Creating Military Power: The Sources of Military Effectiveness 9780804768092

Citation preview

Creating Military Power

Creating Military Power The Sources of Military Effectiveness

e di t e d by r isa a. brooks a n d e li za bet h a. sta n ley

Stanford University Press Stanford, California 2007

Stanford University Press Stanford, California ©2007 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Creating military power : the sources of military effectiveness / edited by Risa A. Brooks and Elizabeth A. Stanley. p. cm. Includes index. isbn 978-0-8047-5399-9 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Military readiness. 2. Military art and science—History—20th century. 3. Armed Forces—History—20th century. I. Brooks, Risa. II. Stanley, Elizabeth A., 1970– UA10.C76 2007 355⬘.0332—dc22 Typeset by Newgen in 10½/12½ Bembo

2007000345

Contents

Contributors

vii

Acknowledgments

ix

1. Introduction: The Impact of Culture, Society, Institutions, and International Forces on Military Effectiveness Risa A. Brooks 1 2. Nationalism and Military Effectiveness: Post-Meiji Japan Dan Reiter 27 3. Social Structure, Ethnicity, and Military Effectiveness: Iraq, 1980–2004 Timothy D. Hoyt 55 4. Political Institutions and Military Effectiveness: Contemporary United States and United Kingdom Deborah Avant 80 5. Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness: Egypt in the 1967 and 1973 Wars Risa A. Brooks 106 6. Global Norms and Military Effectiveness: The Army in Early Twentieth-Century Ireland Theo Farrell 136 7. International Competition and Military Effectiveness: Naval Air Power, 1919–1945 Emily O. Goldman 158

8. International Alliances and Military Effectiveness: Fighting Alongside Allies and Partners Nora Bensahel 186 9. Explaining Military Outcomes Stephen Biddle 207 10. Conclusion Risa A. Brooks 10. Index

239

228

Contributors

Risa A. Brooks is assistant professor in Northwestern University’s Department of Political Science. Her recent publications related to military effectiveness have appeared in Security Studies and International Security. She is currently completing a manuscript on civil-military relations and strategic assessment. Elizabeth A. Stanley is assistant professor in the Security Studies Program of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and in the Department of Government, Georgetown University. She has served as a U.S. Army military intelligence officer and has published on U.S. military innovation, the impact of peace operations on military readiness and force structure, and military professionalism. Deborah Avant is professor of political science and director of the Institute of Global and International Studies at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. She is the author of Political Institutions and Military Change: Lessons from Peripheral Wars, and, most recently, The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security. Nora Bensahel is a senior political scientist at RAND, specializing in military strategy and doctrine. She is also an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Her recent publications include The Counterterror Coalitions: Cooperation with Europe, NATO, and the European Union and The Future Security Environment in the Middle East. Stephen Biddle is senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations where he specializes in defense policy, strategy, and the analysis of military operations. His recent book, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle, won the 2005 Huntington, Madigan, and Koopman prizes and the 2005 silver medal in the Arthur Ross Book Award competition. Theo Farrell is reader in war in the modern world at King’s College London and associate editor of Security Studies. His latest publications include

The Norms of War: Cultural Beliefs and Modern Conflict and, as co-editor, Force and Legitimacy in World Politics. Emily O. Goldman is associate professor of political science at the University of California, Davis, and director of the UC Davis Washington Program. Her publications include Sunken Treaties: Naval Arms Control between the War and, as co-editor, The Politics of Strategic Adjustment, The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas, and The Information Revolution in Military Affairs in Asia. Timothy D. Hoyt is associate professor of strategy and policy at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He is the author of Military Industry and Regional Defense Policy: India, Iraq and Israel and is currently working on a book on the Irish Republican Army and the limits of terrorism. Dan Reiter is professor of political science at Emory University. He is author of Crucible of Beliefs: Learning, Alliances, and World Wars and coauthor of Democracies at War.

Acknowledgments

while working on this book we benefited from the support and insights of many people. Several people were invaluable during an initial brainstorming workshop in spring 2004, including Tani Chacho, Dale Copeland, Eugene Gholz, Karen Guttieri, Elizabeth Kier, Michael Mazarr, Allan Stam, and David Tretler, as were the chapter authors—Deborah Avant, Nora Bensahel, Stephen Biddle, Theo Farrell, Emily Goldman, Timothy Hoyt, and Dan Reiter—in a follow-up meeting in spring 2005. All were enormously helpful as we formulated the project’s approach and defi ned its focus. At the follow-up session, we also benefited from the incisive comments of Richard Betts, Owen Coté, Daryl Press, and Stephen Rosen, who graciously acted as discussants for the authors’ preliminary papers. Michael Desch and Eugene Gholz also deserve thanks for their comments and assistance at critical points in the book’s development. Lee Seymour supplied valuable research assistance. We are grateful to Teresa Lawson and her assistant, Pat Zerfoss, who offered us both encouragement and excellent editorial assistance throughout this process. Finally, we thank our friends and families for their love and support throughout the process of editing this book.

chapter

Introduction:The Impact of Culture, Society, Institutions, and International Forces on Military Effectiveness

1

risa a. brooks

why are some states, at some times, better able to translate their basic material and human strengths into fighting power? Why are some militaries able to make the most of their limited resources on the battlefield, whereas others perform poorly despite significant material advantages? These questions are the central themes of this volume. The study explores why states vary in their military effectiveness. It seeks to explain how states organize and prepare for war and ultimately create military power. This book’s overarching argument is that states’ military effectiveness often depends on the global environment and the particularities of their political cultures, social structures, and institutions. The creation of military power only partially depends on states’ material and human resources. Wealth, technology, and human capital certainly matter for states’ ability to create military power. Equally important, however, are how a state uses those resources. Cultural and societal factors, political institutions, and pressure from the international arena all shape how a state uses its resources. They constitute the environment in which a state’s military activities take place: for example, they influence how patterns and routines emerge and evolve for strategic and operational planning, selection of leaders, procurement of weapons, training of soldiers, and creation of doctrine. By influencing these activities, a state’s society and its international environment affect how well it uses its material and human resources in the process of organizing and preparing for war and therefore its ability to create military power. This book examines these social and political forces in an effort to understand the sources of states’ military effectiveness. Each of the following

2 Risa A. Brooks seven chapters examines a different potential “cause” of effectiveness. These include the impact of nationalist sentiments, ethnic divisions, civil-military relations, domestic political institutions, and the international pressures induced by interstate competition, international organizations, and global norms. Chapter 9 assesses the implications of effectiveness for outcomes in war. Here I introduce the common framework that provides the analytical infrastructure for each of these individual chapters. Specifically, in assessing military effectiveness we are interested in the degree to which a military exhibits four central attributes: integration, or the ability to ensure consistency in military activity, create synergies within and across levels of military activity, and avoid counterproductive actions; responsiveness, which is the degree to which a state accommodates both internal and external constraints and opportunities in preparing itself for armed confl ict; skill, including the capacity to ensure that military personnel are motivated and prepared to execute tasks on the battlefield; and quality, or the capacity of the state to supply itself with essential weapons and equipment. The more a military exhibits these attributes, the more capable it is at generating military power. Before presenting this framework in greater detail, I begin by discussing why military effectiveness is such a critical issue worthy of study. The chapter then addresses previous studies of military effectiveness, emphasizing the strengths of individual research traditions and the need for a more unified, coherent research program to allow for greater accumulation of knowledge in this area. The book’s analytical framework follows.

Why Study Military Effectiveness? Studying military effectiveness provides insight into a core concept of international relations: military power. Military power is central to a vast range of research questions in political science, yet few scholars of international relations have examined a key component of military power, that of effectiveness. Conventional assessments of military power in international relations tend instead to emphasize basic resources. For example, large-n studies often use gross national product (GNP) as a proxy or core indicator of military power.1 Some studies include industrial capacity and population size; more detailed studies may use numbers of troops or weapons on the two opposing sides as measures of power. At best, however, studies try to equate capital expenditure per soldier, estimated by dividing total defense dollars by number of personnel in the armed forces.2 Power generally is reduced to basic human and military inputs.

Introduction

3

Although economic and technological resources are essential to any assessment of potential military power, they are not the sole important factor affecting the ability to project force in war. The actual creation of military power involves two things: the basic resources a state has—GNP, technology, and the like—and how it uses those resources, or effectiveness. Resources are important in assessing potential power, but effectiveness tells how well a state can translate those resources into actual power in war. Effectiveness is the difference between what a state’s raw resources suggest it could potentially do, and what it is actually capable of doing in battle. Recent empirical analysis by Stephen Biddle confi rms that purely resource-based methodologies for measuring power have limited explanatory utility. Biddle fi nds that even efforts to estimate the odds of victory in war with five indices—GNP, population, military personnel, military expenditure, and a composite of these—can explain at best just 60 percent of outcomes.3 Clearly, more is involved in the generation of power than raw material resources. Yet, as I elaborate in the next section, we still have limited insight into what else beyond money and manpower actually influences the capacity to create military power. How, for example, do features of states’ societies, politics, and international environments shape their military activities and therefore their abilities to make the best use of their resources in wartime? In an effort to help answer this question, this book examines an array of factors beyond the realm of traditional military analysis as we seek to understand the sources of states’ military effectiveness. In turn, by expanding our knowledge of the origins of military power, we gain insight into an even more pivotal concept in international relations: state power. Military capability is one (and, by many accounts, the most important) basis of state power.4 By implication, if the creation of military capability is not simply a matter of generating wealth and technology but is indeed heavily influenced by broad characteristics of states, such as their cultures, social structures, institutions, global environments, and so forth, it potentially requires us to revisit our ideas about the origins of state power. Thinking about the origins of military effectiveness raises critical questions about what exactly makes states powerful. In addition, by studying effectiveness, we gain valuable practical insight into which states are, in fact, more and less militarily powerful in the contemporary interstate arena. By understanding the processes through which states create power, we can anticipate when states are truly capable of dominating their adversaries militarily and when their threats to use force should be taken seriously. In turn, because the balance of military power often shapes states’ strategic interactions—how they bargain with

4 Risa A. Brooks Basic Resources (GNP, technology, industrial base, human capital)

Military Power

State Power

Military Effectiveness (Other components of state power) figure 1.1. Resources, Effectiveness, and Power

one another, when and how much they concede in disputes, and when they decide to fight—by having a more complete understanding of the determinants of the balance of power, we can learn more about the nature of those interactions. By incorporating effectiveness into military analysis more systematically, we may even alter our assessments of powerful states in the international arena. It may well be, for example, that a country like China is far more, or less, powerful than its wealth, population, and technology suggest when we more fully consider the intangible aspects of effectiveness and how they bear on its capacity to use those resources: when we better understand how its political structure, cultural traditions, civil-military relations, economic institutions, and global environment shape its military activities and effectiveness. Alternatively, some less developed states and nonstate actors may be far more powerful than their human and capital resources imply, whereas others, like Iraq under Saddam Hussein, may be capable of much less. The case of Iraq, in fact, perhaps best underscores the importance of incorporating nonmaterial factors into our assessment of military power: nearly universally prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf war analysts in the United States overestimated the Iraqi regime’s military capabilities because they failed to recognize the limitations on training, leadership, and command and control posed by the regime’s autocratic nature, social structure, and civil-military relations.5 In short, by focusing on military effectiveness, this study raises profound questions about how political scientists think about military power, state power, and the origins of both. See Figure 1.1.

The Study of Military Effectiveness There is considerable research in sociology, operations research (OR), military history, and, more recently, in political science on the topic of

Introduction

5

military effectiveness. Although this literature offers important insight, much remains to be done. Unsurprisingly for such a diverse literature, defi nitions vary, approaches are sometimes narrow or discipline specific, and linkages across traditions are infrequent. This volume is an effort to bridge these gaps and contribute to a more coherent, more cumulative literature on this critical subject. Sociologists have long been interested in studying military effectiveness.6 These studies date back to inquiries into the sources of German and American soldiers’ motivation to fight in World War II.7 Today, much of this literature is concerned with similar motivational issues and seeks to explain those factors that make individuals or units perform well in combat. In particular, a central debate revolves around the main source of human motivation in battle: unit cohesion versus ideology. Edward Shils and Morris Janowitz and others view an effective military as one whose soldiers exhibit high levels of unit cohesion.8 The willingness to fight hard or even to die stems from the interpersonal bonds among soldiers: individual soldiers fight for one another, not for their countries. By contrast, Omer Bartov argues that effective militaries are those that exhibit high levels of morale, in which soldiers are motivated by beliefs about the worthiness of their country’s cause and the honor of risking their lives on its behalf.9 Other sociologists and scholars working in this tradition emphasize the importance of individual initiative, discipline, courage, or nationalism.10 Yet another strand of literature emphasizes the impact of the social integration of specific groups, such as African Americans, women, or homosexuals, on organizational activity.11 The sociological research has addressed questions vital to the study of military effectiveness, but its analyses tend to be concerned with a relatively discrete set of questions concerning individual and small-unit behavior in tactical operations. It does not explore a broad variety of factors beyond individual motivation and small-unit social dynamics that affect military effectiveness, such as an organization’s strength in strategic and operational planning, training, military education, or doctrinal development. In addition, this scholarship tends not to link these phenomena systematically to an explicit definition of military effectiveness. The discipline of military-related operations research (sometimes referred to by the acronym MOR) represents a second tradition of analysis. MOR originated with British and U.S. efforts during World War II to model the effects of different technologies and systems such as radar, antisubmarine warfare, or antiaircraft defense. During the Cold War, the main goal of MOR was to test which conventional or nuclear weapons specifications and battle formations the U.S. military and its allies should adopt to

6 Risa A. Brooks deter or halt a Soviet-led Warsaw Pact attack.12 As such, MOR was used to examine force design, force structure, and resource allocation issues at the operational level, and systems requirements and tactics at the tactical level. But MOR’s most important objective has been the development of a set of system characteristics to be used as performance requirements for developers to design the next generation of weapons systems. Characteristics of these systems include vehicle speed, target detection probabilities, hit probabilities, firing times, and survivability.13 Today, military operations research involves mathematical modeling and computer simulations of battle and war outcomes. Despite these models’ growing sophistication, from the perspective of understanding military effectiveness, they have some weaknesses. First, given their purpose, these models are primarily focused on the tactical level of war; thus larger questions of operational planning and strategy, which affect a military’s effectiveness, are beyond their scope. However, as several scholars emphasize in this book, strategic assessment and higher-order military planning are crucial to how a state employs its resources in the course of war; they set parameters for tactical action. These activities are also crucial to any comprehensive study of military effectiveness. Second, MOR models often tend to measure a military’s effectiveness almost exclusively in terms of its hard assets, neglecting the organizational and other forces that allow a military to use those assets productively. These models draw heavily on technological and numerical indicators of military power, primarily because these are easily quantifiable. They place much less emphasis on intangible factors such as leadership, training, morale, and doctrine that affect a military’s proficiencies in using its weapons and equipment.14 Such intangibles often have a major impact on a state’s ability to take advantage of its weapons systems because they affect its military’s skills in handling the weapons and integrating them with training and doctrine. The quality of a military’s weapons is only part of the military effectiveness equation.15 Political scientists, too, have evinced growing interest in studying military effectiveness. Stephen Rosen, for example, has explored the effects of class stratification or caste on the Indian army’s military effectiveness.16 Dan Reiter and Allan Stam have analyzed the effects of regime type on military effectiveness.17 Stephen Biddle and Robert Zirkle have examined how differences in Iraqi and North Vietnamese civil-military relations affected their armies’ relative capacities to assimilate sophisticated technology.18 One of the important contributions of this research is to focus attention on a range of factors beyond the realm of traditional military analysis that may influence states’ effectiveness.

Introduction

7

However, here, once again, the literature is more a point of departure than a conclusive resolution. A wealth of possible social and political variables seems likely to shape military effectiveness; the still-small political science literature on the topic touches only a fraction of these. With some important exceptions, much of this literature is focused chiefly on the tactical level of war; operational and especially strategic issues remain understudied. Defi nitions are also inconsistent. Some studies eschew a formal defi nition of military effectiveness. Those studies that do attempt a more systematic treatment of the concept lack a common definition or approach. For example, some political scientists analyze military effectiveness in terms of a military organization’s capacity to prevail over an adversary—in terms of victory or defeat. Here the more effective military in a confl ict dyad is indicated by victory over its adversary in a battle, controlling for differentials in raw resources;19 effectiveness is indicated by success in battle. Other scholars place greater weight on the degree to which military organizations and their personnel exhibit particular attributes essential to the planning and preparation for war. They point to specific features of a military, rather than focusing on its battlefield victories and defeats, as indicators of its effectiveness.20 Here the properties of military activity and the organization itself provide evidence for its (in)effectiveness.21 Military historians represent a fourth group of scholars who are interested in military effectiveness, although they rarely use the term explicitly. Academic historians such as Martin van Creveld, Michael Handel, Bruce Catton, John Keegan, and John Gooch, as well as more popular authors such as Stephen Ambrose and Shelby Foote, provide rich contextual narratives about societies and their militaries during war. Some of these accounts use broad brushstrokes to paint a comprehensive picture of a society at war; others focus very precisely on individual leaders and their decision making during the heat of battle. All of these authors examine detailed evidence to reconstruct what happened during specific military battles and campaigns. They make an important contribution by stressing the importance to an effective military of the psychological and cognitive traits of leaders, bonds among individuals in war, intelligence collection, and doctrine. Their goal, however, is not to explain military effectiveness, or even to defi ne it, and therefore their narratives do not seek to generalize or to provide systematic tools for the study of military effectiveness, as is done in this book. The seminal three-volume study by Alan Millett and Williamson Murray on military effectiveness from 1914 to 1945 is an important exception to the otherwise very contextual approach of historians.22 Many of the

8 Risa A. Brooks factors emphasized in the Millett and Murray study stress the importance of a military organization’s competence in a range of planning activities. In this sense, these authors emphasize the organizational “glue” that allows a military to create power from its raw resources. Hence they emphasize factors neglected in more materially based methodologies for assessing military capabilities (such as in many OR models). The Millett and Murray study also represents one of the few systematic efforts to consider equally the strategic, operational, and tactical levels in assessing military effectiveness. Most others focus primarily on the tactical level. In the introduction to that study, the editors identify a range of key issues essential to measuring a military’s effectiveness and provide a template of questions that analysts can employ in assessing it.23 Each contributing author in Millett and Murray’s study draws from this list of questions in structuring the analysis of a particular state’s military in a given era. However, the editors of the study do not synthesize their questions into a more general set of attributes indicative of military effectiveness. For example, although they make implicit references to the concept we call “integration,” when they discuss the correspondence of strategic, operational, and tactical activity with the consistency of training, logistics, and other aspects of force development, they do not explicitly address it. The chapters in Millett and Murray’s study are also largely descriptive and do not generalize about the causes of military effectiveness. Using the questions presented in the study’s introductory chapter as a framework, the contributing authors provide narrative accounts of different states’ military effectiveness. However, they do not theorize about the reasons why those states’ military effectiveness differs, and the sources of variation in states’ military effectiveness are not systematically explored. The term military effectiveness is also often used by military professionals and defense officials and analysts. In this context it has a variety of different meanings. Sometimes effectiveness is used to refer to the readiness of forces to deploy to the theater of war. Sometimes it indicates a mission accomplished in a combat zone: a bombing raid is deemed “effective” if the pilots hit the intended target. Sometimes it refers to the attributes of a particular military organization and the quality of its leadership, training, and systems, and the organization’s general preparation for war.24 The diverse uses of the term pose a challenge to developing a systematic and broadly shared understanding of what an effective military looks like and how to evaluate a military’s effectiveness. In this book we present an explicit defi nition of effectiveness and use it throughout the volume. As we elaborate later, the defi nition highlights several attributes of states’ militaries essential to the

Introduction

9

ta b l e i .1 The Causal Chain of Military Effectiveness Independent Variables →

Military Activities →

Military Effectiveness

Culture Social structure Political institutions Civil-military relations Interstate competition Global norms International organizations

Strategic assessment processes Procurement Strategic command and control Intelligence and internal monitoring Officer selection, promotion, and rotation Tactical command and control Training and education

Integration Responsiveness Skill Quality

creation of military power. We hope this consistency will facilitate analysis and contribute to an accumulation of knowledge on the subject.

The Common Framework In an effort to advance a coherent and comprehensive research program on military effectiveness, in this study we develop a framework for studying military effectiveness. Our approach stresses the importance of a variety of causes of military effectiveness beyond the traditional realm of military analysis, including a state’s underlying social, cultural, and institutional fabric, as well as the pressures of its international environment. The framework is reflected in the causal chain shown in Table 1.1. The authors employ this common framework and a common methodology: each author shows how variation in a specific aspect of a state’s domestic or international environment affects military activities such as leadership, training, and doctrine essential to the preparation and organization for war, then explores how these activities influence military effectiveness. We next examine each step in the causal chain, beginning by defi ning the dependent variable: the concept of military effectiveness.

Defining Military Effectiveness In this book we define military effectiveness as the capacity to create military power from a state’s basic resources in wealth, technology, population size, and human capital.25 A military’s level of effectiveness varies with the degree to which it is organized to make good use of these material and human resources. Specifically, military effectiveness is measured according

10 Risa A. Brooks to the degree to which a military exhibits four crucial attributes: the integration of military activity within and across different levels; responsiveness to internal constraints and to the external environment; high skill, as measured in the motivation and basic competencies of personnel; and high quality, as indicated by the caliber of a state’s weapons and equipment. An effective military is one that exhibits high levels of these four attributes. That is, the more integrated, responsive, and skilled it is, and the higher the quality of its hardware, the more likely it will be able to realize the potential of its basic resources in warfare. Next I discuss each of the four attributes in turn. i n t egr ation The fi rst key property of an effective military is its capacity for integration. We defi ne integration as the degree to which different military activities are internally consistent and mutually reinforcing. Essential here is the relationship among strategic, operational, and tactical activity, as well as with the force development activities that further those pursuits. Strategic-level military activity involves overarching conceptions for how the military is to be organized and employed in support of political objectives. Operational-level military activity is the method for employing force within a theater of war or campaign. Tactical-level military activity refers to the specific engagement of units on the battlefield. An integrated military is one whose activities at the tactical level are consistent with those at the operational level and also support broader strategic objectives. Integration also involves maintaining consistency in force development activities, such as procurement, training, and education, with strategy, operations, and tactics. Integration means the achievement of consistency within and across levels and areas of all military activity. Integration reduces waste and the duplication of effort. For example, if a state were to procure aircraft and other weaponry without considering the missions and doctrine for which this weaponry would be used, the state might waste valuable resources on equipment that did not support the state’s strategic goals or tactical operating procedures. Integration also ensures that a military is prepared to use its resources to full capacity or to employ them as intended. Failures of integration compromise this ability. This was evident, for example, when the United States procured the M2 Bradley fighting vehicle that held only seven soldiers, although doctrine and training were based on infantry squads of nine. Even more serious are cases where poor integration of military activity compromises a state’s ability to achieve its strategic objectives. In World War I, for example, Germany’s Schlieffen Plan meant that it would inevita-

Introduction

11

bly provoke Britain in the event of hostilities because the plan called for invading neutral Belgium. The plan was adopted despite Germany’s avowed strategic objective of averting British involvement in a continental war. Thus, although the tactical rationale for the plan might have been sound— Germany needed to defeat France quickly before taking on Russia— it was poorly integrated with Germany’s strategic goal of keeping Britain out of a continental war. r esponsi v e n ess The second property of an effective military is responsiveness. We defi ne responsiveness as the ability to tailor military activity to a state’s own capabilities, its adversaries’ capabilities, and external constraints. In the broadest sense it refers to a military’s capacity to respond to new information about itself, its adversary, and its environment. Accordingly, a responsive military is one that adjusts its operational doctrine and tactics to exploit its adversary’s weaknesses and its own strengths. Equally important, a responsive military is one that adjusts and compensates for external constraints, including material, geographic, technological, social-structural, political, or cultural limitations in its domestic environment. Responsiveness helps ensure that a military is structured, organized, trained, and equipped optimally for its strategic environment. Responsive military leaders are those who constantly analyze their strategic and military situation, and who, in response, modify strategy, doctrine, procurement, and the like. These leaders remain aware of their organization’s own internal constraints and weaknesses and modify military activity to compensate if they cannot overcome them. Militaries without responsiveness may lose an accurate sense of their particular strengths and weaknesses because of a lack of critical selfevaluation and of rigorous assessment of the external environment. They may dismiss vital cues from their external environments and may be more likely to be caught off guard in anticipating the challenges they will face in the event of armed confl ict. Without responsiveness, a fighting machine that looks good on paper may be ill equipped to fight the battles and adversaries it will actually face. A good example of responsiveness was the U.S. military’s World War II strategy of island hopping in the Pacific (which Deborah Avant describes in Chapter 4). As its military started moving west across the Pacific, the United States realized that it did not need to take every island that Japan controlled. Rather, the United States figured out which islands it would need to control for its strategic goals, relying on its air and sea superiority; it chose to bypass the others on its way to the Japanese mainland. These

12 Risa A. Brooks islands were left under Japanese control, stranding many Japanese soldiers because the Japanese military was unable to resupply or rescue them. In this way, the United States tailored its strategy in the Pacific to its air and sea superiority and to Japan’s weakness, and it saved resources for battles on crucial islands. sk i ll The third attribute of an effective military is its capacity to realize high levels of skill. Skill measures military personnel and their units against some objective standard or benchmark in assessing their ability to achieve particular tasks and to carry out orders. This includes, for example, a military organization’s ability to assimilate new technologies or to adapt to sophisticated doctrine and demanding forms of military organization. It captures how well soldiers can use sophisticated computerized technology, and how proficient they are at fi ring and maintaining their weapons or at executing such tasks as coordinated tactical movements while shielding themselves from enemy fi re. It is reflected in small units’ ability to adapt to a constantly changing battlefield and to exploit opportunities. Skill is especially important in modern warfare, which is complicated by the assimilation of new technologies and weapon systems.26 A military that has difficulty using these technologies will have a hard time making the most of the resources that are available to it. These dynamics were evident in Iraq’s war against Iran during the 1980s, when shortcomings in Iraqi soldiers’ training and education hampered efforts to use sophisticated technology. As a result of such weaknesses in organizational activity, observe Biddle and Zirkle, Iraqi soldiers were less skilled than, for example, the North Vietnamese in the U.S.-Vietnam war.27 The attribute of skill also captures a military’s ability to motivate soldiers and to ensure that they carry out orders, fight hard, and seize the initiative in combat. A military that can motivate its soldiers and their units and therefore maximize the initiative of individuals in combat units is better able to generate power in battle. Hence militaries that incorporate training and education that heighten the sense of meaning and commitment to the organization, or that encourage strong officer-enlisted relations and interpersonal bonds among individuals—and which operate in a social, political, or institutional environment that supports and encourages the development of these structures—can produce a more motivated military: in our terms, it is more skilled. In short, skill reflects the degree to which military personnel are, in the broadest sense, both capable and willing as they undertake difficult and complex tasks essential to preparing for and executing war.

Introduction

13

qua lit y The fourth attribute of an effective military is its ability to provide itself with highly capable weapons and equipment. Holding cost constant, quality measures the relative ability of a military to supply itself with superior weapons and equipment: those that, for example, minimize trade-offs among size, firepower, survivability, and mobility and have low failure rates. Military effectiveness is maximized in states that are able to obtain a “better” system for a given resource dollar. Military activities associated with internal organizational planning and procurement processes— and the broader causal forces that affect them—are likely to be especially relevant in assessing “quality.” For example, debates about the defense budgeting system in the United States and whether organizational conventions encourage innovation or stasis in weapons design and production are issues that speak to the effectiveness of the American military in this regard. Of course, just because a state is able to procure a superior weapon, and demonstrate high levels of quality in this regard, does not mean the weapon is needed, can be used, or is worth the investment. These are, however, questions of integration and responsiveness, which are also crucial to assessing military effectiveness. The ultimate utility of a weapon, and therefore its contribution to a military’s preparation for war, depends on more than its inherent technological properties or its cost effectiveness. It depends on how—and how well—it is used. Quality is only one of four essential attributes of an effective military. Nevertheless, it is important because, holding all else constant, states that are able to supply themselves with better weapons are often able to generate more military power. a ll fou r prope rti es a r e esse nti a l to m i lita ry e f f ecti v e n ess All four properties—integration, responsiveness, skill, and quality—are essential to military effectiveness. A state that has shortcomings in just one attribute is likely to be handicapped in generating power in the event of an interstate dispute. Take the case of a military that is skilled, responsive, and has quality weapons but is not integrated. It may have highly capable personnel, advanced weaponry, and its leaders may comprehend their strategic situation well. Its services and intraorganizational units, however, fail to coordinate to ensure consistency across their activities. The military as a whole operates with poorly harmonized strategic, operational, and tactical activity. At best, this military wastes resources by duplicating efforts or, for example, failing to realize the synergies of cooperative action.

14 Risa A. Brooks At worst, the strategic or tactical approach of one organizational unit proves counterproductive to the activities of another. Alternatively, take the case of a military that is integrated and responsive and has high-quality weapons but is poorly skilled. It will face constraints in utilizing particular technologies and doctrine. Like Egypt in 1973 (as Chapter 5 details), this military may tailor its doctrine and training to its manpower resources (e.g., develop training regimens consistent with the low literacy, education levels, and experience of its army), but low skill means that there will be inherent limitations in the types of doctrine its soldiers can successfully implement. Because of limitations in skill, it will be constrained in doctrinal choices—how it uses its weapons—hence it may not be able to take advantage of the technological strengths of those systems. It will be limited in how much military power it can generate. A military with high skill that is integrated and responsive but has lowquality weapons will similarly be restricted in its ability to generate power. Its soldiers may be highly capable of using sophisticated weapons, but the military does not have such weapons and systems to supply its personnel. The military may tailor its military activity to minimize this weakness and play on its strengths and integrate its strategy, operations, and tactics accordingly, but there will be material limitations on what it can accomplish in war. Finally, take a military that is integrated and skilled, with high-quality systems, but that is not responsive to its environment. This military is at risk of preparing for war without accurately comprehending its external environment or its own inherent strengths and weaknesses. For example, perhaps it develops an operational plan and doctrine and procures weapons that emphasize offensive maneuver: high-intensity, fast-paced mobile operations that require significant tactical initiative for implementation. However, it might, for example, neglect the fact that the topography and political environment in which it will fight renders offensive maneuver impractical. The country’s war plan may not make the best use of the state’s basic resources; perhaps it relies on a small professional force that has been highly trained when one of its biggest assets is a large but less educated population that could be exploited through conscription. By ignoring its resource environment, this military chooses a method to fight that may not be responsive to its own strengths and weaknesses. In short, even a military that is highly skilled, has supplied itself with quality weapons, and is integrated across all levels of military activity, but is not able to anticipate its own strengths and weaknesses or its adversary’s capabilities and the likely battlefield, will lack responsiveness and therefore be less militarily effective than it could be.

Introduction

15

ta b l e 1.2 Attributes of Military Effectiveness Integration

Responsiveness

Skill

Quality

Consistency within and across levels and areas of military activity

Ability to tailor military activity to the state’s own resource and environmental constraints and opportunities and to its adversary’s strengths and weaknesses

Military personnel’s capabilities and motivation to perform essential tasks in preparing for and executing war

Properties of weapons and equipment a military is able to provide for itself

Indications: Integration of tactics with broader political and strategic goals (e.g., tactics that do not compromise attainment of broader political objectives)

Indications: Tactics tailored to exploit specific weaknesses of an adversary

Indications: Fluid assimilation of technology

Indications: Nature of weapons procured (e.g., speed, low failure rates)

Integration of training system with tactical concepts and quality (literacy, experience, etc.) of personnel

Modifications of force structure are promptly made in response to new threats and challenges

Highly motivated soldiers and units Proficiency at executing sophisticated doctrine (combined arms, maneuver, etc.)

Ability to minimize trade-offs in mobility, firepower, etc.

Internal evaluative processes reflect rigorous efforts to evaluate and analyze military activity

Logistical systems support force deployments; procurement supports tactical concepts; operational plans support strategic objectives

Probabilistically, militaries that exhibit all four attributes should be more effective than those that do not. All things equal, the ability to produce a skilled, quality, integrated, and responsive military helps ensure the state is able to realize synergies in military activity and maximize the potential of its resources. As such, these four attributes provide benchmarks for estimating a military’s effectiveness. See Table 1.2.

