Edited by Andrew Cottey, Timothy
Edmunds and Anthony Forster
Democratic Control of
the Military in
Postcommunist Europe
Guarding the Guards
Democratic Control of the Military
in Postcommunist Europe
DCMPR 10/18/01 5:18 PM Page i
One Europe or Several?
Series Editor: Helen Wallace
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Titles include:
Andrew Cottey, Timothy Edmunds and Anthony Forster (editors)
DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF THE MILITARY IN POSTCOMMUNIST EUROPE
Guarding the Guards
Helen Wallace (editor)
INTERLOCKING DIMENSIONS OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
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Contents
Foreword vii
Preface ix
Notes on Contributors xi
1 Introduction: the Challenge of Democratic Control of
Armed Forces in Postcommunist Europe
Andrew Cottey, Timothy Edmunds and Anthony Forster 1
Part I Central Europe
2 Democratic Control of Armed Forces in Postcommunist

11 The European Exception: Civil–Military Relations in the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro)
James Gow 194
Part IV The Former Soviet Union
12 The Evolution of Civil–Military Relations in Russia
Irina Isakova 215
13 The Development of Civil–Military Relations in
Post-Soviet Ukraine
Grigoriy Perepelitsa 233
Part V Conclusion
14 Soldiers, Politics and Defence in Postcommunist Europe
Andrew Cottey, Timothy Edmunds and Anthony Forster 251
Index 265
vi Contents
DCMPR 10/18/01 5:18 PM Page vi
vii
Foreword
The collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe ushered in a
series of political and economic reform challenges. Central among these
was the reform of communist-era armed forces. The countries of central
and eastern Europe have faced the complex challenges of securing
democratic civilian control of their armed forces, instituting new struc-
tures for the management of defence policy, downsizing and restruc-
turing their militaries and developing new patterns of international
military cooperation.
Working alongside its NATO and European Union partners, the British
government is actively supporting the countries of central and eastern
Europe in addressing these challenges. The UK Ministry of Defence’s
Directorate for Central and Eastern Europe has played a central role
in this process of engagement through its Outreach programme. Estab-

explore the challenges of reforming civil–military relations. It thus both
contributes to our understanding of the challenges we face and provides
a microcosm of international defence cooperation. This volume – the
first of a series of four addressing different aspects of civil–military and
defence reform in central and eastern Europe – is an important and
policy-relevant contribution to our understanding of the problems of
securing and consolidating democratic civilian control of armed forces
and defence policy. As the conclusion suggests, much progress has been
made in this area over the past decade but many challenges remain.
Malcolm Haworth
Director, Central and Eastern Europe,
United Kingdom Ministry of Defence
DCMPR 10/18/01 5:18 PM Page viii
ix
Preface
This book is the product of a research project on ‘The Transformation
of Civil-Military Relations in Comparative Context’, funded by the Eco-
nomic and Social Research Council’s ‘One Europe or Several?’ research
programme (award number L213 25 2009). The project examines the
transformation of civil-military relations in the countries of post-
communist Central and Eastern Europe, exploring emerging patterns of
civil-military relations in the region, the policy challenges these raise
and the implications for more general understandings of the changing
nature of civil-military relations in the contemporary world. Within this
context, this book provides a comparative analysis of the experiences
of the countries of postcommunist Europe in attempting to secure
democratic control of armed forces. Three further volumes, also to be
published in Palgrave’s ESRC ‘One Europe or Several?’ series, will address
the issue of professionalization of armed forces in Central and Eastern
Europe, wider military-society relations in the region and the overall

