Silent Coup of the Guardians - (Studies in Civil-Military Relations) by Todd Andrew Schmidt (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Understanding US national security and foreign policy decision-making requires understanding the actors: the president, civilian elites, advisors, bureaucracies, and institutions. In Silent Coup of the Guardians, Todd Schmidt demonstrates that military elites constitute an epistemic community and, as such, play a unique role due to their exceptional influence over both policy process and outcome. His findings help explain nuanced relationships between military elites, the president, and Congress; decision-making in national security and foreign policy; and civil-military balance of power relations that suggest a potential trend of praetorian behavior among U.S. military elites. He concludes that a silent coup of the guardians has occurred, and that professionals and citizens need to ask what should be done to re-balance civil-military relations"--

Book Synopsis

Growing political radicalization and polarization in American government has created a scarcity of civilian leadership, knowledge, expertise, and power. Political rivals and adversaries, too busy combating each other, have abandoned the helm of the ship of state, setting reason, compromise, intellectual curiosity, and effective governing adrift. A faction of exceptionally capable and influential guardians--America's military elites--increasingly fill roles in civil society and government intended for competent, democratically elected or political appointed civilian leadership accountable to the American electorate.

Todd Schmidt demonstrates that US military elites play an exceptionally powerful role due to their extraordinary influence over policy process, outcome, and implementation. Through personal interviews with high-ranking national security experts across six presidential administrations, Schmidt concludes that nuanced relationships between military elites, the president, and Congress; decision-making in national security and foreign policy; and the balance of power in civil-military relations suggest a potential trend of praetorian behavior among military elites. A silent coup of the guardians has occurred, and professionals and citizens need to ask what should be done to rebalance US civil-military relations.

Review Quotes

"Combining three generations of civil-military relations scholarship and candid interviews with the most knowledgeable national security officials, Silent Coup of the Guardians demonstrates that military influence has risen, and civilian control of the military declined, dramatically in the United States. This is a bold, unflinchingly honest, highly significant book; it deserves a very wide readership among our political and military leaders, scholars, the media, and all citizens interested in American government."--Richard H. Kohn, professor emeritus of history and peace, war, and defense, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

"During the Cold War, Samuel Huntington famously warned Americans that sober military expertise on the world balance of power might never reach their president's ears for being drowned in a cacophony of national liberalism that suffused society and overwhelmed its democratically elected leaders. Sixty-five years later, Todd Schmidt has marshaled original evidence from extensive elite interviews on both sides of the civil-military divide to announce that now, especially during wartime, the opposite concern may be prevalent. Presidents, civilian advisers, interested voters, and senior military officers should read Silent Coup of the Guardians to appreciate how unprepared, constrained, and dependent U.S. commanders in chief have become with respect to best military advice."--Damon Coletta, professor of political science, U.S. Air Force Academy

"If you wonder why our country keeps winning the war and losing the peace, read this book by Col. Todd Schmidt. As you search for an answer . . . never forget. . . process is policy. Schmidt makes the argument that it is long past due to examine the dominating role of the US military in the policy process of the last few decades and to focus on getting a stronger civilian voice at the table."--Ambassador David C. Miller, President of US Diplomatic Studies Foundation

"Todd Schmidt deftly addresses gaps across disciplines with a refreshing perspective. An impressive work that demands a spot on the bookshelf of those who seek to understand 'why' there is an increasingly unhealthy civil-military gap. Equal part interrogation of military prominence and an important call to action to correct the growing imbalance."--Col. Jaron Wharton, U.S. Army, Senior Military Fellow at Modern Warfare Institute, USMA/West Point

"Todd Schmidt's Silent Coup of the Guardians provides intriguing, if not alarming insights on how military elites perceive their roles versus the roles of their civilian overseers. Through interviews with more than 100 senior national security leaders, Schmidt finds military elites play an outsized role in policy formulation, often harbor cynical views of civilian leaders, and think their judgment should carry more weight than civilian policymakers. These 'praetorian propensities, ' as Schmidt refers to them, raise important questions about the state of civilian control of the armed forces today."--Heidi A. Urben, adjunct associate professor, Georgetown University, and author of Party, Politics, and the Post-9/11 Army