The Serbian Armed Forces as the Postmodern Military

Vanja Rokvić

Zoran Jeftić

Sažetak

One of views in contemporary research of civil–military relations is the postmodern view of the role of the military in the post–Cold War period. Charles H. Moskos et al suggest a typology that is suitable for cross-national research of civil-military relations. These typological trends, used as variables for assessment along the lines of the modern, late modern, and postmodern paradigm, are: perceived threat; force structure; major mission definitions; media relations, homosexuals in military; dominant military professionalism; public attitude toward the military; civilian employees; women’s role; spouse and military; conscientious objection. The subject of the Moskos study were developed Western countries considered to be “advanced democracies”. We address the question of whether the typology developed by Moskos can be applied to countries in the process of transition such as the Republic of Serbia and whether the Serbian Armed Forces belong to the group of postmodern armed forces. With regard to research in the field of civil- military relations in Serbia and available data in this paper we analyzed some of the variables, such as: perceived threat; force structure; major mission definitions; dominant military professionalism; public attitude toward the military; women’s role and conscientious objection. For the purposes of this study, we analyzed the literature on civil-military relations, legal documents, reports, survey data, the data provided to us by the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Serbia, as well as the research and publications examining modern and late modern armed forces for the purposes of this study. The analysis of the mentioned documents and literature led us to conclude that the Serbian Armed Forces can be classified as postmodern armed forces based on a large number of indicators.

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