Centre for Public Understanding of Defence and Security

The democratic control of armed force is a defining characteristic of modern liberal democracy, but one essential component of this formula – the demos, or the public – is too often overlooked. Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian military philosopher, insisted that war only made sense as an essentially political activity – ‘war cannot be divorced from political life’. Clausewitz also described war as a ‘trinity’ comprising ‘primordial violence’ (the concern of ‘the people’), the ‘play of chance and probability’ (to be mastered by ‘the commander and his army’) and ‘policy’ (the job of ‘the government’). Max Weber, the German sociologist, took the debate a step further when he described the state as ‘a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical violence’.  

By this view, the public should have a central role in legitimising and constraining the use of armed force. But in the UK and other western democracies the level of interest, knowledge and understanding of the purpose of defence and security organisations is at a low ebb. In the public eye, armed forces and security agencies are increasingly fetishised, becoming more iconic than instrumental. Armed forces find they have diminishing traction with the public and, by extension, with democratic government. And governments then relax into the view that defence and security are simply public services, costing too much for purposes few can understand.  Through policy-oriented research, publications, podcasts and interviews, CPUDS will redress this important imbalance.