dissertation help please! US military culture and small wars.

[Sigaba]

To the valued members of the small wars journal community.
i am currently in my third year studying war in Swansea, Wales, and am writing my dissertation. the title that i have chosen is: 'How Does the Culture of the American Military Prevent Them From Waging Small Wars Effectively?'
I was wondering if anyone would care to help me with ideas / book proposals/ suggestions. anything would help! i need particular help in relation to how the american military is changing to deal with the increasing prevalence of small wars - i have read ALOT about everything else, but can find very little about the current policies (force modularity?).

It is unclear to me in what field you're writing your dissertation. That piece of information is crucial in regards how one assess your thesis statement.

Regardless of the field, two recently published works that may be of interest to you are Ingo Trauschweizer, The Cold War U.S. Army: Building Deterrence for Limited War (ISBN-13: 978-0700615780) and Henry Cole, General William E. DePuy: Preparing the Army for Modern War (ISBN-13: 978-0813125008). Dr. Trauschweizer addresses convincingly some of your points and may provide a good point of departure for additional discussion (this is, if you're looking for a historiographical framework).

The thesis of my dissertation is that the culture of the American military prevents it from fighting small wars effectively. The overarching focus of the essay will be upon how the U.S. Army’s preference for conventional warfare weakens significantly both their capacity to fight small wars, and their willingness to do so. The dissertation will show how this preference is a result of cultural biases and will extrapolate the various themes that feed these biases.

Although the dust is starting to settle, "culture" remains a highly contested term and basis for analysis in historical studies as well as other fields. I don't think one has to master this literature to write about culture intelligently. Still, it may be worth your while to develop your definition of "culture" and place it within the broader debate over the term. This suggestion is aimed at positioning your work so it can reach a broader audience.

The essay will centre upon how the American military’s preferred paradigm of conventional war is incompatible with the context of a small war and begin with a summary of why this is so. It will also look at the history of the American Army, and so will comment on the traditional division between the civilian sector and the military. It will outline this split and will look at how it came to exist, with particular reference to Upton’s ‘reforms’ of the Army in the wake of the civil war.

In regards to Upton, his reforms, and the "traditional division" in civil-military relations, I advise the utmost caution. The late Russell Weigley offered some observations on Upton and his reforms which were expanded by the late Stephen Ambrose in his biography of that troubled man. In tandem, the two raised questions about the efficacy of Upton's proposed reforms. I have explored some of those questions in my own research (as well as adding one or two of my own). The short version of my findings is that I do not believe that the U.S. Army's official account of Upton's reforms or of civil-military relations during the Gilded Age are supported by the documentary evidence.

If my interpretation is correct (I have evidence and a hunch that may lead me to a 'smoking gun'), many modern basic assumptions about civil military relations as well as the professionalism of the Army's officer corps may have to be re-examined.

As this project is well over the horizon, I think you will do well enough if you consult carefully Weigley's works on the U.S. Army and be wary of works that reference works by Upton, his biographer and friend Peter Michie, and, especially, Samuel Huntington. (I advise using Ambrose's biography of Upton guardedly. Regrettably--because he inspired me to study military history--Ambrose was exposed as a plagiarist towards the end of his life. As his lapses of judgment spanned his career, it is difficult to know which paragraphs of which of his books are reliable. Until that gets sorted out, why take unnecessary risks?)

In regards to your 'big war' versus 'small war' comparison, have you considered the preference you attribute to the U.S. Army (a conclusion with which I'm inclined to disagree) as a side effect of the quest for decisive battle?

HTH

[Schmedlap]

Regarding the Army's culture in terms of fighting small wars - I may be overly paraphrasing this, but a few thoughts...

- I think the gist of Nagl's Eating Soup book was that out ability to prevail in COIN is dependent upon what kind of learning organization we are. How fast do we learn and are we sufficiently open to learning new things and, if so, how quickly can we implement those lessons?

