CIVIL-MILITARY GAP AND MILITARY EFFECTIVENESS: THE IMPACT OF IDEOLOGY AND MILITARY EXPERIENCE GAP ON DEFENSE SPENDING IN THE UNITED STATES, 1952-2000

Abstract

Previous studies of civil-military gap have argued that the difference in values, perspectives, and opinions between civilians and the military matters because it determines military effectiveness, but empirical analyses of the relationship have been rare in civil-military relations scholarship. This study also found that the existing studies on this topic have theoretical and methodological weaknesses, and this makes it difficult to draw a meaningful conclusion about the implications of civil-military gap for military effectiveness. This dissertation attempted to fill this void by examining the impact of ideology and military experience gap on defense spending, an element of military effectiveness. This study employed two measurements for the dependent variable, defense spending: defense outlays and defense budget authority. Specifically, this study tested if the ideological gap between the United States Congress and the military has any causal impact of defense spending level. It also examined whether the level of military experience in United States Congress and Cabinet influences defense spending. This study covers the period between 1952 and 2000. Multivariate Ordinary Least Squares analyses were employed to estimate the coefficients. Control variables such as external threat and partisan control of the presidency were included in the analyses. This study presents four major findings. First, the ideology and military experience gap did not have any independent effect on two measures of defense spending. Second, to the extent that ideology and military experience gap exhibit a meaningful impact on defense spending, the results show they have interaction effects. Specifically, I found that the ideology gap has a positive interaction effect with Republican administrations. This effect was confined to defense budget authority. As for the military experience gap, this study found that it has an interaction effect with external threats. This effect was shown in two measures of defense spending. Third, contrary to conventional wisdom, the results indicate that Democratic administrations spend more on national defense than Republican administrations. This pattern was clear for defense budget authority. The same difference was also observable for defense outlays when I excluded the Reagan years from the analyses. Finally, external threats are demonstrated to be an important and consistent factor that has a positive relationship with both measures of defense spending. In closing, this study calls for scholarly efforts to reevaluate our understanding of the implications of the civil-military gap.