The military role in internal defense and security: some problems
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Authors
Rasmussen, Maria Jose Moyano
Subjects
Advisors
Date of Issue
1999-10
Date
Publisher
Language
en_US
Abstract
Type
Article
Description
A key issue in the post-Cold War world is whether military forces should be deployed
in domestic law enforcement missions. Advocates of military involvement in domestic
law enforcement see it as a useful strategy for avoiding immediate force reductions. In
many new democracies this practice is not even questioned. Due to the traditional
involvement of the military in law enforcement missions, when violence breaks out
policy-makers and society-at-large assume that the military should be brought in.
This paper will analyze some of the difficulties that emerge when the military is
employed in domestic law enforcement. It discusses the American military's involvement
in riot control in Los Angeles in 1992, the British military's thirty-year experience of riot
control and counter-terrorism in Northern Ireland, and some lessons we derive from these
two cases. In Los Angeles and Britain, public officials deployed the military in law
enforcement missions as an act of desperation, without giving much thought to the impact
that these decisions might have on military organizations, democratic practices, and the
orderly functioning of civilian law enforcement agencies.
Series/Report No
CCMR Occasional Paper;#6
Department
National Security Affairs
Center for Civil-Military Relations
National Security Affairs (NSA)
Organization
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
U.S. Agency for International Development
Funder
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Citation
Distribution Statement
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.