The Soldier and Liberal Society Societal-Military Relations in Germany and the United Kingdom
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The Soldier and Liberal Society Societal-Military Relations in Germany and the United Kingdom Tomas Kucera Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD Department of International Politics Aberystwyth University 2014 i Declaration This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed ...................................................................... (candidate) Date .....13 April 2014................................................................... Statement 1 This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Where correction services have been used, the extent and nature of the correction is clearly marked in a footnote(s). Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended. Signed ..................................................................... (candidate) Date ......13 April 2014.................................................................. Statement 2 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed ..................................................................... (candidate) Date ........13 April 2014................................................................ ii Statement 3 I hereby give consent for my thesis to be deposited in the University’s Institutional Research Repository. Signed ..................................................................... (candidate) Date ........13 April 2014................................................................ iii Summary It is a generally accepted view in the literature on civil-military relations and military sociology that the military is a ‘Janus-faced’ organisation. One of its faces has to watch the strategic requirements and the other face looks at its parent society. The Janus-face analogy indicates that the strategic and societal views are intrinsically antithetical. The notion of the antithetical relationship between liberal ideology and military security was established as early as the 1950s in Samuel Huntington’s seminal book The Soldier and the State. This thesis is conceived as a critical debate with Huntington, challenging, in particular, the notion that societal and functional imperatives are inevitably distinct and antithetical. The aim of this thesis is to analyse in what ways liberalism – as a meta-ideology or a guiding ethos – determines the military capacities of West European societies. The empirical analysis has been carried out on the cases of the German Bundeswehr (from the 1950s onwards) and the British armed forces (from the beginning of the 20th Century onwards). Despite the enormous divergence these two cases represent, a similar pattern of behaviour is recognisable in them. This examination reveals that specific policies, institutions and practices are preferred because of their relation to liberal principles. Sometimes liberal norms are used merely to advocate an otherwise necessary policy, such as universal conscription at the time of emergency. Regarding other issues, such as the right to conscientious objection, liberal principles are the most relevant causal factor. Among the issues affected by liberal ideology are also the varieties of military mission, military ethics and professional identity of soldiers. The case studies examined in this thesis demonstrate that a meaningful adaptation of the military to the principles possessed by its parent society can be, more often than not, desirable also from the perspective of security strategy. iv Acknowledgments Although a PhD by research is a rather solitary activity, the thesis would look different, or would not be at all, without the advice and support of a number of people and institutions to whom my gratitude belong. First thanks have to go to my supervisors. Professor Martin Alexander accompanied me along the entire path up to this point. It is due to the creative tension between his outlook as a historian and mine of a social scientist that the thesis has taken the current shape. My defiance of the historical approach was considerably facilitated by Dr Kamila Stullerova, my secondary supervisor during the first two years, who guided me on my journey through liberal philosophy. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara is the last but certainly not the least member of my supervisory team to whom my thanks are due. The thesis has greatly benefitted from both her personal experience with the Bundeswehr and her academic professionalism. Several people and institutions outside Aberystwyth have also got involved in this thesis. The case studies on the German Bundeswehr would be very different without the support of the Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut der Bundeswehr (SOWI), which I visited in the Summer 2012, and in the Autumn 2013 I was adopted by the Helmut-Schmidt- Universität/Universität der Bundeswehr in Hamburg. Discussions with Dr Heiko Biehl and Dr Gerhard Kümmel at SOWI helped me to get direction at the beginning of my tour of the Bundeswehr and debates in Hamburg with Professor Bernd Wegner, Professor Elmar Wiesendahl, Oberstleutnant a.D. Dr. Freiherr von Rosen, and Dr Martin Nassua reassured me that the direction was not completely wrong. With regard to Hamburg, however, my greatest gratitude belongs to Dr Michael Jonas without whom I would not have been able to visit this place at all and who spared no effort to make my stay a pleasant and memorable experience. And the visit would have been much more solitary without the friendly company of Dr Gerrit Deutschländer, Dr Sebastian Pranghofer, Dr Clemens Koehn, and Dr Sabine Todt. Aberystwyth is, nonetheless, the most important place for this thesis. It is a place that gives and takes. Thus the Aberystwyth Postgraduate Research Scholarship took away from me concerns about financing my PhD life. Aberystwyth’s geographic insularity took away any worldly distraction that could have slowed down my research. Welsh sheep and hills took away any reasons for stress. On the other hand, Aberystwyth gave me friends who helped to keep my sanity. In particular, great thanks are due to the crew of 13 Prospect Street – Katja v Daniels, Pola Zafra-Davis, Erzsebet Strausz, Laura Considine, Katharina Höne, and Michael Seibold – who transformed our house into a home. Thanks go also to Sarah Jenkins. Without her the office 0.18, where most of this thesis was born, would not have been such a great place. Most of all I thank my family for their 29-year long steadfast support. vi vii Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 1 CENTRAL RESEARCH QUESTION ........................................................................................................... 4 MILITARY CAPACITIES ....................................................................................................................... 5 LIBERAL IDEOLOGY ......................................................................................................................... 10 THESIS STRUCTURE AND CASE SELECTION ............................................................................................. 12 CHAPTER ONE: LIBERAL ORGANISATION OF THE MILITARY – LITERATURE REVIEW, THEORY, AND METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................................................... 17 LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................................................... 17 HUNTINGTONIAN CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS ....................................................................................... 32 EXAMINING LIBERALISM .................................................................................................................. 49 CHAPTER TWO: LIBERAL PRINCIPLES ON THE MILITARY ............................................................... 56 ARMED FORCES AND HUMANITY........................................................................................................ 56 ARMED FORCES AND SOCIETY ........................................................................................................... 80 ARMED FORCES AND THE INDIVIDUAL ................................................................................................. 95 CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................... 110 CHAPTER THREE: WEST GERMAN REARMAMENT AND BUILDING OF LIBERAL ARMED FORCES ... 112 REASONS TO REARM – ADENAUER’S CASE FOR ARMED FORCES ............................................................... 113 WOLF VON BAUDISSIN’S PHILOSOPHY OF LIBERAL MILITARY REFORM....................................................... 118 INSTITUTIONALISATION AND ENACTMENT OF THE REFORM CONCEPT ........................................................ 125 RECEPTION AND RESISTANCE IN THE ARMED FORCES ............................................................................ 133 THE SECOND REFORM IN THE EARLY 1970S ........................................................................................ 144 CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................... 153 viii CHAPTER FOUR: THE POST-COLD WAR