Causes of Military Effectiveness This volume brings together scholars from diverse backgrounds to survey social, cultural, and systemic forces, using a common framework to ana-

16 Risa A. Brooks lyze the effects of specific independent variables on military effectiveness. The chapters in this book examine various causes of military effectiveness, organized around four general central themes: culture, social structure, institutions, and international factors. This section says a bit more about these categories of causal variables: its objective is both to define these categories and to lay out what we generally mean by them. Many of the variables discussed here are covered in the chapters that follow, although space prohibits an exhaustive analysis of every possible source of military effectiveness. The hope is to draw attention to the diverse array of phenomena that might warrant analysis in future studies of military effectiveness. We intend, therefore, to provide a starting point for this broader inquiry. cu ltu r e “Culture” represents a fi rst category of potential causes of military effectiveness that warrant investigation. Specifically, by culture we are interested in how shared worldviews or beliefs within a state or society shape how a military organization prepares for and executes war. Culture may be expressed in both evaluative standards (values and beliefs about appropriate action) and cognitive standards (such as rules and methods for undertaking action) that both defi ne the actors in a given society and shape their behavior.28 It is frequently articulated in the symbols and practices of actors and the society in which they participate. As the diversity of studies in political science that invoke the concept of culture suggests, culture can operate on many different levels of analysis; scholars who differentiate states according to ideational factors focus on different dimensions of culture. On the grandest level are conceptions of culture consistent with Ian Johnston’s notion of strategic culture (similar to what was once referred to as national ideology). Others, such as Kenneth Pollack, focus on societal or political culture by examining how beliefs common to a particular society affect behavior. Still others are interested in the general culture of organizations; Barry Posen, for example, delineates a number of attributes common to military organizations’ culture. Studies by Elizabeth Kier and Jeff rey Legro, in contrast, focus on the unique historically bounded cultures of particular military organizations.29 soci a l structu r e A second category of potential causes is social structure. At its most basic, social structure refers to the way a society divides itself and distributes resources to different groups; it captures the underlying distribution of power among groups with different characteristics. As such, societies can be divided along any number of axes: ethnicity (including race and reli-

Introduction

17

gion), familial or tribal ties, gender, and economic means or class are commonly cited social structures. Some cleavages may be more pronounced than others in different states and societies, and the nature and intensity of divisions may evolve over time.30 politica l a n d econom ic i nstitutions The focus in a third category of independent variables is on how states’ political structures and means of organizing their economies affect military effectiveness. Institutions encompass both formal rules (as expressed, for example, in constitutions and law) and informal rules (unwritten, but routinized and observable patterns of behavior). Institutions also operate on many levels of the state, and the relevant distinctions vary by analyst. For example, some scholars are interested in broad comparisons between regime types (such as autocratic versus democratic institutions); others might contrast political systems according to more specific ways that states organize their elections or their legislative and executive activity. Still others focus on some subset of the country’s institutional structure, such as relations between bureaucratic units or agencies of the state; this, for example, includes relations within and among these units (e.g., foreign and defense ministries or departments, intelligence agencies, military services) or relations between those entities and political leaders. Similarly, economic institutions can be divided into broad categories such as communist or capitalist systems, or more narrowly in the degree to which economic activity in states that are generally capitalist is generated by private means or by the state (public means). Alternatively, economic institutions can refer to differences within the government in budgetary processes and in how economic planning is undertaken. i n t e r nationa l factors, i nclu di ng globa l nor ms, com petition, a n d i nte r nationa l orga n i zations A fourth category of causal variables captures the effects of stimuli that originate from beyond a state’s borders on its military effectiveness; it refers to pressures and forces from the international arena. Especially intriguing are how international forces affect states’ incentives to modify their military practices and whether those modifications improve or degrade effectiveness. These include the pressures from interstate competition. For example, when states face challenges from others in the international arena, it seems probable they will have significant incentives to modify, and potentially improve, their military effectiveness to meet those threats. However, whether and how those modifications occur and actually yield improvement is a question that merits further investigation.

18 Risa A. Brooks International factors also include ideational factors in the form of global norms or global culture. By global norms we mean beliefs that defi ne appropriate and effective forms and behavior, often embedded in international processes and structures such as transnational military networks, international law, or epistemic communities. Critical here are how efforts to conform to global norms affect states’ military effectiveness, and the potential benefits and costs of complying with these normative pressures. International factors also include the constraints on domestic action posed by formal multinational organizations, broadly defi ned to include institutionalized military alliances, the United Nations, and regional organizations. The issue here is whether the pressures of coordinating action and the demands of participation in an international organization affect states’ military activities and effectiveness. In summary, a variety of potential phenomena originating both within a state’s borders and in its global environment may affect its organization and preparation for war.31 The authors of this book examine several of these in the chapters that follow, as I outline towards the end of this chapter. First, however, I discuss the intermediate step in the causal chain just presented: the military activities that mediate the effects of causal variables on military effectiveness.

Military Activities as Translation Mechanisms Although we expect the independent variables just outlined to have different effects on military effectiveness, we expect those effects to be registered in a similar way, through different aspects of a state’s military activities. Military activities are the means through which variation in states’ cultures, social structures, institutions, and international environments influence their military effectiveness. As such, when causal factors vary, we should observe variation in some military activities and, as a result, differences in a military’s overall level of integration, responsiveness, skill, or quality. These activities encompass a range of organizational processes involved in planning, training, and fighting in armed confl ict. They are diverse and range from processes central to strategic-level planning to the nuts and bolts of the tactical engagement of forces. Unlike most of the existing literature about military effectiveness, we do not focus exclusively on the tactical level of military activity. Instead we encourage analysis of all three levels of military activity: strategic, operational, and tactical.32 We do so to highlight the importance of all these levels of activity in assessing military effectiveness. By focusing on tactical activity alone, for example, one may overestimate the overall effectiveness of a military by neglecting

Introduction

19

larger problems of integration across the strategic and tactical levels: as the German military illustrated in both world wars, a state can adopt an illfated strategic plan poorly linked with key aspects of military activity despite very high tactical proficiency in some areas. Alternatively, problems in integration at the tactical level could overshadow strengths in a state’s strategic level of military activity. By including activity at all three levels, we also aim to highlight possible trade-offs between pursuing the most efficient approach to accomplishing a specific aim in one area and maintaining overall military effectiveness. For example, as Nora Bensahel highlights in Chapter 8, there are often trade-offs between pursuing efficient tactics in a multinational operation and maintaining the integration of political goals, strategy, and tactics. In addition, as Deborah Avant discusses in Chapter 4, states may be strong in some properties of military effectiveness but weaker in others. Next we describe some of the military activities discussed by the authors of this book and in the broader literature relevant to military analysis. The following list is not exhaustive but intended to illustrate some of the ways that military activities mediate the effects of causal variables and may affect the attributes of military effectiveness. str ategic assessm e nt a n d coor di nation processes Strategic assessment is the process whereby top military and political leaders consult with one another, analyze policy options, and otherwise participate in decision making about military strategy prior to or during an interstate confl ict. Strategic assessment may improve responsiveness by providing accurate assessments of the capabilities of a state’s allies and those of its enemies, and of the costs and risks of different military operations; this helps the military tailor its strategy, doctrine, and force structure to make the most of its own strengths and capitalize on its enemy’s weaknesses. It also helps the military minimize the effects of negative constraints such as terrain, weather, or international opinion. Good coordination at the political-military apex, with open communication between civilian and military policymakers, can enhance integration by improving coordination of national political goals and military strategy. It may also facilitate policymakers’ understanding of how constraints on the battlefield may have political ramifications, so that tactics do not compromise the attainment of broader political goals. w e a pons a n d equ i pm e nt procu r e m e nt process Procurement is the process whereby states buy weapons and equipment for themselves. A procurement process characterized by impartial technical

20 Risa A. Brooks standards, rather than politicized or corrupt processes, may enhance responsiveness by ensuring that the force structure and new weapons development respond to the current threat environment. It may improve integration by aligning resource allocation and weapons capabilities to doctrine and tactics. It may increase quality by ensuring that the state acquires weapons of high quality. str at egic com m a n d a n d con t rol Strategic command and control is the process by which the political leadership and upper echelons of the military hierarchy communicate, coordinate, and transmit decisions down the chain of command. Strategic command and control procedures can improve responsiveness by ensuring that developments on the battlefield are communicated in a timely fashion up the chain of command to the political leader and that decisions are transmitted quickly and clearly via the military hierarchy to tactical commanders to allow speedy and flexible reactions to events in the field. Good strategic command and control can improve integration by ensuring that a state responds quickly to developments in the field and that those responses remain consistent with strategic goals and operational plans. i n t e llige nce a n d i n t e r na l mon i tor i ng Intelligence is the process whereby militaries collect, analyze, and disseminate information about the capabilities of other states; internal monitoring refers to how they assess their own capabilities. Internal monitoring may take the form of an auditing function in which activity within the organization is surveyed, for example by means of reporting requirements and internal reviews. Internal monitoring might also encourage other actors to identify and report when they observe shortcomings. For example, in pursuit of its own interests, one service branch may gather and report information to decision makers about flaws in the activities of other branches. Internal monitoring can affect responsiveness, by helping a military recognize and compensate for limitations in its own capabilities and capitalize on its strengths in how it organizes itself for war. Intelligence can increase responsiveness by allowing a military to gather information about its adversaries’ strengths and weaknesses and to tailor its own military activity accordingly. On the battlefield, tactical intelligence can enhance responsiveness by helping a military exploit enemy weaknesses and achieve strategic and tactical surprise. Internal monitoring affects integration by allowing a military to identify gaps, duplications, and contradictions in its activity. Intelligence can enhance inte-

Introduction

21

gration by increasing information flow and thus assisting leaders at all levels in updating as they make decisions. of f ice r se lection, rotation, a n d promotion proce du r es Officer selection, rotation, and promotion processes include the methods by which a military identifies individuals to advance in the hierarchy and to be appointed to key positions. These processes can influence effectiveness by affecting the criteria by which individuals are selected for positions of responsibility in the chain of command. They can enhance responsiveness by promoting officers with a strong understanding of the threat environment and of exogenous constraints, who would thus be better able to adopt and implement tactics to exploit specific weaknesses in the enemy’s tactics and operational doctrine. Such officers would also be able to develop internal evaluative processes so as to tailor tactics and operations to their organization’s own strengths and weaknesses; similarly, they should be better able to capitalize on allied armies’ strengths and compensate for their weaknesses. Promotions affect integration by allowing skilled and experienced officers to rise to the top of the military hierarchy. Officers will work better together to ensure consistency across different commands when promotions are merit based, which avoids politicization that could cause compartmentalization and unproductive competition. This helps facilitate integration across and within levels of military activity. Officer selection, rotation, and promotion procedures, through their effect on leadership, can affect skill: good commanders can do a better job at training and motivating soldiers, making them more capable and willing to execute sophisticated and risky tactical operations. tactica l com m a n d a n d con t rol Tactical command and control is the process whereby units actually engaged with opposing forces communicate with one another and coordinate their activities. Tactical command and control can improve responsiveness in battle by helping tactical commanders react quickly as the battle unfolds and capitalize on tactical-level opportunities. It can enhance integration by affecting the coordination of deployments and troop movements on the battlefield. More broadly, tactical command and control can affect the degree to which individual units and commands work well together and synchronize their operations. It can affect the degree to which combat support and logistics are coordinated with combat operations. Tactical command and control can improve skill by providing soldiers with the cues necessary to perform complicated synchronized fi re, maneuver, or other activities.

22 Risa A. Brooks tr a i n i ng a n d m i lita ry e ducation Training and education are the processes through which a military imparts skills and knowledge to its forces, and socializes them to organizational norms and conventions; these processes involve hands-on practice as well abstract and intellectual lessons. Training and military education systems can improve responsiveness when they are tailored to the nature of the states’ resources in human capital and weapons and equipment. When those regimens help a state to maximize its strengths and minimize its weaknesses in its personnel and matériel, responsiveness is enhanced. Effective training and military education can also enhance integration by ensuring that soldiers and officers understand how military strategy, doctrine, and tactics interact, so that all three are consistent with each other and with broader policy goals. Effective training and military education systems can also improve skill by, for example, affecting soldiers’ capacity to assimilate technology, use weapons effectively, and execute sophisticated doctrine and battle drills. The activities just described provide a way for tracing the effects of causal variables on military effectiveness. In each of the seven chapters that follows, the authors track the effects of one causal variable on particular military activities, showing how it potentially enhances or degrades the integration, responsiveness, skill, or quality of the military under consideration. In the fi nal chapter, Stephen Biddle pushes the analysis one step further to examine the connection between military effectiveness and war outcomes.

Notes 1. See Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 2, 21–23. 2. Qualitative studies often employ similar concepts in describing the relative power of states. See, for example, John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 2001), 55–82. Although he emphasizes wealth as the determinant of military power, Mearsheimer also acknowledges that variations in states’ “efficiency,” and in the decisions they make about what forces to procure, will affect their military might. 3. See Biddle, Military Power, p. 21. 4. Of course military power is only one dimension of state power: economic leverage is also important in shaping interstate interactions as are intangible manifestations of power such as persuasion and the capacity for moral leadership, which are sometimes referred to as “soft” power. See, for example, Joseph Nye, The Para-

Introduction

23

dox of American Power (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). In addition, although we employ a conventional, behavioral view of power, in this volume there are alternative ways of conceptualizing the concept. See, for example, Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall, “Power in International Politics,” International Organization 59 (Winter 2005): 39– 75. 5. On overestimates of Iraq’s capabilities, see Biddle, Military Power, p. 1 and 240, note 1. On problems in civil-military relations in Iraq, see Stephen Biddle and Robert Zirkle, “Technology, Civil-Military Relations, and Warfare in the Developing World,” Journal of Strategic Studies 19, no. 2 (1996): 171–212; Kenneth M. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002); Mark Heller, “Iraq’s Army: Military Weakness, Political Utility,” in Amatzia Baram and Barry Rubin, eds., Iraq’s Road to War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996). On social structure and military effectiveness in Iraq, see Chapter 3 in this volume. On problems faced by autocracies and military effectiveness generally, and in the Middle East specifically, see Dan Reiter and Allan C. Stam, Democracies at War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); Pollack, Arabs at War; James T. Quinlivin, “Coup-Proofi ng: Its Practice and Consequences in the Middle East,” International Security 24, no. 2 (Fall 1999: 131– 165); Gordon Tullock, Autocracy (Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1987); Risa Brooks, Political-Military Relations and the Stability of Arab Regimes, Adelphi Paper 324 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); David C. Rapoport, “The Praetorian Army: Insecurity, Venality and Impotence,” in Roman Kolkowicz and Andrzej Korbonski, eds., Soldiers, Peasants, and Bureaucrats (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982). 6. For a good overview of the sociological literature, see Tania M. Chacho, “Why Did They Fight? American Airborne Units in the Second World War,” presented at annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, August 30–September 2, 2001. See also S. L. A. Marshall, Men against Fire (New York: William Morrow, 1964); William Darryl Henderson, Cohesion: The Human Element in Combat (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1985); and Roger W. Little, “Buddy Relations and Combat Performance,” in Morris Janowitz, ed., The New Military: Changing Patterns of Organization (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1964), 195–223. 7. Among the early studies are Edward A. Shils and Morris Janowitz, “Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II,” Public Opinion Quarterly 12 (Summer 1948): 280–315; and Samuel A. Stouffer et al., The American Soldier: Combat and Its Aftermath (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949). 8. See Shils and Janowitz, “Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II.” 9. Omer Bartov, Hitler’s Army (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). 10. Jasen Castillo, “The Will to Fight: Explaining a Nation’s Determination in War,” paper prepared for annual conference of the International Studies Association, February 21, 2001. 11. On integrating African Americans, see, for example, Charles C. Moskos, All That We Can Be: Black Leadership and Racial Integration the Army Way (New York: Basic Books, 1996); Brenda Moore, To Serve My Country, to Serve My Race: The Story of the Only African American WACS Stationed Overseas during World

24 Risa A. Brooks War II (New York: New York University Press, 1996). On homosexuals in the U.S. military, see Aaron Belkin and Geoff rey Bateman, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Debating the Gay Ban in the Military (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2003); Gregory Herek, Jared B. Jobe, and Ralph M. Carney, eds., Out in Force: Sexual Orientation and the Military (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Elizabeth Kier, “Homosexuals in the U.S. Military: Open Integration and Combat Effectiveness” International Security 23 (1998) Fall, 5–39; Craig A. Rimmerman, ed., Gay Rights, Military Wrongs (New York: Garland, 1996); Wilbur J. Scott and Sandra Carson Stanley, eds., Gays and Lesbians in the Military (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1994). 12. Seth Bonder, “Army Operations Research: Historical Perspectives and Lessons Learned,” Operations Research 50, no. 1 ( January–February 2002): 25–34. 13. Today, military-related operations research is extremely influential and pervasive in defense policy circles. Analysts in this field have a major professional society (see www.mors.org), numerous journals, and a growing of body of texts and degree programs. 14. One exception is the HERO data set created by the U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency and frequently used for analysis of war outcomes, which includes variables for intangible factors such as morale and leadership. However, these variables were coded ex post facto by military experts who had the benefit of knowing which side won, and the coding is subjective. In theory, data for these intangibles could be gathered with a more rigorous methodology, but to date much of operations research has sidestepped these issues, preferring not to address them. Also see T. N. Dupuy, Numbers, Predictions and War (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1979). 15. For examples of how behavioral factors affect the utilization of weapons and technology, see Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004). On assimilation of weapons, also see Christopher S. Parker, “New Weapons for Old Problems,” International Security 23, no. 4 (Spring 1999): 119–47; Stephen Biddle and Robert Zirkle, “Technology, Civil-Military Relations, and Warfare in the Developing World,” Journal of Strategic Studies 19, no. 2 (1996): 171–212. 16. Stephen Peter Rosen, Societies and Military Power: India and Its Armies (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996). 17. Reiter and Stam, Democracies at War. 18. Biddle and Zirkle, “Technology, Civil-Military Relations, and Warfare in the Developing World.” 19. Reiter and Stam, for example, compare states’ military effectiveness in terms of their “competence at winning individual battles.” Dan Reiter and Allan C. Stam III, “Democracy and Battlefield Military Effectiveness,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 42, no. 3 ( June 1998): 259– 77, at p. 260. Also see Reiter and Stam, Democracies at War. Similarly measuring effectiveness in terms of achieving battlefield outcomes are Stephen Biddle and Stephen Long, “Democratic Effectiveness? Reassessing the Claim That Democracies Are More Effective in Battle,” paper prepared for annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, August 29–September 1, 2002. 20. Kenneth Pollack, for example, takes “the ability of soldiers and officers to

Introduction

25

perform on the battlefield, to accomplish military missions, and to execute the strategies devised by their political-military leaders” as indications of military effectiveness. Pollack, Arabs at War, 4, 13. Christopher Parker focuses on a military’s ability to assimilate new weapons and technologies (rather than the technical capacity of the systems and equipment in its arsenal) as key to its military effectiveness. Parker, “New Weapons for Old Problems,” note 8. 21. There is, in addition to a small literature on military effectiveness that examines the impact of social and other factors on militaries, a much larger literature in which the causal arrow is reversed that explores how militaries affect society, culture, and the like. For example, see Otto Hintze, “Military Organization and the Organization of the State,” in F. Gilbert, ed., The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975); Ronald R. Krebs, Fighting for Rights: Military Service and the Politics of Citizenship in the United States and Israel (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006); Morris Janowitz, “Military Institutions and Citizenship in Western Societies,” Armed Forces and Society 2, no. 2 (February 1976): 185–204; Max Weber, Economy and Society, Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, eds. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978 [1968]), 980–87, 1236–44, 1260– 62; Samuel E. Finer, “State- and Nation-Building in Europe: The Role of the Military,” in Charles Tilly, ed., The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 84–163; Brian Downing, The Military Revolution and Political Change (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); and Stanislav Andreski, Military Organization and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968 [1954]). 22. Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, eds., Military Effectiveness, vols. 1–3 (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1988). Another exception is Eliot Cohen and John Gooch, Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War (New York, Free Press, 1990), which examines eight cases of battlefield failure, from the tactical to the strategic level. 23. Allan R. Millett, Williamson Murray, and Kenneth H. Watman, “The Effectiveness of Military Organizations,” in Millett and Murray, eds., Military Effectiveness, vol. 1: The First World War, 1–30. 24. For example, multiple uses of the term military effectiveness were evident during the 2003 Iraq War. In one briefi ng during the war, for example, Brigadier General Vince Brooks referred to the effectiveness of coalition forces in terms of the missions they accomplished: “Our coalition special forces remain very effective in targeting regime concentrations. . . . [They] destroyed numerous vehicles and five regime buildings.” Brooks, briefi ng transcript, April 1, 2003. Three days later he reported, “Coalition operations over the last 24 hours remain focused and effective. Coalition attacked command and control targets, surface to surface missiles, air defenses and any identified military aircraft.” Brooks, briefi ng transcript, April 4, 2003. In contrast, other officials stressed the nature of military organizations. For example, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld referred to the Iraqi Republican Guard as “the most effective fighting forces that Saddam Hussein has,” implying that these units exhibited some property that rendered them more proficient than their regular army counterparts. Rumsfeld, reported in the Pittsburgh Gazette, March 31, 2003.

26 Risa A. Brooks 25. For a similar, broad defi nition see Millett, Murray, and Watman, “The Effectiveness of Military Organizations.” 26. This is what Stephen Biddle refers to as the modern combat system. See Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004). 27. Biddle and Zirkle, “Technology, Civil-Military Relations, and Warfare in the Developing World.” 28. Peter Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), p. 6. Note that this defi nition accords with fairly traditional usages of the concept of culture in political science. Ann Swidler’s concept of culture might also be usefully employed, as it is in Elizabeth Kier’s Imagining War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997). As Swidler characterizes it, culture, is a “‘tool kit’ of habits, skills and styles from which people construct ‘strategies of action.’ Culture shapes behavior by defi ning possible alternative course of action and helping them to solve problems, not by defi ning people’s goals or the values they place on different ends.” Ann Swidler, “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies,” American Sociological Review 51 (April 1986): 273–86. Quotation appears on p. 273. 29. Alastair Ian Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); Kenneth M. Pollack, The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness, Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996; Kenneth M. Pollack, Arabs at War, Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991 (Lincoln: Nebraska University Press, 2002); Barry Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984); Kier, Imagining War; Jeff rey W. Legro, Cooperation under Fire: Anglo-German Restraint during World War II (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995). 30. Some scholars treat social structure as a subset of culture (see, for example, Rosen, Societies and Military Power). We acknowledge that culture ultimately shapes the power structure in a society and how societies decide (based often on ascriptive characteristics) how resources are allocated. However, as a starting point for analysis we begin with these hierarchies and cleavages in an effort to investigate how the existing structures in a society shape military activity. 31. One potential independent variable that we have not included is technology. We believe that technology is a basic material resource of the state and therefore, although it is a component of a state’s military power, technology is not itself a component of a state’s military effectiveness (in contrast to how a military chooses to procure and employ technology, which is a component of military effectiveness as we defi ne it). For this reason, this volume does not examine technology per se as an independent variable. Rather, several of the chapters explore the reasons why a state chooses to procure particular technology or to use it on the battlefield in a particular manner. In other words, technology affects the resources a state has; effectiveness affects how a state uses that resource. Together the resource and the manner in which it is employed determine a state’s military power. 32. Much previous research has focused on the tactical level. See, for example, Pollack, Arabs at War; Reiter and Stam, Democracies at War; the sociological and military operations research discussed earlier.

chapter

Nationalism and Military Effectiveness: Post-Meiji Japan

2

dan reiter

how does political culture influence military effectiveness? Past research has addressed different aspects of this question, such as the relationships between liberalism and effectiveness and between specific political cultures and effectiveness.1 This chapter examines how military effectiveness is affected by one kind of political culture: nationalism. The central thesis of this chapter is that nationalism can affect military effectiveness. The principal means is that nationalism can make soldiers more willing to die and kill for the state. Getting individuals to risk or deliberately lay down their lives must be at the core of any understanding of military effectiveness. Carl von Clausewitz emphasized the importance of the willingness of soldiers to kill and die, decrying as “useless” any theory that ignores “primordial violence [and] hatred.” 2 Within the theoretical framework of this volume, nationalism affects two activities in particular, military training and tactics. Military training in states gripped by nationalism will, I argue, be more successful at producing soldiers willing to die and kill in combat. Militaries of nationalist states may also have more tactical options, as they may be able to devise suicide tactics that take advantage of their soldiers’ willingness to sacrifice themselves. Thus nationalism can affect skill, an attribute of military effectiveness as defi ned in Chapter 1, by affecting motivation; it can affect responsiveness, another attribute of military effectiveness, by permitting the development of tactics that can exploit adversaries’ weaknesses. A secondary thesis of this chapter is that nationalism can sometimes also undermine responsiveness. Demonizing the enemy can cause soldiers not to respect the lives and safety of enemy soldiers attempting to surrender, which can in turn decrease

28 Dan Reiter the willingness of enemy soldiers to surrender. The result is a decrease in military effectiveness. This chapter makes several contributions to our understanding of the relationship between nationalism and military effectiveness. First, it develops a model of how nationalism affects soldier motivations. Specifically, leaders build a nationalist political ideology on the foundations of national characteristics, and then they stimulate soldier motivations through organizational culture and social institutions such as schools and the media. A critical part of this process is the use of nationalist symbols. Second, the chapter links this model with previous scholarship on ethnic confl ict, drawing parallels between the ways that ethnic demagogues invoke nationalism to provoke civilians to attack ethnic minorities with the ways that states and militaries use nationalism to push soldiers to kill and die in battle. Third, this chapter contrasts its argument with two other accounts of soldier motivation: primary group dynamics (such as small-group cohesion) and organizational incentives (punishments for shirking in battle or attempting surrender to the enemy). Fourth, it observes that the relative influence of soldier motivation to kill and to die on military effectiveness varies across contexts; it may be more important in some cases than others for helping armies accomplish strategic goals and states to accomplish political goals. Fifth, it develops new propositions linking nationalism to responsiveness, specifically positing that nationalism may increase tactical options and decrease enemy surrender. The chapter seeks evidence for these arguments in the case of post-Meiji Japan, discussing in particular two areas in which nationalism affected military effectiveness during World War II: island warfare and suicide attacks.

Nationalism and the Causes of Conflict Ernest Gellner famously defi ned nationalism as “primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unity should be congruent.” 3 The focus here is on the cultural rather than the institutional side of nationalism: the nation as idea and symbol. Nationalism frequently emerges in the context of political change or modernization, during which two sets of overlapping top-down factors drive the development of nationalist culture.4 The fi rst is the construction and development of the nation itself. There may be collective tasks requiring mass mobilization, such as economic modernization and national defense. One mobilization strategy is cultural: the construction of ideas about the existence of the nation as collective or as a greater good to which the individual belongs and should contribute. As David Laitin put it, culture’s central roles are to order prior-

Nationalism and Military Effectiveness

29

ities and facilitate collective action.5 The second is the solidification of ruling elites’ hold on power. Especially in the context of institutional change, these elites may not be secure in their hold on power, and they may purvey nationalist ideas as a means of rallying the population behind them to confront a threat, sometimes one that they created or trumped up. In sum, political leaders may seek to forge a sense of nationalism to accomplish goals such as mobilizing the population and solidifying their power bases. They frequently do so by distorting or even fabricating past history to strengthen the sense of the nation. However, leaders’ abilities to generate nationalist myths from thin air is not unbounded. As Stuart Kaufman stated, There is a limit to the plasticity of ethnic identity. Although intellectuals can feel free to invent or reinvent, or obscure their groups’ past to a large extent, they must build on certain preexisting foundations, such as language, religion, culture, and territory. The trick for the “cultural entrepreneur” is to link a name and cluster of cultural elements to a history and mythology that both creates ethnic symbols and answers contemporary group needs. In short, while ethnic groups are not permanent and fixed, they are not infinitely malleable either. Weakly supported national identities such as Yugoslav and Soviet do not survive.6

Nationalist leaders, then, must construct nationalist political ideology by drawing on and reconstructing real elements of national characteristics and history. These two factors, social mobilization and strengthening the leadership’s power base, can result in the forging of nationalist culture. A critical aspect of nationalist culture is the identification of a collective identity and a stress on the importance of the collective over the individual. This pushes individuals to make sacrifices to serve social mobilization, and it may be used instrumentally by elites as a political ploy to bolster their claim to be the leaders of the nation. Nationalism also describes the nation in relation to other groups. Identification with the nation is advanced by praising the virtues of the nation, which may lead to chauvinist perceptions of other nations as inferior. Other nations might be portrayed as threatening to encourage individual participation in mass mobilization for the sake of collective defense, rally individuals to leaders, and give leaders an excuse to crack down on domestic opposition.7 Many have observed that these elements of nationalist culture make confl ict more likely. Stephen Van Evera laid out an array of hypotheses linking nationalism to the likelihood of war, pointing to perceptual factors and nationalist myths in particular. He argued that not all nationalist movements are equally prone to war, but that movements that are stateless, which seek incorporation of the diaspora, which deny other nationalities’

30 Dan Reiter rights to independence, or which abuse their own minorities, will be more war-prone.8 Nationalist movements increase the chances of confl ict in several ways. The very identification of one’s own nation virtually requires distinguishing one’s own from other groups and risks provoking their enmity. Such emotion-laden symbols as myths and flags may be used to inflame followers to take up arms against perceived enemies.9 Nationalists may purvey biased and inaccurate strategic assumptions, such as exaggerating the threat posed by other nations and the ease with which they can be resisted. Nationalists may form domestic political coalitions with special-interest groups, such as industrial sectors that have narrow material interests in empire. They may further inflate their calls to nationalism to confront emerging threats from counterelites.10 One specific hypothesis is that states undergoing regime change, especially toward democracy, are more likely to experience elite manipulations of nationalist sentiments, leading to violence. Such democratizing states, it is argued, are especially likely to experience internal confl ict, to commit genocide against their own citizens, and to participate in and initiate interstate wars.11 Indeed, Gordon Craig’s central thesis about Prussian and German militarism is that they were “not inherent in the German character” but rather were “products of a structure which vitiated the attempts to create a viable democracy.” 12

Nationalism and Military Effectiveness What are the connections between nationalism and military effectiveness? 13 Although some scholars have considered whether liberal political ideology affects military effectiveness,14 there has been relatively little scholarly consideration of the effects of nationalism on the motivation to fight. Barry Posen proposed that the need for military effectiveness may have facilitated nationalism in the nineteenth century when the Napoleonic Wars demonstrated the superiority of the French mass army, with great numbers of citizens mobilized and under arms; this was a marked departure from the use of professional armies in the eighteenth century. In France and Prussia in particular, nationalism was promoted to facilitate social acquiescence to and participation in mass armies. Posen posits that “nationalist ideas enhance the commitment of the troops to the purposes of the war, increase their willingness to sacrifice their lives, and improve solidarity with one another.” 15 Greater willingness to sacrifice one’s life means continuing to fight despite increasingly difficult battlefield conditions, rather than fleeing the front line or surrendering to the enemy.