- Consider (generally) how we learned in Vietnam. A guy deployed for a year, learned a bunch of stuff, came home, went to a professional school, shared those lessons (somewhat) with his peers, his peers returned to their units and hopefully passed along those lessons. The process took months. (If I'm off base with that, I'm sure one of the board's resident dinosaurs can correct me). Now, it occurs in almost real time. Soldiers go on patrol, return to base, hop online, and share lessons learned with anyone else in the Army (anywhere in the world) who cares to listen. The amount of web traffic on our knowledge sharing networks suggests that many do care to listen.

- Our online knowledge-sharing networks (PlatoonLeader.army.mil, CompanyCommand.army.mil, NCONet, S3-XONEt, etc, etc) help to facilitate this sharing of lessons learned directly among Soldiers. Our Center of Army Lessons Learned helps as well. The fact that the Army uses these networks effectively suggests that the Army culture is conducive to the change and learning necessary to win small wars that we were unprepared for when we first got engaged in them.

[John T. Fishel]

off base if you think the system actually internalized the lessons from Vietnam. It recorded them and wrote them down and preserved them in doctrine. But it did not actually learn them. Oh, some folk did - SF, and what in the 80s would be called LICimites - but not the Army as a whole. The Marines, IMO, partially learned these lessons as a system but not the Army.

Cheers from one old dinosaur

JohnT

[Schmedlap]

off base if you think the system actually internalized the lessons from Vietnam. It recorded them and wrote them down and preserved them in doctrine. But it did not actually learn them...

Cheers from one old dinosaur

Johnosaurus Rex,

Understood. I was referring more to the process. The process being that lessons were learned by individuals who brought those lessons back after a one-year deployment and shared those lessons with whichever peers cared to listen, and then, in some cases, those peers spread those lessons by word of mouth (a very long delay between an individual learning and that lesson being shared). Did I get that part about right? It seems like what formerly took months now takes days. As for internalizing those lessons - agree - and I still wonder if we will internalize the lessons that we learn today or if we will try to forget it and revert back to preparing to fight an industrialized total war against some imaginary opponent who will be stupid enough to fight us on our terms.

I guess not only speed by openness is relevant, too. My impression is that much of the military started to be exposed to the right lessons by the end of Vietnam, but a lot of leadership still didn't want to hear it. So even if the lesson-spreading was quicker, it would have simply slammed into the brick wall at a higher velocity, rather than scaling it.

[Ken White]

Dinosaurs have been attracted to fresh meat...

Ditto what John T. said. Schmedlap missed only one small thing with respect to Viet Nam -- repeat tours. The Officers and NCOs who learned good lessons the bad way were only able to impart them to a few others before they left for another tour in the land of opportunity. The casualty and KIA rates for NCOs and Co Grade officers meant that the lesson diffusion was not great. Still, basic point that lesson impartation during that war was poor is generally correct.

Lessons learned today indeed are proliferated rapidly and the Army has adapted far more rapidly and effectively than it did in Viet Nam. Organizations like the Asymmetric Warfare Group have been instrumental in pushing new techniques (and, equally or more importantly, reviving old ones) so that's correct.

Two points for consideration though.

While lessons learned do get rapidly disseminated and the system adapts more rapidly, everyone has to realize that the personnel system has NOT adapted and that personnel turbulence has a significant adverse impact on units, lessons learned and embedding those lessons in the units.

We were unprepared for this bout of Small Wars due to a POLICY, not doctrine, that decreed they should be ignored. Numerous people in the Army during the 1975-2002 period tried to reverse that policy to no avail. So there is a culture issue because the culture drove that policy and most within the culture subscribed to it. Culture is largely molded in organizations by personnel selection and promotion policies as well as by organizational education and training processes. If you do not fix those things, you will not change the culture. Point is that all the effective networks in being do not translate to effective training (ask the Troops...) and that they have not thus far affected the culture.

One can only hope they will...

Boom, boom, boom, ...., ...

P.S.

Sigaba is on to something with Upton. The US Army adopted all the bad aspects of the German General Staff and training systems and none of their good ones. We should have developed as US specific system and we did not; we pulled our usual trick with many things -- copied someone else's idea, engineered it until it didn't work as well, tacked on a few minor embellishments and called it our brilliant solution to the problem.

We are slow to learn...

[IntelTrooper]

We are slow to learn...

