Ever since Huntington published his seminal The Soldier and the State in 1957, the concept of a military profession has been embraced by military educational institutions worldwide, and particularly in the West. I argue that the focus on professionalism in general, and Huntington in particular, obscures the timeless complexity of military decision-making and leadership by reducing it to the status of a profession.

Military leadership actually demands considerably more than what most professionals have to cope with, due to the fluidity of political policy and the need to prevail over an adversary.

Doctors, Lawyers, and Wars of Aggression

Before we proceed, I should mention that the concept of a profession, in the academic sense, is a disputed one. In Huntington’s day, a common definition was based on four criteria¹:

1. A high degree of generalized and systematic knowledge;
2. Primary orientation to the community interest rather than to individual self-interest;
3. A high degree of self-control in behavior through codes of ethics internalized in the process of work socialization [my emphasis] and through voluntary associations organized and operated by the work specialists themselves;
4. A system of rewards (monetary and honorary) that is primarily a set of symbols of work achievement and thus ends in themselves, not means to some end of individual self-interest.

Now, why did I emphasize the codes of ethics? Because while all military organizations have codes of ethics, there are no universal military codes of ethics. By that I mean that military organizations across time and space are very different in this regard.

For a doctor or a lawyer (traditional professions according to most definitions), the codes of ethics are crystal clear: the well-being of the patient, or, the letter of the law, comes first, always. What about military organizations? Some would argue that the protection of the state and/or its population comes first. In many cases, sure, but what about those armies that engaged in opportunistic wars of aggression? Or those that persecuted their own populations? I’m not saying that they are morally equivalent to modern military organizations in democratic countries, but I am saying that they’re no less military for doing so, even if their actions are reprehensible.

I think most would agree that a doctor who kills patients is no doctor, and that a lawyer who disregards the law is no lawyer, but what about a military service member who participates in a war of aggression, or takes part in persecution? That person is a criminal, for sure, but is he or she not still a service member?

Thus, I argue, according to the above definition, there can be no military profession in the broad sense, even though for example the US Army could aspire to create a profession of its own. It would, however, be something quite different from the traditional professions, which transcend national borders and have traditions that in most cases date back centuries. Instead of the military profession, it would be the US Army profession, with only tentative links to the military occupations of other eras and nations.

Clausewitz vs. the Profession

Let’s turn a more modern, frequently quoted, academic definition of a profession²:

1. It is a full-time, liberal (non-manual) occupation;
2. It establishes a monopoly in the labor market for expert services;
3. It attains self-governance or autonomy, i.e. freedom from control by any outsiders, whether the state, clients, lay persons or others;
4. Training is specialized and yet also systematic and scholarly;
5. Examinations, diplomas and titles control entry to the occupation and also sanction the monopoly;
6. Member rewards, both material and symbolic, are tied not only to their occupational competence and workplace ethics but also to contemporaries’ belief that their expert services are ‘of special importance for society and the commonwealth’.

This time there’s no mention of codes of ethics. However, a new criterion poses a new problem: freedom from control by any outsiders, including the state. A military organization is normally, and I think most would agree, should be, controlled by the state. Thus, this modern definition too poses a problem for the concept of the military profession. Consequently, I argue, regardless of whether we use an old or a new definition of a profession, military service members fall outside of it.

Why is this something to take pride in? Because first of all it means that military decision-making must always take the political objective into account, since policy informs strategy. Or, to quote Clausewitz, “War is a mere continuation of policy by other means.”³ All other things equal, this makes military decisions more difficult than those of a doctor or a lawyer, since both the means and the end must be scrutinized thoroughly.

Instead of knowing that the well-being of the patient, or adherence to the letter of the law, is the ultimate goal, the service member must, on his/her own, interpret the overarching objective. In a complex, ambiguous operational environment like the Three-Block War scenario described by Charles C. Krulak,⁴ this is even more challenging. Add to this the aspect of an adversary that will attempt to predict, obstruct and counter every decision, and the complexity grows exponentially.

So Much More than a Professional

Being a military service member can require as much specialized knowledge as a doctor or a lawyer, but it also requires something more: an ability to interpret and implement something as fickle and fleeting as policy (in the form of strategy), and in addition to that, to prevail over an adversary.

That is why every military member should take pride in saying: I’m not a professional, I’m so much more than that.

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Citations

1. Barber, Bernard (1963). ”Some Problems in the Sociology of the Professions”, Daedalus, Vol. 92, No. 4, p. 672
2. Cited in Brante, Thomas (2011). ”Professions as Science-Based Occupation”, Professions & Professionalism, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 5
3. von Clausewitz, Carl (1997). On war. Ware: Wordsworth, p. 22
4. Krulak, Charles C. (1999). “The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War”, Marines Magazine, January 1999