Defence Studies Department of King’s College London, at the Joint
Services Command and Staff College.
James Gow is a Reader at the Department of War Studies, King’s
College London.
Irina Isakova is a Defence Diplomacy Fellow at the Centre for Defence
Studies, King’s College London.
Paul Latawski is a Senior Lecturer in International Affairs at the Royal
Military Academy, Sandhurst.
Plamen Pantev is Associate Professor at Sofia University ‘St Kliment
Ohridsky’ and Director of the Institute for Security and International
Studies (ISIS), Sofia.
xi
DCMPR 10/18/01 5:18 PM Page xi
xii Notes on the Contributors
Ioan Mircea Pascu is Minister of National Defence of the Republic of
Romania.
Grigoriy Perepelitsa is Head of the Military Policy Department of
the National Institute for Strategic Studies, Ukraine.
S
ˇ
tefan Sarvasˇ is currently working in the private sector. He previously
held posts in the Research Department of the Czech Ministry of Defence
and served in the Czech and Czechoslovak Armed Forces.
Vaidotas Urbelis is a Researcher at the Institute of International Rela-
tions and Political Science at the University of Vilnius in Lithuania.
Tomas Urbonas is a Senior Executive Officer at the Lithuanian
Ministry of National Defence.
Ilmars Viksne is Commandant of the Latvian National Defence
Academy in Riga.
Marie Vlachová is Director of the Research Department at the Min-

democratic control of the armed forces in postcommunist Central and
Eastern Europe. During the Soviet era, the military were one of the
pillars of communist rule whose loyalty was secured by a combination
of penetration by the communist party system, political education and
the provision of substantial resources to support the armed forces. In
pre-communist times, in particular during the interwar period, armed
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forces intervened in the domestic politics of a number of Central and
Eastern European countries, often alongside or in support of authori-
tarian and (extreme) nationalist political forces. The wider context
of political, economic and social transition, further, meant that the
challenge of reforming civil–military relations took place against a
background of domestic and international instability. In these circum-
stances, fears of military intervention in domestic politics, whether to
‘protect the achievements of socialism’, ‘maintain domestic order’,
‘secure national interests’ or simply to defend the armed forces’ own
institutional or economic interests were not unwarranted.
As the communist regimes collapsed in Central and Eastern Europe
in 1989, there were real fears that the armed forces might intervene to
halt the collapse of communism by force. In the event, both national
armed forces and the Soviet military stood by as the ancien régime of
which they had been a part disintegrated. In 1991, as the struggle in
the Soviet Union between hardliners and reformers intensified, the
military intervened to suppress the independence movements in the
Baltic states and elements in the Soviet high command joined with com-
munist hardliners in mounting the unsuccessful August coup attempt.
As Yugoslavia moved towards war in 1991, the military’s loyalty to the
idea of a Yugoslav state and support for then Serbian President Slobo-
dan Milosˇevic´ and the efforts of the other republics (in particular
Croatia) to establish their own paramilitary forces played a central role

2
Like all other branches of the state, the military was
subjugated to Communist Party control. A system of dual elite loyalty
was established, in which all high-ranking military officers and most of
the lower and middle ranks were members of the Communist Party –
and hence had loyalties to both the armed forces and the Communist
Party. The system was reinforced by the establishment of Party cells
within the military and extensive communist political education along-
side soldiers’ military training. This system had two significant and to
some extent contradictory legacies. First, the military was highly politi-
cized, in the sense that it was closely tied to the ruling Communist Party
and substantial efforts were made to embed communist political values
and institutions within the armed forces. At the same time, however,
the military was also subject to quite strong and direct civilian control
and was not directly engaged in domestic politics as an institution in
its own right. Indeed, communist leaders were always aware, sometimes
acutely so, of the armed forces’ potential role as an alternative source
of political allegiance and power and a potential threat to their rule. As
a consequence, while postcommunist elites have faced the challenge of
breaking ties between the armed forces and the communist system, this
challenge has taken place in the context of making the transition from
a system of communist civilian control of the military to one of demo-
cratic civilian control. Moreover, as a number of the chapters in this
volume illustrate, the experience of civilian communist control, com-
bined with the often only skin-deep loyalty of the armed forces to the
communist system, has made the transition to democratic civilian
control of the military – at least as this relates to the military’s rela-
tionship with domestic politics – much easier than might superficially
be expected.
The communist system of civil–military relations, however, also had

