This article reviews debates surrounding the Military Covenant and explores its salience for contemporary British civil–military relations. It explores why the concept of the Military Covenant was ...created, the nature of subsequent debates, and finally it reflects on the wider implications of this research. Locating the Covenant in debates concerned with the changing nature of the military profession, this article argues that the Covenant was created in 2000 as a response to a challenge to the Army’s right to be different and thus its jurisdiction. However, tensions caused by new missions in Iraq and Afghanistan subsequently transformed the Covenant’s use and meaning. Senior commanders extended the use of the Covenant to establish the boundaries of their expertise and legitimacy, whilst external actors with a variety of competing interests used the Covenant to contest “authoritative discretion” of the military within a clearly delineated professional space.
In this work are presented: the subject of the relationship between military profession and Christian ethics by using the inspired phrase "The Christ loving Army"; the Relationship between Military ...Profession and Christian Ethics; the advantages of practicing Military Profession by applying the principles of Christian Ethics and suggestions.
Improved student throughput remains on the South African Higher Education (HE) priority list. To achieve greater throughput, all institutions of higher learning need to contribute. The South African ...Military Academy offers distance education (DE) programmes to employees of the South African Department of Defence (DoD). Its distance education (DE) programme, earmarked to become the main HE provider to the DoD, compared to its residential programmes, displays poor throughput. Poor DE throughput contradicts recent advances in educational technologies which provide a range of mitigation and support opportunities through the creation of learning spaces that mediate successful student learning anytime anywhere. This article contributes to the body of knowledge on firstly the disparate profile of Military Academy DE students, and secondly, their disparate access to learning technologies in their working and learning spaces. A survey among DE undergraduates and DE lecturers revealed disparity among respective DE students' HE-related demographics, and disparity in their access to learning technologies (LT). Resolving disparity in access to LT can mitigate demographic disparity to promote graduate throughput.
En este artículo nos proponemos analizar la construcción de un progra- ma interuniversitario en los Estados Unidos que desde 1960 se interesó en el estudio de las relaciones civiles-militares y de la ...profesión militar. Dicho programa intelectual fue expresivo (si bien no en forma exclusiva) del desarrollo teórico y empírico de la sociología norteamericana y se comprometió con el estudio de la denominada sociología militar o de las relaciones fuerzas armadas y sociedad, teniendo por referencia el liderazgo académico y obra del sociólogo Morris Janowitz. Nos proponemos identificar temas, enfoques, métodos y resultados sustantivos enfatizados por este programa, así como los liderazgos y diseños institucionales asociados a los mismos. Consideramos, pues, que un mejor conocimiento de esta experiencia académica nos ayudará a estimular renovadas investigaciones empíricas que tengan por objeto a los militares como grupo socio-profesional, dando cuenta a la vez de las características socio-culturales que comparten con otros actores del Estado y la sociedad en Argentina, así como de aquellas que los singularizan.
In this article we intend to analyze the construction of an interuniversity program in the United States that, since 1960, became interested in the study of civil-military relations and the military profession. This intellectual program was very expressive (although not in an exclusive way) of the theoretical and empirical development of American Sociology and undertook with the study of so-called military sociology or relations between armed forces and society, taking for reference the academic leadership and work of the sociologist Morris Janowitz. We intend to identify topics, approaches, methods and substantive results emphasized by this program, as well as leadership and institutional designs associated with them. We consider, therefore, that a better understanding of this academic experience help us to stimulate a renewed empirical investigations about militaries as socioprofessional group, and research at the same time the socio-cultural characteristics that they share with other actors of the state and society in Argentina, as well as those that singles them.
The aim of this paper is to define and explain the moral dimension and significance of military uniform. Since this particular dimension has not been explained enough, by the analysis of the existing ...perspectives of meaning and function of military uniform (technical, historical, psychological, sociological, legal, etc.), the author identifies its core moral significance, and formulates and elaborates its moral dimension. Moral dimension of military uniform is derived both from its practical and its symbolic function - its practical function is to precisely separate combats from non-combatants, while its symbolic function reflects collective identity, norms and values of military profession. The paper elaborates different significant moral implications of putting on and wearing military uniform, both during war and peace time, thus showing its twofold symbolic and value function - it simultaneously imposes duty, but also brings privilege to the person wearing it. It has been concluded that the sacrilization of military uniform is necessary in modern society, especially due to its prominent moral dimension and poses the need for legal regulation of wearing military uniform, its parts, or the uniforms which were purposefully designed so as to resemble military uniforms.
