ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the institutional dynamics behind its development, the process of the concept's migration to the civilian sphere and the Covenant's impact on the civil-military relationship. The Covenant is a new development in the civil-military relations field, and one that, uniquely, in an area in which the United States has dominated since the 1950s, is British. Conversely, this study considers the Covenant's progress from the esoteric pages of Army doctrine to being incorporated in public policy is extraordinary: consequently its genesis and migration merited analysis. The Military Covenant emerged as part of the development of the Army's Moral Component, a process that originally got underway in the mid-1990s but was finalised in 2000. This study sought to establish the catalyst for its development. The Military Covenant came to national attention and reframed the civil-military relationship as a consequence of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
