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47 Armed Forces & Soc'y 3 (2021)

handle is hein.journals/amdfcsad47 and id is 1 raw text is: Article Armed Forces & Society 2021, Vol. 47(1) 3-24 © The Author(s) 2019 The Virtues of M ihtary Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions Politics DOI: 10.1177/0095327X19871605 journals.sagepub.com/home/afs Damon Coletta' and Thomas Crosbie2 @SAGE Abstract Sociologists and political scientists have long fretted over the dangers that a politi- cized military poses to democracy. In recent times, however, civil-military relations experts in the United States accepted retired or indeed still serving generals and admirals in high-ranking political posts. Despite customary revulsion from scholars, the sudden waivers are an indicator that military participation in momentous national security decisions is inherently political without necessarily being partisan, including when civilian authority defers to a largely autonomous sphere for objective military expertise. Military politics is actually critical for healthy civil-military colla- boration, when done prudently and moderately. Janowitz and Huntington, founders of the modern study of civil-military relations, understood the U.S. military's inev- itable invitation to political influence. Here, we elaborate on two neglected dimensions, implicit in their projects, of military politics under objective civilian control based on classical virtues of civic republicanism: Aristotle's practical wisdom and Machiavelli's virtd. Keywords civil-military relations, defense policy, democracy, professionalism/leadership This article advances a heterodox idea. While it is a truism that American military leaders engage in a wide variety of ways with domestic American political pro- cesses, we think that certain manifestations of such military politics are a good ' U.S. Air Force Academy, CO, USA 2 Royal Danish Defence College, Forsvarsakademiet, Kobenhavn, Denmark Corresponding Author: Damon Coletta, U.S. Air Force Academy, 2354 Fairchild Drive, Suite 6L1 16, CO 80840, USA. Email: damon.coletta@usafa.edu

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