Nationalism and Military Effectiveness

31

Historians have also argued that nationalism motivated soldiers to die and kill in the European theaters in World War II, the American Civil War, and other wars.16 Scholarship on the nationalist causes of confl ict sheds light on the connection between nationalism and willingness to sacrifice self. Ethnic demagogues such as Slobodan Milosˇevic´ inflated nationalism to rally support and instigate confl icts with other groups.17 Similarly, political and military leaders have employed nationalism to increase the willingness of individual soldiers to die for the nation. Nationalism is diffused throughout society by means of education policy and control of the media, and through the military itself by training and indoctrination. The North Vietnamese government deliberately set out to highlight nationalism among its troops, emphasizing the richness of Vietnamese culture, the long tradition of a distinct Vietnamese nation, and the history of Vietnamese resistance to invaders.18 After the 1941 German invasion, Stalin expanded his public rhetoric and Communist Party policies beyond an exclusive Marxist-Leninist emphasis to include more nationalist elements and symbols. The Orthodox Christian church was revived, and Stalin spoke of fighting for the sake of Mother Russia rather than the glory of the party.19 Not all militaries are nationalistic; West Germany’s Bundeswehr deliberately promoted a European identity in its soldiers, making them swear an oath to a united Europe as well as to German democracy.20 Risking one’s life in battle holds another important similarity to initiating ethnic confl ict: both behaviors seem to be irrational for the participants because on the surface the costs exceed the benefits.21 The self-sacrificial aspects of battlefield combat are evident. Similarly, ethnic confl ict yields few direct returns to individuals. Some observers have asked why masses follow the machinations of demagogues into behaving in ways in which they otherwise would not.22 Clifford Geertz defi ned culture as “a historically transmitted pattern of messages embedded in symbols.” 23 Stuart Kaufman focused on how symbols can motivate individuals to participate in ethnic war: opportunistic elites manipulate symbols such as flags or historical events to incite individuals to violence. Symbols can be tremendously potent because they appeal to emotion as well as reason; they can attract individuals to ethnic groups and also generate blame or fear of other groups, laying the groundwork for violence. Just as ethnic demagogues and political leaders use symbols to get individuals to attack members of other groups, militaries and nations similarly use symbols to get individuals to fight and die, principally by creating and embellishing the idea of the nation and by inflating

32 Dan Reiter the threat posed by others. Such symbols are most likely to be effective at motivating soldiers when there has been long use of the symbols, both during military training and also before entry into the military, in schools and society, whereas relatively new symbols may fail to motivate.24 There are limits to the ability of states and militaries to use symbols to make soldiers more willing to die, and by this means increase military effectiveness: there are costs and dangers to such actions. Symbols are most effective when they are employed widely throughout society, especially in the educational process. Militarizing society in such a fashion—that is, dispersing symbols celebrating unity, downplaying the individual, and demonizing the enemy—may be inconsistent with prevailing social norms of tolerance. There may be potential blowback effects: demonizing the enemy and inflating nationalism may create societal demands for aggression and warfare, even toward risky and ultimately doomed military ventures.25 A state may not want to create such a culture within the military, but instead may wish to encourage the development of a more liberal, individually oriented military, in part to discourage the commitment of war crimes. If the society itself is liberal, a state may want a more liberal military to keep it closely connected with society, rather than allowing the military to develop on a more professional, autonomous path. West Germany, for example, deliberately crafted a liberal Bundeswehr deeply rooted in society as a means of inoculating the state against the kind of militarism that led to World War II.26 Last, there may simply be barriers to the construction of widespread nationalism. For example, nationalism failed to infuse interwar Italy as deeply as it did in interwar Germany for several reasons, including low levels of Italian literacy, the dominant presence of the Catholic Church in Italy, and the lack of an Italian cult of personality comparable to Germany’s adulation of Adolf Hitler.27 One might speculate that collective-mindedness creates automaton soldiers, willing to die on the battlefield but unable or unwilling to adapt to changing battlefield conditions and to innovate when necessary. Hence a military might not want to create a “willingness to die” culture at the expense of a culture emphasizing innovation. Indeed, some have argued that the emphasis on discipline and self-sacrifice in the Japanese army during World War II came at the cost of doctrinal rigidity and low levels of initiative.28 However, the evidence that militaries must make this choice between discipline and ability to innovate is weak. Reiter and Stam found, for example, that armies of democracies had higher levels of battlefield initiative than nondemocracies, but they did not have significantly higher or lower levels of morale, which might correlate with willingness to die.29 There are also many examples of nationalist militaries whose soldiers were

Nationalism and Military Effectiveness

33

both willing to die in battle and able to innovate effectively, such as those of Nazi Germany, North Vietnam, and Israel.30 A second means by which nationalist culture might enhance military effectiveness is by making it easier for soldiers to kill. Humans have psychological and physiological aversions to killing; killing does not come naturally. One means by which leaders might lower these barriers to facilitate killing on the battlefield is by purveying demeaning, degrading, or subhuman images of the enemy, especially in racial terms. Thinking of the enemy as something other than human makes it easier to kill.31 Nationalist culture often includes such images, especially as the inflation of the image of one’s own nation almost inevitably comes by contrast with demeaning images of others. At the limits are images of the enemy as inhuman vermin that deserve to be exterminated. The relative contribution of soldiers’ willingness to die and to kill toward military skill and effectiveness varies across spatial, temporal, and technological contexts. A willingness to stand, fight, and die is at the very heart of the drill tactics developed in the sixteenth century and the offensive tactics used in the fi rst years of World War I.32 In other circumstances, other factors may be more important. Kenneth Pollack concluded, for example, that post-1945 Arab armies were substantially ineffective despite a general willingness to stand and fight, largely because of poor tactical leadership and limited technical skills.33 Further, overwhelming technological superiority may make a willingness to die essentially irrelevant to combat outcomes. During the 1991 Gulf War, the coalition technological superiority coupled with Iraqi tactical errors made the willingness of Iraqi soldiers to fight and die essentially irrelevant to the ultimate outcome.34 The core proposition, then, is that nationalism is a tool available to states and militaries to increase the willingness of soldiers to die and kill in battle. However, not all states make full use of this tool. States may employ nationalism in different ways, or they may use different kinds of nationalisms to motivate their soldiers. A nationalism espousing the importance of the homeland and the strength of national community might push soldiers to be more willing to die in battle, especially in defense of the homeland itself. By contrast, a more expansive nationalism that declares the uniqueness of one’s own people, the inferiority of other peoples, and the rights of one’s own nation to expand territorially and to subjugate other peoples may have broader implications for military effectiveness, influencing responsiveness as well as skill. Specifically, such extreme nationalism may permit the adoption of suicide tactics. Such tactics may enable a belligerent to exploit an adversary’s weaknesses, if such tactics can result in more

34 Dan Reiter effective destruction of prized enemy assets than would other tactics. The best example of this would be suicide attacks as a means of killing enemy combatants more efficiently. Perhaps where an opponent’s technological or material superiority makes conventional tactics relatively unsuccessful, suicide tactics may increase efficiency. If the enemy is more casualty sensitive than the state launching the suicide attacks, then suicide tactics might be one means of exploiting this weakness. Democracies are widely thought to be especially casualty sensitive.35 Conversely, extreme nationalism might also degrade responsiveness. A potential weakness of nearly all enemies is the possibility that their soldiers may surrender, especially under conditions of extreme duress or if their defeat seems imminent. However, the demonization of the enemy that sometimes emerges from extreme nationalism may cause soldiers not to accept surrender, or to treat enemy prisoners of war badly, subjecting them to torture or other ill treatment. If their opponents believe that if they surrender they will be treated poorly, then they will be less likely to surrender, and thus the weakness of the opponents of a very nationalistic military will be reduced.36 Returning to the question of soldier motivation, there are at least two principal alternative explanations to nationalism for soldierly willingness to die and kill in combat.37 A standard explanation in American military sociology of combat motivation, laid out extensively in a 1948 study of the German Wehrmacht by Edward Shils and Morris Janowitz, concerns primary group dynamics. They argue that soldiers are motivated to fight not by larger questions of political ideology, but rather by connection to the primary group of the soldier’s own unit. The strength of the primary group is determined by a number of factors, such as the presence of an ideological hard core of soldiers who inspire others, the existence of a community of common experience among the soldiers, high levels of spatial and interpersonal contact among the group members, faith among the soldiers that their families at home are safe and secure, maintenance of soldiers’ basic physiological needs, a belief in the honor of military service, and soldiers’ good relations with superiors.38 Variations of the basic theme that soldiers fight for each other more than for country have emerged in studies of American soldiers in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.39 A second explanation of soldier motivation, less formalized in the literature, concerns individual incentives.40 Motivation to die in battle is often (although not always, as described later) related more to the willingness to put one’s life in danger, rather than to taking an action that means certain death. Hence, from a straightforward rational-choice point of view, if an

Nationalism and Military Effectiveness

35

individual soldier has to choose between taking dangerous military action and shirking duty, the greater the likelihood and severity of punishment for shirking duty, the more likely the soldier will be willing to risk his or her life in battle. The willingness of militaries to punish cowardice, attempts to surrender to the enemy, or fl ight from battle vary widely. During World War II, for example, the Red Army executed 13,500 soldiers for shirking or suspicion of shirking during the Battle of Stalingrad alone; by contrast, the U.S. Army executed only one of its soldiers for similar reasons during the entire war.41 A simple hypothesis is that the higher the likelihood and severity of punishment for shirking, the more likely it is that soldiers will perform their duties in battle, even at great personal risk. Testing these three explanations—nationalism, primary group, and individual incentives—against each other confronts severe methodological difficulties. There is likely to be collinearity within cases because hypernationalist militaries are probably also those most likely to punish severely any soldier who shirks or seems likely to shirk. Further, assessing soldier motivations is extremely difficult because surveys are likely to contain severe biases. For example, in the Shils and Janowitz study, German POWs were asked about their motivations, and of course these POWs probably understood that they would be better off portraying themselves as apolitical “grunts” rather than as Nazi ideologues.42 Other scholars have attempted to discern soldiers’ motivations by reading letters home from the front, although there is probably substantial bias in drawing inferences from these sources because soldiers know their letters are read and censored by higher officers, and so they have a strong incentive to parrot the ideological line of patriotism. Methodological issues aside, these three hypotheses are not necessarily exclusive of each other. Virtually all soldiers are motivated by some mix of these three, and even advocates of the theories recognize the likelihood of multiple sources of motivation.43

Case Study: Japan This brief case study of post-Meiji Japan makes a few points about nationalism and its effects on military effectiveness. First, Japan in the 1930s and 1940s was consumed by a militarist hypernationalist culture, but despite the assertions of some,44 this culture did not reflect centuries-old national characteristics. It emerged at fi rst in the late nineteenth century, as part of a strategy to confront the Western threat, and metamorphosed into an extreme version of itself during the 1930s. This decades-old construct, which had only tenuous connections to Japanese history and traditions, fell away quickly after the war ended. Second, nationalism contributed to

36 Dan Reiter the military effectiveness of Japanese forces in World War II, particularly in island warfare and in the execution of suicide attacks.45 Nationalism had also increased motivation to fight in earlier confl icts, such as the 1904–5 Russo-Japanese War. The tamer version of nationalism in those years was associated with fewer commissions of war crimes: for example, prisoners of war were given humane treatment in line with international law. By World War II, however, Japanese nationalism had mutated into an extreme version, and prisoners of war did not receive humane treatment. This decreased responsiveness, by pushing Allied soldiers to fight harder and be less likely to surrender. Less than a century before Pearl Harbor, Japanese political culture was not consumed with hypernationalism, did not encourage fascist obsession with the emperor, and did not glorify self-sacrifice in battle. In the early nineteenth century, Japan was dominated by the warrior-aristocrat samurai, who were in turn ruled by the shogun, the hereditary governing authority of the Tokugawa family since 1603. The emperor lived in Kyoto, a city dominated by the shogun, and remained a minor figure, “a Tokugawa pensioner and virtually a prisoner in the palace.” 46 At this time, the system was more feudal than autocratic because shoguns and samurai had only limited control over politics, economy, and society.47 The samurai struggled to develop their identity during the Tokugawa period. Bushido, or the Way of the Warrior, emerged in the seventeenth century, although it did not embody a single unified set of principles and did not glorify self-sacrifice in battle. Musashi’s influential Book of Five Rings of this period emphasized strategy and victory, and it explicitly denounced any cult of death. Suko’s writings emphasized the study of letters and a strong sense of virtue and moral action, most importantly serving one’s lord. A spate of ritual suicides called junshi took place in the middle of the seventeenth century, but in these, samurai did not sacrifice their lives in battle; rather they killed themselves after the deaths of their masters. A backlash against junshi developed in the 1660s in reaction to the loss of talented individuals and as a means of trying to install more rationalist loyalty. The shogunate officially banned junshi in 1664.48 A stronger sense of the Japanese nation with the emperor at its center was deliberately developed in the nineteenth century as a reply to the new threat from the West. Scholars of the Mito school argued, even before Admiral Perry’s famous 1853 visit, that European powers presented a mortal threat, and they proposed confronting that threat through autocratic unification, elevating the status of the emperor. The lord of Mito wrote in 1842, “If the Shogun takes the lead in showing respect for the throne, the whole country will naturally be united, but it is vital that in this each

Nationalism and Military Effectiveness

37

should preserve his proper place. The samurai shows respect for the lord, the lord shows respect for the Shogun, and Shogun shows respect for the Emperor.” 49 This vision was realized in the 1860s when political radicals overthrew the Shogun and proclaimed a 15-year-old to be the new Emperor Meiji. A principal motivation of the political change was concern with the Western threat. Tellingly, the slogan of the new leaders was “Enrich the country, strengthen the army.” 50 After the Meiji restoration, Japan experienced a meteoric rise in industrial, military, and political power. This rise was embodied and aided by a rise in nationalist sentiment centering on the emperor. The 1889 constitution recognized the emperor as “sacred and inviolable” and declared his absolute sovereignty.51 An important part of modernization meant making education universal; the Ministry of Education established its control of the national education system in the 1880s, reviewing all textbooks and ensuring the inculcation of a morality centered on Confucianism and the emperor.52 The importance of loyalty to country and emperor was emphasized in the Imperial Rescript of 1890, which addressed Japanese youth and commanded loyalty to the emperor. Students were required to memorize and recite the Rescript text, show homage to a photograph of the emperor, and sing the national anthem. As part of the daily routine, schoolmasters would ask young boys each morning, “What is your dearest ambition?” to which the reply came in unison, “To die for the emperor!” To facilitate the indoctrination of children, elementary school teachers were trained in drill, housed in barracks-like dorms, and subjected to military-style discipline. The military itself, shaped around the Prussian model in admiration for Prussian successes against the French in 1870, also emphasized obeisance to the emperor. The 1882 Rescript addressed to soldiers and sailors commanded their loyalty to the emperor and directed them to stay out of politics.53 Japanese military adventurism began in the 1890s, with imperial forays against China in Korea. Even at this early stage, Japanese nationalism was encouraging soldiers to sacrifice themselves in battle. For example, during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5, Japanese soldiers engaged in frontal attacks, by some descriptions “suicide” or “kamikaze-like,” against fortified Russian positions.54 During the wars of this period (up through the limited Japanese involvement in World War I), Japanese soldiers were generally respectful of the laws of war, treating enemy prisoners well and tending to their wounds and basic physical needs. This was despite the fact that Chinese troops in the 1894–95 War and Russian troops in the 1904–5 war committed atrocities against some Japanese troops. The Japanese restraint was driven

38 Dan Reiter in part by the interpretation of bushido during this period, which forbade indiscriminate behavior and demanded humane and civil behavior, even toward one’s enemies. These ideas could be traced back to a 1412 set of samurai regulations and were reflected in the 1882 Rescript.55 Nationalism continued to flourish in Japan after the Russo-Japanese War, often through deliberate effort. The surprising victory over Russia buoyed Japanese confidence that the unique nature of Japan’s nationalism, drawn from essential elements in the Japanese character, accounted for its successes on the battlefield. Starting in 1910, a number of military officers established organizations such as the Military Reserve Association as a means of spreading nationalism throughout the countryside and bolstering support for the military. The army itself in the 1920s became increasingly nationalist and drew from World War I the lesson that future wars would be total. Inspired in part by certain interpretations of the Russo-Japanese War, some believed that Japan could not compete materially with future competitors, but that Japanese spiritual superiority could triumph over the material advantages of potential enemies. This outlook demanded a military fi lled with individuals indoctrinated with the ethos of self-sacrifice on the battlefield.56 By the 1930s, Japanese politics and society had taken an even sharper turn toward militant hypernationalism. This was an acceleration or enhancement of pre-1930 nationalist trends, rather than a sharp turn in a new direction.57 The Great Depression energized the extreme right; many called for dismissing the parliamentary regime in favor of a polity centered around the emperor. Politicians were assassinated; coups were plotted. In 1931, Japan’s Kwantung Army manufactured the Manchurian incident in China as a pretext for war, which inflamed nationalism in Japan. Party politics declined in the 1930s, and nationalists throughout the bureaucracy increased their efforts to build up Japanese war-making capacity.58 A wave of militant nationalism swept across Japan. As in Germany, the Great Depression spread dissatisfaction with the old economic and political system. An array of publications called for support of the army in its imperial ventures. Japan embraced Nihon shugi ( Japanism) and kodo (the Imperial Way)—nationalist ideas that called for rejecting Western values and recognizing the traditional Japanese polity (kokutai)—and the notion of a divine line of emperors stretching back to antiquity, with the image of a father-like emperor embodying his nation. There was a racial component to these trends: the Japanese saw themselves as the superior Yamato race destined to rule the lesser Asian races.59 These themes in schools and popular culture were more extreme than the teachings during the SinoJapanese or Russo-Japanese wars, as now there was greater emphasis on

Nationalism and Military Effectiveness

39

thousands of years of imperial rule and lineage and on the connections between the emperor and the people.60 One older symbol that reemerged was that of a ripe cherry blossom falling from the tree, said to symbolize a soldier sacrificing his life while in the flower of his youth, his soul purified by glorious death.61 Casualties of this period were the samurai code of honorific individualism and civility or even humane treatment toward the enemy and enemy prisoners. The 1930s interpretation of bushido foreclosed the surrender of Japanese troops under any circumstances and declared that any enemy who surrendered was beneath contempt.62 Nationalism spread throughout all of Japanese society. This period saw a crackdown on antinationalist opinion; books were banned and critics imprisoned or executed. Nationalist war fi lms replaced other fare, and patriotic war songs crowded out jazz on the radio. The emphasis on kokutai, the emperor, and Japanese nationalism was felt in schools; the Ministry of Education developed textbooks to cultivate nationalist values in schoolchildren. School curricula included military training, as martial arts such as judo and kendo replaced Western sports like baseball in physical education. Military officers were assigned to middle and high schools to supervise the military training of all male students.63 Japan was involved in war throughout the period from 1931 to 1945. Many have seen in Japanese nationalism some of the causes of World War II in the Pacific.64 Japanese nationalist culture also influenced military effectiveness in World War II by increasing the motivation of Japanese troops to die in battle.65 This does not always translate into higher military effectiveness, but in the Pacific War there were at least two contexts in which this willingness to fight and die did mean higher effectiveness. The fi rst was island warfare. At the outset of the war, Japan seized an array of islands in the western Pacific to serve as a defensive screen for the Japanese homeland. The American war strategy involved seizing these islands one by one to be able to threaten the home islands with aerial bombardment and amphibious invasion. If Japanese defenders of the islands were willing to fight to the death, this would advance Japanese war aims. They might prevent American soldiers from being able to conquer the islands, or at least make the American advance westward long and bloody, which would increase the chances that the American public would tire of war and push for a negotiated peace. Fatiguing the American public was a critical element of Japan’s war strategy and its only realistic chance for victory.66 In the midst of the 1944 Saipan campaign, the Imperial General Headquarters Army war diary noted, “The Saipan defense force should carry out a fight to the death [ gyokusai ; literally, “a jewel smashed”]. It is not possible to conduct the hoped-for direction of the battle. The only

40 Dan Reiter thing left is to wait for the enemy to abandon their will to fight because of the Gyokusai of the One Hundred Million.” 67 Militant hypernationalism pushed Japanese defenders to fight to the death in island warfare. Japanese soldiers were indoctrinated to believe in the necessity of killing the enemy, the glory of dying for the emperor, and the ignominy of surrender. The special emphasis on the glorification of death contained several synergistic elements, including very strong norms against political discussion or criticism, the image of the emperor and the military as a single organism with the military as the arms and legs and the emperor as the head, equating loyalty to the emperor with familial loyalty, and promising great honor upon death. Soldiers were told they would become gods, divine national heroes who would protect the fatherland and be worshipped at the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo.68 Japanese soldiers were told, “Every morning be sure to take time to think of yourself as dead.” Each night during training, recruits would repeat this old saying: “Duty is heavier than a mountain, while death is lighter than a feather.” 69 The glorious example of the samurai was frequently evoked, often employing the symbolic importance of the samurai sword. Recruits were told, “The samurai regarded his sword as his soul, and so must the soldier regard his rifle.” 70 A 1941 propaganda booklet argued that Japan fought the war out of imperial and racial necessity, and soldiers and sailors should be willing to sacrifice their lives for it. It quoted the classic Manyoshu poetic verse: “Across the sea, corpses soaking in the water/Across the mountains, corpses heaped upon the grass./We shall die by the side of our lord,/We shall never look back.” 71 The 1941 Field Service Code explicitly declared, “Do not be taken prisoner alive.” 72 During the war, the Japanese drew from a sixthcentury Chinese text to present the idea of gyokusai in reverence for those killed defending the island of Attu. Gyokusai, “a jewel smashed,” refers to the idea that a person of virtue would sooner shatter a precious gem than compromise. This conveyed the idea of a spirit purified through death in battle, and it was readily accepted by members of the armed forces.73 There was great emphasis on spirit in Japanese culture, specifically the idea that spirit—including the willingness to die on the battlefield—would triumph over material elements, giving hope that a spiritually superior Japanese force could defeat a materially superior but morally bankrupt American force.74 When a Japanese soldier was killed in battle, family members were expected to rejoice rather than grieve; they were offered congratulations rather than condolences.75 These cultural elements successfully produced soldiers who chose death rather than surrender. Japanese losses in the island campaigns were staggering. Of a force of 3,000 Japanese, 80 percent died in August 1942 at

Nationalism and Military Effectiveness

41

Milne Bay near Port Moresby while launching frontal attacks against a dug-in force 10 times as large. Of 37,000 Japanese forces defending Guadalcanal, 70 percent died. Of the 2,600 Japanese troops defending Tarawa, 99 percent were killed. Ninety-seven percent of the 30,000 Japanese troops defending Saipan were killed, and in addition 1,000 civilians either killed themselves or were killed by Japanese troops. Nearly 99 percent of the 21,000 defenders of Iwo Jima and the 2,400 defenders of Attu died. Ninetyfour percent of the 117,000 Japanese and Okinawan personnel defending Okinawa were killed. Eighty percent of the 250,000 Japanese defenders of Luzon were killed, and the rest were still fighting at war’s end.76 In contrast, Allied forces were not always willing to fight to the last man, especially earlier in the war before word spread of Japanese mistreatment of prisoners of war.77 In 1942, a force of several dozen American defenders on Wake Island had infl icted hundreds of Japanese casualties, but they surrendered to Japanese attackers rather than fight to the last man. Around the same time, 98 percent of the Japanese force died, and the remainder were captured in an attempt to seize Wilkes Island of the Wake atoll. American forces surrendered in Corregidor in May 1942 rather than fight to the last, even though they had killed 3,000 Japanese while losing 800 American lives.78 Even more striking, a force of 85,000 British and Commonwealth troops surrendered to an attacking Japanese force less than half as big at Singapore in February 1942.79 Overall, the Japanese surrender rates were much lower than the surrender rates of other armies in World War II.80 Some might propose that the island campaigns were unique, that fights to the death are especially likely in these engagements because retreat would require naval or aerial evacuation, whereas in other land campaigns a defeated force could more easily fall back from the front line. However, Japanese ground forces showed similar willingness to die in nonisland campaigns, including offensives. A shrine was built in Tokyo to commemorate the soldiers who, in 1932, penetrated the defenses of Shanghai by blowing themselves up with something like an explosives-laden battering ram.81 The Japanese Army maintained a no-surrender policy during the 1939 Nomonhan War against the Soviet Union, pushing its soldiers to fight to the death rather than retreat in the face of Soviet attacks.82 When the Red Army attacked Japanese forces in Manchuria on August 9, 1945, Japanese soldiers showed great tenacity. The great successes of Soviet forces there were related principally to poor Japanese command decisions and superior Soviet strategy, not to the Japanese forces’ lack of spirit: Japanese border forces held their positions in the face of overwhelming Soviet superiority. Japanese suicide attackers (called smertniks by the Soviets) strapped explosives to their bodies and hurled themselves against Soviet tanks.83

42 Dan Reiter In the Burma campaign, too, Japanese forces fought to nearly the last man. In preparation to attack British forces at Imphal, Japanese troops were told their unit would be destroyed en route to victory. Japanese soldiers in the Arakan were told that they would die, but their corpses would turn to grass and feel the winds blowing in from Japan. Sometimes wounded Japanese soldiers requested that their officers kill them with swords to avoid capture. In Burma, 150,000 Japanese were killed and only 1,700 were taken prisoner, of whom 1,100 were wounded or exhausted.84 British field marshall Sir William Slim described the Japanese soldiers he fought in Southeast Asia: “The strength of the Japanese army lay, not in its higher leadership . . . nor in its special aptitude for jungle warfare, but in the spirit of the individual Japanese soldier. He fought and marched till he died. If five hundred Japanese were ordered to hold a position, we had to kill four hundred and ninety-five before it was ours—and then the last five killed themselves.” 85 An Australian who fought the Japanese in Southeast Asia agreed that the Japanese possessed “a courage that I believe to be unequalled in our time.” 86 One junior infantry officer who fought the Japanese at Guadalcanal and in Burma observed, “most of us who have fought in the Pacific are ready to admit here and now, away from all the convincing fi rsthand evidence we have seen—mass starvation, untold suffering, shell shock, cannibalism, mass suicide—that for sheer, bloody, hardened steel guts, the stocky and hard-muscled little Jap doughboy has it all over any of us.” 87 These extraordinary casualties indicate high levels of military effectiveness in terms of motivation. Japanese soldiers were simply more willing to kill and to die rather than surrender. Although the islands were captured by American forces, substantial numbers of American casualties were infl icted—6,900 killed on Iwo Jima alone—and the war was lengthened.88 In a narrow sense, this accomplished one goal of the Japanese leadership: American planners referred to casualty figures from Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa to predict that American casualties during an invasion of the Japanese home islands would number in the hundreds of thousands. However, the Americans did not react as the Japanese hoped, offering a settlement short of unconditional surrender, but instead they dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities, forcing Japan to surrender almost without conditions.89 The second area in which Japanese willingness to die increased military effectiveness was the strategy of launching planes, surface vessels, and human torpedoes on suicide missions (kamikaze, or “divine wind”) toward the end of the war, starting in 1944. The bushido code was warped into a call for suicide attacks, and the cherry blossom symbol was invoked in patriotic calls to nationalism. A kamikaze pilot symbolically purified himself

Nationalism and Military Effectiveness

43

before flying on a mission, wearing a Rising Sun headband, a white scarf, and a belt with a thousand stitches, each sewn by a different woman, linking these women with the pilot. Some pilots took a last drink of water as a means of ritual purification. Others flew their missions with branches of cherry blossoms attached to their helmets and uniforms.90 Most of the kamikaze pilots were students who had been drafted or navy practice pilots, not officers. This improved the efficiency of the operations because it meant that the least skilled pilots were being sacrificed. Officially, only “volunteers” served as kamikaze pilots, although to portray all kamikaze pilots as gladly choosing this fate to serve the nation is too simple. Some did volunteer for the mission for love of country and in admiration of the bravery of other “fallen cherry blossoms.” Even in 1943, before the official kamikaze program began, pilots in the 11th Fighter Regiment had asked to be allowed to conduct suicide attacks. Although their request was denied, one sergeant disobeyed orders and crashed into an enemy bomber, killing himself.91 All student draftees were given the impression that death was inevitable anyway; military training began with instruction of how to kill oneself to avoid capture, using a rifle, barrel under chin and toe to trigger. The glory of a kamikaze mission for some seemed preferable to other, less noble paths to death. Some who did not “volunteer” were forced to become kamikaze pilots anyway, and some were forced into the kamikaze corps because they had made high-ranking enemies within the officer corps.92 These attacks came at a time when conventional aerial tactics were becoming less effective. Attrition of Japanese air forces caused a steep decline in the quality and number of Japanese pilots by 1943, affording American forces escalating air superiority.93 Improvements in interception by American fighter aircraft and the development of the proximity fuse began to blunt Japanese attacks on American vessels. Kamikaze tactics addressed some of these asymmetries because they required less advanced flying skills; more obsolete planes such as biplanes could be used because of lower operational demands on aircraft, and even a plane hit by a proximity-fused shell could still strike its target.94 The kamikaze attacks, then, facilitated the destruction of enemy military assets even in the face of enemy superiority. Were such attacks successful? The attacks provided a psychological boost to Japanese troops,95 and they did sink or damage a number of Allied vessels and aircraft. Air attacks sank 164 Allied vessels or put them permanently out of action. Another 85 experienced substantial structural damage or human casualties or both, and minor damage was infl icted on a further 221. About 60 kamikazes collided with B-29 bombers in midair. Suicide boats sank eight small vessels, heavily damaged an additional eight, and caused

44 Dan Reiter minor damage to seven. Human torpedoes known as kaiten sank two vessels.96 These efforts did not change the outcome of the war, but they still infl icted tremendous damage; more casualties were caused by attacks on U.S. vessels off Okinawa than were infl icted on U.S. troops fighting on the ground there.97 One Japanese historian highlighted the potential efficiencies of kamikaze attacks, by comparing the results of a conventional air-sea battle fought off Formosa on October 15, 1944, in which the Japanese navy heavily damaged two American cruisers at a cost of 126 aircraft, with a kamikaze attack 10 days later that sank one aircraft carrier and damaged six others at the cost of 16 aircraft.98 Denis and Peggy Warner assert, “No other power [aside from the United States] could have sustained such losses and continued to fight an offensive naval war.” 99 Having begun in January 1945 to concentrate military production on manufacturing suicide weapons, Japan prepared for the American invasion of the home islands by designating nearly 13,000 aircraft for suicide missions, in addition to some 800 suicide boats. Aerial suicide missions against invasions of Kyushu and Honshu would have been more effective at reaching troop ships than they had been at Okinawa, where many kamikaze aircraft struck radar picket vessels; there would have been no picket vessels screening invading troop ships from attacks launched from the home islands. One scholar estimated that kamikaze attacks could have sunk or damaged a full third of the invasion armada destined for Kyushu.100 Nationalism thus increased skill by increasing motivation, and it increased responsiveness by making possible suicide tactics. However, nationalism also undermined the responsiveness of the Japanese military by discouraging good treatment of surrendering Allied forces. The Japanese had treated prisoners of war (POWs) well in both the 1894–95 Sino-Japanese War and the 1904–5 Russo-Japanese War. One effect of the hypernationalist turn in the 1920s and 1930s was a shift away from respecting POWs, both officially and in practice. The fi rst director of the Japanese Prisoner of War Information Bureau stated, “In the war with Russia, we gave them excellent treatment to gain recognition as a civilized country. Today such a need no longer applies.” 101 Japan’s nationalism led it to ignore international law, and its military training indoctrinated soldiers in the disgrace of surrender, teaching them to see a surrendering enemy soldier as lacking any honor. Allied POWs were treated very badly by the Japanese: many were executed, tortured, or subjected to medical experiments and other horrors including cannibalism. Twenty-seven percent of Allied POWs died in Japanese custody, compared to 4 percent of Allied POWs in German or Italian custody.102 Japanese atrocities contributed to a brutalization of war in the Pacific, making Allied soldiers less willing to surrender and more

Nationalism and Military Effectiveness

45

willing to kill Japanese. Thus Japan’s nationalism decreased its military effectiveness by forgoing an opportunity to exploit an enemy’s weakness, thereby decreasing responsiveness.103 At war’s end, Japan’s intense military hypernationalism dissipated quickly. There was great relief when the emperor publicly announced the decision to surrender; only a few hundred civilians and members of the military committed suicide (comparable to the number of Germany’s suicides at its surrender).104 The Japanese welcomed the new freedoms of individual expression, disproving concerns that democracy could not thrive in their cultural soil. As John Dower wrote, When ideologues rhapsodized about “one hundred million hearts beating as one,” Japan’s enemies commonly took this at face value. During the war, the Americans and others simply used this racial stereotype of a robotic, ferociously brainwashed people. What defeat showed, to the astonishment of many, was how quickly all the years of ultranationalistic indoctrination could be sloughed off. Love of country remained, but mindless fanaticism and numbing regimentation were happily abandoned. By deed as much as word, people everywhere demonstrated relief at the collapse of the authoritarian state and receptivity to, or at least tolerance of, an immense variety of pleasures and activities.105

In the postwar period, Japan’s army became an agent of socialization in antimilitarism, the opposite of what it had fostered before 1945.106 Japan in World War II thus demonstrates many of the ideas laid out here. Nationalist culture did affect Japanese military effectiveness because it enhanced defense of the homeland by making island warfare more difficult and bloody for the Americans and by permitting militarily effective suicide attacks.107 The symbols of nationalism and war fed each other. War produced symbols of nationalist self-sacrifice, such as the monument to the 1932 charge in Shanghai, the gyokusai myth of the Attu campaign, and the widely repeated event of the 1930s when a Japanese officer captured by the Chinese committed suicide out of disgrace after being freed.108 This in turn encouraged a greater willingness to die on the battlefield. Like the traditional code of bushido, these wartime events were twisted by the Japanese military and government to be simpler and stronger symbols of nationalist self-sacrifice.109 For example, in 1944, Time magazine published, in the United States, an eyewitness account of the Saipan campaign describing the brutal fighting there and the willingness of some Japanese civilians to kill themselves rather than surrender. The Japanese government deliberately mistranslated this article for its public, making it seem like no Japanese civilians had surrendered and that all had killed themselves to avoid capture. One Japanese poet extolled the idea of modern Japanese women accepting a “beautiful death” to avoid capture on Saipan,

46 Dan Reiter or on the Japanese home islands in the event of invasion, and compared it to a sixth-century Japanese tale of a woman who, having lost her husband and son in Korea, took her own life when she herself was captured.110 It is difficult to compare the explanatory weight of nationalist political culture versus organizational pressures or small-group dynamics. Although the fear of punishment for shirking can account for some of this self-sacrificial behavior, such fears cannot completely explain the depth and breadth of the willingness to die in battle. Notably, for example, the kamikaze pilots were at least nominally volunteers, and on the Pacific islands Japanese soldiers would sometimes pretend to surrender or play dead and then attack American troops as they approached, even though at that point the Japanese troops—now separated from their units—could surrender without fear of being punished by their own military. Three thousand Japanese soldiers on Saipan made a suicidal charge after their commanders, presumably the ones who would have punished them for shirking, had killed themselves.111 A separate issue is the importance of the primary group. Japanese motivation to fight was probably not driven principally by primary-group dynamics. A general who fought the Japanese in Burma observed that Japanese willingness to die was centered on the individual rather than the group because even isolated Japanese soldiers would fight on and reject surrender.112 Shils and Janowitz hypothesized that good relations between officers and soldiers contributed to primary-group strength. However, military training and discipline in the Japanese case was brutal and bred real hatred for superiors. Officers frequently assaulted trainees and soldiers for the most minor of transgressions; this environment surely contributed to fear and discipline but not to admiration of superiors.113 Military order based purely on fear is not consistent with the nurturing provided by the group that Shils and Janowitz identify as a motive. Such extreme discipline was sometimes counterproductive: some Japanese troops killed their officers.114 Nationalist symbols such as cherry blossoms, the emperor, and the “shattered jewel” played important roles in encouraging soldiers to sacrifice themselves in battle. Critically, these cultural tendencies were not intrinsic qualities of the Japanese national character but rather were relatively recent in origin, dissipating quickly at war’s end.

