CITIZEN SOLDIERS:

Fort Leavenworth school plants seeds for democracy (Bill Tammeus, Feb. 26, 2004, Jewish World Review)

The Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth has been educating foreign military officers such as [David] Tevzadze for 110 years. This year, the 6,500th officer to go through the program will be graduated. The officers, mostly majors or colonels, often go on to become generals. More than two dozen have become heads of state. And hundreds have reached the level of minister or ambassador, as did Tevzadze.

Democratic values are part of what these officers are exposed to here, both in their coursework and as they live off base. Many come from countries with long histories of open societies and civil institutions, so they learn not fundamental values but, rather, how those values get expressed in the American system. But some student soldiers come from countries that historically have been ruled by threat and force. What they begin to see here is a way of organizing society from the bottom up.

If democratic values are to spread around the world, it's crucial that military officers such as Tevzadze understand them and — more than that — put them into practice, especially when crises strike. The future of democratic reforms in many countries depends in part on how top military officers understand their role. Do they represent the citizenry or simply whoever is in power at the moment?

Recently, nearly 90 foreign officers from more than 75 nations, each now enrolled in the Fort Leavenworth program, came here to the University of Kansas to learn more about freedom of the press, a crucial pillar of open societies.

Decades before his musings on the clash of civilizations kicked up a storm, Samuel Huntington wrote about what a bulwark of democracy a conservative idealist military can be.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 26, 2004 9:00 AM