Civil-military cooperation in the Canadian Army

• Main Author: Ankersen, Christopher
• Published: London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London) 2009
• Subjects: 322
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.510236

The aim of my thesis is to explain why civil-military cooperation is practiced the way that it is by the Canadian Army. Civil-military cooperation (the practice by military forces of engaging with civilian actors in order to improve the relationship between the civilian populace and the military forces), largely in the form of relief and reconstruction activities, has come to be a hallmark of contemporary military interventions, both in war and peace support situations. My thesis looks at civil military cooperation as it is actually performed and includes not only an examination of doctrine, but also of practice. In determining why civil-military cooperation is practiced in the way that it is, I use Clausewitz's Trinity as the basis for my explanation. I focus on the secondary aspect of the Trinity; namely, its actors: the People, the Government, and the Military. By doing so, and including an analysis of the relationships between these actors, it is possible to see that civil-military cooperation is a product of the combination the people's passion (which is ambivalent), the government's direction (which is ambiguous), and the army's skills (which they apply antagonistically). This resulting context is sufficiently indeterminate as to require significant interpretation on the part of those individuals conducting civil-military cooperation activities in the field. This runs counter to most established theories of civil military relations, which expect that government direction should determine military activity.