Conclusion International relations scholars usually view nationalism as a phenomenon that may make war more likely. This chapter builds on previous scholarship to develop the proposition that nationalist culture may specifically affect military effectiveness. It can increase military effectiveness

Nationalism and Military Effectiveness

47

by making soldiers more motivated to kill and to die on the battlefield; this increases the measure of skill. It can also increase responsiveness by making possible suicide tactics, but it could also decrease responsiveness by encouraging soldiers to treat POWs badly, which in turn would push the enemy to fight harder and not surrender. Japan after the Meiji restoration and during World War II demonstrates these dynamics particularly well. Nationalist symbols were manipulated to stress the importance of the emperor and the nation and the duty of individuals to die for emperor and nation. This nationalism increased Japanese military effectiveness by increasing skill, pushing the soldiers who defended the Pacific islands to fight to the last man, and it opened the possibility of suicide tactics against American military forces and naval vessels in particular. Nationalism decreased effectiveness by decreasing responsiveness, by encouraging their soldiers not to treat surrendering Allied soldiers well; this in turn made Allied soldiers fight harder and be less likely to surrender. This study limits itself to a single case study to trace process and to probe plausibility, but it suggests that other militaries have also been infused with nationalism and have experienced similar military-effectiveness dynamics. The German military in World War II, particularly the forces battling the Soviet Union, was infused with Nazi ideology, which drove its soldiers to be more willing to die and to kill in combat. There were even 16 German aerial suicide missions, launched to defend Berlin from Soviet advances in April 1945.115 In the German case, there is scholarly controversy over whether German forces are better characterized as apolitical professionals or devoted Nazi ideologues. This issue is salient for tracing the sources of the Holocaust as well as German combat performance.116 The significance of the causal connection between nationalist culture and military motivation may vary across contexts. Some belligerents, such as World War II Japan or North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, may plan their military strategy around infl icting casualties on the enemy in hopes of wearing down the enemy’s will to fight and extracting concessions.117 Executing such strategies may require soldiers who are very willing to die to raise the enemy’s casualty counts. Technology may, however, preclude such a strategy, as when American technological superiority blunted Iraq’s efforts to infl ict a high level of casualties during the 1991 Gulf War. Similarly, Serbian attempts during the 1999 Kosovo War to bring down NATO aircraft and infl ict casualties were blocked by NATO’s conduct of air missions from high altitudes.118 Superior strategy, tactics, or training may also trump a willingness to die on the battlefield.119 Nonetheless, nationalism can frequently play an important role in determining military effectiveness, and scholars and policymakers should recognize its potential significance.

48 Dan Reiter

Notes Thanks to Stephen Rosen, Allan Stam, Paul Talcott, and the contributors to this volume for comments. 1. See, e.g., Dan Reiter and Allan C. Stam, Democracies at War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002); Kenneth M. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2002). 2. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. and trans. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 89. Willingness to kill and die are related to what has been referred to elsewhere as “cohesion.” William Darryl Henderson proposed that “cohesion exists in a unit when the primary day-today goals of the individual soldiers, of the small group, with which he identifies, and of unit leaders are congruent—with each giving his primary loyalty to the group so that it trains and fights as a unit with all members willing to risk death to achieve a common objective.” William Daryl Henderson, Cohesion: The Human Element in Combat (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1985), 4. See also Jasen J. Castillo, “The Will to Fight: Explaining the Staying Power of German and French Armies in World War II,” presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, August 27–September 1, 2003. 3. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983), 1. 4. See Jack Snyder, From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (New York: Norton, 2000). 5. David D. Laitin, Hegemony and Culture: Politics and Religious Change among the Yoruba (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986). 6. Stuart Kaufman, Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001), 24. 7. Boyd C. Shafer, Faces of Nationalism: New Realities and Old Myths (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972), esp. 3–22. 8. Stephen Van Evera, “Hypotheses on Nationalism and War,” International Security 18, no. 4 (Spring 1994): 5–39. 9. Kaufman, Modern Hatreds. 10. Snyder, From Voting to Violence, 66– 69. 11. Snyder, From Voting to Violence; Håvard Hegre, Tanja Ellingsen, Scott Gates, and Nils Petter Gleditsch, “Toward a Democratic Civil Peace? Democracy, Political Change, and Civil War, 1816–1992,” American Political Science Review 95 (March 2001): 33–48; Barbara Harff, “No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust? Assessing Risks of Genocide and Political Mass Murder Since 1955,” American Political Science Review 97 (February 2003): 57– 73; Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991); Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, “Democratic Transitions, Institutional Strength, and War,” International Organization 56 (Spring 2002): 297–337. 12. Gordon Craig, Politics of the Prussian Army: 1640–1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), xiii. Craig is quoting Franz Neumann. 13. Nationalism might also affect a state’s chance of winning a war through

Nationalism and Military Effectiveness

49

means outside of the military effectiveness framework described in this volume. For example, nationalism might make it easier for a state to conscript citizens into its army or solicit volunteers, thereby increasing the number of soldiers that can be fielded. Barry R. Posen, “Nationalism, the Mass Army, and Military Power,” International Security 18, no. 2 (Fall 1993): 80–124. Nationalism might decrease resources available for the battlefield, if propping up the culture requires the diversion of resources to other projects such as Nazi Germany’s Final Solution. 14. See, e.g., Reiter and Stam, Democracies at War, Chapter 3; Castillo, “Will to Fight”; Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957); Victor Davis Hanson, The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny (New York: Free Press, 1999); Michael C. Desch, “Democracy and Victory: Why Regime Type Hardly Matters,” International Security 27, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 5–47. 15. Posen, “Nationalism,” 85. See also E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 83; Michael Howard, War in European History (London: Oxford, 1976), 96– 97. On government legitimacy and popular consent to conscription, see Margaret Levi, Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 16. Omer Bartov, Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Stephen G. Fritz, “ ‘We are Trying . . . to Change the Face of the World’—Ideology and Motivation in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front: The View from Below,” Journal of Modern History 60 (October 1996): 683– 710; James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Stephen Ambrose, Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944–May 7, 1945 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997); T. M. Chacho, “Why Did They Fight? American Airborne Units in World War II,” Defence Studies 1, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 59– 94. 17. V. P. Gagnon Jr., “Ethnic Nationalism and International Confl ict: The Case of Serbia,” International Security 19, no. 3 (Winter 1994/95): 130– 66. 18. William Darryl Henderson, Why the Vietcong Fought: A Study of Motivation and Control in a Modern Army in Combat (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979), 49–54. 19. Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won (New York: Norton, 1994), 282–313. 20. Donald Abenheim, Reforging the Iron Cross: The Search for Tradition in the West German Armed Forces (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 58–59. 21. On how altruistic self-sacrifice in battle can be rational, see William H. Riker, “The Political Psychology of Rational Choice Theory,” Political Psychology 16, no. 1 (1995): esp. 37–40. 22. Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, 8– 9; James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity,” International Organization 54 (Autumn 2000): 853–54. 23. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 89.

50 Dan Reiter 24. Kaufman, Modern Hatreds. Russell F. Weigley has gone so far to argue that the South lost the Civil War because of insufficient commitment of Confederate soldiers to southern nationalism, in part because prior symbols of Union nationalism such as flags, stamps, and coins had not been effectively displaced by Confederate symbols. Russell F. Weigley, A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861–1865 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), xxvii–xxviii. 25. Snyder, Myths of Empire. 26. Abenheim, Reforging the Iron Cross. 27. MacGregor Knox, Common Destiny: Dictatorship, Foreign Policy, and War in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 25–26. 28. Alvin D. Coox, “The Effectiveness of the Japanese Military Establishment in the Second World War,” in Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, eds., Military Effectiveness, vol. 3, The Second World War (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1988), 37–38; Field Marshall Sir William Slim, Defeat into Victory (New York: McKay, 1961), esp. 446. 29. Reiter and Stam, Democracies at War, Chapter 3. 30. Henderson, Why the Vietcong Fought; Henderson, Cohesion; Martin Van Creveld, Fighting Power: German and U.S. Army Performance, 1939–1945 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982). 31. Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Boston: Back Bay Books, 1995). 32. William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); Martin Van Creveld, Technology and War: From 2000 B.C. to the Present, rev. and exp. ed. (New York: Free Press, 1991). 33. Pollack, Arabs at War. 34. Stephen Biddle, “Victory Misunderstood: What the Gulf War Tells Us about the Future of Confl ict,” International Security 21, no. 2 (Fall 1996): 139– 79; Darryl G. Press, “Lessons from Ground Combat in the Gulf: The Impact of Training and Technology,” International Security 22, no. 2 (Fall 1997): 137–46. 35. Reiter and Stam, Democracies at War. On how democratic sensitivity to casualties makes suicide terrorism more effective, see Robert Pape, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” American Political Science Review 97 (August 2003): 343– 61. 36. Reiter and Stam, Democracies at War, Chapter 3. 37. For a review of theories of combat motivation, see Bruce Newsome, “The Myth of Intrinsic Combat Motivation,” Journal of Strategic Studies 26, no. 4 (December 2003): 24–46. 38. Edward A. Shils and Morris Janowitz, “Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II,” Public Opinion Quarterly 12, no. 2 (Summer 1948): 280–315. 39. Samuel A. Stouffer, Edward A. Suchman, Leland C. DeVinney, Shirley A. Star, and Robin Williams Jr., The American Soldier: Adjustment during Army Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949); Charles C. Moskos Jr., The American Enlisted Man: The Rank and File in Today’s Military (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1970); Roger W. Little, “Buddy Relations and Combat Perfor-

Nationalism and Military Effectiveness

51

mance,” in Morris Janowitz, ed., The New Military: Changing Patterns of Organization (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1964), 195–223. See also Van Creveld, Fighting Power. 40. Newsome, “Myth of Intrinsic Combat Motivation,” 25–26. 41. Antony Beevor, Stalingrad (New York: Viking, 1998), 166. 42. See Bartov, Hitler’s Army. 43. Shils and Janowitz, “Cohesion and Disintegration.” 44. Coox, “Effectiveness of the Japanese Military Establishment,” 39. 45. It also increased the willingness of troops to kill in battle through demonization of the enemy. See John W. Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacifi c War (New York: Pantheon, 1986). 46. W. G. Beasley, The Modern History of Japan (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981), 3. 47. James L. McClain, Japan: A Modern History (New York: Norton, 2002), 47. 48. McClain, Japan, 78–83. 49. Quoted in Beasley, Modern History of Japan, 52. 50. McClain, Japan, 153; Beasley, Modern History of Japan, 97. 51. Janet Hunter, The Emergence of Modern Japan: An Introductory History Since 1853 (London: Longman, 1989), 169. 52. Beasley, Modern History of Japan, 140. 53. McClain, Japan, 202–3; Kazuko Tsurumi, Social Change and the Individual: Japan before and after Defeat in World War II (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 109; Japan at War (Chicago: Time-Life Books, 1980), 18. 54. Denis Warner and Peggy Warner, The Tide at Sunrise: A History of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–1905 (New York: Charter House, 1974), 341–42; Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms: The Militarization of Aesthetics in Japanese History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 159; Syogo Hattori, “Kamikaze: Japan’s Glorious Failure,” Air Power History 43, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 16. The ultimate success of the Japanese against the Russians, although bloody, convinced many European observers that frontal attacks could succeed, helping fortify strategic biases that laid the groundwork for the meat grinder of World War I. Jack Snyder, Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984). 55. Robert B. Edgerton, Warriors of the Rising Sun: A History of the Japanese Military (New York: Norton, 1997), 318–23; James Bradley, Flyboys: A True Story of Courage (Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), 38, 114; Yuri Tanaka, Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1996), 206–11. 56. Richard J. Smethurst, A Social Basis for Prewar Japanese Militarism: The Army and the Rural Community (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974); Leonard A. Humphreys, The Way of the Heavenly Sword: The Japanese Army in the 1920s (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), esp. 171– 81. 57. Hunter, Modern Japan, 172. 58. McClain, Japan. 59. McClain, Japan; Dower, War without Mercy; Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (New York: HarperCollins, 2000). 60. Ulrich Straus, The Anguish of Surrender: Japanese POWs of World War II (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003), 34.

52 Dan Reiter 61. Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms. 62. Edgerton, Warriors of the Rising Sun, 323–24; Eiko Ikegami, The Taming of the Samurai: Honorifi c Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 321. 63. McClain, Japan; Saburo Ienaga, The Pacifi c War, 1931–1945 (New York: Pantheon, 1978); Saburo Ienaga, “The Glorification of War in Japanese Education,” International Security 18, no. 3 (Winter 1993/94): 113–33. 64. See, for example, Snyder, Myths of Empire. 65. Coox, “Effectiveness of the Japanese Military Establishment”; Philip Warner, Japanese Army in World War II (Reading, UK: Osprey Publishing, 1973). 66. Scott D. Sagan, “The Origins of the Pacific War,” in Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb, eds., The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 323–52; Reiter and Stam, Democracies at War, esp. Chapter 2. 67. Quoted in Haruko Taya Cook, “The Myth of the Saipan Suicides,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 7, no. 3 (Spring 1995): 18. 68. Tsurumi, Social Change and the Individual, 123–25. 69. Coox, “Effectiveness of the Japanese Military Establishment”; OhnukiTierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms; Warner, Japanese Army; Edgerton, Warriors of the Rising Sun, 308– 9; Japan at War, 134. 70. Quoted in Japan at War, 137. 71. Quoted in Dower, War without Mercy, 25. 72. Quoted in Ienaga, Pacifi c War, 49. 73. Dower, War without Mercy, 231–32. 74. Ienaga, Pacifi c War, 50. 75. Straus, Anguish of Surrender, 38. 76. Edgerton, Warriors of the Rising Sun, 282; Michael Clodfelter, Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1500–2000, 2nd ed. ( Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Company, 2002). 77. The 1942 execution of the fl iers from the Doolittle mission was made public in April 1943; the horror of the April 1942 Bataan death march of Allied POWs was not made public by Allied governments until January 1944. Dower, War without Mercy, 48–52. 78. Edgerton, Warriors of the Rising Sun, 262– 63; 277. 79. Peter Calvocoressi, Guy Wint, and John Pritchard, Total War: Causes and Consequences of the Second World War, vol. 2, rev. 2nd ed. (New York: Pantheon, 1989), 997. 80. Straus, Anguish of Surrender, 49. 81. Japan at War, 139; Straus, Anguish of Surrender, 41. 82. Alvin D. Coox, Nomonhan: Japan against Russia, 1939 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1985), vol. 1, 1083–84. See also John Colvin, Nomonhan (London: Quartet Books, 1999), 120, 139. 83. David M. Glantz, The Soviet Strategic Offensive in Manchuria, 1945: “August Storm” (London: Frank Cass, 2003), esp. 315, 341.

Nationalism and Military Effectiveness

53

84. Louis Allen, Burma: The Longest War, 1941–45 (London: Dent and Sons, 1984), 610–12. 85. Slim, Defeat into Victory, 447. 86. Kenneth Harrison, The Brave Japanese (Adelaide, Australia: Rigby, 1966), foreword. 87. Quoted in Richard B. Frank, Guadalcanal (New York: Random House, 1990), 609. 88. Clodfelter, Warfare and Armed Conflicts. 89. D. M. Giangreco, “Casualty Projections for the U.S. Invasions of Japan, 1945–1946: Planning and Policy Implications,” Journal of Military History 61 ( July 1997): 521–82; Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Japanese Empire (New York: Random House, 1999). 90. Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms, esp. 166; Dower, War Without Mercy, 232. 91. Hattori, Kamikaze, 16. 92. Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms, 167– 75. 93. David C. Evans and Mark R. Peattie, Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941 (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1997), 501. 94. Samuel Eliot Morison, The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963), 479–80. 95. Hattori, “Kamikaze,” 16. 96. Denis Warner and Peggy Warner with Sadao Seno, The Sacred Warriors: Japan’s Suicide Legions (New York: Van Nostrand, 1982), 320–21; Hattori, “Kamikaze,” 21. See also Bix, Hirohito, 482, 745 (note). Ohnuki-Tierney is more skeptical of the effectiveness of the suicide operations, noting that of the 3,300 or so planes in the operation, only 11.6 percent hit their vessels. Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms, 161. Ienaga is even more skeptical, estimating a success rate of just 1 to 3 percent. Ienaga, Pacifi c War, 183. However, it is difficult to calculate how effective such aircraft would have been if they had been employed in nonsuicide missions. One possible comparison is provided here in the text. Pilots involved in these attacks were not Japan’s best pilots but were rather mostly student conscripts and training pilots, and by this point (1944–45), American forces enjoyed substantial superiority. 97. C. R. Brown’s foreword to Rikihei Inoguchi and Tadashi Nakajiima with Roger Pineau, The Divine Wind: Japan’s Kamikaze Force in World War II (Annapolis, Md.: United States Naval Institute, 1958), vii. 98. Hattori, “Kamikaze,” 18. 99. Sacred Warriors, 320. 100. Frank, Downfall, 178–87. See also D. M. Giangreco, “The Truth about Kamikazes,” in Naval History, vol. 11 (May–June 1997), 25–29; Ienaga, Pacifi c War, 183. 101. Quoted in Bradley, Flyboys, 114; Edgerton, 323–24. 102. Tanaka, Hidden Horrors; Bradley, Flyboys, 319. 103. Dower, War without Mercy.

54 Dan Reiter 104. John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: Norton, 1999). 105. Dower, Embracing Defeat, 122. See also Thomas U. Berger, Cultures of Antimilitarism: National Security in Germany and Japan (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998). 106. Tsurumi, Social Change and the Individual. 107. On the basis primarily of the testimony of Japanese prisoners of war, Ulrich Straus argues that the motivation of Japanese soldiers was driven more by family and civilian community connections, rather than by affinity for the emperor. Straus, Anguish of Surrender, 50–52. 108. Straus, Anguish of Surrender, 42. 109. Suicide was not deeply respected in Japanese culture under all circumstances. Notably, (civilian) suicide rates before the war were not significantly higher in Japan than in Europe or the United States. Straus, Anguish of Surrender, 43. 110. Cook, “Myth of the Saipan Suicides,” 17. 111. Dower, War without Mercy; Bradley, Flyboys, 145. 112. Allen, Burma, 609. 113. Ienaga, The Pacifi c War, 46–53. 114. Straus, Anguish of Surrender, 46, 53. 115. Bartov, Hitler’s Army; Dieter Wulf, “Hitler’s ‘Amerikabomber,’” Atlantic Monthly 293, no. 4 (May 2004): 41. 116. Bartov, Hitler’s Army; Van Creveld, Fighting Power; Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Knopf, 1996); Shils and Janowitz, “Cohesion and Disintegration”; Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: HarperPerennial, 1998). 117. Reiter and Stam, Democracies at War. 118. Daniel L. Byman and Matthew C. Waxman, “Kosovo and the Great Air Power Debate,” International Security 24, no. 3 (Spring 2000): 5–38. 119. On the importance of strategy, see Allan C. Stam III, Win, Lose, or Draw: Domestic Politics and the Crucible of War (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996). On the importance of training, see Chapter 9 in this volume.

chapter

Social Structure, Ethnicity, and Military Effectiveness: Iraq, 1980–2004

3

timothy d. hoyt

thucydides’ stirring description of the impact of social strife on Corcyra, the ally of Athens during the Peloponnesian War, vividly suggests the damage that social division can do to the military potential of a major power.1 Machiavelli, one of the founders of modern international relations theory, suggested that the ethnic composition of military forces can affect overall military morale and performance, as well as state security.2 More recently, Stephen Rosen has argued that the amount of military power generated by a state varies with the divisiveness of social structures and the ability to suppress divisiveness will increase relative military power.3 Rosen focuses on the relationship between, and separation of, military organizations and domestic society.4 Social divisions represent a potentially formidable barrier to maximizing military effectiveness, especially in longer wars.5 This is particularly true for societies suffering from ethnic or religious divisions.6 This chapter examines the impact of government policies intended to control internal division on overall military effectiveness.7 It focuses in particular on the case of Iraq from 1980 to 2004. Iraq, a state governed by a Sunni ethnic minority, adopted policies that deliberately discriminated against the Shi’ite majority population, as well as against a minority Kurdish population with more overt separatist tendencies. Iraq also faced a sudden requirement to expand its ground force capabilities and to fight major adversaries fi rst in the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988 and later against the United States and Coalition forces in 1991 and 2003. It thus had strong imperatives to try and project as powerful a military as possible while contending with large internal threats. The case investigates the impact of Iraq’s efforts to

56 Timothy D. Hoyt insulate itself from internal instability through discriminatory policies on its capacity to generate military power. This study is intended to help bridge the gap between two existing sets of literature: studies that assess the impact of ethnic and social division at the state level and those that examine the impact of ethnicity on tactical military performance.8 In addition to identifying the potential problems caused by ethnic and social division, this study examines policies taken to ameliorate those complications and the relative impact of such policies on military effectiveness in wartime. First, the chapter discusses ways in which a state’s military capability can be undermined by internal divisions. Next, it provides an overview of how Iraq managed Shi’ite, Sunni, and Kurdish troops from 1980 to 2004. Five hypotheses are subsequently spelled out, and evidence from the Iraq case is presented as a preliminary test of the validity of these hypotheses. Finally, the chapter summarizes the implications of the fi ndings of the Iraq case: states using discriminatory policies can still mobilize large numbers of forces, but discriminatory policies are apt to undermine the skill and integration of military units, which will reduce overall military effectiveness. The case suggests, consistent with previous analyses, that there is a distinct trade-off between enhancing military effectiveness and maintaining internal security.

Ethnic Division and National Security Ethnic division represents a major problem for modern states, one that profoundly affects national policy and cohesion. Most of the states in the developing world suffer from potential ethnic separatist movements, the result of artificial colonial-era boundaries and disruptions resulting from decolonization efforts. Competing loyalties in developing states— statedefined “nationalism” versus ethnic or other subnational identity—create fragility, which affects both military mobilization and overall government control.9 Even nation-states reflecting the European nation-state model, with a single dominant ethnic component, must respond to the demands and interests of smaller subnational groups. Adapting overall military mobilization to the realities of ethnic division in society represents a potentially significant barrier to maximizing military effectiveness. Ethnicity can affect the willingness of troops to fight and take casualties, as when otherwise loyal Druse troops in the Israeli Defense Forces refused to fight Lebanese Druse during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.10 States concerned with ethnic separatist threats may adopt recruitment and promotion policies to ensure that potentially disloyal elements do not achieve high rank, or are kept in positions of lesser

Social Structure, Ethnicity, and Military Effectiveness

57

responsibility or lesser potential threat to state security. The primary focus of national security concern may be internal separatist threats rather than external invasion; this is likely to affect policies on training, doctrine, and organization, and thus influence overall military effectiveness.11 These arguments regarding the potential degrading effects of ethnic division on military effectiveness parallel Rosen’s more general remarks about social divisions. He argues that social structures create divisiveness that will decrease military power, “especially if the social structures are militarily strong relative to the central power that tries to govern the entire society.” 12 He also notes, however, that high levels of external threat can sometimes unify societies and ameliorate social divisions, even if only temporarily.13 High casualty rates or emerging threats can force policy changes to increase manpower mobilization that partially ameliorate the negative consequences of ethnic or social divisions on military effectiveness.14 New threats may, therefore, force states to forgo or modify discriminatory ethnic policies in an effort to maximize military effectiveness. A disclaimer here is important. Ethnic division and internal security concerns are not the only factors affecting military effectiveness. As the other chapters in this book suggest, issues of doctrine, training, technology, equipment, motivation, and education, among others, and the broader social and political factors that influence military activity in those areas are all vital to understanding the ability of states to create and sustain military power. Ethnic divisions, however, can affect the state at a number of levels—they can help determine the political structure and preferences of the regime, the distribution of state resources, national participation in the armed forces, promotion policy in the officer corps, recruitment, the treatment and training of individual soldiers, and a myriad of other components of overall military capability—and therefore affect overall military effectiveness. It is entirely possible for a state wracked by ethnic tensions to successfully prosecute a war limited in magnitude and duration. In longer wars, or confl icts requiring greater mobilization of a state’s total military capacity, these cleavages can significantly reduce a state’s effectiveness unless properly compensated for by government policy. To evaluate further the effect of social divisions on military effectiveness, this chapter examines the case of Iraq from 1980 to 2004. Iraq was involved in three major wars in this time period: the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and the 2003 U.S. war. In particular, the Iran-Iraq war represents one of the few protracted wars fought by a multiethnic society in the postcolonial era. In that war, Iraq was forced to integrate potentially hostile ethnic populations into a rapidly expanding national army. The government was dominated by a Sunni

58 Timothy D. Hoyt ta b l e 3.1 Five Hypotheses on How Government Policies on Ethnic Divisions Influence Military Effectiveness 1. Government policies that bias on ethnic grounds → personnel mobilization → responsiveness Government military policies that discriminate on the basis of ethnicity will affect personnel mobilization and responsiveness. In other words, can the military recruit personnel quickly enough to respond to threats and maintain those recruitment levels until the end of the conflict? 2. Policy → mobilization → skill Government policies that discriminate on the basis of ethnicity will decrease overall military morale and motivation, thereby decreasing the skill of military units. In other words, does discrimination lead to poorer military performance? 3. Policy → officer selection → integration Government policies that discriminate on the basis of ethnicity in officer selection will have a negative impact on integration. In other words, does discrimination in officer selection interfere with the creation of a competent high command? 4. Policy → training and military education → skill Government policies that discriminate on the basis of ethnicity will negatively affect training and military education and therefore prevent troops from assimilating all of the skills necessary for modern combat. In other words, does discrimination on ethnic grounds produce less skilled, and therefore less effective, militaries? 5. Policy → command and control → integration and responsiveness Policies of discrimination based on ethnicity create an officer corps that cannot adequately assess the capabilities of its troops and is therefore more likely to make strategic errors. In other words, does ethnic discrimination lead to false optimism regarding military capability?

minority, and the two other major ethnic groups—the Kurdish and Shi’ite populations—had substantial contacts with the revolutionary Iranian regime. The Iraqi regime adopted discriminatory policies toward these subnational groups, altering policies as necessary to adjust for increased levels of perceived threat from them. Kurdish and Shi’ite participation in all levels of government activity was extremely limited in comparison to their actual populations. Officer promotion policies discriminated heavily in favor of the Sunni population. Sunni-dominated paramilitary and elite forces were created to guard against potential coup threats by the army and to help repress separatist threats. Despite these discriminatory policies, however, at times the demand for massive military forces, such as after the initial failures of the Iran-Iraq War, forced Saddam and the Ba’athist regime to adapt and adjust prevailing policies to create more military strength. This chapter focuses on how these government policies—responding to ethnic

Social Structure, Ethnicity, and Military Effectiveness

59

divisions—affected its ability to create skilled, responsive, integrated, and high-quality military organizations. This chapter examines five hypotheses—illustrated in Table 3.1— regarding the impact of government responses to ethnic divisions on military effectiveness. The fi rst three hypotheses deal with the problem of personnel mobilization, a reflection of broader state military capabilities and utilization of resources and an obvious area of possible tension between national and subnational loyalties. It asks the following questions: how do government policies discriminating on the basis of ethnicity affect mobilization of various ethnic groups in wartime? Can the state receive enough personnel quickly enough to deal with rapidly escalating threats? Does the state increase or decrease overall military morale and motivation through its ethnic policies? The second set of hypotheses deals with factors more specific to the military organizations themselves. Does policy interfere with promotion to higher command on the basis of ethnicity? If so, how does this affect the integration of military activities at various levels? Does state policy discriminate against particular ethnic groups in terms of training and military education? How does this affect the skill of the army as a whole? Finally, does ethnic policy lead to weaknesses in command structures? Does this adversely affect the integration of the military’s activities and its capacity to respond to events on the battlefield in a timely and flexible fashion?

Outline of Iraqi Case The case of Ba’athist Iraq demonstrates how government policies regarding recruitment of potentially volatile ethnic groups may affect military effectiveness in times of significant international threat. It is an example of a minority-ruled state that recruited and trained forces from subnational groups that desired autonomy, separate independent states, or even control of the existing Iraqi state. Modern Iraq’s ruling elites under the Hashemite monarchy (1932–58), military rule (1958–68), or the Ba’athist regime (1968–2003), were drawn from a religious minority of Sunni Muslims, representing only 20 to 25 percent of the population. Two other ethnic and religious populations posed potential separatist threats. The fi rst came from the majority Shi’a Muslim population, concentrated in the southern section of the country. In addition, the regime had to contend with the Kurdish population, located largely in the north and constituting roughly 15 to 20 percent of the population. The latter, in fact, began resisting centralized rule from Baghdad in the 1920s. During military rule and the early Ba’ath period

60 Timothy D. Hoyt (1960–75), Kurdish forces fought a nearly continuous insurgency against the regime in Baghdad, aided by outside forces including Iran, Syria, Israel, and the United States. Iraq’s methods of managing these ethno-religious groups varied over time. Within the military, however, both Shi’a and Kurds were viewed with concern, if not outright suspicion. Officer promotion, particularly to the highest ranks, was deeply discriminatory and favored the loyal Sunni population. Elite units, recruited from loyal Sunni areas, were established and provided with superior training and equipment to preserve the regime against internal threats. The Iraqi Army struggled to contain and defeat a Kurdish insurgency that lasted, with occasional ceasefi res, from 1960 to 1975. The Shi’a population remained largely loyal, but the emergence of a revolutionary Shi’a government in neighboring Iran was linked to an increase in Shi’ite violent opposition to the Ba’athist regime. Iraqi military requirements expanded significantly in the early 1980s, related to early failures in the Iran-Iraq War. The Ba’athist regime was forced to rethink at least some of its policies. Iraq massively increased the size of its prewar armed forces over an eight-year period, eventually quadrupling its active duty manpower. This meant that large numbers of Shi’ite recruits had to be inducted into the armed forces and provided with military training that might, in the future, be used against the regime. In addition, Iraq’s woeful performance on the battlefield forced it both to reconsider officer promotion policies and to find new ways of generating more militarily effective—but still loyal—military forces. Iraq’s response was twofold. First, it expanded the large but militarily incompetent Popular Army, which provided a loyal Sunni paramilitary counterpart to an army based on ethnically suspect conscript forces. A second, more effective solution was the eventual expansion of the Republican Guard, which was heavily seeded with loyal, well-educated Sunni manpower and provided with specialized training and equipment. The Republican Guard became the elite offensive force that restored Iraq’s fortunes in the final years of the Iran-Iraq War. This army was maintained, at great expense, through the disastrous 1991 defeat in Kuwait. The immediate aftermath of that defeat saw significant ethnic uprisings in the predominantly Kurdish north—a traditional hotbed of disaffection—as well as within the majority Shi’ite population in the southern regions. These populations were supported indirectly by Coalition “no-fly zones” and Operations Northern and Southern Watch. In the post–Desert Storm environment, therefore, Iraq again faced potential problems with internal strife. The size of the Regular Army was significantly reduced, and maintained at a lower level of training and

Social Structure, Ethnicity, and Military Effectiveness

61

equipment in comparison to elite units like the Republican Guard. The army’s role was redefined, emphasizing internal security rather than complex conventional warfare. Saddam Hussein also deliberately sought to reinforce the loyalty of his Sunni base by favoring four tribal groups in the Tikrit area—a subgroup of the Sunni minority that formed the Ba’athist political elite—after numerous military mutinies called the loyalty of even Republican Guard forces into question. Members of Saddam’s own extended-family group were formed into the Special Republican Guard, special security forces, and new paramilitary units like the Fedayeen. These forces were reportedly the only units that received training in urban warfare, despite the obvious possibility throughout the 1990s that the United States might reintervene with conventional forces and seek to overthrow the regime, and the abundant public evidence that the United States considered urban warfare a particularly effective method of minimizing American conventional military advantage. This reorganized Iraqi Army was adequate to maintain internal order, but the fact that it collapsed in 2003 in the face of Coalition forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom suggests significant problems with morale and cohesion and other weaknesses in skill, integration, and responsiveness. Next I examine the effect these policies taken by the regime to stave off a threat from internal groups affected Iraq’s military effectiveness in several areas.

