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Much has changed in the 50 years since Samuel Huntington wrote The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations. The prospect of a large standing army in peacetime is no longer viewed as an aberration but as the normal state of affairs. Furthermore, this force is no longer conscript-based, but totally professional; Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines are all volunteers, adequately paid, and many serve full careers through retirement., Published in Joint Force Quarterly (JFQ), v45 p104-110, 2nd Quarter 2007.

Much has changed in the 50 years since Samuel Huntington wrote "The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations." The prospect of a large standing army in peacetime is no longer viewed as an aberration but as the normal state of affairs. Furthermore, this force is no longer conscript-based, but totally professional; Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines are all volunteers, adequately paid, and many serve full careers through retirement. Despite the shift away from a manpower system based on civilian-soldiers serving short enlistments, the officer corps is not viewed as a threat to society. Although this is the product of the officer corps and society's acceptance of Huntington's argument, his model remains trapped in time; it does not allow for adaptation of the officer corps as the world changes. In addition, Huntington's model does not account for Service differences and inter-Service rivalry since it treats the Services as monolithic. It is important to have a working model of profession for the officer corps because neither society nor the officer corps is enamored with the implications of the alternatives. The author begins with the traditional works on concepts of profession within the military -- Samuel Huntington's "The Soldier and the State" and Morris Janowitz's "The Professional Soldier" -- to establish the foundation of military officership as a profession. He then turn to Andrew Abbott's "The System of Professions," paying particular attention to Abbott's major concept that professions are dynamic, competitive, and evolving in a world of changing jurisdictions. The resulting descriptive model of profession provides a new perspective for studying the evolution, or transformation, within the individual Service officer corps, inter-Service competition, as well as changing concepts of war and combatants., Pub. in Joint Force Quarterly, n45, p104-110, 2nd Quarter 2007.

The concept of profession explains why approximately 60 percent of Air Force general officers are still pilots when pilots comprise not quite 20 percent of the officer corps. The percentage of Air Force general officers who are pilots declined from 88 percent in FY1948 to 63 percent in FY2003. Over the same period, the percentage of total Air Force officers who are pilots decreased from 50 to 19 percent. This presents a two-sided puzzle. Standard bureaucratic politics theory does not explain why a group with a monopoly on organizational political power (pilots) would relinquish power and why pilots are still overrepresented in the general officer ranks. The answer to the puzzle lies in the Air Force officer corps' self-identification as a profession. That profession develops new fields of expertise in order to maintain its relevancy in the face of the changing character and nature of warfare, and the officer corps' composition changes as its expertise changes. The primary motivations for these changes are the responsibilities inherent in the profession's contract with society. Society awards jurisdiction over a specific competency to one or more professions. The combination of responsibility and jurisdictional competition resulted in pilot general officers making choices that led to an Air Force in which the locus of decision-making is evolving out of the cockpit and into the command and control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) system. However, pilots remain overrepresented in the general officer ranks because of past structural factors that stem largely from strategies that the Air Force officer corps' employed in its struggle to establish itself as a profession independent of the Army officer corps. In fact, these enduring structural factors have masked the dramatic changes in the Air Force officer corps' expertise, composition, and perhaps, jurisdiction.

The Al Quaeda terrorist attacks on 9/11 were a tremendous shock. How could such things be done in such a grandiose scale without being detected beforehand? Who let us down? The Intelligence Community (IC). Heads must roll, reorganizations are needed, the barn door must be closed. In March 2003 after months of making the case that there were WMD in Iraq, the US attacked, quickly overcame Iraqi defenses and opened Iraq to unhindered WMD searches. But the WMD, which were so clear and easy to find in the prewar, October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), remained elusive in Iraq. The IC blew it again. Heads must roll, reorganizations are needed, the barn door must be closed. This essay will begin with an examination of what the barn doors are that need closing. Then it will analyze the IC reform proposals of President Bush and Senator Roberts with respect to their attempts to close the barn doors, take heads, and reorganize the IC, as well as their prospects for implementation. Finally, the essay concludes that the Roberts' proposal, which punishes and is radical in approach, would not fulfill its promise and would be impossible to implement. The Bush proposal, which offers minimal change, has greater likelihood of political acceptance. Neither plan shuts the barn doors.

This research provides analysis of the methodology used by the Department of Labor when issuing prevailing wage determinations in accordance with the Davis-Bacon Act. A survey was conducted of the key literature dealing with the economic and social consequences of this legislation. The conclusions based on this research are that the Department of Labor utilizes a methodology which often results in inappropriately high determinations of the prevailing wage and that the Davis-Bacon Act increases the price of Federal construction. The research also analyzed the background and legislative history of the Davis-Bacon Act, the Department of Labor's implementing procedures, and the major controversies surrounding the Davis-Bacon Act.

This research provides analysis of the methodology used by the Department of Labor when issuing prevailing wage determinations in accordance with the Davis-Bacon Act. A survey was conducted of the key literature dealing with the economic and social consequences of this legislation. The conclusions based on this research are that the Department of Labor utilizes a methodology which often results in inappropriately high determinations of the prevailing wage and that the Davis-Bacon Act increases the price of Federal construction. The research also analyzed the background and legislative history of the Davis-Bacon Act, the Department of Labor's implementing procedures, and the major controversies surrounding the Davis-Bacon Act.

This research provides analysis of the methodology used by the Department of Labor when issuing prevailing wage determinations in accordance with the Davis-Bacon Act. A survey was conducted of the key literature dealing with the economic and social consequences of this legislation. The conclusions based on this research are that the Department of Labor utilizes a methodology which often results in inappropriately high determinations of the prevailing wage and that the Davis-Bacon Act increases the price of Federal construction. The research also analyzed the background and legislative history of the Davis-Bacon Act, the Department of Labor's implementing procedures, and the major controversies surrounding the Davis-Bacon Act., http://archive.org/details/thedavisbaconact1094531293, NA, NA, U.S. Navy (U.S.N.) author.