CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VII (1, 2) Contemporary-Eurasia-3new | Page 43

HRANUSH DERMOYAN
the military approaches the professional ideal the stronger and more eff ec-
tive it is in its performance, however, once it falls short of that ideal the
military becomes weak and fl owed. Huntington established that civilian
control is concerned with the relative power between civilian and military
groups, which means civilian control is achieved through the reduction of
military power. Thus the main problem of civilian control is to minimize
the power of the military. Huntington distinguishes between subjective and
objective civilian control. Subjective civilian control entails maximizing
civilian power which seems to be the simplest way of minimizing mili-
tary power. Objective civilian control is directly opposed to subjective ci-
vilian control and postulates the emergence of professional attitudes and
behavior among the members of the offi ce corps. Hence, it entails max-
imizing military professionalism. Objective military control entails the
existence of autonomous military professionalism contrary to subjective
military control which supposes denial of an independent military. Under
objective civilian control minimization of military power is achieved by
professionalizing the military and thus by making them politically neutral.
Peter Feaver also states that the civil-military challenge is to fi nd mitiga-
tion between a military which is strong enough to carry out the orders of
civilian authorities and a military with enough will to act under civilian
oversight. 2 When analyzing Huntington’s subjective and objective civilian
control models, Feaver claims that the latter’s dichotomous model needs at
least one additional category, which is assertive control that considers the
coexistence of civilian supremacy and military professionalism. 3 He also
questions Huntington’s claim that professionalism equals subordination.
He claims that militaries which could be described as professional by most
criteria have still conducted coups and otherwise intervened into politics.
Samuel Finer challenges Huntington’s professionalism theory, arguing
that only the acceptance of civil supremacy will hinder the military to in-
tervene in civilian politics. He claims that Huntington’s theory is based
on a very specifi c defi nition of professionalism. If soldiers act diff erently
than this special defi nition of professionalism, then they are deemed as
unprofessional. However, there are instances when a professional army,
such as the German and Japanese armies, has intervened into politics. 4
Hence a narrow conceptualization of professionalism does not solve the
civil-military problem. Finer argues that the very nature of professional-
ism often throws the military into confl ict with civilian authorities. If the
2
3
4
Ibid.
Ibid., 163.
Samuel Finer, The Man on Horseback: The role of the military in Politics, (Routledge,
2017), 25.
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