Civilian Control, Unicorns, and Other Bedtime Stories: The Military Does What It Wants
The fundamental problem with purchasing protection from the boogeyman is that it’s impossible to assess the quality of your purchase: If the boogeyman doesn’t attack, it appears your protection succeeded. If he does, it appears you needed to purchase even more. And that, dear readers, is why the military cannot be controlled by civilians or anyone else, for that matter. In the most basic sense, people without guns cannot control people with them; everything else is merely a self-deception.