Comparative Politics

For most of U.S. history, ordinary Americans have taken civilian control of the military for granted and barely given a thought to how civilians and the military interact within the political system. To be sure, academics and expert practitioners have paid closer attention and in recent times have been sounding the alarm about the erosion of norms and the flouting of taboos that have kept the U.S. military apolitical and served the country well for decades. Now that message has been amplified in a dramatic way with the collective voice of the nation’s most experienced defense leaders.

The Trump experience shows how civil-military relations can be tested, how best practices in civil-military relations can protect the country, and how one partner in the civil-military equation can in some circumstances compensate for dangerous behavior by the other

Milley was in fact reinforcing civilian control, making sure President Trump was fully informed of the costs of his proposed policies and not the victim of the schemes of lower-ranking staff who were whispering in his ear but were neither in the chain of command nor statutory, Senate-confirmed advisers responsible for national security policy

shadowy, nominally legal practices can contribute to corruption, and perhaps should be considered corrupt themselves. An important manifestation of this phenomenon is the pipeline between government military intelligence services and the private intelligence industry

many 8200 veterans go on to develop technologies for private intelligence and to found or work for private intelligence companies like Psy Group, Black Cube, Mitiga, and NSO Group, to name just a few.

former intelligence officers are often marketing their familiarity with—and ability to replicate—the very same technologies that are used by the military intelligence services. This is not analogous to former government officials using their expertise to get more lucrative jobs in industry; it’s more like former government officials selling government-developed technologies and techniques for private gain. The violation of public trust is similar

Britain is in trouble because its elite is so engrossed with the US as to confuse it for their own nation. The UK does not issue the world’s reserve currency. It does not have near-limitless demand for its sovereign debt. It can’t, as US Republicans sometimes do, cut taxes on the hunch that lawmakers of the future will trim public spending.

So much of what Britain has done and thought in recent years makes sense if you assume it is a country of 330mn people with $20tn annual output. The idea that it could ever look the EU in the eye as an adversarial negotiator, for instance. Or the decision to grow picky about Chinese inward investment at the same time as forfeiting the European market.

Because the UK’s governing class can follow US politics as easily as their own, they get lost in it. They elide the two countries. What doesn’t help is the freakish fact that Britain’s capital, where its elites live, is as big as any US city, despite the national population being a fifth of America’s.

Almost 30 years ago, then-Prince Charles declared that he wanted to be a “defender of faith,” rather than simply “Defender of the Faith,” to reflect Britain’s growing religious diversity. It created a bit of a storm in a teacup, as he had clearly not meant that he would be changing the traditional role so much as adding to it. The new King is a particular type of Anglican: one that on the one hand, is incredibly tied to the notion of tradition; but on the other, has shown a great deal of affinity for both Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Islam, two religions clearly outside the Anglican fold that he must now titularly lead.

the King has been quite public about his admiration for Islam as a religion, and Muslim communities, both in Britain and abroad.

Privately, he’s shown a lot of sympathy for where Muslims are in difficult political situations, both in Europe and further afield. Robert Jobson’s recent Charles at Seventy claims that the King has significant sympathies for the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, for example. It’s also claimed that he disagreed with dress restrictions imposed on Muslim women in various European countries.