Educating foreign officers

Joint Force Quarterly, Winter, 2002 by Douglas M. Gibler, Tomislav Z. Ruby

Realizing the need for professionalism, the military encouraged officers to attend university either at home or abroad. High-ranking officers were selected for programs in the United States at a rate of about five per year beginning in 1988, and every Argentine officer had earned a college degree of some kind by 1997. The American influence became apparent in 1991 when Argentina established a new command staff college that has become one of the most renowned educational institutions in the country. The curriculum is explicitly based on the U.S. model, emphasizing respect for and subordination to the constitution and the law.

Professionalization has been guided by education. Argentina has experienced several major shocks in response to financial crises in recent years--upheavals that once would have led to coups and countercoups--but the military stayed in the barracks. As the Army Chief of Staff, General Ricardo Brinzoni, stated: "The Argentine army has given sufficient proof during the past 18 years about our steady assimilation into a democratic society." (5)

Hellenic Republic

Like the experience of Argentina, democratization came to Greece only after the failure of a military regime. Seizing power in 1969, the armed forces organized a junta that became more authoritarian as economic conditions worsened. Some 150 officers were purged through forced retirement and dishonorable discharges. Two of the highest ranking officers had been graduated from institutions in the United States. Threatened by a Turkish invasion during the Cyprus crisis of 1973, the junta transferred power to civilian authority. Elections followed and Greece became fully democratic by 1975. American graduates returned to service and rose to the highest ranks in the Hellenic armed forces.

The disgrace of the junta helped maintain civilian authority, but the threat of coups took longer to extinguish. One observer noted that "the overwhelming majority of both retired pro-and anti-junta officers interviewed" agreed that military intervention might have been necessary if the external threat increased or if domestic politicians made "terrible mistakes," which helps explain why coup attempts continued until the mid-1980s. (6) The attitudinal change for the Greek military finally came with the restructuring of its PME system.

In 1983 a Socialist government began a reform of the military academies. Admission was integrated with nationalized university exams, and background investigations were discontinued. Curricula were modeled on the U.S. professional military education system to inculcate democratic values. As a result, attendance was more than doubled and changes in selection criteria ensured that senior officers went to American schools. These developments combined to guarantee that liberal education dominated the academies and effectively altered the mindset of the officer corps.

Republic of China

Before the revision of sedition laws on Taiwan, the armed forces dominated a vital aspect of civilian life. The military was responsible for conducting trials of accused spies. The number of trials and political prisoners, combined with authoritarian rule, suggested that the armed forces were agents of the ruling elite, but the conduct of the military courts pointed to something else. Although government political trials were secret, military trials were open. Defense lawyers had time to prepare their cases and the transcripts of court proceedings were published. While those practices do not guarantee fair trials, they are not characteristic of kangaroo courts.