Professor Dale R. Herspring argues that civil-military relations should move beyond a preoccupation with civilian control; instead, he says, the focus should be on the degree and nature of conflict within civil-military interactions. This alternative theoretical view adds much to the extant literature and allows future work to concentrate both on a more nuanced account of the effects of civil-military relations and, as Professor Herspring does, on the determinants of a “healthy” degree of civil-military conflict. This piece responds to Professor Herspring’s alternative view, arguing that future work building on his framework could incorporate much from within public administration.