Military Roles in Modernization: Civil-Military Relations in Thailand and Burma; Military and State in Modern Asia
Lissak discusses the army regimes in Thailand and Burma; the papers from the 1974 Truman Institute symposium on Military and State in Modern Asia at the Hebrew University range farther afield to the Middle East and Imperial Japan. Agreement emerges, however, on essential points: military men are better at guns than government; and the military is not an agent of modernization, but of "pseudo-modernization."
Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.