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Figure 1 – Compared CMR profiles. http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee 256 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies Núm. 9 / 2017 Synthesis The scanning of the CMR patterns we have done in the previous sections should have given us enough information to make a final, comprehensive, assessment of the current status of civil-military relations in the countries considered. Figure 1 depicts the proposed CMR profiles for the United Kingdom and Greece, based on the analysis, and compares them with the “ideal” model. In the case of the United Kingdom, the analysis concludes that its CMR pattern is based on a solid foundation of mutual trust between soldiers and civilians that explains the relatively high level of professional autonomy granted to the military, and the tolerance the British political elites show for the public manifestations of political nature done by members of the armed forces. The British CMR pattern is at a crossroads as a consequence of the operational deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. The system is subject to important pressures coming both from the political level and from the citizenship, and is in a process of change to adapt to the new environment. Two trends are recognizable in that change. The first one is motivated by the deficiencies identified in the strategy-making process at the political level and in the political oversight of the operations, which imposed in 2010 a comprehensive review of the management of Defense. This review resulted in a movement toward tighter political supervision of what the military does operationally, toward a more formalized policy-making process with more clearly laid out responsibilities and less

REVISTA IEEE 9
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