The "New" Military Professionalism

Abstract

Data from an analysis of the Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States during its first decade of publication (in the 1880s) and from a number of more traditional historical studies challenge the belief that a new military professionalism of heightened political concern emerged in the U.S. Army after World War II. In the last third of the nineteenth century, American army officers frequently performed tasks of a civilian nature demanding considerable political skill. Other aspects of twentieth century "new professionalism" were apparent in their writing. Although the late nineteenth century was a period of significant professional development within the Army officer corps, it was neither a time of isolation for the officers nor an era in which their professional concerns were exclusively military.