military power in politics . the man who chooses in these days to speak on this subject need take no special pains to time his remarks so that they are topical ; the matter is one which current affairs bring almost continuously to our notice . in particular , two of the most prominent political problems of our time invite us to consider this subject . first , there is the problem of defence policy and that of foreign policy from which it is inseparable . one does not have to be a pacifist or a unilateralist to feel some anxiety concerning the fateful decisions which have to be taken by our governments . and one question is persistent : in Washington , in Moscow , in London and above all perhaps in N.A.T.O H.Q , how great is the impact of military advice in the formulation of policy ? in the bleakest moments of gloom , many people are fearful , convinced that political leaders are swayed by the formidable demands of belligerent generals for newer , bigger , more deadly weapons , and that they are swayed because the scientific and technological advances in weapons have made it impossible for lay politicians to resist or even begin to argue against such demands . caught in a pincer movement between their own fears and the incomprehensible and therefore unanswerable claims of the military technologists , the political leaders send defence budgets soaring . we know that we pay a terrible price here and now , but we are left wondering if this will save us from a far more terrible price later . the second problem is that of the spread of military regimes of one kind or another - the astonishing succession of military take-over bids which we have witnessed in recent times . this is not simply undue military influence in the policy discussions of civil governments but the complete replacement of political leaders by military men in the very seats of supreme power . although these two problems seem perfectly and entirely modern , I want to suggest that we should try to see them as two facets of the one fundamental problem of civil-military relations , and further that we should recognise this problem as not wholly new . true political sagacity , as Burke remarked , manifests itself in distinguishing that complaint which only characterizes the general infirmity of human nature from those which are symptoms of the particular distemperature of our own air and season . in this matter of military power in politics there are large elements of both kinds . it may be useful to approach the two problems indirectly - through a consideration of the problem . the growing frequency and apparent success of the military coup d&apos;&amp;eacute;tat may no longer surprise us and we may have grown accustomed to asking only - where is it this time ? which service ? what rank of officer ? and have they taken over the radio station ? the Times greeted recent Vietnam events in a tone of weary disapproval : once again a paratroop officer has struck before dawn and set off the familiar sequence of a south east Asian coup d&apos;&amp;eacute;tat . if there is what the same paper has called a British obsession about soldiers in politics , then many parts of the world have been giving us plenty to be obsessed about . in the same week that saw the S Vietnam coup there occurred the purge of colonels in Turkey and the amazingly provocative and subversive statements by at least two retired Generals of the French army dissociating themselves from the supposed policy of President de Gaulle . before that but still within the autumn season Col Mobuto in the Congo emerged , not in charge of affairs but at least in possession of a central area of that country &apos;s strange and unhappy political stage . before that again , last summer , the established government of Turkey found itself under arrest and its own army leaders sitting in the place of supreme control . in the space of little more than eight years soldiers have taken political power in as many countries : Neguib and then Nasser in Egypt , Kassim in Iraq , Ayub in Pakistan , Abboud in Sudan , de Gaulle in France and the gentlemanly interlude of General Ne Win in Burma - cases from Asia , Africa , Europe . political epidemiologists may still be justified in regarding S America and the middle east as peculiarly vulnerable areas - especially if Sudan , Pakistan , Algeria and ( some would add ) Spain are counted as extensions of the middle east - but evidently no region has a monopoly of this trend . the men on horseback have been riding hard and people of liberal outlook do feel some concern . this is so even when certain acts of military regimes - such as a ruthless drive against black-marketeers - secure our approval . but how is this general feature of modern politics to be explained ? how far is one justified in referring to it as the spread of a disease ? is there a case for concern , or is concern indeed no more than a sign of unreasonable obsession ? before glancing at what historical experience may have to tell us , one or two general considerations may be suggested . what is the character of the military profession ? it must of course be admitted at once that not all societies have been marked by the existence of any such separate profession . in simple societies , there is not a great deal of specialization or division of labour . today &apos;s warrior is tomorrow &apos;s cultivator and the time for wars is when the harvest has been got in . anthropologists tell us that this is the case with many tribal societies . it was the case with most of the fairly developed feudal polities of medieval Europe . even the leaders of armed forces in battle are in such societies men who assume this role only as one among many . military leadership is not clearly distinguished from social and political leadership . however , in most large and developed states - and even in some of the relatively small states of the ancient world - the forms of power , civil and military , do come to be separate . when this happens the type ( or types ) of military man emerges . his features were described