Military Professionalism - United States Air Force Academy

which a strategic leader operates will consist of diverse actors, hybrid threats,
unpredictable indigenous partners, global media, and interagency partners. To be
successful, leaders should have the boldness, vision, creativity, and mental agility to
make critical decisions based on information received from those upper levels and
gathered from gray areas. Academic education, self-education, and personal experience
opportunities provides superior education that broadens senior leaders’ perspective and
prepares them to meet future challenges. The main purpose of this education should be to
develop future strategic leaders and critical thinkers.
Betros, Lance. “Political Partisanship and the Military Ethic in America.” Armed
Forces and Society 27.4 (Summer 2001): 501-523.
A 1999 survey found that the majority of military officers were Republicans, which many
people viewed as a departure from political neutrality and the professional military ethic.
Betros argues that nothing in the military voting patterns suggests that casting a ballot
undermines responsibility or officer professionalism. Any decline in professionalism is
more likely due to the officer corps losing its focus on fighting and winning the nation’s
wars. Officers must understand the political system to more effectively provide military
advice and protect the interests of the profession. Exercising their right to vote is a
logical extension of that awareness.
Bland, Douglas L. “Patterns in Liberal Democratic Civil-Military Relations.” Armed
Forces and Society 27.4 (Summer 2001): 525-540.
Effective national defense requires social, political, and military harmony, but harmony is
unlikely unless civilian and military leaders base their thinking and action on common
concepts. In liberal democracies, the basic concepts that underpin civil-military relations
are those few essential ideas that define such democracies in the first place.
Brooks, Rosa. “Weaning the Military from the GOP.” The Los Angeles Times (Jan.
5, 2007): A.23.
The Republicanization of the military over the last 30 years has had distorting effects on
public debates about national security, making it almost impossible to question
Republican national security policies without being labeled “anti-military.” The inability
to question policy threatens democratic ideals of civilian control. The trend towards
Republicanization has been reversing since 2004, and the military is becoming nonpartisan
again.
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