Weaning the military from the GOP
A less partisan military is good for democracy and allows a more frank debate on national security.
Rosa Brooks
LA Times
BURIED IN THE NEWS last week was one of the most potentially significant stories of recent years. The Military Times released its annual poll of active-duty service members, and the results showed something virtually unprecedented: a one-year decline of 10 percentage points in the number of military personnel identifying themselves as Republicans. In the 2004 poll, the percentage of military respondents who characterized themselves as Republicans stood at 60%. By the end of 2005, that had dropped to 56%. And by the end of 2006, the percentage of military Republicans plummeted to 46%.
The drop in Republican Party identification among active-duty personnel is a sharp reversal of a 30-year trend toward the "Republicanization" of the U.S. military, and it could mark a sea change in the nature of the military — and the nature of public debates about national security issues.
For most of U.S. history, issues of national security rarely divided Americans along sharp party lines: The old adage that "politics ends at the water's edge" generally held true. The military, while institutionally conservative with a small "c," was not closely identified with a particular political party. But somewhere between the end of the Vietnam War and the middle of the Clinton era, the U.S. military began to look like a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Republican Party.
The rightward shift was dramatic: In 1976, 25% of civilians characterized themselves as Republicans, while 33% of military officers were Republicans — a military-civilian "gap" of only 8%. By 1996, the military-civilian gap on party affiliation had grown to 33%; while 34% of civilians self-identified as Republicans, so did a whopping 70% of military officers.
In Britain, the Anglican Church used to be snidely described as "the Tory Party at Prayer." In the United States over the last 30 years, the military became, to a significant extent, the Republican Party at War.
(The rest is here.)
Rosa Brooks
LA Times
BURIED IN THE NEWS last week was one of the most potentially significant stories of recent years. The Military Times released its annual poll of active-duty service members, and the results showed something virtually unprecedented: a one-year decline of 10 percentage points in the number of military personnel identifying themselves as Republicans. In the 2004 poll, the percentage of military respondents who characterized themselves as Republicans stood at 60%. By the end of 2005, that had dropped to 56%. And by the end of 2006, the percentage of military Republicans plummeted to 46%.
The drop in Republican Party identification among active-duty personnel is a sharp reversal of a 30-year trend toward the "Republicanization" of the U.S. military, and it could mark a sea change in the nature of the military — and the nature of public debates about national security issues.
For most of U.S. history, issues of national security rarely divided Americans along sharp party lines: The old adage that "politics ends at the water's edge" generally held true. The military, while institutionally conservative with a small "c," was not closely identified with a particular political party. But somewhere between the end of the Vietnam War and the middle of the Clinton era, the U.S. military began to look like a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Republican Party.
The rightward shift was dramatic: In 1976, 25% of civilians characterized themselves as Republicans, while 33% of military officers were Republicans — a military-civilian "gap" of only 8%. By 1996, the military-civilian gap on party affiliation had grown to 33%; while 34% of civilians self-identified as Republicans, so did a whopping 70% of military officers.
In Britain, the Anglican Church used to be snidely described as "the Tory Party at Prayer." In the United States over the last 30 years, the military became, to a significant extent, the Republican Party at War.
(The rest is here.)
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