Crisis, Agency, and Law in US Civil-Military Relations

This book develops a responsible and practical method for evaluating the success, failure, or "e;crisis"e; of American civil-military relations among its political and uniformed elite. The author's premise is that currently there is no objectively fair way for the public at large or the strategic-level elites to assess whether the critical and often obscured relationships between Generals, Admirals, and Statesmen function as they ought to under the US constitutional system. By treating these relationships-in form and practice-as part of a wider principal (civilian)-agency (military) dynamic, the book tracks the "e;duties"e;-care, competence, diligence, confidentiality, scope of responsibility-and perceived shortcomings in the interactions between US civilian political authorities and their military advisors in both peacetime and in war.