Civilian Military Experts: Findings from the 2017 Survey of American Military Experts

Abstract

Military expertise is constructed inside and outside military organizations, but little research has been collected on outside military expertise. This chapter presents findings from the first phase of the Survey of American Military Experts (SAME), a biannual survey of about 250 experts on American military affairs. We present a first look at how two expert communities conceptualize media coverage of the military, public interest in military topics and how these relate to civilian leadership. The first community of interest is the population of academic-facing researchers working in civilian and military research institutions. The second is the population of journalists who regularly cover the American military, national security, and war. While our findings indicate distinct patterns in who works in these fields and how these experts see the U.S. military, we also present evidence of strong similarities in the concerns of these experts and their overall assessment of on the current health of American military affairs.