Five Hypotheses This section describes the five hypotheses presented earlier and applies them to the Iraqi case. h y poth esis 1 The fi rst hypothesis is that government military policies that discriminate on the basis of ethnicity undermine personnel mobilization and responsiveness. They make it harder to conscript and recruit sufficient personnel to respond to the threats facing the state. From the start, conscription in Iraq raised complicated issues for the Iraq regime. Before Iraq’s independence, some Sunni leaders considered conscription as a means of cementing the bonds of the multiethnic nationalist state. This would prove problematic, however, because the Kurds hoped to establish their own independent state after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The Shi’ites led a rebellion against British rule in 1920 and suffered heavily. As a result, the Sunni elite received substantial British support, reversed its initial interest in a multiethnic force, and focused on controlling the army as a means of dominating the state.15 The new army

62 Timothy D. Hoyt was a highly politicized tool of the ruling Sunni minority from the beginning of Iraqi independence in 1932.16 After independence, Iraq’s rulers remained suspicious of subnational groups because of their separatist tendencies. Kurdish separatism escalated significantly after the fall of the Hashemite monarchy in 1958. As a result, the regime became increasingly suspicious of the Kurds and their role in the army. During the 1961–70 Kurdish revolt, one of Iraq’s five infantry divisions—made up largely of ethnic Kurds—eventually defected to the rebels.17 In addition, after the Iraqi army suffered a disastrous defeat at Mount Handrin in 1966, entire Iraqi army units recruited from other ethnic groups surrendered to the Kurdish rebels.18 During the early Ba’ath period, from 1968 to 1980, the Iraqi government finally created enough military power to subdue Kurdish separatists in 1975 by expanding the size of the Regular Army with both Sunni and Shi’a conscripts. As noted earlier, the government also created a separate paramilitary organization called the Popular Army, recruited heavily from Sunni Ba’athists.19 The Popular Army provided a politically reliable counterweight to the military, which had brutally suppressed the Ba’ath Party after the 1963 coup that overthrew General Kasim. In 1980, when Iraq invaded Iran, the Iraqi Army numbered roughly 242,000, with lower ranks conscripted from both the Sunni and Shi’a populations. Reservists had obligations for up to 18 years. The Popular Army numbered 250,000 primarily Sunni Ba’ath Party loyalists. Thus Iraq had large personnel resources available.20 Nevertheless, the existing forces were not sufficient to win a quick, decisive victory over Iran in 1980, and as the Iran-Iraq War dragged on, Saddam was forced to address the inadequacies of his military forces. The Iran-Iraq War began with an Iraqi offensive, but by 1982 Iraq had been thrown off Iranian soil. The 1982 defense of Basra against a massive Iranian offensive apparently convinced Saddam that a major expansion of the Iraqi military was necessary to continue the war.21 Iraq rapidly expanded the Regular Army, which reached a million men by the end of the war, and relied increasingly on Shi’a conscripts. Iraq also continued high levels of social spending, made domestic political concessions, and emphasized the national character of the war to maintain Shi’a loyalty, an effort that was largely successful. This expansion, however, proved insufficient. Iran’s successful assault on the Faw peninsula in 1986 forced Iraq to undertake further efforts to increase its manpower so it had the capability for decisive assaults as well as mass attrition-based defense. A measure of the severity of the Faw defeat is the fact that in 1986, every Iraqi male younger than age 51 was made liable for military service.22

Social Structure, Ethnicity, and Military Effectiveness

63

The new demand for offensive capabilities led to the creation of a threetiered force: a Regular Army composed of large numbers of static infantry divisions (composed predominantly of Shi’a conscripts), a smaller number of Regular Army tank and mechanized divisions with better equipment (with troops of mixed ethnicity), and an expanded elite Republican Guard force (recruited primarily from loyal and educated Sunni elites), provided with the best available equipment and training. In 1980, the two brigades of the mainly Sunni Republican Guard were primarily intended for protection of Baghdad and as a personal bodyguard force for Saddam Hussein. The regime, however, expanded the Republican Guard into an elite conventional force. By the end of the Iran-Iraq War, the Republican Guard numbered 8 divisions of 28 combat brigades, established under a special corps-level unit called Republican Guard Forces Command.23 This expansion provided additional offensive capability, but it did so at the expense of the Regular Army: “by stripping the rest of the army of the best soldiers, officers, and equipment [and thus depriving] most Iraqi units of any combat power they previously possessed.” 24 In short, the regime was able to make use of its significant manpower resources, but it was forced to structure the army to insulate the regime from any threat these subnational groups might pose. Rather than strengthen the Regular Army (which fielded units with high proportions of Shi’ites) and enhance its resources, they relied on the Republican Guard under Sunni control. By 1990, Republican Guard units amounted to 20 percent of the total strength of the Iraqi Army.25 Even while channeling resources toward the Republican Guard, the regime did continue to expand the Regular Army, eventually fielding over a million soldiers. Iraqi Shi’ite soldiers fought bravely against an opponent that, although it shared their Shi’ite religious affi liation, belonged to a different ethnic group (Persians). Saddam appealed to pan-Arab sympathy to justify his invasion, claiming his intent was to liberate the Arabs living around Abadan. To maintain support from the Kurds and Shi’ites, Saddam granted local political concessions to both groups while clamping down ruthlessly on any opposition, even using chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1988.26 It was, however, the Republican Guard that would prove instrumental to Iraq’s successes in its 1988 battles against Iran. In part this was because of the decision by the regime in the war’s fi nal phases to allow the Republican Guard Forces Command to recruit on the basis of proficiency rather than purely on the basis of political loyalty. Nevertheless, it remained a predominantly Sunni force.27 In 1990, the Republican Guard spearheaded the Iraqi advance into Kuwait in 1990, but were replaced by the Regular Army after the initial

64 Timothy D. Hoyt assault. The Iraqi Army that fought so effectively against the Iranians in 1988 performed woefully against the Coalition in 1990. Iraq’s January 1991 preemptive attack against Khafji in Saudi Arabia demonstrated that Iraq’s most effective Regular Army divisions—the heavy mechanized and armored divisions that had fought alongside the Republican Guard in 1988—could not hold their own against even lightly armed units from the Gulf states.28 The Republican Guard fought hard against Coalition forces in Kuwait and southern Iraq, but in two days, three and a half divisions of the Republican Guard Forces Command were destroyed, infl icting almost no casualties on the Coalition forces.29 This rearguard action, combined with American decisions to terminate the confl ict rapidly, assured the preservation of the remaining Republican Guard forces. These units then proved decisive in putting down the subsequent rebellion against Saddam. Saddam’s concerns about ethnic loyalty were, ultimately, justified. In March 1991, after the defeat in Kuwait, rebellion spread throughout Iraq, challenging government control of virtually every province in the country. The Kurds fielded 40,000 to 50,000 insurgents, while the Shi’ite resistance may have included as many as 100,000 fighters. Some Shi’ite clans, however, assisted the regime, and the majority of the Shi’ite population remained neutral.30 Overall, Iraq’s mobilization efforts were a mixed success. Given the long history of confl ict with the Kurds, it is hardly surprising that Iraqi concessions failed to mobilize Kurdish support to any meaningful extent. Iraq’s policies, however, allowed it to mobilize the Shi’ite population to a significant extent during the Iran-Iraq War, despite a serious potential separatist threat. After the 1991 war, however, Shi’ites rose up against the regime in force, once again calling into question their military reliability. After 1991, although Shi’ites continued to be conscripted into the Regular Army, they were viewed with suspicion by the ruling Ba’athists and tended to desert in both peacetime and war. In turn, Iraq’s suppression of the Shi’ite population after Desert Storm clearly affected the willingness of Shi’ite conscripts to fight for a repugnant regime. Ultimately, this inability to draw on such a large resource pool and use it efficiently reduced Iraq’s responsiveness to its international environment and the threats it would face in 2003. h y poth esis 2 The second hypothesis theorizes that government policies discriminating on the basis of ethnicity decrease overall military morale, thereby decreasing the skill of military units. Discrimination reduces the motivation to fight, undermining the overall skill of military personnel and the state’s capacity to generate military power.

Social Structure, Ethnicity, and Military Effectiveness

65

By deliberately creating a three-tiered military structure during the Iran-Iraq War, the Ba’athist regime took significant and deliberate risks on the issues of morale and motivation. Shi’ite conscripts, for the most part, were moved into Regular Army infantry divisions and placed in static defensive positions. Even when placed in dangerous static defensive positions with inferior equipment, Shi’ite troops fought bravely and with relatively good morale. This is attributable, at least in part, to the defensive nature of Iraq’s war effort from 1982 to 1987: Shi’ites were fighting to defend their homes and their country. This changed dramatically in Kuwait and afterward. The morale of Shi’ite troops collapsed during Desert Storm and never recovered: the Shi’ite population was unwilling to sacrifice itself for an increasingly illegitimate and oppressive Ba’athist regime. High desertion rates in Kuwait prior to Operation Desert Storm suggest that Shi’ite conscripts may have viewed themselves as mere cannon fodder. By the late 1990s, no Regular Army or Republican Guard units were allowed into Baghdad. The Sunni-dominated Special Republican Guard, handpicked for loyalty and reliability, had responsibility for the capital.31 Peacetime desertion rates in the Regular Army reached 30 percent in the mid-1990s, suggesting widespread Shi’ite disaffection with the military.32 In response to the 2003 U.S. invasion, Iraqi forces were vastly less willing to stand and fight than they had been in the 1982–88 period against Iran, or in 1991, when the Republican Guard fought a desperate rearguard action to help preserve the forces that would save the regime. Shi’a conscripts deserted in droves, refusing to fight the Americans or to defend the regime.33 In sum, evidence for the second hypothesis—that discrimination on ethnic grounds decreases morale and motivation, leading to negative effects on skill and quality—is inconclusive. Iraq’s Shi’ite conscripts fought well when defending their country in the Iran-Iraq War, despite receiving conspicuously discriminatory treatment. However, Iraqi Shi’ites also received political concessions during the height of that war, which could explain their willingness to fight for the regime. More telling may be the performance of Shi’ite forces during and after the 1991 war when the Shi’a community was subjected to violent repression. From 1991 on, as a result of the collapse of Shi’ite morale, the performance of Regular Army units declined precipitously. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Regular Army forces collapsed in the face of the overwhelming Coalition onslaught in Operation Iraqi Freedom. More indicative of the poor morale of the Regular Army, however, is the collapse of Regular Army forces when faced only by lightly armed Kurdish peshmerga (literally, “those who face death”) in the 1990s.

66 Timothy D. Hoyt h y poth esis 3 The third hypothesis is that government policies that discriminate on the basis of ethnicity compromise officer selection and have a negative impact on integration. Biased officer selection interferes with the creation of a competent high command. Throughout the history of modern Iraq, Shi’ites suffered discrimination in appointment to top posts in the government. Under the monarchy, Sunnis had held 44 percent of all government posts but 60 percent of top leadership posts, whereas Shi’ites, holding 32 percent of all posts, had just 21 percent of the top leadership posts. After the monarchy was overthrown, under military and then Ba’athist rule, the Sunni representation in top posts increased to 80 percent while Shi’ite representation fell to 16 percent.34 These practices extended to the military under Saddam Hussein. Throughout his tenure in office, the leader promoted officers primarily for loyalty rather than competence.35 Shortly after he assumed power, in fact, he began “purging senior officers of questionable reliability, promoting loyalty to Saddam ahead of military competence, frequently rotating key senior officer billets to prevent generals from developing personal ties to their men, creating multiple security services to watch over the military, and micromanaging military operations and exercises to ensure that the armed forces carried out Saddam’s orders.” 36 Generally, Saddam preferred Sunni officers, and he especially favored officers from a small group of Sunni tribes from around Tikrit.37 The Iran-Iraq War rapidly demonstrated that this personnel procedure was not conducive to superior military performance. Iraq’s military performed quite poorly in the first phases of the war and exhibited stark deficiencies at almost all levels of command. However, after facing several major setbacks, Saddam reconsidered his personnel policies. He allowed, over time, a greater level of professionalism. “Baghdad did away with the political officers formerly assigned to all Iraqi units above battalion strength and ceased the practice of frequently rotating the commanders of divisions and corps.” 38 This resulted in a rapid improvement in Iraqi military performance. Iraqi defensive tactics, after 1982, shifted from forward defenses to heavily fortified defense in depth.39 As commanders became more familiar with the limitations of their forces and subordinate officers, Iraq’s senior officers adopted a more centralized command style. They began specifying routes of counterattack to divisional commanders and ensuring that units were positioned for flank attacks as a routine part of defensive operations.40 This allowed the more competent higher officers to compensate for

Social Structure, Ethnicity, and Military Effectiveness

67

Iraqi tactical weaknesses and to maintain some level of operational control despite the presence of less competent subordinates. Equally important, Saddam began to reward particularly effective commanders, regardless of ethnicity. Over a period of several years, this created a group of competent senior field commanders and staff officers.41 These officers were given increased authority after the disastrous defeat at al-Faw in 1986, which demonstrated that Iraqi forces were inadequate for major offensive operations (a powerful counterattack led by three of Iraq’s best commanders failed to retake the town), and also that Iraq could not afford simply to fight a defensive war of attrition.42 The end result was improved coordination at all levels of warfare. Saddam accepted more professional military advice and consented to the creation of a more powerful military capable of offensive operations. The spearhead of this new military was the expanded Republican Guard, which (with Saddam’s consent) began recruiting on the basis of proficiency, rather than solely loyalty.43 To compensate for tactical weaknesses, the officer corps ordered vastly enhanced training programs and extremely precise operational and tactical planning. By the end of the Iran-Iraq War, the Iraqi officer corps had developed enough proficiency to overwhelm Iranian forces in five different sectors in a series of sequential offensives and to overcome many of the Iraqi military’s greatest tactical and operational flaws, a significant demonstration of effectiveness in both attribute and performance. During this time, Shi’a officers were not completely excluded from promotion to higher rank, but they had to prove their loyalty repeatedly. For example, General ’Abd al-Wahid Shinan Al Ribbat, the first Shi’a chief of staff in modern Iraq under Saddam, had been a loyal Ba’ath Party member since the early 1960s, and he commanded the Iraqi VI Corps in the Gulf War and subsequent uprising. He was also a member of a prominent southern tribe, so his appointment may have been intended to shore up Saddam’s support among some Shi’a elites.44 Despite relaxing the emphasis on political loyalty during the Iran-Iraq War, after the confl ict Saddam once again both prioritized loyalty and discriminated on the basis of ethnicity in key military appointments. This return to discriminatory selection policies accelerated after Desert Storm. By late 1991, “only [Saddam’s] tribal allies and relatives and the military units in which they [were] paramount remained trusted.” 45 Growing disaffection and turbulence increased the threat to the regime, even from the most trusted recruiting pools. Officers in the Republican Guard and trusted elites within the regular military were involved in a series of revolts in the mid-1990s.46

68 Timothy D. Hoyt The al-Bu Nassar tribe, which numbered only 25,000 people, was a particularly valuable source of loyal officers for Saddam’s regime.47 By the mid-1990s, however, because of Saddam’s actions, several of the houses within the al-Bu Nassar tribe held grievances against him and were no longer entirely trusted. Saddam experienced similar problems with other, formerly trusted Sunni tribes. Jubburis and Dulaymis, both Sunni tribal groups, comprised 50 percent and 33 percent, respectively, of the Republican Guard in the mid-1990s. Nevertheless, Jubburi officers launched a coup attempt in 1990, and the Dulaymis revolted in early 1995. Members of both tribes were removed from officer positions in the Special Republican Guard as a result.48 The Special Republican Guard, which by this time was replacing the Republican Guard as the regime’s elite conventional force, thus lost a substantial portion of its experienced leadership. Even these purges did not prevent a coup attempt in mid-1996, which included members of both the Republican Guard and the Special Republican Guard. Leaders included a number of operational or field grade officers: a brigadier general from Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown, a lieutenant colonel from the Republican Guard’s Department of Political Guidance, and a major from the Republican Guard’s intelligence staff.49 In 1998, six senior Sunni officers attempted a coup against the regime, once again demonstrating the unreliability of core ethnic groups that previously were loyal to the regime.50 Even the elite units, handpicked for loyalty and recruited from pro-Saddam ethnic and tribal groups, were no longer politically reliable in the mid-1990s. The result was the replacement of top leaders by loyal incompetents. By 2003, Saddam’s sons controlled the Fedayeen and Special Republican Guard, the two forces responsible for regime protection. The Iraqi Army had moved from a multiethnic national army to a near-feudal army structure based primarily on tribal or immediate family loyalties. The increasingly narrow pool of command candidates, based on family ties and demonstrated political loyalty, discriminated heavily against not only potential Shi’ite separatists, but also against potentially disaffected but professionally competent Sunnis. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, Saddam’s army fell victim to strategic deception from the Coalition and then failed to coordinate on virtually any level above the tactical.51 The dismissal of professional leadership meant that the army was incapable of the most basic coordination and integration. In short, the hypothesis that ethnic policy can prejudice officer promotion policies and affect integration appears conclusive in the Iraqi case. When Saddam allowed his military leadership (including Shi’ites)

Social Structure, Ethnicity, and Military Effectiveness

69

to exercise their best professional judgment during the Iran-Iraq War and promoted on the basis of competence rather than loyalty or ethnicity, Iraqi military performance improved. The Iraqi military evolved, over eight years, from one incapable of joint operations and barely able to plan an advance to a relatively sophisticated organization capable of very detailed tactical and operational plans that demonstrated the ability to carry out massive set-piece offensives lasting for days or weeks. However, when Saddam emphasized loyalty—through the Sunni minority and tribal or personal connections—Iraqi military capability collapsed. Promotion from an increasingly narrow circle of loyal followers thinned the professionalism and expertise of military leadership to the point of utter incompetence, which was amply demonstrated in 2003. h y poth esis 4 The fourth hypothesis argues that policies discriminating on the basis of ethnicity compromise training and military education and therefore prevent troops from assimilating all of the skills necessary for modern combat. In other words, discrimination produces less skilled, and therefore less effective, militaries. Throughout Iraq’s recent history, its several types of forces demonstrated very significant differences in skill, the result of differing levels of training, education, and equipment quality that were based, in part, on the dominant ethnicity of the unit. Republican Guard divisions—mainly Sunni—were larger and had more modern equipment than their mainly Shi’ite Regular Army counterparts.52 They received special training for offensive operations and additional equipment for air defense, operations in a chemical environment, and other specific missions.53 Republican Guard units were overwhelmingly Sunni, with a far higher percentage of recruits from Tikrit—Saddam’s hometown and political base—than the rest of the army. Part of the Republican Guard’s expansion was based on repeal of the draft exemption for college students; this provided a cadre of technically skilled and well-educated recruits eager for the higher pay and privileges attached to Republican Guard service.54 This predominantly Sunni, more technically proficient force received the best recruits and equipment and rehearsed set-piece offensives down to the most minute aspects of each operation and tactical movement. Careful scripting and planning compensated for the Iraqi Army’s inability to adapt to fluid combat. Massive fi repower, extensive use of chemical weapons, extensive drill and rehearsal, and an inflexible adversary were all critical elements in the stunning success of the 1988 Iraqi offensives that ended the Iran-Iraq War.55

70 Timothy D. Hoyt The mostly Sunni Popular Army, in contrast, received poor equipment and training, with just two months of annual drill.56 The army’s history under the monarchy, including six coup attempts from 1936 to 1941, raised concerns about the military role in politics.57 The repression of the Ba’ath Party in 1963, after its alliance with disaffected army officers to assassinate General Kasim, demonstrated the need for a Ba’athist armed force as a counterweight to the regular military. Saddam did not want the Popular Army given professional military training or leadership, however. This preference—and its internal security role—would explain why it reported to the Mukhabarat rather than to the military leadership. The Popular Army’s disastrous performance in the Iran-Iraq War contributed to a series of military defeats. The Iranians had considerable success at aiming their assaults at Popular Army units on the front line, where they were often stationed in the seams between Regular Army formations.58 Eventually this loyal but militarily incompetent Sunni-dominant organization was removed from frontline duty. The Popular Army served a useful role providing rear area security, which freed some regular troops for frontline service. The Iraqi Regular Army, which relied heavily on Shi’ite conscripts, was particularly reduced in capability after the Kuwait War. Strong evidence indicates that both Kurdish and Shi’ite Regular Army units deserted after Operation Desert Storm and assisted ethnic uprisings in the north and south.59 After the Republican Guard brutally suppressed the uprising, Regular Army units were rarely sent on major training exercises during the 1990s because of concerns about their loyalty.60 Two entire brigades were basically destroyed by Kurdish insurgents in a 1995 attack, evidence that the Regular Army had regressed to the competency levels of the 1960s when lightly armed Kurdish rebels could successfully oppose heavily armed Iraqi regulars.61 By 2003, even the Republican Guard had become militarily incompetent because of poor training. A battalion of Republican Guards equipped with Iraq’s best T-72 tanks was unable to score a single hit on U.S. forces, despite attacking with surprise at a range of 800 to 1,300 yards.62 During the Coalition approach to Baghdad, even the most loyal and devoted Iraqi units—Special Republican Guard, Republican Guard, and Fedayeen— demonstrated their lack of basic skills and of preparation for either conventional or urban warfare.63 These units, commanded by Saddam’s sons Uday and Qusay, had received Iraq’s best equipment and training. The abysmal performance of Iraqi elite units demonstrated the utter inadequacy of Iraq’s training regimen by 2003. Reliance on scripted plans by the elite units of the Iraqi military indicates serious problems with re-

Social Structure, Ethnicity, and Military Effectiveness

71

sponsiveness, as well: once the plan was broken, Iraqi units had difficulty recovering. In the relatively set-piece battles against Iran, particularly later in the 1980s, Iraqi elite forces had time for adequate training and preparation because of the existence of large bodies of Shi’ite regular forces. These provided a defensive buffer that allowed the withdrawal of elite forces for extensive and precise training for particular offensive missions. The deterioration of the heavily Shi’ite Regular Army, the collapse of professional leadership, and the increasingly fluid operational style of Iraq’s opponents created conditions in which Iraqi training efforts became increasingly haphazard and ineffective, significantly decreasing military effectiveness. The Iraq case thus supports the hypothesis that discrimination in training and education does adversely affect military skill and quality. In extremely favorable conditions, Shi’ite forces provided an adequate buffer against Iranian offenses from 1986 to 1988, fortifying themselves in static positions and benefiting from massive advantages in fi repower and chemical weapons. This bought enough time for Iraqi elite units to train to unprecedented professional levels, by the standards of the region. Faced with a more capable adversary, Shi’ite Regular Army units were utterly ineffectual—and became even more so as the Iraqi military reorganized after Desert Storm. This suggests the relatively inferior performance of Shi’ites was due precisely to discrimination in equipment and training, and under a different regime or approach, Shi’ites could have played a more effective role in the Iraqi military. However, this conclusion must be tempered by the knowledge that from 1991 to 2003, even the units that received the most preferential treatment failed abysmally. Discrimination appears to have played a significant role in explaining differences in unit performance through 1991, but after that time sheer incompetence may provide a stronger explanation in the collapse of Iraqi military capabilities. h y poth esis 5 The fi fth hypothesis is that policies of discrimination based on ethnicity create weaknesses in command and control structures that undermine the capacity of the military to integrate its activities and respond quickly to developments on the battlefield. In other words, discrimination harms integration and responsiveness. To protect his regime from internal threats, Saddam Hussein tended to create overlapping command structures and to centralize control over military operations.64 This allowed him to monitor his military subordinates and protect himself from conspiracies—which, as noted earlier, became increasingly frequent in the 1990s. Saddam also put key family members

72 Timothy D. Hoyt and close associates in crucial leadership positions. During the Iran-Iraq War, Adnan Khairallah, Saddam’s cousin and closest friend, was defense minister. By 1990, Saddam’s son-in-law Hussein Kamel was in charge of critical intelligence services, all military industries, and the effort to create weapons of mass destruction, and his cousin Kamal Mustafa led the Special Republican Guard. By 2003, his son Uday controlled the Fedayeen, the paramilitary force that may by then have numbered over 100,000, and his other son Qusay controlled the Special Security Organization.65 These offices carried substantial military responsibility and in many cases diluted potential military capability by competing for resources and authority. The Fedayeen, for example, trained for urban warfare but lacked the combat experience and heavy weapons available to Regular Army units. In the interests of internal stability and personal security, Saddam spread personnel, equipment, and missions across a range of competing military and paramilitary organizations with confl icting chains of command and lines of authority. This violates the military principles of concentration, maximizing military resources for the primary mission and minimizing resources assigned to other tasks, and unity of command, the concept that a single commander or organization should, if possible, have responsibility and authority for major operations. Republican Guard forces, for example, had their own special command structure. They reported directly to Saddam Hussein but technically also reported to Iraqi Army headquarters.66 The Popular Army often reported to the Mukhabarat, an intelligence body, rather than a military command.67 In theory, then, an operation using Regular Army, Republican Guard, and Popular Army troops—whether an offensive or defensive mission—would require coordination among Saddam’s presidential office, army command, and the intelligence bureau. Confused lines of authority like this are a recipe for slow and ineffective decision making, and they complicate coordination across levels of military aff airs by requiring constant coordination between competing bureaucracies. Early in the Iran-Iraq War, military commanders were rotated frequently to prevent them forming dangerous loyalties from their men, and political officers were posted with most Regular Army units. As already mentioned, Popular Army units were often stationed between Iraqi Regular Army divisions, particularly early in the Iran-Iraq War. These policies contributed directly to many of Iraq’s early failures in that war. Political officers curbed flexibility, innovation, and realistic responses in the Regular Army officer corps, and unit commanders were generally unfamiliar with their personnel and capabilities. Popular Army forces were poorly trained, inadequately equipped, and relied on a highly politicized officer

Social Structure, Ethnicity, and Military Effectiveness

73

force reporting to the internal security authorities. It is hardly surprising that these units failed earlier and more often than Regular Army forces. The convoluted chain of command could only contribute to greater disasters as the intelligence authorities tried to understand the magnitude of tactical disasters, communicate them effectively to Regular Army leaders, and coordinate an effective response. From 1986 to 1991, the three-tiered conventional force structure did not suffer as greatly from these difficulties. Although the Republican Guard had their own chain of command, they cooperated well with Regular Army leadership through the end of the Iran-Iraq War. Regular Army infantry forces were given simple missions—basically holding terrain in depth. The more proficient Regular Army heavy divisions and the Republican Guard forces operated well in tandem, at least in part the result of long periods of practice and drill before each carefully orchestrated offensive. In 1991, in a more fluid environment where the Coalition dominated the air and aggressively prosecuted maneuver warfare on the ground, Iraq’s command structure was incapable of managing a major fighting withdrawal. Regular Army infantry divisions, occasionally deserted by their officers, were left to fight and die—or, as it turned out, to surrender. Republican Guard and Regular Army heavy divisions showed more spirit and more fight but were simply outmatched by Western forces. The multiple tiers of Iraqi fighting forces in 2003 (see Table 3.2), with all the deficiencies mentioned earlier in this chapter, simply could not coordinate for any meaningful defense of the country. Leaders selected primarily on the basis of loyalty and family connections, competing for resources and power with one another, proved unable to manage any coherent defense against a very capable adversary. In sum, in the Iraqi case, discrimination particularly harmed the capacity of the military to respond quickly to developments on the battlefield. Multiple military structures, based on ethnic discrimination, created a labyrinthine command and control system and huge impediments to rapid and flexible military response, failures demonstrated quite profoundly in the face of Coalition attacks in 1991 and 2003. Discrimination harmed Iraqi efforts to integrate military activities. The damage caused by this discrimination varied, however. In the Iran-Iraq War, Shi’ite units felt sufficient national loyalty (and were under sufficient observation by a myriad of security agencies) that they fought well in a very limited role, although they occasionally failed when the Iranians tried innovative techniques, as in the 1986 Al-Faw offensive. In later confl icts, both internal and external, the problems of discrimination became much more evident. Shi’ite units were almost useless in Desert Storm, and much more systematic discrimination

74 Timothy D. Hoyt ta bl e 3.2 Iraqi Military and Paramilitary Organizations (Ba’ath Era) Name (year established)

Functions (in order of importance)

Regular Army (1932)

Republican Guard (1960)

Special Republican Guard (1980s) Popular Army (1960s)

Special Security Organization (1980s) Fedayeen (1990s)

Ethnic Makeup

Size

Conventional war Internal security (ethnic)

Mixed—increasing Shi’ite mobilization in lower ranks through 1980s

Presidential bodyguard Elite conventional force (1980s) Internal security (1990s) Presidential bodyguard Elite conventional force (1990s) Internal security (counterweight to Regular Army) Conventional war (1980s) Presidential bodyguard Protection of WMD assets (1990s) Internal security (counterweight to Regular Army) Irregular warfare (2003)

Mixed—increasingly Sunni throughout 1980s

Approx. 1.1 million in approx. 50–60 divisions (1988–1990) 400,000 in approx. 20-25 divisions (2003) 2 brigades (1980) 8 divisions (1990)

Predominantly Sunni, loyal tribes

1 brigade (1980s) 3 brigades (2003)(1990s)

Mixed—Ba’athist Party members (therefore heavily Sunni)

Approx. 650,000 (mid-1980s)

Predominantly Sunni, loyal tribes

?

Mixed—Saddam family loyalists

Approx. 100,000? (mid-1990s)

(and deprivation of both leadership and equipment) made them all but useless in fighting against the Kurds, the southern Shi’ite intifada, and Coalition forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The fi fth hypothesis, therefore, is partially proven, particularly when the army practicing discrimination is faced by a qualitatively superior adversary.

Conclusion Iraq made internal security and regime survival a major priority of its national security policy and its military practice. When Iraq’s major concerns were directed inward, to internal security and defense of Iraqi borders, the multiethnic, highly politicized conscript force of 1932 to 1979 was largely adequate, although episodic Kurdish revolts proved a problem. The failure of Iraq’s opportunistic attack against Iran in 1980, however, revealed the weaknesses in skill, integration, and responsiveness of Iraqi forces.

