As the preceding chapters have illustrated, the roles of and relations between the state, the citizen and the soldier in Western democracies have repeatedly transformed due to changing internal and external circumstances during the past three centuries. Internally, the competition between Republicanism and Liberalism has offered diverging models for the democratic control over the use of collective force. Externally, varying threats and security challenges, ranging from the two World Wars to transnational terrorism, have presented different demands on national armed forces. Both internal and external factors have been inextricably linked. Changes in the international security environment have led to reformulations of Republican and Liberal theories, while revisions of both ideologies have in turn influenced interpretations of national and international security demands and how best to respond to them within the framework of modern democracy. However, these transformations have not been unproblematic. The preceding case studies of civil-military relations in the UK, the USA, Germany and contemporary international interventions have demonstrated that the theoretical models presented by Republicanism and Neoliberalism have become corrupted in the process of their adaptation to the contemporary security environment and the political praxis, including the transnationalization of the private military industry, the growing dependence of governments on private contractors, and the weakening of public oversight and parliamentary control.

This chapter discusses how the Republican and Neoliberal models might be reformed in order to address these challenges in the future.