美国军政关系理论的老问题与新挑战

Is Huntington Outdated?The old Questions and New Challenges that Confront US Civil-Military Relations Theory

在今日美国的军政关系研究中,亨廷顿的经典理论正不断地受到质疑、批判和修正.从根本上看,这是由于亨氏理论的两大核心概念——军事职业主义和客观文官控制——存在难以解决的矛盾,因而无法令人信服地确立军官与文官的职责分工与互动规范.即使以美国的历史经验作为参照,亨氏的理论也未能真正解决“如何防止军人干政”这一难题.当代美国军政关系的演变,进一步凸现了亨氏理论的固有缺陷.美国学界的相关争论表明,亨氏的旧日论述已经不能为促进军政对话、提升战略决策质量提供坚实的理论基础.这些情况,对于我们构建立足自身国情的军队建设和军政关系理论具有借鉴意义.

In contemporary US scholarship on civil-military relations,the classical theory of the late Samuel Huntington has become a subject of intense controversy.Fundamentally,the controversy derives from the irreconcilable contradiction between the two key tenets of Huntington’s theory,namely,military professionalism and obj ective civilian contr01.Conceptually as well as practically,this contradiction creates much difficulty for US to devise a clear-cut division of labor between military officers and civilian policymakers,or to establish unambiguous grounds rules for civil-military interaction.Even in the US context,Huntington'S theory hardly provides a satisfactory answers for the thorny question of how to keep military officers out of politics.Instead,the disturbances in contemporary US civil-military relations have further exposed the deficiencies of Huntingtonian formulas,which,in the light of current debates and realities,are no longer capable of providing a solid theoretical basis for the improvement of civil—military dialogue and/or national strategic policymaking.These developments should serve as a reminder that we must construct theories of military building and civil-military relations based on our own national contexts and experiences.