already by the first of all political philosophers . compared with other men , said Plato , the military man is more self-willed and rather less well-read , ready to listen but quite incapable of expressing himself ; he will be harsh to his slaves &amp;hellip; polite to his equals and will obey his superiors readily ; he will be ambitious to hold office himself . and in a military regime there will be , thought Plato , great respect for authority but a fear of admitting intelligent people to office , a preference for simple and hearty types who prefer war to peace . the sketch may be a caricature but the image of the military man has changed remarkably little in over 2,000 years . de Tocqueville writing a mere 120 years ago understood well the political importance of this question . whatever taste democratic nations may have for peace they must hold themselves in readiness to repel aggression , or , in other words they must have an army &amp;hellip; . their armies always exercise a powerful influence &amp;hellip; . it is therefore of singular importance to inquire what are the natural propensities of the men of whom these armies are composed . he distinguished types of military men and contrasted the professional military man of a democracy with that of an aristocracy . in an aristocracy - and the description is true of most of Europe in the eighteenth century - the social top layer becomes the military top layer , the ranks of the army reflect the ranks of society . on the whole men accept their places . the officer in particular has little ambition because military rank is but an appendage to his social status . moreover , the military profession is held in high esteem . all this alters when egalitarian and democratic ideas come with social change . the best part of the nation shuns the military profession because it is no longer honoured , and it is not honoured because the best part of the nation has ceased to follow it . increasingly isolated from civil society the professional army eventually forms a small nation by itself , where the mind is less enlarged and habits are more rude than in the nation at large . the officers do not get military rank from social status but rather owe what social status they may have to their military rank . ambition and competition for promotion thus become intense and out of all proportion to the peacetime opportunities . the army is ready to be restless , dissatisfied . and against whom will it vent its anger if not on the politicians ? is this one more unfair caricature ? the memoirs and biographies of military men perhaps suggest that there is at least enough truth in the picture to enable us to understand why civil-military relations - which necessarily arise whenever the roles are distinct - have seldom been easy . the military profession finds it has to operate in close proximity to and as an instrument of last resort for civil authority ; yet the training and disposition of its leaders make them as far removed as possible in spirit and mood from the politician or statesman . a military operation is conducted on the basis of orders expressed in simple and direct language ; political operations are usually effected through understandings which are ill-defined in nature . these differences belong to the character of the jobs and are underlined through training and experience . the political man has to move tentatively towards a goal which can not from its very nature be defined with precision in advance . means and ends are hopelessly mixed . it is not simply a matter of choosing means x to a given goal y ; it is also that the goal is the outcome of pursuing a given means . the politician &apos;s work is to secure social co-operation through compromise : where this will take him he can not fully know except by starting and feeling his way through the variety of interests and opinions . only in the most general terms has he an objective already defined . and excessive precision will only make movement difficult . the soldier works differently . he must be given his objective in the clearest possible fashion ; he will then state his requirements and dispose his forces in such a way as to gain the object . in military arrangements flexibility is a necessary evil and ambiguity may easily cost lives ; in politics flexibility is the first rule and ambiguity an essential instrument . put thus shortly , such considerations may nevertheless make us willing to regard military incursions into politics as prima facie matters for concern and the use of the medical term disease as prima facie fitting . the skills and ways of thought required for the transaction of polity business are so different from those needed for military operations that any transfer of one to the other is normally to be regarded as inappropriate , unhealthy for the body politic . ( it is necessary to stress normally because it must be conceded that in some situations military rule may be advantageous . but these are situations of bodies politic already in bad shape . ) yet , however inappropriate and unhealthy may be the entry of military men into politics , a little reflection may well prompt us to ask not why it happens when it does but why it does not happen more often . they are after all in control of the awful weapons of last resort ; why are they not regularly tempted to use them to achieve supreme power in the state ? to say that they usually recognize that this is a job they can not do or that the people usually would not stand for it is not enough - for how in turn are such attitudes brought about ? briefly , the answer is two-fold : political vigilance and military professionalism . it is the imperfectly professional army and the careless statesmen or power vacuum which constitute the ingredients of military intervention . but the successful containment of military power within its proper sphere has never been achieved without difficulty . even the fortunate British should know this . consider how much of our constitutional history has turned on the issue of the standing army . 