as the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact (NSWP) states – Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia
before its division, East Germany before integration with the Federal
Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania – inherited independent armed
forces and thus faced the challenge of securing democratic civilian
control of pre-existing national armed forces. Even during the Cold War,
there had been much doubt about the loyalty of these states’ armed
forces to their communist regimes, suggesting that they might be
relatively supportive of their countries’ democratic transitions. In con-
trast, as newly independent states, the Baltic republics and the former
Yugoslav republics other than Serbia faced the challenge of establishing
armed forces, defence ministries and associated institutional infrastruc-
ture from scratch (although the former Yugoslav republics did so, in
part, on the basis of pre-existing republican territorial defence forces).
As the chapters on Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia in this volume show,
these countries therefore faced fewer problems in terms of establishing
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democratic political control of their new militaries but greater problems
in developing effective defence policies. As Grigoriy Perepelitsa’s analy-
sis of Ukraine highlights, the other former Soviet republics inherited
disembodied chunks of the old Soviet armed forces and have therefore
faced major problems in converting these into national militaries and
establishing national structures for the control of the armed forces and
defence policy. As the hearts of the two communist federations, Russia
and the rump Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY – dominated by its
largest component, Serbia) inherited the cores of the Soviet and Yugoslav
armed forces and defence policy institutions. In both cases, however,
the old/new armed forces appear to have been more highly politicized
than those of the NSWP states and have become closely intertwined
with their countries’ domestic political transitions and the problems of

clarity.
‘Civil–military relations’ may best be understood as a general term
encompassing all aspects of relations between armed forces (as a polit-
ical, social and economic institution) and the society (and state or
political/social/ethnic movement) of which they are part. The domes-
tic political function and position of the military – that is to say, their
relationship with the institutions and patterns of political power in the
society concerned – forms one of the core components of civil–military
relations. Within this context, we argue that ‘democratic control’ of
armed forces should be understood in terms of political control of the
military by the legitimate, democratically elected authorities of the
state.
Democratic political control of the military, further, involves three
distinct but interrelated issues. First, it involves the relationship between
the military and domestic politics. Here, the core normative assump-
tion of democratic control of the armed forces is that the military should
not be involved in domestic politics and should remain the apolitical
servant of the democratic government. The second element of demo-
cratic control of the military relates to the control of defence policy
(understood as the broad direction of the development of the armed
forces, encompassing defence budgeting, force structure, equipment
procurement and overall military strategy). Democratic control of the
armed forces implies that the definition and development of defence
policy should be under the control of democratic, civilian authorities
and that the military should confine itself to implementing decisions
made by those authorities. In practice, defence policy often involves a
delicate balance between the maintenance of political control and
respect for professional military expertise. Even the long-established
democracies of Western Europe and North America experience tensions
in this area.

involvement of the military as an institution (as distinct from indi-
vidual soldiers as voters and perhaps as candidates for election) in
domestic politics;
• a clear chain of command for the armed forces, with democratically
elected leaders at its head;
• a civilian Minister of Defence and a Ministry of Defence staffed
at least in part by civilians (in particular at higher levels and key
policy-making positions);
• the subordination of the military General Staff to the Ministry of
Defence;
• a degree of transparency with regard to the defence budget.
While these institutional dimensions may be vital elements of any
system of democratic control of the military, the effective functioning
of such a system depends also on the existence of a general political
culture and a specific military culture in which the subordination of the
armed forces to civilian political control is widely accepted by civilians
and the military alike and works in practice. The development of such
a culture may be at least as great a challenge as reforming institutions
and may be hindered by military resistance to civilian control, civilian
reluctance or inability to assert effective control or a more general
ineffectiveness of governmental and administrative structures.
Much thinking on civil–military relations focuses on the danger of
praetorian military intervention in politics (i.e. the military’s desire to
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intervene in domestic politics, as, for example, in parts of Latin America
in the 1970s) as the primary problem in establishing democratic control
of armed forces. In practice, and certainly in postcommunist Europe,
the picture is often more complicated. Civilian elites may seek to draw
the military into politics, whether as an instrument of political power

