THE INFLUENCE OF PROFESSIONAL CULTURE ON AMERICAN MILITARY INNOVATION IN COUNTERINSURGENCY

Abstract

This dissertation critically explores military innovation in counterinsurgency in the American experience. It examines innovations in the operational strategy of the U.S. military in the Philippines War from 1898-1902, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2001 to present. The U.S., like most advanced militaries, has defined military professionalism in terms of the specialized knowledge and skills needed to wage major combat operations (MCO) in conventional war, against similarly armed and organized opponents. When faced with the problems of fighting insurgent groups that are neither similarly armed nor organized, the American military establishment has struggled to innovate quickly and effectively. I argue that American military culture is the primary explanation for why innovation in counterinsurgency has been so difficult. An institutional environment that defines the profession via a technology-driven framework of major combat has hampered the adoption of innovative approaches to counterinsurgency that lie outside the dominant institutional culture.

In the American example, military innovation in counterinsurgency has largely been a contest of competing military cultures, defined by changing standards of what it means to be a professional soldier. Relatively weak identification by the officer corps with conventional military knowledge, and a high degree of specialization in civilian professions produced highly innovative counterinsurgency approaches in the Philippines. Almost a century later a tightly defined theory of doctrine, developed after the Vietnam War, created a re-professionalized military that largely eschewed the study of unconventional war. This contributed to the loss of important institutional knowledge about COIN. Reinforced by the characteristics of the all-volunteer military, the force that went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq was organized, trained, and indoctrinated in the culture of major combat. It would take the publication of Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency, in 2006 to begin the necessary shift in the broader institutional culture that allowed for effective operational innovation to occur.