Social Structure, Ethnicity, and Military Effectiveness

75

As a result, Saddam instituted a series of significant policy changes. The need for improved capabilities to defend the country had to be balanced against military ineffectiveness in the interests of internal security. The feeble performance of the Popular Army and the failure to defeat Iran led to a further reorganization of the military. Iran’s military successes, particularly in early 1986, compelled Saddam to allow his military more independence in planning and operations. The need for greater offensive capability led Iraq to trifurcate its military, with the vast bulk of the forces—predominantly Shi’ite conscripts—receiving older equipment, mediocre leadership, and minimal training while the majority of resources, skilled personnel, and expertise were shifted to the Republican Guard and a few chosen Regular Army units. It may have been an inelegant and inefficient solution, but it was one Iraq could manage during that particular war without complete disruption of either the military force structure or the domestic political system. This trifurcation created just enough military efficiency, combined with Iran’s declining military capabilities and public support, for Iraq fi rst to hold and then to defeat the Iranian military in a series of operations in 1988. Shi’ite conscripts fought with determination in their third-rate infantry divisions, and the intensely rehearsed and highly scripted 1988 offensives succeeded at throwing the Iranians out of Iraq. However, this force fared much more poorly in attempts to hold Kuwait in 1991, suggesting that the Shi’ite conscripts were less willing to sacrifice themselves for foreign soil. The Kurdish and Shi’a revolts after Operation Desert Storm destroyed any regime trust in the Regular Army, and Saddam’s responses to the frequent coup attempts between 1991 and 2003 drove the last remnants of professionalism from the Iraqi military. The collapse of Iraq’s army and the incompetence of its most loyal units demonstrate how little conventional military capability remained in the late Ba’ath-era Iraqi Army. However, those same forces were adequate to maintain internal security and preserve the Ba’ath regime from internal threats until outside forces pushed Saddam from power in 2003. Overall, the Iraq case suggests that discrimination on ethnic grounds can significantly affect the ability to mobilize resources in war, and policies that are less discriminatory—even temporarily—appear to mobilize resources more efficiently and to create higher levels of military effectiveness. Proper policy, therefore, can maximize available resources given internal constraints and maximize the options available to counter changes in the external environment, two key elements of responsiveness. Discrimination in training and education produces inferior troops, lacking the ability to

76 Timothy D. Hoyt execute tasks and the motivation to perform them well, two key elements of skill. In addition, proper policy can improve the overall quality of the officer corps and increase the ability to plan and act across the various levels of military activity, key elements of integration. Discriminatory ethnic policies are not the sole, or perhaps even primary, reason for Iraqi military ineffectiveness. Discrimination constitutes a relatively rational domestic policy in a divided society ruled by a minority group: the Sunni. Ba’athist policies, combined with distrust of the military as an institution, clearly did have a negative impact on Iraqi military performance and capability at many levels. The Iran-Iraq War represented an extraordinary challenge for an army deliberately designed to be militarily inefficient in the interests of regime security. Efforts to reduce discrimination and to mobilize Shi’a manpower and other resources more effectively contributed to Iraq’s ability to adapt and become proficient enough to defeat a regional “peer competitor.” New policies were adequate to help defeat Iran, a formidable opponent, but ill suited for fighting a vastly superior Coalition in 1991. The internal threats emerging as a result of the defeat in Kuwait drove Iraq to revert to earlier policies, which improved internal security but crippled conventional military effectiveness, a fact all too clearly demonstrated in 2003.

Notes The views expressed in this chapter are those of the author and not those of the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, or any other branch of the U.S. government. 1. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Book Three, Verses 70–85, in Robert B. Strassler, ed., The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 194–201. 2. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1994), 8–12, 40–48. 3. Stephen Peter Rosen, Societies and Military Power: India and Its Armies (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996), 26. 4. This reflects earlier debates about military professionalism fi rst articulated by Samuel Huntington and now a staple of the study of civil-military relations. See Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1957). See also Michael C. Desch, Civilian Control of the Military: The Changing Security Environment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); Peter D. Feaver and Richard H. Kohn, eds., Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001); Eliot A. Cohen, Supreme Command:

Social Structure, Ethnicity, and Military Effectiveness

77

Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (New York: Free Press, 2002); and Peter D. Feaver, Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003). 5. David E. Kaiser, Politics and War: European Conflict from Philip II to Hitler (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000). 6. Analysts of confl ict in the developing world highlight the vulnerability of emerging postcolonial states to ethnic division generated by arbitrary boundaries and borders. Mohammed Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament: State Making, Regional Conflict, and the International System (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1995). 7. This chapter focuses on ethnicity and religion, and for the rest of the text “ethnic” refers to both issues and the social cleavages that emerge from those distinctions. 8. See, for example, Kenneth M. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness 1948–1991 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2002). 9. Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament, 166. 10. Robert E. Harkavy and Stephanie G. Neuman, Warfare and the Third World (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 248. 11. Ayoob notes that the bulk of defense expenditures in the developing world are devoted to operating costs and labor-intensive efforts, and he has concluded from this that the focus of the armed forces in these states is internal order— often the result of ethnic grievances and divisions—rather than sophisticated force projection and conventional capabilities. Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament, 193. 12. Rosen, Societies and Military Power, 30. 13. Ibid., 264. 14. Ibid., 30. 15. Adel Darwish and Gregory Alexander, Unholy Babylon: The Secret of Saddam’s War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), 8. 16. Samir al-Khalil, Republic of Fear (New York: Pantheon, 1989), 165–68. Originally writing under a pseudonym, the author has since identified himself as Kanan Makiya. Future references are to al-Khalil/Makiya as the author. 17. Kenneth M. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2002), 157. 18. Pollack, Arabs at War, 163. 19. Al-Khalil/Makiya, Republic of Fear, 31. At its height, the Popular Army numbered 650,000 and provided an additional pool of available manpower. 20. Al-Khalil/Makiya, Republic of Fear, 33. 21. Pollack, Arabs at War, 206. 22. Al-Khalil/Makiya, Republic of Fear, 260. 23. Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, vol. 4, The Gulf War (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996), 118. 24. Pollack, Arabs at War, 220. 25. Cordesman and Wagner, Lessons of Modern War, vol. 4, 122.26. Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi, Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography (New York: Free Press, 1991), 140.

78 Timothy D. Hoyt 27. Pollack, Arabs at War, 219. 28. Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Generals’ War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995), 280–302. 29. Kenneth M. Pollack, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2002), 45.30. Pollack, The Threatening Storm, 49. 31. Williamson Murray and Robert H. Scales Jr., The Iraq War (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2003), 84.32. Amatzia Baram, Building toward Crisis: Saddam Husayn’s Strategy for Survival, Policy Paper No. 47 (Washington, D.C.: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1998), 41. 33. Murray and Scales, The Iraq War, 84. 34. Karsh and Rautsi, Saddam Hussein, 140. 35. Murray and Scales, The Iraq War, 79. 36. Pollack, Arabs at War, 182. 37. Karsh and Rautsi, Saddam Hussein, 38. 38. Pollack, Arabs at War, 208. 39. Ibid., 208–9. 40. Ibid., 212–13. 41. Ibid., 208–9. 42. Ibid., 218. 43. Ibid., 219. 44. Baram, Building Toward Crisis, 38. 45. Ibid., 7. 46. Ibid., xi. 47. Its prominent members included a former chief of general intelligence (executed in the early 1990s), the commander of the Special Republican Guard, commander of a Regular Army corps, commanders of Republican Guard units, and a provincial governor. Ibid., 21–24. 48. Ibid., 27–29. 49. Ibid., 50–51. 50. Pollack, The Threatening Storm, 93. 51. See the transcript of an interview with Lieutenant General Raad AlHamdani, Frontline, April 22, 2004, available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/ frontline/shows/invasion/interviews/raad.html, accessed December 10, 2005. Lieutenant General al-Hamdani was the commander of the Republican Guard forces south of Baghdad during Operation Iraqi Freedom. 52. Cordesman and Wagner, Lessons of Modern War, vol. 4, 122–23. 53. Ibid., 124. 54. Pollack, Arabs at War, 219. 55. Ibid., 220. 56. Al-Khalil/Makiya, Republic of Fear, 31. 57. Murray and Scales, The Iraq War, 78. 58. Pollack, Arabs at War, 182, 201. 59. Cordesman and Wagner, Lessons of Modern War, vol. 4, 652. 60. Ibid., 656. 61. Baram, Building toward Crisis, xii.

Social Structure, Ethnicity, and Military Effectiveness

79

62. Murray and Scales, The Iraq War, 207. 63. Ibid., The Iraq War, 207–18. 64. This is a familiar pattern in other Arab armies as well. See Pollack, Arabs at War, and Risa Brooks, Political-Military Relations and the Stability of Arab Regimes, Adelphi Paper 324 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1998). 65. Pollack, The Threatening Storm, 113. 66. Cordesman and Wagner, Lessons of Modern War, vol. 4, 122. 67. Al-Khalil/Maikya, Republic of Fear, 31. Pollack, Arabs at War, 207, notes that in the mid-1980s, Popular Army brigades were “resubordinated” to army command, suggesting fluctuation in their lines of authority.

chapter

Political Institutions and Military Effectiveness: Contemporary United States and United Kingdom

4

deborah avant

domestic institutions are powerful determinants of military effectiveness among modern nation-states. The rules within which political contenders compete for leadership and delegate tasks to military organizations affect the strategies that politicians employ to affect military behavior and also, over time, the professional strength of military organizations and their preferences as embodied in organizational culture or bias. Domestic institutions might vary in several ways: on a continuum of capability and legitimacy (from strong to weak states), mode of authority (from democratic or autarchic), or constitutional arrangement (parliamentary to presidential). In this chapter, I focus on how different constitutional arrangements affect military effectiveness by examining two states that are similar in strength and mode of authority but have different constitutional arrangements: the United States and the United Kingdom. I argue that the difference in institutional structures in these countries has resulted in military organizations that capitalize on different elements of military effectiveness. U.S. institutions foster military organizations that emphasize skill and quality, whereas British institutions foster military organizations that stress responsiveness and integration. Each military suffers corresponding risks: the United States risks spending too much and generating skills and doctrine not well suited to some strategic goals, and the United Kingdom risks spending too little and having personnel with less refi ned skills in some key areas.

Political Institutions and Military Effectiveness

81

An Institutional Model of Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness The assumption behind the institutional model is that individuals want to ensure or to enhance their institutional positions.1 This leads actors to see the world, and their options in it, through the lens of where they sit.2 Like classical realist models, it assumes that actors make short-run calculations to preserve or enhance their power as a precursor to pursuing longer-term or more principled goals, but it carries this logic down to the people who make decisions via the structure of domestic institutions, at every step paying the most attention to short-term and individual calculations. Thus political leaders can be expected to choose from the range of decisions that ensure their continued power, and so can military leaders. This does not suggest that international, ideational, normative, or other concerns are not important; however, their significance for individual choice is, I argue, influenced by an individual’s institutional position. Civil-military relations in strong democratic states can be examined as tiered relationships of delegation. Voters, when they elect leaders, in effect delegate power over the provision of public goods to civilian leaders. Civilian leaders then delegate power over the provision of particular goods—such as national security—to bureaucratic organizations, such as military organizations. Whenever power is delegated, however, it opens the way for agency problems. Agents may not do what their principals want them to. Information asymmetry and agenda setting, inherent in the process of delegation, also open the way for agency problems. Agents may have better information about their own capabilities and performance than do their principals. They also develop specialized expertise crucial to carrying out their functions that gives them bargaining advantages over their principal. Although no institutional setup can avoid agency problems altogether, the way that principals set up the relationship and monitor agents should affect the kinds of agency problems that affl ict different relationships.3 Domestic institutions offer clues as to these setup and monitoring choices. The fi rst of these clues is the difference between electoral systems that tend toward unity and those that tend toward division. Here analysts make a key distinction between parliamentary and presidential (or executivelegislative) systems. In a parliamentary system, the executive is chosen and can be removed by the elected assembly, whereas in a presidential system both the assembly and the president are popularly elected, separately and often through different processes.4

82 Deborah Avant This leads parliamentary systems to tend toward unity. Because the parliament is elected all at once, from the same constituency, and for the same period of time, there are no institutional incentives that exacerbate disagreement. Instead, institutional incentives reward compromise and agreement within parties. Although there may be policy disagreements among leaders within a party, the party must coalesce around a set of issue stances to enhance its chances of victory, and it is only through the party’s victory that individuals can take positions of leadership. Whatever party wins a majority thereby creates a government and can make policy according to the party’s platform.5 This often leads parliamentary systems to generate “efficient” outcomes—where voters choose between parties on the basis of different national policy platforms—rather than other more local concerns such as patronage or “pork.” This institutional structure eases the way for concerted action among civilians. In presidential systems, where the executive is elected separately from the legislature, there are institutional reasons for civilians to disagree, regardless of their ideological perspectives. Civilian leaders are elected from different electorates, for different time periods, and thus are more likely to have different views of the impact of particular policies on their immediate chances for reelection. For example, presidents may be willing to respond to changes in the international system, but Congress members may be less so if these changes result in less spending in their districts. This institutional structure makes concerted action more difficult. These institutional arrangements have consequences for the way civilians are likely to control the military—both for the immediate ability of civilians to intervene in a particular situation and for the strategies by which civilians organize military forces, both of which have long-term impacts on the culture of military organizations. The consequences for immediate action are relatively straightforward. Civilians in unified systems have an easier time agreeing on what to do and designing appropriate strategies to direct the military. The greater the chances for civilian agreement on national policy, the more clearly civilians are able to communicate their preferences to military organizations. Furthermore, if civilian leaders agree on policy, they are also more likely to create efficient processes—mechanisms for monitoring and sanctioning—that incite the military to pay attention to and respond to civilian preferences. In divided systems, the opportunities for disagreement and confl icting demands are greater. When different civilian institutions have competing powers over the bureaucracy, disagreement over policy can lead to confl icting instructions to the military. Confronted with two sets of directions, military agents can choose the direction that best suits their interests,

Political Institutions and Military Effectiveness

83

or they can play the two off against one another to generate a policy more to the military’s liking. Even beyond the complication that different policy preferences lend, competition for power over the military bureaucracy may also lead civilian leaders to greater rigidity in their processes of control. Once actors do come to agreement, they may embed the agreement in the organization’s structure as a way to avoid constant future jockeying for new agreements. If the future looks uncertain, actors may fashion the organization in such a way as to shield it from future authority, either to reduce opportunities for their opponents in the future or to tie their own hands so as to shield themselves from potential domestic political consequences.6 Divided systems are also prone to the development of distrust between civilians that can circumscribe their control strategies, making it more likely that they will choose strategies that preserve their political power even if they are less effective. For example, distrust between Congress and the president can lead the president to be hesitant to use controversial personnel appointments to change the military rapidly in a crisis, even though that may be what is required to institute quick changes. The long-term consequences of these strategies are less obvious but potentially more important. Civilian choices have significant effects on the strength and preferences of military organizations, influencing whether military organizations are strong, united, and professional or weak, divided, and amateur. The strength of military organizations, in turn, affects the degree to which those military organizations can develop and communicate their preferences. The civilian choices common under divided institutions are more likely to yield strong military organizations with clear preferences. Such organizations are more likely to play one civilian institution off another and to develop strength and discretion over time as civilians disagree. Furthermore, although the military’s preferences may be influenced by many factors, significant among them is past civilian direction. Civilian choices about standards for training, promotion, and budgets become embedded in military organizations and condition what military leaders expect to be rewarded for. These incentives shape the culture of the organization, which determines its standard, or default, set of choices. i nstitutions a n d m i lita ry e f f ecti v e n ess One might imagine that the choice between these institutional setups is clear and a unified system is superior for military effectiveness. In fact, however, the two systems buffer against different risks and capitalize on different benefits. Generally, divisions in civilian institutions allow more room for the establishment of strong and professional military organizations that develop specialized expertise beyond what civilians have and that

84 Deborah Avant standardize their practices. One of the key reasons to delegate in the fi rst place is to have agents with specialized expertise beyond what the principal can provide. This is more likely to develop when organizations are professional, a quality whose hallmarks are expertise, responsibility, and a collective sense of the profession.7 According to Huntington, it is strong and professional organizations that are most likely to develop the “complex intellectual skill requiring comprehensive study and training” that is necessary in the modern military.8 When this expertise becomes institutionalized within the culture of military organizations, it defi nes the realm in which the military expects to operate: where it should innovate and where it should not. This prevents quick alterations in response to short-term incentives and promotes a stable environment in which the military can hone its skills. A strong professional military is more likely to develop education and training programs based on military professional standards, and these standards are likely to be represented in a promotion system and thus define merit in an explicit way. Both of these should be closely associated with increased skill. In addition, the development of strong professional organizations can create the conditions for the military, by virtue of its expertise, to help civilians understand the variety of things the military must have, such as up-to-date weaponry and adequate force levels, to achieve success according to its professional standards. This may, in turn, increase the quality of military hardware and personnel and thus increase military effectiveness. Finally, divided civilian institutions guard against civilian extremes. The key concern of the American founders with respect to civil-military relations was not what the military would do, but what factions of civilians might have them do.9 When institutions require agreement to get change, it makes it harder for one group to hijack the military. The hurdles for generating agreement also encourage civilians to rally the public around policy in ways that increase national resolve. In this circumstance, change may be slower but it is more likely to reflect agreement and resolve, which enhance morale and thus military effectiveness. A drawback of divided civilian institutions, however, is that if the military faces new threats not defi ned within its professional mission, it is likely to be less responsive. Indeed, the military may not even recognize such threats because its intelligence-gathering tools are focused on the threats that it expects. Even when civilians require that the military meet a threat for which it is not prepared, the organization is likely to produce fairly traditional doctrine and planning, which may be ill suited to the goals set by the civilians. Divided institutions are thus less likely to maximize responsiveness and integration for particular kinds of unanticipated threats or those on which there is not widespread civilian agreement.

Political Institutions and Military Effectiveness

85

ta b l e 4 .1 Institutions and Aspects of Military Effectiveness

Civilian institutions

→

Strategic assessment and coordination Military budget Intelligence collection Officer selection Training and education

→

Integration

→ →

Quality Responsiveness

→ → →

Integration Responsiveness Skill

Conversely, unified civilian institutions foster agreement, which enhances the ability of civilians to direct the military in the short run. Such agreement also makes it easier for civilians to intervene to prompt quick changes, particularly by replacing personnel easily. Even if civilians do not intervene, past interventions can prompt the military to anticipate civilian preferences: if military personnel know that particular options are likely to affect future promotions because they will please civilian leaders, they are more likely to search for these options. This structure creates a different kind of personnel system, one that is closely attentive to civilian preferences, goals, and strategies and thus integrated with civilian goals. Because the military is not so wedded to a standard way of doing things, it is likely to be more responsive to the particular situation it finds itself in. Without strong opinions of its own about the kind of intelligence that counts, the military is more likely to pay attention to what is working, and thus to be more responsive to its enemy. The unified institutional setting, however, is less conducive to the development of an area of military autonomy that can allow a set of independent and professional standards to grow. Without such standards, the military is less able to anticipate the need for new skills, and it has a weaker basis for urging political leaders to pay for their development. It also reduces the military’s ability to pressure for investment in particular kinds of weapons. Set against militaries that have carefully invested in and honed their professional skills, militaries geared more to responsiveness and integration may be at a disadvantage as to skill and quality. Furthermore, unified civilian institutions make change easier but also increase the risk of civilian mistakes and excesses. If civilians err in their direction of the military, there are fewer channels for the military to voice its disapproval and to check mistakes. It is also easier, in unified institutional settings, for a faction of civilians to hijack the military, using it for political purposes or to pursue goals not widely shared by the polity.

86 Deborah Avant In general, then, we should expect these different institutional settings to lead to different strengths and weaknesses in the properties of military effectiveness.10 Divided institutions do not favor integration and responsiveness so much, but they should enhance military skill and quality, particularly of military organizations that are strong and professional. Unified institutions bode well for integration and responsiveness but detract from military skill and quality. See Table 4.1.

United States and Britain Compared Apart from domestic institutions, of course, many other variables may influence the effectiveness of different militaries. In choosing to compare the United States and the United Kingdom, I have controlled for other obvious institutional variables such as state strength (whether a state is coherent, capable, and legitimate) and mode of authority (whether a state is democratic or authoritarian). Some argue, however, that the power of a state relative to other states in the international system is more important for the effectiveness of its military response than any domestic institutional variance.11 Others argue that the nature of the threat a state faces is the key factor in the effectiveness of its military response.12 To control for some of the variation suggested by these arguments, I compare cases where the United States and the United Kingdom held similar positions of relative power and faced threats of a similar nature. In particular, I compare how each military, when in a position of relative but not unrivaled strength, responded to multifaceted threat environments: the United States in the 1950s and 1960s and the United Kingdom from the turn of the twentieth century through World War I. In the following sections, I discuss the evolution of the U.S. and UK militaries—particularly their armies—and how this influenced their performance against peripheral and central threats in their respective periods of similar strength and similar threat environments. I then describe the institutional dilemmas for military effectiveness in each polity and suggest that, as the dilemmas are different, so too are the strategies most likely to resolve them.

The United States politica l i nstitutions a n d m i lita ry ef f ecti v e n ess In the United States, concern with the usurpation of power by factions of civilians led the founders to set up a system of checks and balances that institutionalized divisions among the civilian leadership. Different civilian

Political Institutions and Military Effectiveness

87

institutions, with different constituencies, often developed different preferences over the best way to meet military challenges. Initially, however, the institutional divisions did not lead to competition over the control of the army. Congressional concern with national military policy before the turn of the twentieth century overwhelmingly concentrated on the militia. Because state parties controlled congressional nominations and received many political benefits from their control over the militia, congressional representatives had domestic political reasons to pay attention to militia rather than army matters. After the Civil War, the U.S. Army professionalized itself in a state of isolation. Congress was content to let the army set its own standards for education, training, promotions, evaluation, and retirement relatively free from interference as long as it did not request increased budgets. The absence of external threat combined with the political lessons of the immediate post–Civil War period kept the president from interfering.13 The resulting culture was influenced by the admiration with which the army observed the military progress of the Prussians. The American army devised a highly deductive approach to warfare that relied heavily on the “science of war” manifested in Prussian military theory. Although the army was engaged in many different kinds of missions day to day, such as occupying the South and “pacification” efforts against Native Americans in the West, the army focused on military principles more suited to war with major powers in the European theater. The army objected to the preparation of armed forces for police or constabulary work as beneath the soldier’s vocation. Its system of education focused on using military history to teach the principles of war and to cultivate uniformity of thought and procedure. This created biases toward offensive, decisive doctrine generally more suited for conventional war with European powers in the European setting.14 As a result of the progressive reforms that loosened the ties between congressional nominations and state parties, and in response to the rise in U.S. power in the first half of the twentieth century, Congress reorganized its oversight of the military. As the military became more salient in American politics, and as national politics became more important than local politics for congressional careers, Congress became more interested in military activity. Congress’s expanded role in military affairs, particularly after World War II, enhanced the army’s discretion over doctrine, contrary to what one might expect. Having more civilians control the army made it easier, not harder, for the army to maintain its focus. The increased power of Congress in military affairs allowed the army, a strong organization with

88 Deborah Avant distinct preferences, to appeal to Congress when it was dissatisfied with presidential direction. Appeals to Congress on the basis of military expertise could result in hearings that had political repercussions. By raising the potential political costs of intervention by the president, the post–World War II structure of American civil-military relations intensified the army’s ability to focus exclusively on conventional war and ignore appropriate doctrine for low-intensity confl ict, despite executive branch preferences. This is not to suggest that civilians had lost control over the military. In fact, congressional changes in the budgetary process during the 1920s induced the main military organizations (the army, the navy, and later the air force) to compete with one another over funds. Competition over funds quickly became competition over strategy. The interservice rivalry that ensued provided civilians with a range of doctrines appropriate to meet a variety of pressing security concerns (as well as the parochial pork-barrel concerns of Congress). Given that the most pressing security concerns identified by civilian grand strategy in the interwar period was the potential for major-power confl ict, and that attention to this kind of confl ict was reinforced by army preferences, the hypotheses would predict that U.S. military organizations would yield high levels of skill, subscribe to doctrine that was well integrated with grand strategic needs, and be responsive to the threat. After World War II, however, Congress passed the National Security Act of 1947 (revised in 1949), which institutionalized Congress’s role as an active participant in the formation of military policy. The act also gave Congress access to military advice and as a practical matter furthered a process in which Congress relied on military dissenters for information about potential alternatives to the plans of the administration or other services. Interservice rivalry became a primary mechanism through which Congress operationalized its oversight role. At the same time, civilian leaders were gradually settling on a grand strategy that required a set of military instruments flexible enough to meet a wide variety of threats. Civilian leaders in the United States were concerned, fi rst and foremost, with the Soviet threat. The theater of concern reinforced the army’s preference for preparing to fi ght a conventional war in Europe. As the logic of containment unfolded, however, it increasingly focused on the need to contain communism at the margins in places like Vietnam, where opponents practiced a variety of strategies. It was in those marginal areas that U.S. forces actually fought, but the army had few institutional reasons to be responsive to such threats or to create strategies for meeting them that corresponded to civilian goals. In this situation, we should expect that the army’s professional focus

Political Institutions and Military Effectiveness

89

would keep the skill of its forces and the quality of its equipment high. We should also expect that the same professional focus, combined with budgetary incentives to compete with the other services, would allow it to contribute to civilian thinking about the best way to meet the Soviet threat. As for confl icts more removed from the army’s preferred type of war, however, we should expect to fi nd a lower level of integration and responsiveness of doctrine. m i lita ry act i v it i es a n d m i lita ry e f f ecti v e n e ss t r a de-of fs The army’s focus on planning for big conventional wars in the European theater did keep it well prepared for such a confl ict. “The commitment of substantial American forces to the defense of Europe is a cornerstone of contemporary American strategy and the principal determinant of the organization, training, and equipment of American general purpose forces.” 15 Although there were arguments in the policy establishment about the degree to which these forces were to be designed primarily to deter or instead to win a war, there was widespread agreement that defending Europe from the Soviet threat was the prime mission of U.S. forces.16 Army personnel were trained and educated to meet the Soviet threat, the personnel system rewarded those who had focused on this threat, doctrine was developed to be integrated with this threat, and planning was responsive to changes in this threat. Evidence can be found in the frequent updating of the U.S. posture toward the European theater reflected in army doctrinal innovations. Huntington identifies the army as the service primarily responsible for initiating innovations in European defense.17 Indeed, the army even endorsed and supported the notion of limited conventional war from the mid-1950s on, partly as a mechanism for defending the army’s role in American defense.18 The notion of flexible response, which became linked to that of limited war, was created to promote a conventional defense of Europe fi rst, the rest of the world after.19 Having a range of potential nuclear and conventional responses to any Soviet incursion promised a way around the unusability of high-stakes nuclear options. Because combating the Soviet Union was the prime motive of all the services and each service had a different idea about how to go about combating this threat, the interservice rivalry that ensued gave civilians a range of options for meeting this threat. As Huntington puts it, “When the State Department wanted to reinforce Europe in 1950, the Air Force took a rather skeptical attitude, but the Army moved in to help develop and merchandise the policy. Conversely, when the Secretary of State spoke of Massive

90 Deborah Avant Retaliation, the Army dissented, but the now favored Air Force congratulated the diplomats on their military common sense.” 20 Thus interservice rivalry became a mechanism by which U.S. civilians could ensure that military doctrine was well integrated with U.S. goals in Europe. The same professional focus that generated integration and responsiveness in Europe, however, also allowed the army autonomy to resist changes in training and doctrinal development in those areas outside of Europe where the threat did not fit into the army’s standard way of thinking, most notably Vietnam. The army’s response in Vietnam demonstrates the resulting trade-off: disintegration and lack of responsiveness to threats that fit neither the civilian top goals nor the army’s predominant mode of thinking. The goal of U.S. involvement in Vietnam was to create a stable, noncommunist South Vietnam. As instability mounted in the south after the abrogation of the Geneva Accords in 1956, the United States sent advisers to train the South Vietnamese Army.21 The army’s initial approach to the South Vietnamese Army, based on its biases, worked against, rather than toward U.S. goals. Even as crisis after crisis mounted and civilian leaders became increasingly convinced that the army should change its approach to one more appropriate to counterinsurgency, the army misunderstood and resisted civilian intervention. One can find examples of the army’s failures in its training of the South Vietnamese Army and its development of strategy to fight the insurgency itself, as well as in its use of intelligence. Both promotion policies and standard training and education exacerbated the difficulties. The result was that training for the South Vietnamese military, and eventually U.S. military strategy itself, was not integrated with American goals and was not responsive to the threat in Vietnam. e x a m ple 1: u.s. tr a i n i ng for south v i etna m ese forces As the United States stepped up its efforts in Vietnam in 1956, the purpose of military training, according to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, was to reorganize the South Vietnamese Army in such a way as to allow it to maintain internal security. Any external threat would be met by the new regional security organization, the South-East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).22 At the highest levels, the army, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pacific Command Planners, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) all agreed that the most important immediate danger came from subversion and that the South Vietnamese government required forces that could maintain order within the country.23 The army, however, focused its efforts on the creation of an army able to withstand a conventional attack from the north. The assumption, common in U.S. Army training, was that regularly trained troops would also be

Political Institutions and Military Effectiveness

91

capable of performing internal security duties. Thus the army developed a plan to strengthen the South Vietnamese Army while reducing its size to six divisions: three full divisions capable of at least delaying an invasion from the north, and three territorial divisions organized around existing regional commands to provide for internal security and reinforcements.24 This plan had several faults. First, it required that while forces were centralized for training, they left large portions of the population unprotected. Second, it considerably reduced the size of forces to where they were inadequate for internal security tasks, according to local leaders. Finally, the training, according to General John W. O’Daniel, officer in charge of the training effort, was designed to teach South Vietnamese forces to push the enemy “off the roads and into the mountainous untracked areas where, if civilians are evacuated from these areas, the enemy [would be] in dire straits.” 25 In fact, this was just where the enemy normally operated. The focus on creating a conventional army in South Vietnam led the U.S. Army to pull forces away from the population they were supposed to protect and to orient them to defeat a conventional force, rather than the insurgent force that was actually operating in the countryside. In the late 1950s, the execution of this plan resulted in a Vietnamese Army of seven divisions based on the U.S. Army divisional force structure. According to a senior Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) official, it was “a very close parallel on a considerably lighter scale of the division as we knew [it] in World War II.” 26 During this time, however, the communist organization in the south that would later prove devastating to U.S. goals took root. Party operations and then violence increased, in the form of stepped-up assassinations, kidnappings, and guerrilla attacks. In areas no longer protected by regular army forces, province chiefs found themselves with no way to cope with the increasing violence.27 e x a m ple 2: u.s. a r my r esista nce to counte r i nsu rge ncy President Kennedy came into office keenly interested in having the right forces and right doctrine not just for Vietnam, but for the whole range of peripheral confl icts the United States might need to fight. Taking the focus on limited war a logical next step, Kennedy tried to get the army to adopt counterinsurgency capabilities and to create a counterinsurgency doctrine for confl icts like Vietnam. The army did not need to invent new doctrine for counterinsurgency: such a doctrine had recently and successfully been used by the British in Malaya. Counterinsurgency doctrine has several defi ning features. It is defensive, with the goal of pacifying (denying enemy access to) increasing areas of territory. Its tactics involve close association with the population to

92 Deborah Avant be protected, to deprive the guerrilla of the protected population’s support. As the enemy retreats, the aim is to prepare the population and local forces for self-protection while pushing the enemy farther and farther out. The goal is to deny the enemy access to the population and its support rather than to destroy the adversary’s will. The professional standards that led the army to develop innovative doctrine for the European theater also led senior army leadership to see counterinsurgency as a “fad” to which it should give minimal effort so as not to “ruin” the army for a serious war.28 Although the Kennedy administration could—and did—appoint new leaders for the Special Forces, the army’s strong professional bias was embedded in its doctrine, training, and standards of evaluation. All of this led the army leaders to see the insurgent threat in Vietnam through the lens of its conventional war bias and to resist changes in training for fear of undermining the army’s capacity to fight a conventional war. Individuals farther down the chain of command faced career disincentives if they focused on counterinsurgency. The army was not completely resistant to change, but the experience of its leaders, its standards for evaluation, and its resource battles with the other services kept it overwhelmingly focused on the prospect of a big war with the Soviets in Europe.29 Thus although the army gave lip service to the administration’s efforts, it did little to change training or doctrine. Instead, the army redefi ned counterinsurgency missions as special tasks adjacent to conventional war, such as searching out and destroying guerrilla bands. The concept of denying the enemy access to the population, central to counterinsurgency, was missed by this redefi nition. When civilians demanded more training in counterinsurgency, the army simply relabeled traditional activities as counterinsurgency. According to the Howze Board Report on special warfare in 1962, the army had a latent potential for counterinsurgency operations, but “neither its indoctrination nor training is now altogether satisfactory for this mission.” Furthermore, the report found, the counterinsurgency concept was foreign to fundamental army teaching and practice.30 The importance of this misunderstanding of counterinsurgency by the army is illustrated in the experience of the Special Forces. The Special Forces had a promising beginning as they worked under the direction of the CIA to create the Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDG) in the highlands of Vietnam early in the 1960s. Special Forces personnel worked to fortify village security, set up warning systems, and train local strike forces to patrol, set up ambushes, and assist villages under attack. By August 1962, the area under the program encompassed 200 villages in Darlac Province and is credited with the secure status of that province at the end

