also existed in Latin America.

Specialization of function

In ordinary usage “militarism” has a derogatory meaning. Like legalism or clericalism it suggests excess: a lack of proportion in policy or, when exhibited by warriors, a disregard for appropriate professional bounds. Since such disregard appears central to the concept, it is not rewarding to apply the term to societies in which professional bounds are invisible, that is, where roles are so fused that a distinctive military calling does not exist. Institutional militarism assumes a minimum differentiation of mili- tary from political, economic, and religious roles. At the same time it assumes that the differentiation is incomplete or that it has been challenged and stands in danger. The negative nuance in the term also implies that disregard for the bounds carries a penalty. The penalty is technical incompetence. Historically, for example, some European militarists failed to note the obsolescence of cavalry because they were less concerned with professional questions of maneuver and firepower than with a social question: the class status symbolized by cavalry. Japanese militarists exceeded their jurisdiction as strategic planners and, insisting on making their own diplomatic determination, embarked on a conflict that ultimately proved disastrous to their own forces. In both cases militarists actually jeopardized security ends by their inability to select means appropriate to their defense.

This inability is a function of inordinate power and forsaken expertise. In a nonmilitarized society the warrior is an agent and a specialist. In a militarized society he is a principal and a generalist. He feels competent to deal with the whole sweep of public policy, foreign and domestic. But in the long run so unconfined a jurisdiction impairs his professional military expertise without developing in the warrior the skills necessary to match experienced civilians in political bargaining or economic management.

Antimilitarism of the middle class

The term “militarism” appears to have been used first by middle-class liberals in nineteenth-century Europe. Possibly they sensed that militarism was incompatible with the specialization of functions demanded in an industrial era. Clearly they realized that standing armies had become citadels of aristocratic privilege. The values of officer-aristocrats conflicted with those of the middle class. The officers prized hierarchy, feudal honor, absolutism, prodigality, and organic unity; the middle class spoke of equality, material gain, parliamentary rule, thrift, and individualism. Inevitably, military institutions were suspect to such liberals as Locke, Ferrero, Voltaire, Jefferson, and Kant. Later they became equally suspect to Leninists, whose doctrine defined war as a disease of capitalism in its final, imperialist phase.

Given the problems that concerned them, it was natural that European critics of militarism rarely speculated about the danger that military expertise might be inadequately represented in the foreign policy process. Nor, despite examples of revolutionary armies in the Americas and France, did they theorize about the causes or consequences of military liberalism. Overgeneralizing from selected aspects of Western history, they merely identified the armed forces with unbridled power, social reaction, and war. Wherever representative democracy advanced, therefore, military power was curbed. Today, in the industrialized West such power tends to be confined to defense policy, the field of greatest professional concern to warriors. This generalization also holds for the Soviet Union and other totalitarian states, except possibly during crises of succession.

New approaches to militarism

Recent social research on militarism has dealt less with Europe and Japan than with southeast Asia, the Near East, and Latin America. The change in focus has had a perceptible impact on the term itself. It is no longer identified so closely with bellicose foreign policy. In these vast regions social revolution replaces war as the significant form of violence. To be sure, it is still identified with the primacy of the military establishment. But analysis of ideological views has been succeeded by interest in the actual degree of social and political power held by armed forces in different states. Efforts have been made to distinguish these levels and to analyze the variables that determine them. More sophistication is also displayed about the economic and social policies of military regimes.

The spectrum of power positions

The political power of armed forces reaches its nadir in countries which dispense with them altogether; Iceland and Costa Rica are modern examples. Next come societies in which the military establishment is dominated by authoritarian regimes: traditional autocracies or dictatorships supported by parties of mass mobilization. In stable constitutional democracies the armed forces, like other segments of the bureaucracy, press their claims through prescribed channels and procedures but ultimately comply with decisions made by civilian superiors.

Militarism begins when the armed forces accompany their advice with a threat of sanctions if the advice is unheeded. Finer (1962) has summarized the high-handed techniques sometimes used: threats to resign, to withdraw support, to announce disagreements publicly, to demonstrate disdain for the regime, to refuse to execute its orders, or to rise up in arms. Whenever such blackmail succeeds, the armed forces in fact begin to rule covertly, either by exercising a veto or by substituting policies and personnel of their own choice for those of the de jure government. From this point it is a short step to more extreme measures which take special advantage of a disciplined following, a superior communications net, and heavy weapons. These measures include the manipulation or delay of elections, the deployment of troops to intimidate opponents or to seize key points, and the arrest or assassination of politicians.

In military interventions the armed forces may act alone or in coalition with civilians. They may take the initiative or respond, more or less eagerly, to pleas from politicians. These are important distinctions. It is equally important to distinguish sporadic from chronic intervention and brief from prolonged military rule. Military juntas frequently assume power with the statement that they will serve only as “caretakers” until a legitimate civilian regime can be installed. But such pledges are not always honored, and what appears to be withdrawal is sometimes merely a tactical retreat to a position from which covert rule can be attempted. On the other hand the examples of Atatürk, Franco, de Gaulle, and Ayub indicate that military leaders who serve as heads of government for long periods may in effect transform themselves into civilian politicians and thereby legitimize their rule.