So the working title of the dissertation is: 'How Does the Culture of the American Military Prevent Them From Waging Small Wars Effectively?'

Perhaps questions in the title of dissertations is more of the style in that part of the world, but if one were to write such a thing in the US it would probably be more along the lines of:
Lessons Not Learned: American Military Culture and Small Wars, 1950-2006

[Steve Blair]

So the working title of the dissertation is: 'How Does the Culture of the American Military Prevent Them From Waging Small Wars Effectively?'

Perhaps questions in the title of dissertations is more of the style in that part of the world, but if one were to write such a thing in the US it would probably be more along the lines of:
Lessons Not Learned: American Military Culture and Small Wars, 1950-2006

Change the time period from 1950 to, say, 1792 or so and you might be onto something....

Vietnam is just a more recent example of our system failing to retain these lessons, or to emphasis the knowledge it did retain.

[Ken White]

Change the time period from 1950 to, say, 1792 or so and you might be onto something....

Vietnam is just a more recent example of our system failing to retain these lessons, or to emphasis the knowledge it did retain.

and you can add in large wars as well.

The problem is skill decay from non use between wars, varying opponents who suffer from the same problems and adopt different fixes for them thereby confronting us with different TTP / Operational methods and the (probably necessary) Momization, my term for excessive niceness, in civil society between wars.

ADDED:{The generational problem of rejecting all your parent's ideas is also involved -- each new generation of senior leaders seems to believe they should reject all that came before because they are better and smarter. That's not usually so but it is very American -- witness each new Administration totally rejecting all the previous Admin did and said -- and then adopting precisely the same methods and goals... END Addendum}

Add our process of one year or so tours since Korea and one is confronted with a massive 'unlearning' of muscle memory, dimming of senses and memories, fragmentation of corporate values and processes and culture and emotional switches between Momization and the particular fight of the day. Thus skill and competency shortfalls are embedded by practices designed for peace. Take that peacetime conditioned force and throw it into a fight and you have obvious problems.

Penalty of living in a democracy. It's worth it in my estimation but it is tough on those who have to fight. Luckily, enough people look at it as I did and do -- as a tolerable burden. So far...

Those problems could be fixed, obviously, by increasing Guard and Reserve strength and equipping and training them for MCO; having smaller active forces, more selective in recruiting, better trained and equipped to do the fire brigade stuff and by increasing significantly our intel and diplomatic abilities -- and, more importantly, our political will -- to preclude commitment to unnecessary and almost always counterproductive (and unduly costly in all senses) FID and SFA operations.

However, the political will to employ such a force does not exist nor is there political will to create such a force because there is no political courage to tolerate such a force. So we get to bumble along as usual.

It's the American way. Generally works out as most of our opponents are way more inept than we are. So far...

[marct]

Hi folks,

So the working title of the dissertation is: 'How Does the Culture of the American Military Prevent Them From Waging Small Wars Effectively?'

Perhaps questions in the title of dissertations is more of the style in that part of the world, but if one were to write such a thing in the US it would probably be more along the lines of:
Lessons Not Learned: American Military Culture and Small Wars, 1950-2006

Change the time period from 1950 to, say, 1792 or so and you might be onto something....

You know, I would change the title to "Does the Culture of the American Military Prevent Them From Waging Small Wars Effectively? American Military Culture and Small Wars, 1776 - 2006".

The real key, IMHO, is the word "effectively" (we can argue about the term "culture" latter on ). Over the centuries, the concept of what is "effective" has shifted, covering the spectrum from forced deportation (e.g "The Trail of Tears"), genocide including biological weapons (e.g. smallpox), to "Hearts and Minds". The problem is semantic: "effective" assumes a particular effect is desired - which is a policy / culture choice.

To my mind, phrasing the question in the dissertations as "How does...." implies that it is US military culture that is the primary source of ineffectiveness. Personally, while I would certainly agree that it is a factor, I do not view it as the primary (or even dominant) cause. Let me further note that US military culture is strongly embedded in the more general US culture, and that its options and actions are strongly controlled (in the sense of environmental influences and selection criteria) by the political culture of the US.

