I read a terrific piece by my partner in crime (I am sure some members of some legislatures will consider our latest book* criminal due to our discussion of their, um, lack of relevance), Phil Lagassé, but took a heap of umbrage at his footnote:
I dislike the term ‘expert’ when it comes to academics who study topics such as mine (defence policy or machinery of government), where practitioners are usually more knowledgeable.
The funny thing is that Phil contradicts himself in the piece as he considers himself a defence politics specialist and not a generalist (see below for his invocation of Seva Gutinsky's piece and my reaction to that). Apart from this, why was my chain yanked?
Because one of the fundamental problems in civil-military relations around the world is that most armed forces consider themselves to have a monopoly of expertise on military stuff and that Sam Huntington's flawed book then encourages them to consider all civilians amateurs. Amateur is the antonym for professional, right? Scholars, such as Risa Brooks and Sharan Grewal , have shown not only that this attitude exists but that it likely causes contempt for civilians and for civilian oversight. Not great.
To be clear, in Phil's piece, his expertise discussion is referring as much to those civilians working in the Department of National Defence as much as he is referring to the uniformed. Still, any admission that academics are not experts on this stuff is problematic. The military and adjacent folks already tend to denigrate the work we do: have you served? is political science really a science?
Why? Partly it is about identity and ego, but much of it has to do with different notions of expertise. Military folks tend to think that one mostly gains expertise through exercising and experience, not through study and analysis. Academics tend to think that expertise comes through rigorous analysis. Both sides are right and wrong. There are many ways to learn things and develop sharper understandings of something, relying on one source leaves one less well-informed. As always, portfolio approaches make the most sense.
To be fair to the military types, when H's book came out nearly 70 years ago, there was not that much civilian expertise on military matters. But since then, thanks to the Cold War, arms races, various wars, academics have gotten serious about military matters and so have other experts. Defense agencies have grown in size and scope and relevance (well, not everywhere as Phil, Ora, and I are finding out for our next book--see my Chile and Brazil posts of late), for awhile defense was an important beat for journalists in some places (the US has a military journalist association!), think tanks in a few countries developed squads of experts, and so on.
There are now plenty of civilians who have knowledge and understanding of defense. The coverage of the Ukraine war provides ample illustration (see Seva's piece for several of exemplars). And we need civilian expertise because experience is not always the best teacher. There are often multiple lessons to learn from an experience, say Vietnam, which lessons are the right ones? One of the ironies of Phil's post is that distinction between generalists and specialists also applies to military folks--some officers have wide-ranging careers with much joint service and much exposure to the civilian side, and others hardly ever leave their specific niche.
A quick word on Seva's piece since this post is already long enough: he is talking about who makes the best predictions (no one?)--that expertise, as Phil discusses, can limit the imagination. For me, prediction is always fraught (I was in the Russia will invade and win decisively box of Seva's piece), as I have gotten much wrong.
But prediction and diagnosis are two different beasts. Those who have done much rigorous analysis are good at doing .... rigorous analysis and can dissect what has happened quite well. Academics, at least in the areas near mine, do a great job of explaining, even if they are not great at prediction. Why? Well, the future is always in motion, it has not been written yet, and we will emphasize important factors but some smaller contingent stuff, for the want of a nail yada yada, may affect outcomes.
It was harder to predict that Trump would attack Iran, given his TACO-ing in the past, but it was easier to predict that the war would go poorly both because of the target and the attackers.
Anyhow, the point here is that there are lots of ways to get smart about something, and the smartest way to get smart about something is to rely not on just one pathway but as many as one can.
And, yes, I am pretty proud of not referring to the military folks as solitary trees trying to understand their forest.
* Our book is now a finalist for Best Comparative Politics Book by the Canadian Political Science Association. And this is pretty funny for this post since most comparativists would not consider Phil or me to be comparativists. Especially me. But that is a post for another day.
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