Demands for military leadership

The degree of political power possessed by armed forces is determined first of all by the effective demand for military leadership. Response to such demand has been termed “reactive militarism” (Janowitz 1964, p. 16).

Demand for military leadership varies with the intensity of foreign or domestic social conflict. Prussia’s history illustrates that armies become influential in countries which experience foreign pressure consistently. The theory of the “garrison state” (Lasswell 1941) elaborates this insight and applies it to industrial nations. It assumes that if such countries face continuing security crises they will subordinate all else to defense preparations and their social systems will be controlled rigorously by a combination of military and civilian leaders. Although this thesis has not been disproved, it is evident that the vitality of the political process can affect the outcome significantly. For example, military leaders have played a prominent role in American policy councils during the cold war, but at no time has military rule been likely. Soviet and British experiences in and after World War II also suggest that prolonged security crises need not generate military regimes where civilian government rests on a firm consensus. It is equally clear that military leaders can acquire great power in the absence of significant foreign pressure. Latin America and Tokugawa Japan provide examples. In the new states of Africa and Asia military primacy is more frequently a function of internal than of external security crises. In most cases the latter make themselves felt only indirectly. For example, military aid programs, initiated in response to global security crises, increase the political power of armed forces in recipient states by reducing their dependence on local political leaders and by stimulating more rapid modernization of the military bureaucracy than of the civil service.

Demands for military leadership can be generated by domestic events under three analytically distinct conditions, which can be understood with the aid of insights derived from the general theories of Hobbes, Marx, and Pareto respectively. In the first instance, once society becomes disorganized to the point of anarchy, military force seems essential to the restoration of public order, especially at the local level. In the second situation, a privileged social group, aided by control of the state, oppresses subordinate groups. If the latter cannot seek redress of grievances peacefully, their protests may take violent forms ranging from individual acts of terrorism to the organization of revolutionary armies. Since the dominant strata cannot rely on overarching loyalties to hold the community together, they in turn must call upon police and army to compel obedience. In the third situation, although the fundamental basis of the social order is not threatened, elites are at odds over such issues as corruption, constitutional procedure, or foreign policy, and one or another faction eventually turns to the military for help.

Countervailing forces

The strength of competing forces and institutions also affects the social and political power of the military establishment. Competition may, of course, emanate from within the armed forces themselves, but little is yet known about the conditions under which military influence in society is increased or decreased by factional rivalry. The effect of external forces seems clearer. In such stratified societies as Iran or Morocco, for example, the armed forces have long been regulated by autocratic rulers; in India they were controlled by colonial civil servants. Military primacy is more likely if the legitimacy of such traditional controls is challenged before influence can be acquired by other civilians. Military primacy varies inversely with the number and strength of private associations, with the integrity and skill of civilian bureaucrats, and with the prestige of political parties and legislatures. Especially in new states, if other public institutions are tarnished by corruption or if they are supported only by privileged social strata or only in the capital city, military leaders often assume the functions of mobilizing and representing social interests.

The strength of countervailing forces is sometimes weakened by disputes over legitimate authority. During civil strife or in crises of succession it is often unclear where rightful control over the armed forces is lodged and their discretionary power inevitably rises. Legislatures cannot always make good their claim to control military budgets or war ministers. Prime ministers and war ministers do not always possess full authority over senior command and staff officers. In some cases war ministers are ineffective agents of political authority because they, too, are professional officers, with strong ties to their military colleagues. This was often the case in Germany and France before 1914, in Japan through World War n, and in Argentina and Brazil in more recent times.

Finer has related the levels of military intervention to the demands for military leadership that are generated by domestic conditions or by what he terms “the order of political culture” (1962, p. 139). In mature political cultures the armed forces engage only in prescribed modes of influence. In developed but not fully mature cultures militarism emerges in the form of sporadic and usually covert intervention, the limits of which are set in part by countervailing social forces and institutions. In countries with low or minimal political culture military intervention is proportionately easier, more open, more frequent, and more enduring. However, a succession of military coups may also serve as a substitute for revolutionary warfare in propelling countries of low political culture toward political maturity.

National traditions

Military primacy is also a function of particular national traditions. Where leaders of the armed forces have formed part of a respected ruling class or where they have come to be respected as national heroes, saviors, or symbols, they recruit a disproportionate share of talented and ambitious men. Governments are readier to authorize these men the money and materials they desire. Citizens are also readier to tolerate their assumption of political and social leadership. Under such circumstances the armed forces develop corporate pride and confidence that translate into still greater influence. For such reasons the military in imperial Germany and Japan possessed greater social and political power than their counterparts in imperial China, nineteenth-century America, or twentieth-century Africa.