Political Institutions and Military Effectiveness

93

of 1962.31 Even under CIA direction, however, the Special Forces personnel were said to have had a bias toward creating strike forces capable of offensive action. This bias could be attributed to the army’s standards for evaluation, which were geared toward offensive action.32 Just as the CIDG program had made some progress, however, the army was moving to consolidate control over forces in Vietnam through the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), which replaced MAAG as part of the increase in American assistance to Vietnam in early 1962.33 As the direction of the Special Forces was passed back to the army, MACV declared that enough strike force troops had been trained to allow the U.S. Special Forces to concentrate exclusively on offensive action against the Vietcong. According to army Chief of Staff General Harold Johnson, there was not much utility in “simply building little enclaves in each tribal area”; he wanted to see them operating in a manner “consistent with the [army’s view of ] unconventional warfare doctrine of mobile, agile forces operating with minimal combat and logistic support.” 34 Under army direction, the Special Forces moved further away from counterinsurgency doctrine and toward the redefi ned mission and offensive plans. Even when the army was fully in charge of the Special Forces in Vietnam, the leadership at MACV saw them as a stepchild branch, not to be trusted. “The Special Forces available at the time President Kennedy latched on to them as a new gimmick were what I would describe as consisting primarily of fugitives from responsibility. These were people that somehow or other tended to be nonconformist, couldn’t quite get along in a straight military system.” 35 The army’s suspicion of Special Forces led to bureaucratic difficulties and uncertainty. Those serving in Special Forces units, for example, were unsure whether their tours would be counted as tours in a combat unit, which had significant import for promotion. Even basic supply issues were complicated for these forces.36 Kennedy tried to use his power of appointment to change the army’s focus, but as the hypothesis about domestic political costs predicts, he did not try anything very bold. Replacing the army’s chief of staff with a counterinsurgency expert, for example, would have risked political attack. Instead he created a new post of special assistant for special warfare, to which he appointed General William B. Rosson, a counterinsurgency expert. When General Rosson complained that he was shut out by the army, Kennedy appointed a generalist, General Paul Harkins, in the hopes that someone with more political capital could make the army take note. However, this, too, failed to spur the change Kennedy hoped for. The army did make changes in Vietnam; however, these changes were not determined by what would best meet the insurgent threat but rather

94 Deborah Avant what could fit into standard army thinking about warfare and could be applicable to a serious war in Europe. Some of these, such as search-anddestroy missions, were almost completely counterproductive. Others, such as the use of helicopters for air mobility, were arguably much more appropriate to their circumstances. Both, however, were innovations that were geared for mid- to high-intensity conventional war and were simply scaled down for the insurgent threat. Harry W. Kinnard, who commanded both the air mobility concept test organization and the army’s airmobile division, said, “We felt that if we could make it applicable to mid-intensity and high intensity . . . it would be effective at a lower level.” 37 Instead of counterinsurgency, the army’s plans in Vietnam focused on offensive action, with search-and-destroy missions as the primary vehicle. The army eventually developed a strategy based on attrition, seeking to kill a large enough percentage of the enemy that a “crossover point” would be reached at which they were killing enemy soldiers more quickly than they could be replaced by new forces. This was a plan that closely followed the army’s general theory of war, scaled down for Vietnam. It dictated attention to particular kinds of information—specifically, the opponent’s ability to recruit for its main forces. The army’s undue attention to main force units and neglect of irregular forces generated a heated debate between the CIA and its Defense Department counterpart (the Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA]) over the correct way to calculate the “order of battle.” Although this debate caused much political consternation—and even a lawsuit when retired CIA analyst Sam Adams accused General William Westmoreland of “cooking the books” on Vietnam body counts—it missed the larger problem.38 As a 1966 CIA report suggested, it was the army’s larger theory of war that was wrong, not just its estimation of the numbers of the enemy. The report argued that the Vietnamese communists, having learned from the French, aimed to undermine the American will to persist. The U.S. fight to undermine communist will, it argued, was likely to be ineffective: bombing was unlikely to reduce supply to the point where the communists would be unable to carry out attacks and where the communist leadership would lose their freedom of movement. However, battlefield hardships did force the communists to rely more heavily on coercion rather than persuasion to maintain support from the rural population, suggesting that an army strategy to protect the rural population, rather than contribute to communist deaths alone, might have yielded useful results.39 This kind of thinking, however, was foreign to the army concept of war, which was focused on offensive operations to seize the initiative and take the battle to the enemy. All of this made sense in a conventional

Political Institutions and Military Effectiveness

95

confl ict, but it made less sense in the context of an insurgent war. But the strength and professional focus of the U.S. Army had embedded this theory in doctrine, training, and personnel systems. This generated many organizational disincentives for individuals to understand the insurgent threat in Vietnam, and it made it likely that those who did understand and push for change would be punished. Thus the army’s potential for a responsive counterinsurgency strategy was small. m i lita ry ef f ecti v e n ess i n v i etna m The U.S. Army’s strategy in Vietnam was not effective. In the 1950s, as this strategy focused on training the South Vietnamese Army, it failed to further U.S. goals. The U.S. Army created a force for protecting South Vietnam’s borders when what South Vietnam needed was a force for internal protection. During its formation, the force was removed from the countryside, allowing the Vietcong to take hold. When the force returned, it was smaller and increasingly focused on tasks unrelated to internal security. In the early 1960s, American troops acting as advisers increasingly worked alongside South Vietnamese troops and also on their own, but they were not responsive to the actual nature of the threat or to the civilian goals. Seeking to maximize offensive actions, the army even pulled Special Forces troops away from counterinsurgency activities. When the United States fi nally committed troops (rather than so-called advisers) in 1965, the army’s strategy used search-and-destroy missions and bombing campaigns, both of which aimed to kill communist troops. This strategy subjected the Vietnamese population to significant risks, which further reduced the already low prospect that the population would support the government. Thus it was not integrated with a key U.S. goal: to achieve a stable, noncommunist South Vietnam. Furthermore, it was failing even on its own terms because the lack of protection for villagers increased the communists’ ability to coerce villagers into serving their cause, causing the ill-advised “crossover point” to recede ever further. The problems were not with the skill of the troops or with the quality of American matériel (although as the war dragged on and morale dropped, skill may have suffered as well). The primary problem of military effectiveness was that the army’s plans were not responsive to the enemy faced in Vietnam or integrated with civilian goals. The army sought to win a conventional war while the communists were fighting an insurgent war. The strategy was also not a good match for strategic goals. Raiding villages to kill communists also harmed the local population, which eroded rather than enhanced the potential for a stable noncommunist Vietnam.

96 Deborah Avant

United Kingdom politica l i nstitutions a n d m i lita ry ef f ecti v e n ess Modern parliamentary institutions in the United Kingdom grew out of resistance to weak absolutist rule. Initially, when the crown was stronger, British institutions reflected more divisions.40 Changes in the nineteenth century, however, centralized power over policymaking in the cabinet, opening the way for the unified system of rule.41 The British Army was becoming professionalized just as this unified system was established.42 The Cardwell reforms of the 1870s solidified Parliament’s control of the army, removing all royal authority; it established a new system of service and abolished the purchase of commissions, setting the British Army on its way toward professionalism. With only one institution (all of whose members were beholden to the same constituency) responsible for controlling the military, British politicians in the cabinet had an easier time agreeing on what to tell the military to do and ensuring that civilian preferences were represented in both the structure of military institutions and in military policy. The strengthened mechanism for civilian intervention had an impact on the way military professionalism developed in the United Kingdom. There was no shortage of military theorists bent on creating a scientific professional military in Britain; indeed, theorists with a continental focus were behind the Cardwell reforms and remained an important element of British Army thinking into the twentieth century. The continental perspective, however, was only one among many represented in the British Army and did not gain dominance over its theory of war the way it did in the U.S. Army. The cabinet and the secretary of state for war could appoint officers with more “practical” ideas. Because of this civilian power over military appointment, a range of perspectives became represented in the upper echelons of the British Army. This included traditionalists, who were skeptical about professionalism in general; continentalists, who were eager to create army professionalism based on the science of war and the Prussian experience; and imperialists, who were also eager to create army professionalism but who sought to modify continental lessons to fit the immediate military threats that Britain actually faced. Although the continentalists played a large advocacy role in the reforms of the 1870s, “their failure to pay attention to the needs and functions of an imperial army meant a steady decline in their influence.” 43 As British troops engaged in many different kinds of missions toward the turn of the century, those with a more imperialist vision, who advocated a focus

Political Institutions and Military Effectiveness

97

on imperial policing and home defense as the key missions for the British Army, were rewarded by Parliament for their “reasonable policy prescriptions for national security problems.” 44 The “scientific” school associated with the continentalists had only marginal impact.45 The structure of officer promotion rewarded military leaders who paid close attention to the concerns of civilian leaders, so military leaders tended to heed civilian goals and to create military plans that would meet them.46 Unified civilian institutions thus influenced the style of British Army professionalism. The lack of institutional divisions gave army leaders fewer opportunities to carve out spheres of professional discretion based on the abstract principles of war in vogue in many militaries at the time. Indeed, even among British army leaders, there were differences of opinion over what principles of war might be appropriate. This structure enhanced the chances that the British Army would be responsive to the threats the nation faced and would create war plans that were integrated with civilian goals. Control over appointments, by itself, increased the chance that army leaders would attend to civilians’ strategic choices. Also, less blind reliance on traditional doctrines combined with a promotion system tied to success led personnel in the army to be attentive and responsive to their enemy. The British Army at the turn of the century focused on the wars it actually fought, rather than on theory from other wars. The education and promotion structure reflected the wide variety of missions the British Army undertook rather than the narrow goals examined by the military science of the time. The army’s leadership thus reflected a focus on a variety of doctrines and an ability to respond to new threats as they arose and to create strategies that were in line with civilian security goals. Unified civilian institutions, however, also weakened British Army professionalism. The British Army was unable to argue its views or propose policies based on invocation of its professional expertise alone.47 This meant that the British Army was less able to push for its professional interests or to weigh in on the kind of skills a modern army should have or how it should prepare effectively for future war. As a result, the British government made less investment in the development and standardization of army skills. There was also less investment in the matériel the army needed, so its weapons were of lower quality. Thus British military preparations to build long-term skills and material capabilities relied less on the services’ wishes than on civilian decisions (or, as some put it, on the whims of the prime minister).48 British troops often lost battles early in all their wars and even in the face of clear warnings, the army did not realistically consider the problems posed by large-scale land warfare.49

98 Deborah Avant In the heyday of its power around 1900, growing power on the Continent and Britain’s extended empire throughout the world presented it with a set of security concerns similar to those to which U.S. containment doctrine of the late 1950s and early 1960s would later respond. Given Britain’s different institutional structure, however, we should expect the British military to show greater responsiveness and to react more flexibly to threats, with more attention to the strategic designs of civilian leaders. We should also expect a trade-off: an army with fewer skills and less capacity to lobby for expensive preparations to meet future threats that civilians did not foresee. m i lita ry act i v it i es a n d m i lita ry e f f ecti v e n ess The Boer War illustrates both sides of the dilemma: both the British Army’s lower levels of skill and quality and its responsiveness and integration. The British went to war with the Boers in 1899 on behalf of British immigrants living in South Africa. The British had annexed and protected Boer settlements from hostile Bantu tribes in 1877, but after this they gradually gave more autonomy to the Boers while protecting European (and particularly British) residents. Confl ict over the voting rights of British immigrants ultimately led to the confl ict. The intelligence office had noted an increase in military preparations by the Boers since 1896, and the commander in chief of the British Army had warned that British forces in South Africa were too small to protect the colonies. However, British civilians remained optimistic that a negotiated solution over the citizen rights of the European residents could be reached. They worried that a British mobilization would ruin political options. This perspective was undoubtedly bolstered by British concerns about defense spending. Britain was, as a result, not prepared for war when the Boer forces attacked in October 1899. The fi rst problem the British forces experienced in the field was a shortage of troops, which was directly tied to the lack of preparation. Even once they had more troops in the country in December 1899, however, British forces suffered a string of defeats during “Black Week.” The Boers initially defeated the British Army through better skill and matériel. They were equipped with superior weaponry, including Krupp artillery and Mauser rifles, and they used innovative tactics, overpowering and outmaneuvering the old-fashioned and staid conventional-war tactics of the British. Bound by their dependence on rail lines and their reliance on a traditional use of artillery to “soften” enemy forces and on cavalry charges, the British were overwhelmed by the highly mobile Boers, mounted on ponies and equipped with machine guns.50 Britain’s civilian leaders responded by calling up the reserves and

Political Institutions and Military Effectiveness

99

replacing the commander in chief for South Africa, Sir Redvers Buller. However, they made no suggestions for specific changes on the battlefield. British Army leaders innovated of their own accord. Buller had ordered changes in equipment immediately. He mounted the infantry and issued them trousers like the Boers.51 In tactical innovations, he used artillery in conjunction with a creeping infantry assault, mounting half the troops to secure the flanks of the attacking infantry column so as to outmaneuver the Boers.52 Lord Roberts, Buller’s replacement, continued the pattern of innovation, departing from the rail lines to surprise the Boers.53 Although both leaders responded to the Boer threat, the variety of approaches among professionals in the British Army was shown by the fact that they responded in different ways. Buller opted for slower but steadier progress, with painstaking coordination among artillery, infantry, and mounted troops. Roberts opted for rapid victories. Sweeping through the capitals, as Roberts did, demonstrated his understanding of the futility of frontal attacks against the Boers, but it also left more Boer forces behind, and thus gave them more ability to mount guerrilla strikes.54 Within a year of Black Week, the innovations had yielded the results civilian leaders were seeking. The British had captured the Boer capitals in Transvaal and the Orange Free State and won the conventional war. However, the Boers did not surrender but launched a guerrilla war. Unlike the American army in Vietnam, the British Army responded adaptively to this threat. The British Army, now under Kitchener, developed a two-pronged strategy to counter the new Boer doctrine. First, they conducted large sweeping operations to flush out guerrillas, and then they destroyed anything that could give the guerrillas sustenance. They made sure that areas were kept clear by building a perimeter of blockhouses or fortified huts within rifle range of one another around designated areas.55 This was a brutal scorched-earth strategy: pictures of burned farms and rural populations interned in camps, where thousands of civilians lost their lives because of inadequate facilities and poor sanitation, incited protests in Britain against the “methods of barbarism.” These protests would affect civilian calls for different counterinsurgency tactics in the future. Unlike the American army’s search-and-destroy missions, however, this strategy, although brutal, was effective: it removed rural support for the insurgency and forced the Boers to enter negotiations in April 1902. m i lita ry ef f ecti v e n ess i n th e boe r wa r The British Army was unprepared for the Boer War. Some of this unpreparedness could not be overcome once the confl ict began. British weaponry, for example, never caught up with the Boers. Even once the

100 Deborah Avant British mounted a portion of their infantry, they had to use rifles that had too short a range (carbines) or were too large and unwieldy (Lee-Enfields) to be useful. The British Army was responsive to the Boer threat and to civilian goals, and it created new plans in the field to address both. Given the comparative weakness of the Boers, the British responsiveness was enough to prevail in the conventional portion of the confl ict. When the Boers turned to guerrilla tactics, the British Army responded once again. The strategy was brutal but effective. Whether this strategy was integrated with British civilian goals, however, is a more complicated question. Sir Alfred Milner, high commissioner for South Africa, was aghast at the plans, but the initial reaction in the cabinet was not so intense: British leaders were generally inclined to judge the army on results alone. The government did become more concerned as domestic protests unfurled, but because the war did not drag on, protests over the abuses had a shorter political life than the Vietnam War protests. Although the British Army was responsive to the enemy’s tactics, the Boer War was seen at the time as evidence of its unpreparedness. The British Army had been brought to its knees, for a time, by a bunch of farmers. British civilian leaders therefore set up professional bodies to advise the cabinet and the Committee on Imperial Defense (CID), and they undertook a series of reforms. They formed an Army Council, similar to the Board of Admiralty on issues of sea power, to act as a strategy department like the Prussian General Staff. The Army Council created a permanent defense secretariat (this became the basis for the future cabinet office of minister of defense) that would not simply wait for civilian requests but would take the initiative to inform the prime minister of pressing defense matters as the council saw fit.56 The effect of the existing institutional structure, however, was hard to modify. Because the secretariat operated under the absolute power of the prime minister, it had little room to carve out an area of professional autonomy. Indeed, the degree to which the British Army subsequently fi xated on certain concepts (such as offensive doctrine during World War I) can be attributed to civilians’ efforts to stack the army with their preferred approach. The secretariat prevented army leaders who were convinced of the usefulness of innovations in armored warfare to incorporate them into war plans before World War II because civilians were reluctant to foot the bill.57 The British Army continued to be more subject to the whims of its civilian leaders than the U.S. Army was.

Different Logics, Different Effectiveness Trade-offs The cases examined here illustrate dynamics still at work in the British and American militaries. American domestic political institutions foment

Political Institutions and Military Effectiveness

101

disagreement and allow military professionals room for autonomy in the formation of their identity and focus. This leads to great skill (and spending) but sometimes less responsiveness to unanticipated threats and less integration of civilian goals and military plans. Integration is greatest concerning those threats that civilians agree are the most important, particularly when such threats are already included in military planning. Responsiveness is most apparent when the threat fits in with what the American military expects. Evidence indicates that when civilians come to agreement on issues of military importance, they can force change on the military, but the choices that make most political sense to civilians sometimes reduce military responsiveness.58 British domestic political institutions foster agreement and tend to dampen military professional autonomy. This is more likely to lead to integration and responsiveness but tends to hinder development of skill (and spending) compared to the United States. Knowing the institutional conditions under which the civil-military relationship operates yields different expectations about military effectiveness. It should also inspire those worried about managing the respective weaknesses to choose different strategies.

Notes 1. The institutional model draws broadly from the new institutionalism, a diverse set of theories that focus on the interaction between structure and process. See James March and Johan Olsen, “The New Institutionalism,” American Political Science Review 78, no. 3 (1984): 734–49. One branch of this theorizing has adopted assumptions from microeconomics to explain how formal rules affect decisions about delegation and policy outcomes, given exogenous preferences. A different branch has adopted assumptions from sociologists to explain the way that culture and norms affect the preferences actors have and even their perceptions of the boundaries of feasible options. See discussion in Walter Powell and Paul DiMaggio, The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). A third approach, the most influential for my analysis, has examined the way that structure and process interact historically and uses microeconomic assumptions about individual choices; it also recognizes that these both operate within boundaries set by social structures in the short run and that they affect the development of social structure in the long run. 2. This is similar to Allison’s bureaucratic politics model. Graham Allison, The Essence of Decision (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971). 3. See Deborah Avant, Political Institutions and Military Change: Lessons from Peripheral Wars (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994). See also Peter Feaver, Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003).

102 Deborah Avant 4. See Arend Lijphart, Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Governments in Twenty-One Countries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984); Bernard Groff man and Arend Lijphart, Electoral Laws and Their Political Consequences (New York: Agathon, 1986). For a good summary and a critique of the debate between advocates of the two systems, see Matthew Soberg Shugart and John Carey, Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 5. Gary Cox, The Efficient Secret: The Cabinet and the Development of Political Parties in Victorian England (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 6. Terry Moe, “The Politics of Structural Choice: Toward a Theory of Public Bureaucracy,” in Oliver Williamson, ed., From Chester Barnard to the Present and Beyond (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). 7. Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of CivilMilitary Relations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), 8–10. 8. Ibid., 13. 9. Federalist Papers 8, 26, 47, 48, 51, 69, 74. 10. The broad outlines set by different domestic institutional structures come to affect the structure of military organizations and the civil-military relationship in practice, and thus they are mediated by the political process as it unfolds historically. Although institutions mediate civilian and military choices, it is those choices rather than institutions per se that affect the strength and culture of military organizations. Civilian choices, made in response to particular international and domestic contexts, have important effects on the qualities of military organizations. Military responses to these choices shape the particular qualities of military culture. In the United States and the United Kingdom, this process has been critical to the formation of civilian tools and military culture at any particular point in time because both have shifted and developed over their histories. 11. Barry Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984). 12. Andrew Mack, “Why Big Countries Lose Small Wars,” in Klaus Knorr, ed., Power, Strategy and Security: A World Politics Reader (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983); Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987); Michael Desch, “Democracy and Victory: Why Regime Type Hardly Matters,” International Security 27, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 5–47. 13. Huntington, The Soldier and the State. 14. Carol Reardon, Soldiers and Scholars (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1990). 15. Paul Dyster, “The Defense of Europe: New Variations on an Old Theme,” in Michael Mandelbaum, ed., America’s Defenses (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1989), 118. 16. Samuel Huntington, The Common Defense (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961). 17. Ibid., 312–26. 18. Ibid., 345. 19. Andrew Krepinevich, The Army in Vietnam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

Political Institutions and Military Effectiveness

103

Press, 1985), 28–29. See also Maxwell Taylor, The Uncertain Trumpet (New York: Harper and Bros., 1959). 20. Huntington, The Common Defense, 379. 21. Richard Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen and Cold War Crises (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), 22; The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decision Making in Vietnam (1971–72), Senator Gravel, ed. (Boston: Beacon, 1971–72), vol. 2, 408, 416. 22. Memo, Acofs G-3 to G-3 Plans Div, International Branch, November 10, 1954, “Views of the Secretary of State on Strategy and Force Levels in Indochina,” PSYWAR 091 Indochina; cited in Ronald Spector, Advice and Support: The Early Years of the Army in Vietnam, 1941–1960 (Washington, D.C.: Center for Military History, 1983), 228, note 35. See also Pentagon Papers, vol. 1, 266. 23. Pentagon Papers, vol. 1, 272. 24. Memo, John Foster Dulles to President, November 17, 1954, “General Collins Recommendations Regarding Force Levels,” 751G.00/11-1754, Records of Department of State; cited in Spector, Advice and Support, 238–39. 25. Memo, General John W. O’Daniel to Ambassador Reinhardt, August 1, 1955, O’Daniel Papers, Military History Institute; cited in Spector, Advice and Support, 268. 26. Interview with Colonel Dannemiller by Center for Military History, March 26, 1980; quoted in Krepinevich, The Army in Vietnam, 24. 27. See Jeff rey Race, War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), Chapter 2. This is not to suggest that the South Vietnamese Army was effective before the U.S. training; it was not. However, U.S. training was not aimed at the immediate problem facing the south, and it left large portions of the population vulnerable to threats, violence, and organized communist activities. 28. William B. Rosson, “Accent on Cold War Capability,” Army Information Digest, May 17. 1962. 29. The road to the top in the army necessitated experience in Europe and specializations in armor, infantry, or airborne units. See Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen and Cold War Crises, 81–83; Krepinevich, The Army in Vietnam. 30. UCCONARC, Historical Division (1962), vol. 1b, enc. 5, sec. 7, 4–5, 99, Center for Military History. See also Krepinevich, The Army in Vietnam, 44 and 282, note 48. 31. Colonel Francis Kelly, U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971 (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1973), 24–28. 32. William B. Rosson, Four Periods of American Involvement in Vietnam: Development and Implementation of Policy, Strategy, and Programs, Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University, 1979, 124. 33. Increased Vietcong activity in the summer of 1961 precipitated a flurry of plans in the fall. President Kennedy dispatched Walter Rostow and Maxwell Taylor on a fact-fi nding mission to Vietnam. The result of that mission was the decision to increase the advisory effort and establish a military command, rather than simply an advisory group. By the summer of 1962, the army strength in Vietnam was eight times what it had been the previous summer.

104 Deborah Avant 34. Senior officer debriefi ng interview with army Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson by Colonel Rupert F. Glover, December 28, 1972. Harold K. Johnson Papers, Military History Institute Archives. 35. Ibid., 64, note 46. 36. Ibid., 64–65. 37. Krepinevich, The Army in Vietnam, 120. 38. For different sides of this debate, see Samuel Adams, “Playing with Numbers,” Harper’s, January–June 1975; Patrick McGarvey, “Intelligence to Please,” Washington Monthly 2, no. 1 (1970): 68–75; James Wirtz, “Intelligence to Please? The Order of Battle Controversy during the Vietnam War,” Department of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School, typescript, 1990. 39. CIA, “The Will to Persist,” 1966 memo, Joint Exhibit No. 217, CBS/Westmoreland Collection, University of California, San Diego. 40. Civilian failure to control the highly organized army after the English civil war had led civilians to be wary of a strong military in any form; thus they sought to control the army to keep it weak and unorganized. Officers were required to purchase their commissions, which was thought to ensure that the military would be a part of and represent the propertied class. The absence of a structured military education program, however, prevented the formation of shared preferences within the organization. There was a high degree of variation in officers’ beliefs and capabilities, which contributed to the highly variable performance of the army. Effective performance by the British Army before the professionalizing reforms of the 1870s was heavily dependent on the personal qualities of particular leaders. A gifted leader such as the Duke of Marlborough in the early eighteenth century could make the system work, but the army often floundered under less committed generals, as evidenced by the uneven British performance in the period between the American Revolution and the Crimean War. Correlli Barnett, Britain and Her Army, 1509–1970 (New York: Morrow, 1970). 41. Cox, The Efficient Secret. 42. The Cardwell reforms in the 1870s removed the last of the royal controls and instituted a more formal set of professional reforms. Barnett, Britain and Her Army; Ian Becket and John Gooch, Politicians and Defense: Studies in the Formation of British Defense Policy, 1845–1970 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1981); General Sir Robert Biddulph, Lord Cardwell at the War Office (London: John Murray, 1904); Brian Bond, “Doctrine and Training in the British Cavalry,” in Michael Howard, ed., The Theory and Practice of War (New York: Praeger, 1966); Brian Bond, The Victorian Army and the Staff College (London: Eyre Methuen, 1972); J. S. Omond, Parliament and the Army (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933); Edward Spires, The Army and Society (London: Longman, 1980). 43. Howard Bailes, “Patterns of Thought in the Late Victorian Army,” Journal of Strategic Studies 4, no. 1 (1981): 31. 44. Ibid. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid. 47. Shelford Bidwell and Dominick Graham, Firepower: British Army Weapons and Theories of War (London: Allen and Unwin, 1982), 294.

Political Institutions and Military Effectiveness

105

48. Franklin Arthur Johnson, Defense by Committee: The British Committee of Imperial Defense, 1885–1959 (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), 63–65. 49. Aaron Friedberg, The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895–1905 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 20. 50. Count Adalbert Sternberg, My Experience of the Boer War (London: Longmans, Green, 1901); Jay Stone, The Boer War and Its Effects on British Military Reform, Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York, 1985; Jay Stone and Erwin Schmidl, The Boer War and Military Reforms (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1988); Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War (New York: Random House, 1979). 51. Julian Symons, Buller’s Campaign (London: Cresset, 1963), 141. A good portion of the force had been wearing kilts with khaki aprons for camouflage. Pakenham, The Boer War, 209. 52. Stone, “The Boer War,” 166; John Frederick Maurice, History of the War in South Africa (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1906–10), 509–13. 53. Pakenham, The Boer War, 350–55; Stone, “The Boer War,” 168–69. 54. Stone, “The Boer War,” 174; Pakenham, The Boer War. 55. Pakenham, The Boer War, 522. 56. Johnson, Defense by Committee, 56–65. 57. Harold Winton, To Change an Army (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1988). 58. Carl Brenner, Agency, Institutions, and the Enduring Pattern of American CivilMilitary Relations, Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, 2003.

chapter

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness: Egypt in the 1967 and 1973 Wars

5

risa a. brooks

when do states’ civil-military relations create the most effective militaries on the battlefield? There is no consensus among scholars about the answer to this question. Some suggest that the best civil-military relations are found where there is a clear division of labor, and that militaries left to their own devices perform best in organizing for war. Hence Huntington lauds the imperial German Army as exemplary of an effective military, arguing that its proficiency was facilitated by its freedom from civilian intervention.1 Others suggest that fi rm civilian direction is essential to producing effective militaries. Cohen, for example, argues that active engagement of civilians in military affairs is essential to wartime effectiveness.2 This long-standing debate about the division of labor is primarily a debate about how and to what extent civilians should delegate decisions to military leaders while keeping them firmly under control. But what happens when civilians lose control of their militaries altogether? How does this affect a state’s military effectiveness? Studies like those by Sagan, Van Evera, and Posen suggest that the absence of civilian direction could be extremely dangerous; beyond that, however, we have little understanding of how the breakdown of civilian control could affect a military’s preparation for war.3 In this chapter I look at this issue, framing the inquiry in the following terms: I examine how variation in the political-military balance of power in a state affects its military activities and effectiveness. I am interested, in particular, in how two configurations of power affect military effectiveness. I contrast political dominance with what I term shared power. In the fi rst configuration, political leaders retain the authority to regulate relations with their military leaders. In the second, military leaders are

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

107

themselves politically powerful and can contest civilian control. The contrast is especially important in autocratic regimes, on which this chapter focuses, because militaries often occupy prominent positions in political coalitions in these states.4 As a result, military leaders are in a better position to exert political pressure over politicians, and therefore incidences of contested control may be more common empirically. Specifically, I expect that cases of shared power—when political and military leaders are vying for control of the military and neither is able to dominate the other—are especially dangerous for military effectiveness. They harm three essential military activities: strategic assessment, command and control, and appointments. For example, I anticipate that rivalry between political and military leaders will complicate relations between them in wartime and will thus undermine consultation and coordination of the state’s responses in interstate confl icts. Efforts by each side to project its influence into the military’s chain of command can lead to convolutions in the overall structure of command and control. Competition may exacerbate the politicization of appointments and compromise the quality of the military leadership. Combined, these dynamics may damage the military’s integration and responsiveness and undermine its effectiveness. In contrast, states with clear political dominance of civilian leaders over the military have important advantages in planning for war. This is so, however, for somewhat different reasons than previous studies suggest. The advantage is not that civilian leadership is wiser, more broadminded, or more internationally responsive, as is often the underlying assumption in works that encourage strong civilian direction, but rather that unified control reduces some of the pathologies that can afflict military planning often seen in autocratic regimes.5 Autocracies in which civilian leaders control the military have important structural advantages, in terms of military effectiveness, over states with shared civil-military power. Political leaders who are in control are better able to defi ne the terms and conditions by which the military is structured and how they interact with it. These political leaders can structure the military to protect their access to information about its internal activities. They retain decision-making prerogatives, such as the right to approve and veto decisions and the power to appoint the military leaders who will execute those decisions. This removes critical obstacles to strategic assessment and alleviates pressures that encourage the politicization of the officer corps and the convolution of command and control. In this chapter I contrast two cases of autocratic states that exhibit features of shared power and political dominance, respectively: Egypt in the

108 Risa A. Brooks mid-1960s and Egypt in the 1970s. I show how differences in the balance of power affected military activities and effectiveness, fi rst in the crisis that preceded the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war and then in the planning and execution of the October 1973 war. These cases are intended to illustrate the argument and probe its plausibility, not be defi nitive tests of the theory. They are important, nonetheless, in part because of the historical importance of these two wars, whose legacy has had enormous consequences for the region and the world. In addition, these cases constitute an empirical puzzle: Egypt’s performance in 1967 is often cited as among the worst examples of military failure in contemporary history; its activity in 1973 is held up as a remarkable example of improvement in a state’s military effectiveness. Yet there is no obvious explanation for this variation. Other causal factors, such as culture, social structure, and regime type, do not adequately explain why this single autocratic state, in such a short period of time, exhibited such extremes in its military competence: none can explain both why Egypt performed so badly in 1967 and why it improved so significantly in 1973.6 This chapter presents an explanation for the divergence, focusing on underlying differences in the fabric of the autocratic regime. It argues that changes in the balance of civil-military power in the state—born from more fundamental differences in domestic politics in the autocracy— shaped three areas of military activity critical to military effectiveness: strategic assessment, command and control, and leadership. In developing this argument, the chapter contributes to our understanding of the sources of states’ military effectiveness and explains why Egypt’s performance varied so significantly in these historically consequential wars. Although I illustrate the argument with the two Egyptian cases, I do not expect the dynamics I observe to be exclusive to Egypt or to Arab states. For example, autocracies that exhibit features of shared civil-military power and contested control should be vulnerable to difficulties similar to those that plagued Egypt in the mid-1960s. Similar dynamics might be found in cases such as Indonesia during the fi nal years of Sukarno’s rule, when he and his military leaders were competing for control of the military establishment, or in various periods in recent Pakistani history with similar dynamics between political and military leaders. Although my hypotheses would predict that the capacity of militaries to obstruct civilian control will be much less frequently observed in democracies, the argument might also generate insights into the nature of military activity in democratic states when, under unusual conditions, militaries gain substantial leverage over the political leadership. Some of the dynamics I describe in this chapter can, in fact, be seen in relations in Britain between

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

109

the army leadership and Prime Minister Lloyd George during the First World War.7 The chapter begins with a brief review of relevant literature and then discusses variations in the balance of power in civil-military relations. Next it explores how different configurations of power may affect strategic assessment, command and control, appointments and leadership, and ultimately military effectiveness, focusing in particular on integration and responsiveness. The Egyptian cases focus on Egypt’s civil-military relations and effectiveness, fi rst in the 1967 war and then in 1973.