[Steve Blair]

To my mind, phrasing the question in the dissertations as "How does...." implies that it is US military culture that is the primary source of ineffectiveness. Personally, while I would certainly agree that it is a factor, I do not view it as the primary (or even dominant) cause. Let me further note that US military culture is strongly embedded in the more general US culture, and that its options and actions are strongly controlled (in the sense of environmental influences and selection criteria) by the political culture of the US.

I would agree, Marc. US military culture in many ways was formed by American political culture, which was dominantly anti-military (at least in the sense of having a standing army) for about the first 150 years (give or take a few) of our history. Many of their responses, reactions, and methods of presenting information grew out of that relationship. It's also worth noting that the Army prior to 1900 was in many ways divided against itself, with the strong division between the Line and Staff components. It's a complex relationship, with many hands and minds over the years stirring the brew.

[John T. Fishel]

1. Schmedlap, you are right as far as you go. Agree with Ken's reply. Would only add that sites like this bring debates into the open in ways that did not exist previously. Also, see Richard D. Downie's, LEARNING FROM CONFLICT. COL (ret) Downie's book is cited and credited by John N with inspiring his approach.
2. Ken, must disagree on one point. Throughout the 19th century, the officers who fought the big wars (1812, Mexico, Civil, and Sp-American) were mainly veterans of the Indian Wars or went on to fight in the Indian Wars. this same trend continued into the 20th century. The problem was that few of those officers internalized the lessons from their small wars or internalized the wrong ones. This is reflected today in the Nagl-Gentile debate (which never would have happened in any open and transparent way at any other time).

Cheers

JohnT

[Steve Blair]

2. Ken, must disagree on one point. Throughout the 19th century, the officers who fought the big wars (1812, Mexico, Civil, and Sp-American) were mainly veterans of the Indian Wars or went on to fight in the Indian Wars. this same trend continued into the 20th century. The problem was that few of those officers internalized the lessons from their small wars or internalized the wrong ones. This is reflected today in the Nagl-Gentile debate (which never would have happened in any open and transparent way at any other time).

Cheers

JohnT

My one comment here is that prior to Root's reforms many of those lessons could be preserved at the unit level. In other words, for each regimental officer who internalized the wrong lessons there was another close by who had the right lessons on call...or there were a handful of older enlisted men who could help out. Once the personnel system changed that internal knowledge bank went away. Yes, there were some very interesting debates in the Army&Navy Journal and Journal of the Military Service Institution (I may have the last title slightly incorrect...working from memory) about the conduct of wars small and large during this time, and it carried over into early editions of the Cavalry Journal. And they were somewhat similar to the Nagl-Gentile discussions. But most of the small wars knowledge never became official or part of any instructional cirriculum. Officially the Army remained focused on major conflict during this time, understanding (perhaps at an unconscious level) that it could count on those with experience in small wars when the need arose.

Most of that changed, in my opinion, when assignments became shorter and based on the individual instead of the unit. Officers rotated before they could learn from those with that experience, meaning that as the "old timers" retired their knowledge went with them. In some cases that was good, but in others it meant that many hard lessons disappeared. The expansion of the Army also played a role here, obviously. One possible reason that the Marines remained pretty capable in small wars throughout the interwar period was the small size of the Corps, although the author of Mars Learning makes the point that the Marines might also have latched onto small wars competency as one reason (along with amphibious landings) to justify their numbers during a time of cuts.

[Ken White]

2. Ken, must disagree on one point. Throughout the 19th century, the officers who fought the big wars (1812, Mexico, Civil, and Sp-American) were mainly veterans of the Indian Wars or went on to fight in the Indian Wars. this same trend continued into the 20th century. The problem was that few of those officers internalized the lessons from their small wars or internalized the wrong ones. This is reflected today in the Nagl-Gentile debate (which never would have happened in any open and transparent way at any other time).

I'm not sure we have a disagreement. I agree with your statement above except that last sentence. That only because I can recall similar debates in the old Armed Forces Journal (less assertive in tone, to be sure) and the Cavalry and Infantry Journals. That's a minor quibble, I agree with you that the 19th (and early 20th) Century folks did swap back and forth. My point was that even so, the gear switching was obvious in the minor glitches that occurred and we have, in every war; Mexican, Civil, Spanish American, World Wars I and II, Korea, Viet Nam and today had an initial period of major and minor errors. You can even toss in Grenada and Panama, Small Wars with many errors -- that's not a knock; error is inevitable in war -- my comments were aimed at the 'why' they are inevtiable

I meant to apply my problem of generational dissension and "The problem is skill decay from non use between wars, varying opponents who suffer from the same problems and adopt different fixes for them thereby confronting us with different TTP / Operational methods and the (probably necessary) Momization, my term for excessive niceness, in civil society between wars" mostly to the post WW I Army and I'm remiss in not being clear on that.

I did slightly better with the one year tours for Korea and afterwards...

[John T. Fishel]

quite the dinosaur I imagined. The earlier journal arguments were before my time and I did not do the historical research. My reading of military journals began in the 70s with Military Review which rarely got into the kind of controversy that, say, Marine Corps Gazette regularly promotes. Still, I wonder if the openness of the e-world hasn't really made debate more transparent and been, as suggested by others here, more successful in making lessons learned as opposed to merely recorded.

Cheers

JohnT

[marct]

Hi John,

Still, I wonder if the openness of the e-world hasn't really made debate more transparent and been, as suggested by others here, more successful in making lessons learned as opposed to merely recorded.

I suspect that it isn't more "transparent" per se - just more widely spread . If anything, I suspect that the debates are less transparent now that, say 100 years ago, simply because of a) the size of the populace involved in them and b) a greater technical specialization creating independant "semi-disciplinary" languages that have different assumptions.

In odder werds, t'er ontologies don't mesh !

[John T. Fishel]

Let's just drop back a generation. The MR, Parameters, Proceedings, Gazette audience was pretty narrow. Mostly, it was service specific and sometimes even rank specific. (Majors and below tended to read MR; COL tended toward Parameters in the Army - not perfectly correlated....) Then, this stuff was available by subsription, military library, military distribution, and in some civilian research libraries. Today, it is nearly all available online as well as in all the traditional places. Here, in SWJ, we debate pretty esoteric stuff and, as we all know, have made the Rolling Stone Hot List as well as Foerign Policy online. Indeed, all our stuff is transparent in ways that it never was before. The interested population has expanded at a rate, I would hypothesize, much greater than the population as a whole.

Cheers

JohnT

[marct]

Hi John,

I think we're saying pretty much the same things, at least as far as the general readership is concerned, and you've certainly illustrated the spread as a result of 'net technologies. My point, and it is related, is that more people in the general population are now tossing around parts of the debate with little or no understanding of it, and for totally different (usually political) purposes. While I would agree that sites such as SWJ/C and the CAC blog have increased the "transparency", I suspect that once it hits the 'political' (loosely construed) audience, it gets increasingly misunderstood and manipulated.

Cheers,

Marc

[John T. Fishel]

The interesting aspect of your comment is what happens when the hoi poloi get hold of it. Of course, boobs make hay for political purposes which cheapens the debate. But other new players are not part of the boobocracy - they are serious amateurs and even professionals in realted fields. I wonder if we would have found you a couple of decades ago, assuming you were olde enough to play at that time. More to the point, do the serious new players ourweigh the boobs?

Cheers

John

[Sigaba]

My point, and it is related, is that more people in the general population are now tossing around parts of the debate with little or no understanding of it, and for totally different (usually political) purposes. While I would agree that sites such as SWJ/C and the CAC blog have increased the "transparency", I suspect that once it hits the 'political' (loosely construed) audience, it gets increasingly misunderstood and manipulated.

The interesting aspect of your comment is what happens when the hoi poloi get hold of it. Of course, boobs make hay for political purposes which cheapens the debate. But other new players are not part of the boobocracy - they are serious amateurs and even professionals in realted fields. I wonder if we would have found you a couple of decades ago, assuming you were olde enough to play at that time. More to the point, do the serious new players ourweigh the boobs?

I don't know if there's ever been a time in American history where the lines of debate were not blurred, the topics not bowdlerized, and the facts not manipulated for one political purpose or another. Americans' hostility towards professionals is as old as America itself.

Were I more articulate, I'd describe concisely the debate as taking place in four interlocking/overlapping spheres.

• strategic culture--which includes civilian policymakers, actively involved law makers (i.e. those who sit on relevant committees), academics, and civilian experts (e.g. members of think tanks). This concept is borrowing from a formulation offered by Michael Geyer, a historian, but I'm offering the following nuance by suggesting a distinct sphere for:
• service culture--which includes professional servicemen and women up and down their respective chains of command (in this model, each service has its own sub culture and each sub culture is broken down into other spheres such as branch of service)
• political culture--this would be the sphere John T. Fishel and marct discuss in their posts quoted above.
• popular culture--this sphere includes products mass produced by the entertainment industry but also other popular cultural practices as well (e.g. the gaming community, the re-enactment community, and so on).

MOO, present-day debate over national security policy works better when the first two spheres exert the majority of the influence shaping the discussion. However, my reading of history suggests instances where the debate has been reshaped by the latter two spheres.

Sometimes, this reshaping has proven disastrous. The "longing" anticipation with which many Europeans viewed the approaching storm clouds of World War I is a good example. One might also point to America's experience in Vietnam where the political and popular debate negatively impacted opportunities for more careful debate and, perhaps, victory.

At other times, the reshaping has proven quite timely and ultimately beneficial. For instance, historians of the American Civil War have begun to focus on the role African Americans played in reshaping the nature of that conflict. These arguments political and popular in nature, meant that a war that began to preserve the union ended up being a war fought for more profound goals.

Returning to the OP.

Xander Day, I respectfully suggest that the conversation about your topic is a strong indication that your dissertation would greatly benefit from a clearer definition of terms, terms of debate, and refinement of your topic.

This suggestion is not meant as a criticism. On the contrary, it is to your credit that you can pose a question that can lead to such a sprawling discussion. [And wouldn't it be something if Xander Day never returns to this BB.]

But take it from one who knows--narrowing your focus and clarifying your terms can make your project more manageable.

My specific suggestions are:

• Define an interval for your study.
• Pick one armed service and one armed service only.
• Look before you leap. When considering your time period and service, do some advance research to gauge the availability of primary source material.
• Define your terms. What do you mean when you say "culture"? What is your vision of "effectiveness"? (On this last point, you may the three volume work Military Effectiveness edited by Millett and Murray useful--if you can find a copy. On the former point, volume 57, no, 5 of The Journal of Military History may help shape your thoughts on culture and war. [The issue in question is has a section devoted to that topic.]
• Define what you mean by "small wars." I think most members of this board understand what you mean, but will your audience? The U.S. has fought eleven wars. (Twelve, if you include the Indian Wars, and not everyone does.) How many of these conflicts were actually "big wars"? Who decides which war is big and which war is small?
• Look at other factors besides culture. As has been suggested above, an armed force's preferred method of fighting often takes a distant back seat to the direction of civilian leaders. If these considerations trump the board, does culture even matter? Or are we talking about a contest of cultures (as my four sphere model suggests)?
• Change your question. This suggestion is especially worthy of your consideration if you're writing in the field of history or you have historians in your audience. In its current configuration, your question suggests that there were clear answers at the time that the U.S. Army needed to do certain things and they didn't. This teleological approach is an open invitation for grumpy historians to play "stump the band" with you. If you don't know already, take my word that that's not a fun game to play when you're the stumpee.
• Document your sources and cite your references until your HDD and your committee screams "ENOUGH." At that point, do more documentation. Liddell Hart has made a terrible mess of things for those who study war. A part of cleaning up that mess means we've got to dot every "i" and cross every "t".
• Don't worry if it is right, just write. (This suggestion is from the do as I say, not as I do category.)
  
  HTH

[John T. Fishel]

good suggestions and comments. I might quibble with a few - since I am a political scientist, not a historian - but they are quibbles. Regarding comments, I would put both Marc and me in your strategic culture rather than your political culture. There is, of course, some overlap here. Where do we put John Nagl - or Michelle Flournoy both in and out of office?

Cheers

JohnT