Values and internal policies

Given identical opportunities to acquire political primacy, not all military leaders are equally disposed to seize them. Readiness to do so depends on self-images and values, some of which in turn shape the internal policies of military regimes.

The most important inhibiting value is a commitment to the principle of civilian supremacy. As noted earlier, Huntington (1957) defines this as part of the professional military ethic, but Finer (1962, pp. 24-30) contends that it is an independent factor. The principle itself requires military leaders to serve all lawful regimes faithfully. Acceptance of such a commitment induces them to resist substantial temptations to intervene in politics; rejection makes intervention likely on little provocation. The strength of the commitment differs from country to country, from individual to individual, and probably from one branch of service to another.

Several kinds of values predispose military leaders to seek political power. From the praetorian guards of Rome to the condottieri of Italy and the janissaries of Turkey, blackmail and coups d’état have been attempted for personal aggrandizement, special privileges, and material benefits. These essentially personal motives or values are still important in many countries.

Institutional values are important wherever military careers provide a major outlet for ruling classes or upward-mobile persons; they are less important where good opportunities exist in business, learned professions, and other careers. Different institutional interests help explain the special affinity of navies for foreign politics and the special affinity of armies for internal politics. Although such interests may be either defensive or offensive, it is not always easy to distinguish the one from the other. A desire to preserve institutional criteria for promotion of personnel can shade off into a demand for autonomy so complete that the armed forces become “a state within the state.” A desire to protect corporate values can induce an army to demand an enormous proportion of the nation’s manpower and income.

Public or political values are nowadays most influential in prompting military men to seek political primacy. Such values involve conceptions of national security, aggressive as well as defensive; conceptions of nation building in the face of centrifugal forces; conceptions of efficiency and austerity in the face of corruption; conceptions of the rule of law in the face of arbitrary government; conceptions of social unity in the face of factional politics; and conceptions of social and economic justice—conservative, liberal, and eclectic.

A historical relationship has existed between armies and conservative regimes not only in western Europe but also in the traditional autocracies of Afro-Asia and under many Latin American dictatorships. Armed forces often assist in main-taining an existing system of social stratification and privilege. But it is impossible to ignore the tradition of military liberalism in the American and French revolutions, in the Napoleonic armies, among some Prussian military reformers, among the military republicans of Spain in 1820, and among the Latin American followers and heirs of Bolivar. It is equally impossible to dismiss as conservative the military elites of the underdeveloped world today. In the new states of Africa and Asia military conservatives in the classical European sense tend to be exceptions, in part because few such countries experienced feudal institutions and in part because colonial administrators monopolized high-status positions. Also, armies in emerging nations are heterogeneous. Countries as different in other respects as Brazil and Iraq are alike in having politically influential officers who represent both oligarchic and radical forces. The former are interested in fiscal responsibility, order, and legitimacy. The latter are more interested in welfare programs, tax and land reform, and the mobilization of youth, women, and peasants. Still other officers hold positions that can only be described as technocratic or pragmatic. Some change their ideologies in response to events. Many Latin American officers, for example, support modernization efforts up to the point at which the stratification system seems threatened and then recoil in alarm. On the other hand, in most of the new states of Afro-Asia there is little principled opposition to public enterprise, and the military regimes of Nasser in Egypt and Ne Win in Burma actually pledged major transformations of the social order.

Orientation of military leaders

Social origins and connections, age, and foreign influences are among the factors that shape the economic and social orientation of military leaders. When officer-ship is primarily an ascriptive calling, it attracts the wellborn or the rich. However, when the entire military profession is open to men of talent on a competitive basis, men of the middle and lower middle class are more likely to enter it. A decision to recruit on the basis of merit has strengthened revolutionary elements in the officer corps in times and places as different as France in 1792 and Egypt in 1936. Moreover, popular military organizations, such as militia or national guards, are frequently more liberal than small professional armies.

In eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century Europe such relatively technical branches as artillery and engineers tended to attract middle-class liberals, while cavalry and infantry remained citadels of the aristocracy. Similarly, in the developing nations after World War n officers whose work had a relatively large technical component tended to be less conservative than their colleagues. In these countries, also, officers in the grade of colonel or lower tended to be more radical than their more senior colleagues.

Finally, economic and social orientations of military personnel are affected by foreign cultural impacts. In the armies of Latin America oligarchic tendencies were strengthened first by Iberian influences and later by fascist military advisers. In the nineteenth-century Turkish army, on the other hand, contact with France led to a diffusion of liberal ideas stemming from the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Although it is extremely difficult to generalize, it is also probable that the net effect of post-1945 military aid programs—Soviet as well as Western—was to strengthen modernizing tendencies in the armed forces of developing nations.

Laurence I. Radway

[See alsoCivil-military relations; Military; Military policy. Other relevant material may be found inModernization; National security; Pacifism; War.c]

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International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences