Thanks for Your Service: The Causes and Consequences of Public Confidence in the Us Military

A definitive study on the decades-long run of high public confidence in the military and why it may rest on some shaky foundations.

What explains the high levels of public confidence in the US military and does high confidence matter? In Thanks for Your Service, the eminent civil-military relations scholar Peter D. Feaver addresses this question and focuses on what it means for the military. Proprietary survey data show that confidence is partly based on public beliefs about the military’s high competence, adherence to high professional ethics, and a determination to stand apart from the bitter divisions of partisan politics. However, as Feaver argues, confidence is also shaped by a partisan gap and by social desirability bias, the idea that some individuals express confidence in the military because they believe that is the socially approved attitude to hold. Not only does Feaver help us understand how and why the public has confidence in the military, but he also exposes problems that policymakers need to be aware of. Specifically, this book traces how confidence in the institution shapes public attitudes on the use of force and may not always reinforce best practices in democratic civil-military relations.

Peter D. Feaver is a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Duke University. He is Director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy and co-PI of the America in the World Consortium. Feaver is also the author of Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations (2003) and Guarding the Guardians: Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons in the United States (1992). He is co-author of Paying the Human Costs of War (with Christopher Gelpi and Jason Reifler, 2009); Getting the Best Out of College (with Susan Wasiolek and Anne Crossman, 2008, 2nd edition 2012); and Choosing Your Battles: American Civil-Military Relations and the Use of Force (with Christopher Gelpi, 2004). He has published numerous other monographs, scholarly articles, book chapters, and policy pieces on grand strategy, American foreign policy, public opinion, nuclear proliferation, civil-military relations, and cybersecurity. Feaver served on the NSC staff in both the Clinton (as a Director for
Defense Policy and Arms Control, 1993-1994) and Bush (as Special Advisor for Strategic Planning and Institutional Reform, 2005-2007) administrations. He is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group.