When I am doing research or serious readings, the topic that occupies my head pops up in my mind quite randomly, which I think is a pretty normal phenomenon for a lot of people. I watched Spiderman 2 yesterday, and I thought about the theories of civil-military relations (my current research interest) during the movie.
According to Feaver, the civil-military problematique is caused by the two principles about military that are in tension;
1. the military must be strong enough to prevail in society's wars
2. just as the military must protect the polity from enemies, so must it conduct its own affairs so as not to destroy the society it is intended to protect
In other words, there are the need to have protection BY the military and the need to have protection FROM the military. (Peter D. Feaver "The Civil-Military Problematique: Huntington, Janowitz, and the Question of Civilian Control" Armed Forces & Society/Winter 1996 pp148-177)
Dr. Octopus in Spiderman 2 creates an artificial brain that is smarter than human ones, attaches the machine with it to himself, and tries to secure his control over the machine by putting a control security chip (or whatever it's called) on the back of his neck. He faces a major security problem after the chip was broken, which would mean a military coup in civil-military relations. I think these civil-military principles are worth studying not only by political scientists but also by many people since it relates to lots of different kinds of basic "security" problems!