Wikipedia:Peer review/Civilian control of the military/archive1

Civilian control of the military

I have been working on Beland's original draft for the past couple of weeks and think it has been fleshed out reasonably well. Now I would like to see other editors evaluate my prose, and let me know what more the article needs before I consider sending it to WP:FAC. Thanks, — MC MasterChef :: Leave a tip — 02:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• Some remarks:
  • What is the difference between this article and the "civil-military relations" whoch is still a red link? Should this link be suppressed and the information it should contain be included here?
  • The lead seems to me too specialiazed. Huntington's, Kohn's, and Mao's quotes is in my opinion not at the right place. Couldn't they be moved elsewhere?
  • What is a liberal democracy? Do you want to oppose this concept to popular democracy? It doesn't seem to be the case since you discuss in the article the control of the army by the communist parties.
  • I am missing the case of constitutional monarchies where the king or queen is the chief of the army. It happenned in the past that the leadership of such monarchs were non only symbolic during war times. Look at Albert I of Belgium, Leopold III of Belgium. Look also at the current Nepalese war where the constitutional monarch is playing an active role in the military leading. Can one say that those monarchs were civilians?
  • I am also missing the Turkish case were the control of the army by civilians is a highly debatted issue.
  • I am missing the German case where the army is under the direct control of the parliament and not (or to a lesser extent) of the government.
  • The link to citizen-soldier is red. What should contain this article which sould not be included here? The historical origin of the citizen-soldier in the enlightment philosopy should be discussed together with its impact on the American and French revolutions. The compulsory enrollement in the army is a highly debatted question in Germany and was the topic of debates recently in other European countries such as France and Belgium where the non professional army disappeared recently.
• I hope my comments shall help you. Vb 10:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments! I will take another hard look at the article with them in mind now. I'm not sure the degree to which I should include lots of specific examples in this article, since every country's military history would probably have something to say on the subject, but the case of Turkey would be a good one, and might help to offset some of the U.S. systemic bias still lingering in the article. More can probably also be said on the subject of which civilians control, be they presidents, parliaments, or whoever. I'm not sure to what extent I can discuss monarchies in the context of civilian control without verging into original research, since I don't think the scholarship in this subject usually considers their role (even if they are "civilians" of a sort), but I will see if I can find anything, or at least make some mention (probably under the "Commander in Chief" section).

I do think that the issues surrounding citizen-soldiers would preferably fall under a separate article from this one; the field of civil-military relations as I understand it would actually encompass the two, with this article serving as one answer to "who leads?" and citizen-soldier as one answer to the question, "who serves"? I'd like to be able to write entries on all three, but doing so will take a while. Thanks again, and please let me know if you have any more suggestions. — MC MasterChef :: Leave a tip — 14:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Well you are right about the US bias of the article. You should get rid of it. Showing a picture of Abraham Lincoln in the lead provides direct suspicion for this. Civilian-soldiers are not only serving but are also controlling. In this sense they participate directly to the "Civilian control of the military". If you want to exclude this topic of this article, you should rename it or make the point clearer. Vb 09:49, 23 November 2005 (UTC)