The Arms Race and Command Economies since 1945weaponry in the hands of police and soldiers exercises an ultimate
veto on internal political processes, unless the discipline and cohesion
of the armed forces breaks down. Preservation of discipline in difficult
times calls for isolation and withdrawal from civil society, particularly
when that society becomes permeated with serious dissent. Mainte
nance of suitable skills, on the other hand, calls for interpenetration
with some at least of the technically proficient elites of civil society.
Yet such elites are especially likely to become impatient with an
inefficient or corrupt government, believing that they can do better
themselves. Who manages whom and for what ends becomes problem
atic indeed when technical elites and elites from the armed forces
collide in this fashion with other groups in society.
When such collisions led to coups d’etat, bringing military person
nel to power, it was difficult for the new rulers to retain the cohesion
and morale that allowed them to seize power in the first place. Pro
grams for reform, however heartfelt at the moment of taking office,
were always difficult to put into practice; and when opportunities for
personal enrichment and sensuous enjoyment multiplied, as always
happened to men in possession of political power, ideals nurtured in
the barracks and military schools were likely to go by the board. Often
as not, such betrayal deprived the military regime of legitimacy in its
own eyes and in the eyes of others. Most modern military dictator
ships have therefore been short-lived.
Alliance of throne and altar constituted the traditional time-tested
solution to the problem of sustaining legitimacy for long periods of
time. The difficulty in the twentieth century was to find a faith and
priesthood capable of supporting governments that had to rule in the
absence of any well-defined popular consensus. The secular faiths of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries showed signs of losing their
power in industrially advanced countries. Indeed, the weakening of
public consensus was a register of this decay. To be sure, Marxist and
nationalist ideals had proved effective for mobilizing predominantly
peasant populations against European administrators and foreign
capitalists in the immediate postwar decades. But when revolutionary
parties took power and confronted the practical tasks of daily
administration, nationalist principles and Marxist faith constituted
sadly inadequate guides to action. Disappointment and disillusion
therefore regularly set in.
In some parts of the world, traditional religions, sometimes in sec
tarian form, offered an alternative. This was especially true in Islamic
lands. An age-old antagonism to Christianity and Judaism dating back
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