In the circumstances of elevated personal uncertainty, due to the economic-financial crisis which strongly affected the Republic of Croatia as well, the desirability of choosing the military ...profession has changed as well to a certain extent. Since the economic crisis appeared in the Republic of Croatia and along with it personal economic insecurity, the approach of younger generations towards the military profession has begun to alter as well as the attitude towards their own enrolment in the military forces as a life (or at least long-term) choice. The research has shown that in year 2010 the acceptance of voluntary maturity service with the questioned conscripts has somewhat increased with regard to previous years. However, the attitudes towards active military service have not changed considerably. Such results could be interpreted as thoughts about possible temporary solutions for economic insecurity in the period of recession, while in the long run, the majority of questioned soldiers consider the military profession merely as an "emergency exit" in case they aren't able to find employment in the public sector.
Virtually all historical treatments of just war recognize the importance of the account given by Thomas Aquinas in Summa theologiae II-II, q. 40, 'De bello', where he outlines three conditions - ...legitimate authority, just cause, and right intention - for a justifiable use of armed force. It is, however, less well known that within the same section of the work (q. 50, a. 4) Aquinas extended his reflection on just war into a theory of military prudence. By placing generalship under the category of 'prudence', rather than 'art' or 'science', he held that military command involves more than a morally neutral skill with victory as its sole aim. Building on the premise that service to the common good constitutes the overarching purpose of the military profession, Aquinas showed how the virtue of prudence provides an inner compass for decision-making amid the uncertainty and confusion of the battlefield.
In this paper it is illustrated that there is a decline in the commitment to altruistic values if one analyses the survey data of junior officers among all four arms of service at the South African ...Military Academy. The results show a clear drift towards occupationalism as outlined by Moskos (1977) if the reasons for joining, preferred job characteristics, commitment to selfless service and the need for a representative association are analysed. This trend towards occupationalism could be ascribed to the decline in status and relevance of the armed forces in society, coupled to organisational change, which in placing the military profession under considerable stress in this current period of transition. Some implications of these trends for the military profession are discussed.
I examine, and provide a rejoinder from the military (i.e., the 'uniform') perspective on, two controversial issues in this essay: (1) the so-called Revolt of the Generals (2006) focused on the ...responsibility of US senior military officers to give frank and reliable professional advice, including their willingness to disagree with and even dissent from decisions made by their civilian leadership that strike them as professionally ill-advised; and (2) the alleged right of military personnel of lesser rank to refuse to participate in wars they individually deem unjust or illegal.
Recent arguments by Jeff McMahan, Brian Orend, Paul Robinson, and Jessica Wolfendale focus primarily on the latter question, and equivocate between defending a right of dissent and a duty to dissent. The right of dissent would grant permission to individuals, within a reasonably just state or professional organization, to refrain from cooperating with policies whose legal or moral justification provoked widespread public dispute (e.g., the US-led military intervention in Iraq in 2003). I agree that granting a measure of latitude in individual moral judgment would constitute an important element of policy for any just state or professional organization, though providing such latitude in the military's case may still be fraught with procedural difficulties. The latter and more controversial argument by McMahan and Wolfendale, however, imposes a duty of dissent as a professional obligation upon all military personnel to withhold their professional service whenever providing such service would implicate them in the commission of unjust or illegal acts.
While I concur that a meaningful notion of professional autonomy requires withholding professional service whenever providing it might result in professional malfeasance, I maintain that both these versions of the duty to dissent improperly impose the responsibility for adjudicating widespread public controversies wholly (and inappropriately) on the members of the military profession, especially its most vulnerable junior members. While widely-shared notions of professional autonomy do routinely encompass the right of disagreement and dissent, none imposes a duty to dissent upon a profession's most junior members, especially when the normal procedures for adjudicating legal or moral issues fail to result in clear and unmistakable guidance. In cases of widespread public controversy, professional autonomy and expertise may impose a duty, even at some personal risk, upon senior members of the profession to engage in principled disagreement with publicly-declared policy. It is both sharply at odds with prevailing professional practice, as well as morally unjustifiable in the extreme, however, to impose (as do McMahan and Wolfendale) a duty to dissent on the most junior, least experienced, and potentially most vulnerable members of a profession under such contested circumstances.
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