state power and wider ‘civil society’ (non-state) input into politics and
public policy. Thus, legislative (parliamentary) oversight, constraints on
state power and wider ‘civil society’ input should also be considered
important elements of democratic control of the military. Parliamen-
tary oversight of the military involves two broad functions. First, par-
liaments act as an additional tier or mechanism alongside executives for
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control of the military. Second, and equally if not even more impor-
tantly, parliaments provide oversight of the executive’s control of the
armed forces and defence policy. Analysts point to a number of elements
that are often seen as central to effective parliamentary oversight of the
military and defence policy: approval of senior military and political-
military appointments (such as the Minister of Defence and the Chief
of the General Staff); approval of declarations of war or states of emer-
gency, of the overseas deployment of armed forces and of decisions on
the operational use of the military; the existence of parliamentary
defence or national security committees with the powers, resources and
expertise necessary for meaningful oversight of defence policy; and
access to necessary information (for example, details of the defence
budget and the armed forces structure).
Aside from the formal institutions of state and government respon-
sible for democratic control of the armed forces, there is also a strong
case that a democratic model of civil–military relations requires an
element of wider non-state or ‘civil society’ input into debate on the
armed forces and defence policy. Such ‘civil society’ activity performs a
number of functions. It provides an additional means for public over-
sight of the armed forces and the political institutions controlling the
armed forces, acting as a further break against military praetorianism or
political abuse of control of the military. It also contributes to informed

prospects for democratic control of the military are determined by a
single factor or a common combination of factors. Instead, we argue
that a wide range of domestic and international factors, outlined below,
shape the prospects for democratic control of armed forces, but the rela-
tive importance of those factors varies from country to country.
Historical legacies
The historical context of any country will have a significant bearing on
its civil–military relations. As was argued above, the communist era has
left a particular civil–military legacy in Central and Eastern Europe –
with both positive and negative consequences for efforts to establish
democratic control of armed forces in the new era. Legacies from the
pre-communist period may also have relevance for the countries of post-
communist Europe because states and societies generally, and armed
forces in particular, may either deliberately attempt to re-establish or
inadvertently fall back into pre-communist national models of civil–
military relations. Thus, the extent to which the military has in the past
played a role in domestic politics – for example, in the late nineteenth
century and the interwar years when many of the countries of Central
and Eastern Europe (re-)gained independent statehood for the first time
in the modern era – may thus have a bearing on the patterns of
civil–military relations emerging in the postcommunist era.
The domestic political, economic and social context
The broad domestic political, economic and social context of the state
will also have a significant impact on civil–military relations. Thus, in
one of the most prominent works on civil–military relations, Finer
divides states into three categories, countries of developed, low and
minimal ‘political culture’, arguing that the likelihood of military
intervention in politics is inversely proportionate to a state’s level of
‘political culture’.
6

and rationales for military intervention in domestic affairs. Nigeria
provides a classic example of an internally ‘weak state’ providing the
context for repeated military intervention in domestic politics. There is
obviously a range of possibilities between the ideal of an internally
‘strong’, democratic state and the extreme of an internally ‘weak’ (even
‘collapsed’) state – with differing implications for civil–military rela-
tions. In Central and Eastern Europe, one could argue that the Czech
Republic and Poland represent relatively ‘strong states’, and that Albania
and Serbia are examples of ‘weak’ ones.
Civil–military relations and the prospects for democratic control of
the military also cannot be separated from the more general level of
democratization in the country concerned. Countries where democra-
tic norms, institutions and practices have become entrenched are prob-
ably unlikely to be prone to military intervention in politics. In contrast,
undemocratic or partially democratic countries may be more vulner-
able to such intervention. In Central and Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union, it is no coincidence that countries which have made the
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most progress in the process of democratization in general are also those
which have made the most progress in establishing democratic control
of their armed forces.
The extent to which any state is politically and socially divided can
also have important implications for its civil–military relations. A
politically relatively united and cohesive society, or at least one where
there is a broad consensus on basic political values and institutions, may
be less prone to military intervention in politics than a more divided
society. In the latter case, the military may intervene on one side or the
other, or political groups may attempt to gain the support of the mili-
tary. As James Gow’s chapter on the FRY emphasizes, the absence of

Again, the chapter on the FRY and Croatia emphasize how the dis-
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