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19 Armed Forces & Soc'y 7 (1992-1993)

handle is hein.journals/amdfcsad19 and id is 1 raw text is: Civil Supremacy over the Military: Its Nature and Limits KENNETH W. KEMP and CHARLES HUDLIN O ne of the most important background principles of the Anglo- American system of government is the principle of civil supremacy over the military. In this article we will first briefly explore the range of the principle and then focus on one aspect of it-the principle of civilian control. Our interest is in exploring the nature and limits of respect for civilian control as a kind of moral obligation of soldiers. We are not primarily interested in constitutional or other means of assuring that civil- ian control over the military is maintained.1 Civil Supremacy and Civilian Control The principle of civil supremacy asserts the negative half of the prin- ciple that the military is responsible for protecting the country, not gov- erning it. That the military is responsible for protecting the country against war and insurrection, of course, no one would deny. The controversy is over the question of whether that is all they are permitted to do. Few would impose an absolute ban on military participation in other projects, and in fact the uses to which the military has been put in various nations are quite varied. Universal military training is used in many countries to help forge a common nationality (and it has been proposed in the United States for comparable reasons). Latin American armies have often been used in community-building projects.2 In 1988, soldiers from Fort Lewis were sent to Yellowstone National Park to help fight forest fires. And, of KENNETH W. KEMP currently teaches at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Min- nesota. He has written extensively on questions of morality and war. He is a major in the Air Force Reserve and was formerly an instructor at the Air Force Academy. CHARLES HUDLIN currently teaches at the Air Force Academy. He has a special interest in professional military ethics. ARMED FORCES & SOCIETY, Vol. 19, No. 1, Fall 1992, pp. 7-26.

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