Congress and Civil-Military Relations

by Colton C. Campbell

While the president is the commander-in-chief, Congress plays a very significant and underappreciated role in US civil-military relations, the relationship between the armed forces and the civilian leadership that commands it. Indeed, we cannot understand civil-military relations in the United States without an appreciation of Congress. The ebbs and flows in US civil-military relations depend in part on congressional use of four main tools available to provide direction to the military. These include the selection of military officers, determining how much authority is delegated to the...