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When Marxist - Leninist regimes began falling, the once symbiotic relationship between the party and the military melted away in the avalanche of change. The military's major role in
Marxist-Leninist regimes was to keep the Communist parties in power; now, the military is in search of a role and an identity in a
new and much different environnent. The successor regimes seek to build democratic political institutions which cannot function unless there is civilian supermacy over military. So the key issue is
whether these new regimes win defy the type of praetorian politics which characterized their counterparts in the 1960s and 1970s.
This paper win draw some discernable patterns regarding the nature of Yugoslov and Soviet successor armies and the methods and strategies employed by the new regimes to bring about and
maintain civilian control over the military. It will also evaluate
these efforts and speculate on the chances of success.
The military of the majority of post-Communist countries are likely to opt for the "Kemalist Model" that means the military will act as a watchdog from behind the scenes. Whenever the civilians deviate, the military will bring them back to the "right path" by either intervening temporarily or threatening to intervene. As the
Turkish army forced the removal of the government by simply sending a "memoradum" to the Prime Minister, coup by FAX or E-mail is likely to characterize the politics of post-totalitarian societies in the forseeable future.