“Combining three generations of civil-military relations scholarship and candid interviews with the most knowledgeable national security officials, Silent Coup of the Guardians demonstrates that military influence has risen, and civilian control of the military declined, dramatically in the United States. This is a bold, unflinchingly honest, highly significant book; it deserves a very wide readership among our political and military leaders, scholars, the media, and all citizens interested in American government.”—Richard H. Kohn, professor emeritus of history and peace, war, and defense, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“During the Cold War, Samuel Huntington famously warned Americans that sober military expertise on the world balance of power might never reach their president’s ears for being drowned in a cacophony of national liberalism that suffused society and overwhelmed its democratically elected leaders. Sixty-five years later, Todd Schmidt has marshaled original evidence from extensive elite interviews on both sides of the civil-military divide to announce that now, especially during wartime, the opposite concern may be prevalent. Presidents, civilian advisers, interested voters, and senior military officers should read Silent Coup of the Guardians to appreciate how unprepared, constrained, and dependent U.S. commanders in chief have become with respect to best military advice.”—Damon Coletta, professor of political science, U.S. Air Force Academy
“If you wonder why our country keeps winning the war and losing the peace, read this book by Col. Todd Schmidt. As you search for an answer . . . never forget. . . process is policy. Schmidt makes the argument that it is long past due to examine the dominating role of the US military in the policy process of the last few decades and to focus on getting a stronger civilian voice at the table.”—Ambassador David C. Miller, President of US Diplomatic Studies Foundation
“Todd Schmidt deftly addresses gaps across disciplines with a refreshing perspective. An impressive work that demands a spot on the bookshelf of those who seek to understand ‘why’ there is an increasingly unhealthy civil-military gap. Equal part interrogation of military prominence and an important call to action to correct the growing imbalance.”—Col. Jaron Wharton, U.S. Army, Senior Military Fellow at Modern Warfare Institute, USMA/West Point
“Todd Schmidt’s Silent Coup of the Guardians provides intriguing, if not alarming insights on how military elites perceive their roles versus the roles of their civilian overseers. Through interviews with more than 100 senior national security leaders, Schmidt finds military elites play an outsized role in policy formulation, often harbor cynical views of civilian leaders, and think their judgment should carry more weight than civilian policymakers. These ‘praetorian propensities,’ as Schmidt refers to them, raise important questions about the state of civilian control of the armed forces today.”—Heidi A. Urben, adjunct associate professor, Georgetown University, and author of Party, Politics, and the Post-9/11 Army
