Civilians and military personnel do not have a clear view of each other in the United States today. Conspiring against such understanding are the norms and traditions of the two cultures. On the one hand, the military is considered to like its secrecy and think of itself as morally superior to the civilians it is meant to serve. On the other hand, civilians praise or blame the armed forces based on political exigencies and generally without true comprehension of their culture. And their mutual misperceptions seem greater now than in the late 1960s and early 1970s during the Vietnam War. Yet, as U.S. Naval Academy professor Bruce Fleming points out, the military is linked to the civilian world so fundamentally that all of us pay the price if they do not develop an appreciation of one another--but that is achievable only if each side also strives to see itself clearly. As the military fulfills its mission of protecting Americans and their way of life, civilians must also do their part and support the military through budget allocations, legislation, and enlistment. Without this shared commitment, American interests suffer as a whole. Fleming shows how to close a military-civilian gap that yawns so large in twenty-first-century America that it potentially threatens national security and essential freedoms.

Modern studies of civil--military relations recognise that the military is separate from civil society, with its own norms and values, principles of organization, and regulations. Key issues of concern include the means by which – and the extent to which – the civil power controls the military; and also the ways in which military values and approaches permeate and affect wider society. This book examines these issues in relation to China, covering the full range of Chinese history from the Zhou, Qin, and Han dynasties up to the Communist takeover in 1949. It traces how civil--military relations were different in different periods, explores how military specialization and professionalization developed, and reveals how military weakness often occurred when the civil authority with weak policies exerted power over the military. Overall, the book shows how attitudes to the military’s role in present day Communist China were forged in earlier periods.

The gap between the U.S. military and society has widened in recent years, posing problems for the constitutional order. The gap is especially acute in major universities. Arms and the University probes various dimensions of the tense relationship between the military and the university. Developing and applying a theory of civic and liberal education, this book shows how some military presence on campus can contribute to the diversity of ideas and the education of all students.

In this book, 50 experts study the lives of U.S. veterans at work, at home, and in American society as they navigate issues regarding health, gender, public service, substance abuse, and homelessness. The aftermath of modern war includes a population of veterans whose needs last for many decades—far longer than the war itself. This in-depth study looks at life after the military, considering the dual conundrum of a population benefiting from the perks of their duty, yet continuing to deal with trauma resulting from their service, and of former servicemen and servicewomen trying to fit into civilian life—in a system designed to keep them separate. Through two comprehensive volumes, essays shed light on more than 30 topics involving or affecting former servicemen and servicewomen, offering a blueprint for the formal study of U.S. veterans in the future. Contributions from dozens of experts in the field of military science cover such issues as unemployment, homelessness, disability, access to higher education, health, media portrayal, criminal justice, substance abuse, guns, suicide, and politics. Through information gleaned from surveys, interviews, participant observations, secondary analyses, and content analyses, the chapters reveal how veterans are able to successfully contribute to civilian life and show how the American workforce can benefit from their unique set of skills.

This study captures the attitudes and values of the youth generation of college students in the USA toward the military, war, national defence, and foreign policy matters. Providing a unique insight into civilian and military Millenials, the authors explore the impact of 9/11 and the level of tolerance within the military.

The country’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, its interventions around the world, and its global military presence make war, the military, and militarism defining features of contemporary American life. The armed services and the wars they fight shape all aspects of life—from the formation of racial and gendered identities to debates over environmental and immigration policy. Warfare and the military are ubiquitous in popular culture. At War offers short, accessible essays addressing the central issues in the new military history—ranging from diplomacy and the history of imperialism to the environmental issues that war raises and the ways that war shapes and is shaped by discourses of identity, to questions of who serves in the U.S. military and why and how U.S. wars have been represented in the media and in popular culture.

Once proud citadels of virtue, the US military academies have lost their way and are running on fumes. They need to be fixed before it’s too late. Saving Our Service Academies covers one man’s unrelenting thirty-year fight with the military bureaucracy to instill qualities of force and thoughtfulness in officers-to-be, to show young men how to be adults with other men and women, and to show young women how to deal with the men. Bruce Fleming has spent over thirty years teaching midshipmen and future officers at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. This position was both a dream job and a nightmare for the enthusiastic, athletic, young Fleming. He found, in the thousands of midshipmen he taught, mentored, and exercised with for three decades, a heartbreaking waste of potential, as promising officers-to-be lapsed into apathy and cynicism because of the dispiriting reality behind the gleaming facade of the Naval Academy. What happened to duty, honor, and country at Annapolis? These values have disappeared in the wake of changes in the world, such as the rise of ROTC and the increase in expense of civilian colleges (the service academies are free to the students), and in the attempt to use the service academies as experiments in trendy social engineering. A staunch advocate for military strength, Fleming shows how the smoke and mirrors of service academies produce officers who are taught to say “SIR, YES SIR” rather than to have the guts to say things their commanding officer doesn’t want to hear. Is that why the US hasn’t won a war since World War II? By writing op-eds about the waste, fraud, and abuse of government (and taxpayer) money, Fleming put a target on his back that the USNA administration used to fire him in 2018, despite being a tenured civilian professor. He was reinstated by a federal judge in 2019. The service academies are government programs that no longer fill the needs for which they were created, and so like all government programs, can be re-examined. Indeed, as Fleming argues, they teach blind obedience in officers rather than informed and respectful questioning, and so sap our military strength rather than increasing it. They need to be re-imagined not as stand-alone undergraduate institutions that wall off future officers in an increasingly untenable isolation from the country they are to defend, but either be combined with the officer commissioning sources that currently produce over 80 percent of our new officers, or re-purposed to post-civilian college training institutions.

This is a comprehensive and illustrative work on the historical and contemporary perspective on presidential powers, guiding readers through the presidency as a constitutional office with many updated features from the previous edition.

A growing body of research demonstrates how the arts – including literary, performing and visual arts as well as architecture and design – can greatly enhance the experience of healthcare, contributing to improved health outcomes, a better patient experience and lower healthcare costs. This unique book provides an overview of what the arts in healthcare can achieve and how to implement the arts in the most effective manner. Exploring possibilities for innovative program design and implementation – from healing gardens through public performances to bedside activities – the text draws on examples from a wide range of arts. The book then goes on to look at how programs can be aimed at specific populations and fields, such as children, palliative care and caregivers. This comprehensive book is an invaluable reference for all those studying or engaged in creating, designing, managing and evaluating arts in healthcare programs and initiatives.

In a fast-paced and action-packed narrative, Navy SEAL commander Rorke Denver tackles the questions that have emerged about America’s past decade at war—from what makes a hero to why we fight and what it does to us. Heroes are not always the guys who jump on grenades. Sometimes, they are the snipers who decide to hold their fire, the wounded operators who find fresh ways to contribute, or the wives who keep the families together back home. Even a SEAL commander—especially a SEAL commander—knows that. But what’s a hero, really? What do we have a right to expect from our heroes? How should we hold them accountable? Amid all the loose talk of heroes, these questions are seldom asked. As a SEAL commander, Rorke Denver is uniquely qualified to answer questions about what makes a hero or a leader, why men kill, how best to serve your country, how battlefield experiences can elevate us, and most important, why we fight and what it does for and to us. And in Worth Dying For, Denver shares his personal experiences from the forefront of war today. Denver applies some of his SEAL sense to nine big-picture, news-driven questions of war and peace, in a way that appeals to all sides of the public conversation. By broadening the issues, sharing his insights, and achieving what civilian political leaders have been utterly unable to, Denver eloquently shares answers to America’s most burning questions about war, heroism, and what it all means for America’s future.