Thursday, December 21, 2017

The Civil-Military Relations of the Last Jedi

There ain't none.... that is, there are no civilians among the resistance, so no civil-military relations.

Spoilers below the break



Heaps of principal-agent problems named Poe Dameron, but no civil-military relations.  That is the big downside of making Leia a General as opposed to being a Senator or Princess.  No Mon Montha to be seen either.  Just a small contingent of rebel soldiers/sailors/aviators that get smaller and smaler.

The only civilian that is relevant maybe Snook.  I have no idea whether he is military or not, but no uniform as far as I can tell.  So, perhaps there is some civ-mil on the First Order side.   Or were.  What is Kylo Ren?

The women at Bombshell pondered Vader's role in the original movies--pilot, commander, what?  My take: commissar.  That is, the Emperor sent Vader around the galaxy to oversee the various Imperial forces to make sure they were doing the bidding of the Emperor.  He was outside the regular chain of command, reporting directly to the Emperor.  Tis not so clean since he did seem to have his own command of ships and such, but this is probably the closest role to what Vader did.

Anyhow, the new movies, with the destruction of the New Republic, have done way with half of  civil-military relations.  Perhaps because spending so much time at the Senate did not seem to make the prequels heaps of fun, despite Padme's big line that seems so apt today.

No comments: