ABSTRACT

Few civilians seem to have agreed with this and still fewer generals. War usually expands the influence of the military. The primacy of the civil power in Britain and in Germany during the second world war does not invalidate the rather narrow proposition put forward here: that war conditions are among the circumstances that may provide the military with opportunities for intervention. In that same war, the civilian authorities of the United States handed the major decisions on policy and strategy to the Chiefs of Staff, and admitted them to a share in the mobilization of the civil economy. Nowadays, deference to the military in the fields of foreign policy and even domestic policies is a commonplace. Domestic circumstances may also produce this effect. The government may have to rely on the military as a police force. The popularity or prestige of the armed forces is a second objective factor which may help them to intervene.