What ails the all-volunteer military? Why have recruitment and retention rates fallen? Many theories have been offered, not least the "hot economy" hypothesis and the "feminization" explanation, and they bear careful thought. Other theories are less well publicized, but perhaps more significant: has there been a deep change in American culture affecting our understanding of citizenship and military service?
The conference examines all the relevant issues, beginning with a keynote address entitled "Twilight of the Citizen Soldier?" by Prof. Eliot Cohen of the Nitze School at Johns Hopkins University. In the first panel, Peter Karsten of the University of Pittsburgh discusses the roots of the American tradition of the citizen-soldier and James Burk of Texas A & M covers Vietnam and the rise of the all-volunteer force. The second panel is about citizenship and service after the Cold War, with Harvey Mansfield of Harvard University examining changes in our culture and author and critic Midge Decter addressing the role of gender. The final panel asks "What ails the all-volunteer force?" and the speakers are Charles Moskos of Northwestern University and Lt. Gen. Ted Stroup (U.S. Army, Ret.).
Speakers
Charles Moskos is professor of sociology at Northwestern University. Currently a member of the Study Group of the U.S. Commission on National Security, he previously served on the Presidents Commission on Women in the Military and on the Commission on Military Training and Gender-Related Issues. Dr. Moskos holds the U.S. Armys Distinguished Service Award. His books include The American Enlisted Man, The MilitaryMore Than Just a Job?, The New Conscientious Objection, The Postmodern Military: Armed Forces after the Cold War, and All That We Can Be: Black Leadership and Racial Integration the Army Way, which Washington Monthly called the best political book of 1997. In 1993 he advised Nelson Mandela on ways to racially integrate a post-apartheid South African military.
Eliot Cohen is Professor and Director of Strategic Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Citizens and Soldiers: The Dilemmas of Military Service and of Commandos and Politicians: Elite Military Units in Modern Democracies, and the co-author of Knives, Tanks, and Missiles: Israels Security Revolution and The Anatomy of Failure in Twentieth Century Warfare. Dr. Cohen has served on the Policy Planning Staff, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and directed the U.S. Air Force's Gulf War Air Power Survey. He has also taught political science at Harvard University and strategy at the U.S. Naval War College.
Harvey C. Mansfield is William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1962. His books include Statesmanship and Party Government: A Study of Burke and Bolingbroke (1965), The Spirit of Liberalism (1978), Taming the Prince: The Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power (1989, 1993), Americas Constitutional Soul (1991), and Machiavellis Virtue (1996). He edited Selected Letters of Edmund Burke (1984) and is co-translator of Machiavellis Florentine Histories (1988), Niccolo Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy (1996), and Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (2000).
James Burk is professor of sociology at Texas A&M University. He is chair-elect of the Peace, War and Social Conflict Section of the American Sociological Association and sits on the executive council of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces, the scientific advisory council of the Mellado Institute for Peace, Security, and Defense Studies, UNED (Madrid), and the board of editors of Armed Forces & Society. He is the author or editor of Values in the Marketplace, Morris Janowitz on Social Organization and Social Control, and, most recently, The Adaptive Military: Armed Forces in a Turbulent World. Dr. Burk's current research examines the changing military obligation of citizens.
Midge Decter is an author and editor whose essays and reviews, mostly in the field of social criticism, have appeared in Harper's, The Atlantic, The American Spectator, First Things, National Review, The New Republic, and The Weekly Standard. She has been the executive editor of Harpers, literary editor of Saturday Review, and a senior editor at Basic Books. Mrs. Decter was executive director of the Committee for the Free World from 1980 to 1990 and subsequently was a distinguished fellow of the Institute on Religion and Public Life. A regular contributor to Commentary, she has also published three books: The Liberated Woman and Other Americans, The New Chastity, and Liberal Parents, Radical Children. A fourth, entitled An Old Wife's Tale, will be published next year.
Peter Karsten is a professor in the departments of history and sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. He has served on the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society and as a consultant to the Hudson Institute, and he co-directed the Pittsburgh Center for Social History, 1985-98. Dr. Karsten has been a member of the Research Committee on Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution, International Sociological Association, since 1970. He is the author of The Naval Aristocracy and of Heart versus Head: Judge-Made Law in Nineteenth-Century America. His reviews have appeared in The Historian, Military Affairs, Wisconsin Law Review, American Historical Review, Armed Forces and Society, American Quarterly, and other publications.
Theodore G. Stroup, Jr. (USA, Ret.) currently serves as vice president for education at the Association of the U.S. Army and as executive director of the Institute of Land Warfare. Prior to his retirement from active service, General Stroup served as the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel. As a combat engineer, he commanded at all levels through battalion. He served in Vietnam 1965-67 and in Germany 1978-80. In 1985-86 he was executive officer to the Army Vice Chief of Staff, and he also served as deputy director of the Headquarters Reorganization Study under the office of the Secretary of the Army.