Scholarship on Military Effectiveness and Civil-Military Relations In recent years a small but significant body of research has emerged on the relationship between civil-military relations and military effectiveness. Some of the most developed work in this area is research on military effectiveness in authoritarian regimes. This scholarship argues that autocratic militaries often exhibit pathologies in military activity that inhibit their military effectiveness. The internal logic of these regimes predisposes leaders toward particular tactics to maintain political control of their militaries, which undermines organizational activity. Political leaders who rely on the military to support their rule must guard against conspiracies from within their officer corps. They therefore resort to a variety of institutional safeguards to accomplish this, such as emphasizing loyalty to the regime in officer appointments and promotions at the expense of merit, creating shadow commands and dual militaries to monitor and check military activity, and encouraging rivalries and competition within military bureaucracies. Such methods may protect the regime itself from military intervention, but they often compromise the quality of military activity. Pollack, for example, points to the politicization of the officer corps as a major constraint on military effectiveness in autocratic Arab regimes.8 Scholarship by Quinlivan and others emphasizes the detrimental effects on effectiveness of attempts at “coup-proofi ng” Middle Eastern militaries.9 This research suggests that the methods autocratic leaders use to sustain political control often compromise the effectiveness of their militaries: the imperatives of political survival clash with the necessities of organizational efficiency. The question these studies have not answered, however, is what happens when autocratic leaders lose control of their militaries. If military activity is flawed when an autocrat is fi rmly in control, do these pathologies become worse when the autocrat loses control of the military? How do

110 Risa A. Brooks civil-military relations vary in autocratic states, where militaries are more frequently positioned to contest civilian control than in democracies? 10 This chapter explores some reasons why these states might vary in their military effectiveness. Specifically, it focuses on differences in the balance of power between political and military leaders in these regimes: the individual who occupies the chief executive office and those officers who run the military on a daily basis.11 By observing this balance of power, I predict that we can begin to uncover systematic differences in the civil-military relations and military effectiveness of autocratic regimes.12

The Balance of Power and Its Effect on Military Activities Many analysts have recognized that the balance of power in a state between its political and its military leaders can vary. The concept of “civilian control,” for example, implies that leaders may lose control, which suggests the possibility of changing configurations of civil-military power. Attempts to model civil-military relations more explicitly on a continuum of power appear in the comparative civil-military relations literature. For example, Samuel Finer distinguishes states according to the degree and method of influence of the military in politics.13 Another study distinguishes regimes according to whether the military was subordinate to the civilian leadership, was dominant, or was an equal partner.14 In this chapter I contrast two competing configurations of power: political dominance and shared power. In the fi rst case, the political leader retains fi rm control over military leaders. Although the reasons for this may vary, domestic conditions are likely to have an important impact on the military’s relative influence. Hence political dominance may be more likely when the military leadership is internally divided while the political leader retains a solid standing in civilian society and the state. In the second case, military leaders actively compete for control of military affairs. They are very powerful in the state and exert substantial leverage over the political leader; they may, for example, have ties to civilian society and the state and are likely to be internally unified in opposition to a political leader.15 In this circumstance, political leaders face pressure to defer to military leaders in regulating internal military affairs. Control of the military is contested. m i lita ry acti v iti es The balance of power, I argue, affects organizational activities essential to planning and preparation for war. In particular, it affects three areas of military activity: the quality of coordination and consultation between

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

111

political and military leaders in strategic assessment and decision making, the integrity and fluidity of command and control, and the criteria for appointment and promotion of senior officers and therefore the quality of leadership observed. I discuss each in turn, then point out how these variations influence the state’s potential military effectiveness.

Strategic Assessment The fi rst political-military activity that the civil-military balance of power affects is the state’s process of strategic assessment. This is the process by which state leaders evaluate their positions in an interstate confl ict and develop a political and military strategy with which to respond: generally, principles for military action are formulated, questions about how force will be organized and used in support of the political goals are evaluated, and military strategy and the broad outlines of a state’s operational or campaign plan are developed. In short, it is the process by which leaders decide how to organize and use their military forces in the event of an interstate confl ict, and issue directives to guide future military planning and activity. Essential to the assessment process are how information is exchanged in the political-military consultation phase, and the rigor and comprehensiveness of the evaluation process. Also critical is the allocation of decisionmaking prerogatives: in the absence of a clear structure of authority, it is difficult for a state’s leaders to make fi rm commitments to a particular strategy and to ensure that military bureaucracies implement it. When power is shared and political and military leaders compete for control of military affairs, I expect strategic assessment to be problematic. Protective of their access to information, military leaders will share their private information only selectively with the political leader. Facing a domestically powerful and unified military establishment, the political leader cannot necessarily force the military leaders to be more forthcoming or impose mechanisms of external monitoring. In this setting, both political and military leaders will be wary of coordinating and engaging one another, and they may resist participation in advisory entities that either side perceives to be stacked with allies of the other, even if those individuals—other military officials, say, or diplomats—may have important insights to offer. Military leaders are also likely to resist political leaders’ efforts to control the decision-making process and to veto or approve policy, and political leaders will try to assert these prerogatives. Both political and military leaders will seek to control the policymaking process as a way to advance their policy priorities and to protect their interests and aims in military policy.

112 Risa A. Brooks In contrast, when a political leader is fi rmly in control, these competitive pressures on processes and structures for strategic assessment are dampened. A political leader can more freely consult with military leaders without the taint of mutual suspicion that might inhibit dialogue. He or she retains the authority to monitor military chiefs and otherwise force information to the top; hence alternative channels of information are available. This lends integrity to the process of strategic assessment. It permits the kind of rigorous debate and fluid interaction that many see as essential to sound deliberative processes. Whereas competition discourages receptiveness to alternative views, promotes the compartmentalization of information, and truncates conversation, political dominance removes these structural constraints. This does not guarantee that political leaders will not commit the state to counterproductive strategies and policies, but it does mean that a major structural obstacle to strategic assessment is absent in these civil-military settings.

Strategic Command and Control A second area of military activity that the civil-military balance of power affects is command and control. The structure of command determines how rights and responsibilities are allocated within the military hierarchy, whose approval is required for what action, and who is accountable for those decisions. When leaders at the apex are competing with one another, they have strong incentives to ensure that checks and balances are included in the chain of command to allow them influence over military activity. When power is shared, political and military leaders will compete over the allocation of responsibilities in the chain of command. Each will try to structure authority to enhance its own control of military activity or control by officers who are allies. A result of these efforts is likely to be convoluted structures, which tend to undermine the integrity of command and control in peacetime and war. In contrast, a political leader who is fi rmly in charge has greater control over the chain of command. As in any autocratic regime, that leader will likely create safeguards by which to monitor the military hierarchy. He will structure command to ensure he maintains ultimate control over decisions and takes care when and to whom authority is delegated. Yet, unlike a leader facing a political challenge from his military chiefs, he is not also pressured to accommodate checks and balances in the chain of command that would protect his military leaders’ demands. Political dominance therefore does not eliminate all organizational weaknesses in autocratic militaries, but it does eliminate competitive dynamics that yield

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

113

even more convoluted and ambiguous authority structures, which exacerbate weaknesses in command and control.

Officer Appointments and Promotions A third critical area that internal civil-military politics can affect is officer appointments and promotions. Defi ning the criteria for advancement is a vital way of shaping the internal norms of a military organization, affecting its adherence to meritocratic standards, and influencing the quality of leadership at all levels. Appointment and promotions may seem mundane, but in fact they are among the most powerful shapers of the norms and conventions of a military organization. Who is chosen for what position affects everything from the discipline and skill applied to peacetime planning to the quality of command in battle, processes essential to a military’s organizational competence. The balance of civil-military power affects the weight leaders assign, in appointments and promotions, to partisanship or to merit. In other words, it affects the relative importance of political loyalty versus talent in the criteria for officer selection. When political and military leaders are competing for control of the military, both must place greater emphasis on political criteria in selecting officers to fi ll top positions in the military hierarchy. The importance of political considerations in choosing officials for advancement increases. For military chiefs choosing officers to fi ll key posts, an individual’s political reliability is likely to become very important. Political leaders, too, must pay attention to the political leanings of those whom they support for advancement. Both will promote allies whose loyalty is unquestioned. In effect, this means that selection criteria are biased against talent and skill; some political allies may also be skilled leaders, but many are not. In short, when political and military leaders are competing with one another, appointments and promotions often become politicized. If loyalty is important in appointments, it becomes even more important when a civilian leader is facing competition from military chiefs for the allegiance of the officer corps. To the extent this comes at the benefit of appointing more talented officers and discourages meritocratic standards in organizational norms, competition compromises the quality of leadership observed within the military organization. In contrast, a political leader whose domestic position and dominance over the military are more secure is likely to have greater latitude for action in structuring relations with military chiefs. Such a leader is unlikely to ignore political factors altogether but can better afford to incorporate other considerations into the selection calculus, in part because there are other

114 Risa A. Brooks mechanisms of monitoring and control by which to safeguard against military opposition. In addition, the destructive effects of open disputes and competition over appointments and promotions are absent. This means that a leader who is inclined to emphasize skill and merit can promote officers with those qualities. Even a leader who is content with promoting political loyalists most of the time will be able, in the event of a building external threat or a looming crisis or war, to make significant improvement in leadership on the basis of merit rather than domestic political considerations.16 m i lita ry e f f ecti v e n ess These activities are important for a military’s effectiveness, especially its integration and responsiveness. Strategic assessment, in particular, affects the integration of military activity at the political-military apex. It influences the degree to which political objectives, military strategy, and operational plans are consistent and mutually reinforcing. A healthy process of strategic assessment means that questionable assumptions or problems in the consistency of means and ends are likely to be exposed and resolved. It affects the clarity and fi nality with which decisions are made about strategy and operational objectives, and thus the likelihood that clear and coherent directives will be issued and implemented. The quality of strategic assessment also affects the likelihood that external stimuli, including constraints and opportunities posed by the state’s broader international environment and strategic context, will be incorporated into the evaluation of a state’s military activity and plans; in this way it affects the military’s responsiveness to external phenomena. In sum, states with poor strategic assessment are more likely to adopt military strategies and operational plans that are internally flawed or that do not further political objectives. The clarity and integrity of command and control also affects the integration of military activity. Contested and convoluted command and control means that information moves poorly up and down the chain of command, and the division of responsibilities and lines of accountability are ill defi ned, making it difficult for a military organization to coordinate its military activities. Poor leadership, too, harms integration and responsiveness. Competent leadership is essential to a military organization’s capacity to detect and address internal weaknesses. When leadership is poor, external constraints and conditions within the military, such as limitations in the state’s equipment, weapons, personnel, or organizational processes, are less likely to be recognized. Integration across and within tiers of military activity is also likely to suffer: the overall attention to detail and priority assigned to

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

115

ensuring consistency within and across levels of military activity is lower when leadership is less capable and talented.

The Argument in Brief In short, I expect states with shared power and contested control to perform poorly in organizing and preparing for war, and their militaries to be less effective. By contrast, ceteris paribus states with political dominance should perform better, because they enjoy important structural advantages. An absence of competition facilitates greater clarity, permits more rigorous consultation between political and military leaders, and reduces pressures for politicization of appointments and convolution of command and control. Such militaries should therefore have an easier time in critical areas of military activity and should be able to realize more of their warfighting potential. In developing this argument, note that this chapter explores one potentially important source of military effectiveness: competition between military and political leaders and its effect on strategic assessment, command and control, and appointments. One could, however, foresee that other factors might also affect military effectiveness, such as divisions among civilian elites or interservice rivalries. The character of a political leader could also play a role: a political leader may enjoy many structural advantages in organizing military activity, but if that leader has a personality disorder or is a fundamentally flawed military and strategic thinker, military effectiveness may still be undermined.17 Holding all such other factors constant, however, I expect the balance of power between military and political leaders to profoundly influence military effectiveness through its effects on structures and processes essential to organizing military activity and preparing for war.

Egypt in 1967 and 1973 I illustrate my argument with two cases studies of Egypt, one in the mid1960s and the other in the early 1970s. The fi rst case is that of Egypt in the May–June crisis that preceded the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The second is the case of Egyptian planning and preparation for the 1973 October War. These studies trace differences in political-military power relations and their effects on military activities and effectiveness under Presidents Nasser and Sadat, respectively. These cases constitute good preliminary tests of the theory for three reasons. First, by focusing on changes within one country within a short

116 Risa A. Brooks period of time, they control for a variety of contextual variables that could influence military effectiveness such as culture, social structure, and regime type.18 By holding these factors constant, I can better isolate the effects of changes in civil-military relations in Egypt on its military effectiveness in the two wars. Second, these cases control for a variety of potential, additional alternative explanations for military effectiveness. For example, in both cases the political leadership was relatively unified, reducing the possibility that variation in military effectiveness might be due to divisions within the civilian elite.19 In addition, in the cases the army was the dominant service, such that interservice rivalries were not a major issue that could complicate the analysis. Nor were Sadat and Nasser known to have had personality disorders or been especially adroit military analysts, such that they as individuals would have a distinctive influence on military effectiveness, independent of civil-military dynamics. Finally, the cases constitute hard tests for the theory because of the competitiveness of Egypt’s regional environment. By showing that domestic factors overrode concerns about military efficiency, despite considerable incentives to rationalize military activity (especially in 1967), it strengthens my claim that civil-military dynamics have a major effect on military effectiveness.20 th e i nte r nationa l conte xt of th e egy p t cases In May and June 1967, Egypt’s President Nasser initiated a crisis with Israel that would end in a devastating war three weeks later. The crisis began soon after the Soviets passed to Egypt what later proved to be a false report that Israel was deploying forces on the Syrian border. Regional tensions were high at the time. Egypt, under pressure from its allies and competitors in the Arab world, decided to deploy forces to the Sinai Peninsula to deter future Israeli attacks against Syria. This was followed by Egypt’s request for a redeployment or withdrawal of the United Nations peacekeepers who had been stationed in the Sinai since the Suez crisis of 1956, to make way for Egypt’s forces. Shortly thereafter, escalating the crisis, Nasser called for the closure of the straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. In response, Israel’s prime minister Levi Eshkol shuffled his cabinet; on June 1, he appointed the hawkish Moshe Dayan as minister of war. Recognizing that war was imminent, on June 2 Nasser warned his military chiefs that Israel would attack in 48 to 72 hours. On June 5, the Israelis attacked, destroying nearly all of Egypt’s air force on the ground. The war ended just a day and half later when Egypt’s military chief issued an order to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula, which precipitated a chaotic exodus of Egyptian forces. The end of the war left Israel in control of the Sinai Peninsula from Gaza to the east bank of the Suez Canal, and it was considered a disaster for Egypt.

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

117

When Sadat came to power after Nasser’s death in September 1970, he sought to negotiate the return to Egypt of the Sinai Peninsula and, initially, other occupied territories as well. However, his early attempts at promoting a peaceful settlement failed. Israel had little incentive to give away territory that it had won relatively easily in 1967. Sadat concluded that military action was necessary to alter the political calculations of the Israelis. Egypt then adopted a plan to recapture a strip of land 10 to 25 kilometers wide adjacent to the east bank of the Suez Canal. The objective of the limited war operation was to alter the calculations of Israel and the superpowers about the costs and risks of leaving the territorial dispute unresolved, and ultimately to get the Sinai back through a reinvigorated negotiation process. In a surprise attack in October 1973, Egypt launched its crossing operation. Most agree it was an extremely competent military operation. Egypt overwhelmed Israel’s defensive fortifications on the Bar Lev line and established a bridgehead on the east bank of the canal. Ten days later, however, Israel recovered and managed to breach Egypt’s defensive line. By the end of the war, after the superpowers intervened to enforce a cease-fi re resolution, Israel had encircled Egypt’s Third Army on the east bank of the canal. Notwithstanding Egypt’s precarious position when the war ended, most analysts agree that Egypt had exhibited a remarkable degree of improvement in its military effectiveness in the war. I argue that Egypt’s civil-military relations can help account for the differences observed in the country’s military effectiveness between the mid-1960s and the early 1970s. Initially in the mid-1960s, Egypt’s president Nasser had ruled with a broad-based civilian coalition, and his military leadership was influential and unified. However, Nasser and his military chief, Abdel Hakim Amer, began to clash and increasingly compete for control of military affairs. This clash undermined key military activities and caused some of the most consequential weaknesses in Egypt’s effectiveness in 1967. In contrast, by the early 1970s, power relations had changed considerably as a result of domestic changes in the state. Anwar Sadat was fi rmly in control. This alleviated the effects of competition observed in the mid-1960s on appointments and leadership, on strategic assessment, and on command and control. As a result, integration and responsiveness improved significantly in 1973. egy pt’s ci v i l-m i lita ry r e lations i n th e 1960s In the late 1950s and 1960s, Gamal Abdel Nasser was a formidable public figure in the Arab world and a major voice in regional affairs. At home he enjoyed the support of a broad coalition of workers, rural landholders, professional classes, and the Egyptian left.21 His series of successful economic

118 Risa A. Brooks policies had helped win him their support, including land reform; price controls for essential foodstuffs, gasoline, and electricity, as well as on rents for housing and agricultural land; minimum wage laws and labor welfare legislation; and progressive health care and educational policies.22 Nasser used the bureaucracy to woo the middle and professional classes to the regime by guaranteeing jobs to all university graduates.23 By the mid-1960s, Nasser had built a solid base for his regime and in public seemed secure and powerful in his position as political leader of the country. Behind the scenes, however, Nasser faced a growing challenge from the leader of a powerful clique in the military, Abdel Hakim Amer, who eventually became the deputy commander of the armed forces. In the 1960s, the military became increasingly unified behind Amer. Within the officer corps, Amer maintained a close coterie of loyalists. More broadly, Amer won his officers’ loyalties by providing them with special prerogatives and perquisites.24 He steadily enlarged the officer corps, and offered many privileges.25 Over time, Amer also extended his reach to areas outside the military, bringing key civilian constituencies within his sphere of influence and increasing his access to resources for patronage.26 By the mid-1960s, Nasser and Amer each had important resources on which to draw in relations with one another. Amer was increasingly powerful in the military, while Nasser benefited from his standing in civilian society. As one observer put it, “Amer had the army, but Nasser had the people.” 27 The leaders began to compete with one another for control of military affairs, beginning in 1962 with Nasser’s efforts to wrest control of appointments and promotions from Amer.28 Ultimately neither was able to dominate the other in military policymaking: “It is clear in retrospect, that even Nasser, whose authority people thought was absolute, was . . . in fact sharing power with Amer, and neither was in total control.” 29 m i lita ry acti v iti es a n d ef f ecti v e n ess i n 1967 The competition between Nasser and Amer, in turn, had a profound and adverse effect on Egyptian military activity in 1967.

Strategic Assessment and Military Effectiveness Confl ict between Amer and Nasser took a significant toll on strategic assessment in the crisis. The process of evaluating Egypt’s strategic situation and possible options in the crisis suffered considerably. This was manifested, for example, in problems in sharing information. Amer carefully guarded his private information about military matters and often disregarded his professional officers’ advice and concerns.30 Suspicious of Nasser, Amer treated information from the president’s sources with similar

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

119

suspicion. Amer also purposely biased information he supplied to Nasser, for example, about the intentions of the Soviets in the event of a war.31 In this setting, consultation and analysis was far from systematic. As one prominent observer described the situation at the time, “both Nasser and Amer seemed to be influenced by the remarks of the last person they talked to. There seems to be no organization or functioning command structure which can come up with an objective assessment; everything appears to be politicized and unsystematic.” 32 Problems in consultation were compounded by competition over decision-making prerogatives. Nasser retained the formal authority to decide policy, but in practice Amer often undercut that power. For example, the process whereby Egypt requested a redeployment or withdrawal of UN forces from the Sinai Peninsula remains murky. Several accounts suggest that Amer purposely compromised the spirit of the letter Nasser sent to the UN, by asking the local commander for a withdrawal of all forces rather than partial redeployment of them away from the borders. On another occasion, Amer issued orders to his commanders to begin an offensive against Israel, only to be countermanded by Nasser after Amer’s order was apparently intercepted by Israel.33 In sum, strategic assessment took place in an environment that afforded few opportunities for informed and systematic review and decisive action. Flaws in strategic assessment, in turn, significantly compromised the integration of political, strategic, and operational plans and objectives. Basic questions of political and military strategy went unresolved in the crisis. As Egypt’s forces flowed into the Sinai, by any standard, it was an incredible show of force. Yet there was never any clear idea of what role they were to play, let alone how they would serve political objectives. Was Egypt’s military to act in a purely defensive role, to counter a potential Israeli invasion across the border in Sinai? Was its aim to deter an Israeli attack? Or was its strategy ultimately to launch a limited or even a comprehensive offensive to win new gains from the Israelis? This was never clear to the forces or to their leaders, let alone to their opponents and the rest of the world. As a result, from mid-May 1967, when Egypt’s forces were first deployed to the Sinai, through June 6 when the evacuation order was issued, no clear set of political objectives and strategic concept was ever formulated, let alone disseminated to commanders on the ground. On the eve of war, “absolutely no specific plans had been promulgated to the brigade level or below.” 34 In interviews by Israel of Egyptian prisoners of war (POWs) after the war, “many Egyptian officers and men said they had been sent to Sinai with no clear idea of where they were going or what they were supposed to do.” 35

120 Risa A. Brooks

Command and Control and Military Effectiveness Competition at the political-military apex created similar problems in command and control. It introduced divisions and convolutions in both peacetime and wartime command and control structures. Two examples illustrate these dynamics: the creation of the Ground Forces Command (GFC) and of the Advance Command. In 1964, Nasser pressured Amer into appointing, as chief of the general staff, General Mohammed Fawzi, who was known to be an able administrator and disciplinarian. The appointment was important because the chief of staff was responsible for training and the peacetime integration of the service branches. The problem from Amer’s perspective, however, was that he believed Fawzi was an ally of Nasser. By having Fawzi appointed, Nasser was trying to project his influence into intramilitary decision making.36 Amer acquiesced in Fawzi’s appointment, but then he altered the command structure to ensure that Fawzi had little actual influence in the chain of command. Thus in 1964, Amer formed the GFC to act as a coordinating body for all of the country’s ground forces. Its broad mission made it the largest command in the military and put it into direct competition with Fawzi’s general staff. Over time, the size of the GFC’s staff steadily increased, equaling and then surpassing that of the general staff. The major flaw was that this divided responsibility for essential peacetime planning activities, where coordination was essential, between two competing staffs. Improvisations in command and control in the weeks prior to the June war exacerbated these peacetime complications. On paper, there was a formal command structure: in the event of war, Egypt’s Eastern Military district, which commanded Egypt’s forces in the Sinai, would be transformed into the Field Army Command, which would direct operations for all forces located in the Sinai theater. It would report to General Headquarters (GHQ), and thus to Abdel Hakim Amer, through the chief of the general staff, General Fawzi. Prior to the onset of hostilities, GHQ was to be moved from Cairo to the Sinai to be closer to the field of operations.37 Three weeks before the June war, Amer modified this arrangement, creating a new link in the chain of command. The Advance or Front Command was created, with the apparent function of serving as Amer’s outpost in the Sinai. GHQ would not be moved, but would remain in Cairo. There were political reasons behind this decision: if Amer remained in Cairo, he was better positioned to keep an eye on Nasser. Neither Field Command nor the staff of the newly created Advance Command had much sense of how this new link in the chain of command was supposed

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

121

to operate, what role it was to play in issuing and approving orders, or what relationship it would have to GHQ. The creation of Advance Command thus further complicated an already problematic command structure. All of these dynamics contributed to poor operational and tactical integration in 1967. Peacetime planning suffered considerably under the bifurcated General Staff–Ground Forces Command system. During the crisis, the convolutions introduced by the Advance Command exacerbated confusion about Egypt’s operational plans and objectives. As one observer put it, “Competing commands with overlapping responsibilities functioning in an atmosphere of little mutual cooperation had produced a disaster on the battlefield.” 38

Leadership and Disintegration Competition at the top also contributed to the politicization of appointments and promotions. For both Amer and Nasser, political loyalty was at a premium in pivotal appointments. Amer was careful to protect his allies, even when it meant not promoting the most capable men to key posts. For example, in 1967, the service chiefs were still the same ones who had proven their incompetence in the Suez crisis 11 years earlier. Amer also marginalized Nasser’s allies even when they were competent. Long before the June crisis, Amer had effectively “black-boxed” General Fawzi and his operations staff.39 In the weeks preceding the June war, commands were reassigned so that Amer’s allies could claim some part of the glory of battle (although, fairly enough, they would also be blamed for the defeat). As a result, many unqualified leaders led critical commands. So egregious was the promotion of political lackeys that the Israelis singled out incompetent officers in their assessments of Egyptian division and brigade commanders.40 The effects of poor leadership reverberated throughout the military organization, contributing to disintegration within and across levels of military activity. Problems plaguing Egypt’s air force serve to illustrate these dynamics. The military failed to build hangars to protect aircraft, despite the fact that the necessity had been recognized years before. “The need for camouflage facilities and hangars had been considered essential after Egypt’s confl ict with France and Britain and Israel over the Suez Canal in 1956, when the former were able to destroy the country’s airports and planes.” 41 However, even a decade later, very little had been done to implement the lesson.42 By 1967, it had been five years since a single airplane hangar had been constructed.43 Under the command of Mohammed Sidqi Mahmoud, the airplane hangar project stagnated, a failure that “can only be ascribed to a lack of will and perseverance on the part of command,” according to Sadat’s chief of operations, Mohamed el-Gamasy.44

122 Risa A. Brooks There were other signs of incompetence. On the eve of war, even the most basic precautions to safeguard Egypt’s air force were neglected. On the morning of the June 5 Israeli strike, Egyptian planes were aligned wing to wing on its runways. Egypt’s pilots had just concluded their training run: schedules remained unchanged throughout the crisis and hence were easily anticipated by the Israelis. In a matter of hours, over 90 percent of the Egyptian aircraft were destroyed on the ground. The planes might have been dispersed to airfields out of range of Israeli aircraft or at least distant from Israeli air bases. On June 2, Nasser had warned Amer and the air force commander that he anticipated a preemptive strike against the air force within the next 72 hours and had recommended that precautionary measures be taken. Nasser’s warnings went unheeded, in part because Amer was skeptical of the president’s intelligence, but also because of the shortsightedness of the air force command. Mohammed Sidqi did inspect the forward air bases, but he “did not direct any precautionary measures in either aircraft dispersals or routine flying operations.” 45 Instead, the aircraft remained sitting on airfields only five minutes’ flying time from Israel.46 The Egyptians were forced to react quickly in an uncertain and rapidly evolving political climate in the spring of 1967. This would challenge any military organization, but for Egypt, the effects of competition between the political and military leadership complicated the challenge significantly. Rather than prompting the political and military leadership to develop a coordinated military strategy, to set out a general concept for operations, and to delineate some basic military objectives that could be conveyed down the chain of command, disagreements went unresolved. Poor strategic assessment meant that the Egyptian forces entered the war on June 5 with no clear concept of what they were supposed to accomplish. Brittle and convoluted command structures crumbled under the pressure of war. Forces were led, in many cases, by poorly trained and ill-suited commanders, who had gotten their positions because of their political loyalty rather than their competence. These problems, as military analysts of the 1967 war have observed, produced a military disaster for Egypt. ci v i l-m i lita ry r e lations i n th e e a r ly 1970s When Anwar Sadat came to power shortly after Nasser’s death in September 1970, he inherited a regime that had been transformed in the final years of Nasser’s rule. Events following the 1967 war marked the beginning of these changes. On June 9, just after the war, Nasser offered his resignation in a public speech to the Egyptian masses. The speech was greeted with a spontaneous eruption of support for the Arab leader. Egypt’s masses poured into the streets. “The demonstrators constituted a massive

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

123

plebiscite compelling Nasser to remain in power.” 47 Sixteen hours after his resignation speech was broadcast, Nasser publicly rescinded it, resuming his place as political leader of the country. At the same time, the military’s fortunes were declining. Amer also resigned, but there was no public outcry for his reinstatement.48 These events showed that the loyalties of the masses lay with Nasser, political head of the country, and not with the army; they reveal the balance of political-military power. As one observer put it, “at this moment [Nasser] discovered that he was more powerful than the army.” 49 In the aftermath of the war, the military’s fortunes reached an all-time low. The armed forces were the object of open contempt because much of the population blamed Egypt’s officers for the country’s miserable showing. Nasser was able to confront his military chief and have him arrested. While in custody two months later, Amer reportedly committed suicide. Amer’s clique was purged, and hundreds of officers were forced to retire. Nasser used his renewed mandate to cultivate new social constituencies and shore up the base of his regime. These included a range of modest liberalization measures, in a departure from the socialist-style trends of the mid-1960s. When Sadat came to power, he continued these efforts to expand the coalition by appealing to new middle-class interests with a series of privatization initiatives. His policy changes won him support among the rural middle class, private entrepreneurs, the public sector, and the middlemen that operated at the nexus of the private and public arena. Sadat benefited from “the solid base given to his rule by his alliance with the bourgeoisie, both its state and private wings.” 50 He did continue to rely on the military for political support, but its position in his coalition diminished with the expansion of the civilian base of the regime and the strengthening of middle-class interests. Moreover, by the 1970s, the military leadership was much less unified than it had been in the mid-1960s. These divisions became evident in May 1971 when a powerful leftist constituency tried to stage a coup against Sadat. The coup failed because the chief of the military was unable to garner enough support for the coup from within the military hierarchy.51 The military was internally divided. Sadat had found his own allies within the military who countered the effort to remove him.52 These changes in Egypt’s domestic politics transformed the social context and altered the balance of political-military power relations. Sadat’s expanded power base and the absence of a large and influential faction in the military gave him the advantage in relations with his military chiefs. Under Sadat, the military was transformed from a powerful political constituency to “a much smaller, weaker component of the elite . . . [and] by

124 Risa A. Brooks the eighties, the military was merely one of a number of interest groups.” 53 In short, Sadat was able to dominate the military. m i lita ry act i v it i es a n d e f f ecti v e n ess This change in the balance of power had important effects on key areas of military activity, which facilitated improvements in Egypt’s military effectiveness.

Strategic Assessment and Military Effectiveness The dynamics of strategic assessment in 1973 were dramatically different from the dynamics in 1967. Sharing of information was much more fluid; Sadat had unfettered access to multiple sources of information.54 Consultation was much more systematic. Sadat used the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), an internal decision-making entity of the armed forces, as his primary consultative entity.55 Lines of authority were clear. Sadat, as political chief, retained the power to make decisions about political and strategic issues. “The army’s claims for a decisive role or veto in its field of responsibility had been repeatedly defeated. . . . The military still had some input . . . into defense policy, but its role had been reduced to that of simply giving professional advice.” 56 A much more systematic evaluation of Egypt’s political goals and military options was undertaken. This had important implications for the integration of political goals and military strategy. By early 1973, Sadat and his high command had resolved to undertake a military offensive against Israel, with the ultimate aim of reestablishing control over land captured in the 1967 war. Egypt had a number of strategic choices: it could resume the low-intensity fi ring across the canal that had been characteristic of the 1969–70 War of Attrition; it could plan for all-out war against the Israelis, aimed at retaking occupied territories by force; or it could plan an operation with limited aims. The Egyptians decided on a limited war, with Egypt crossing the Suez Canal from the west bank of the canal to recapture a strip of territory on the east bank from the Israelis, in a move meant to force resumption of active negotiations over the Israeli-occupied territories. In terms of strategic assessment, what is notable about the strategy is that it evolved from a careful evaluation of alternative plans. In 1972, Sadat commissioned a report from General Ahmed Ismail, then head of military intelligence (later named minister of war), about the possibility of conducting a war against the Israelis. Ahmed Ismail, having surveyed the options, supported the limited war concept. His recommendation was based on an explicit acknowledgment of the limits of Egypt’s military ca-

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

125

pacity to launch a total war to try to reclaim the land by force. Exemplary of “politics by other means,” the plan integrated military strategy with political objectives and also reflected a high level of responsiveness to the limitations in Egypt’s military capabilities. Consultation thus played an important role in the integration of political goals and military means. Equally important, however, was Sadat’s authority in decision making. To see through his plan, Sadat had to overrule many of his top military chiefs, including Minister of War General Sadiq, who opposed the limited war plan. Many of his generals preferred to wait until Egypt was better equipped to engage Israel in a general war.57 In October 1972, fed up with Sadiq’s recalcitrance, Sadat fired him, as well as the deputy war minister and the heads of the navy and the Central Military District in Cairo.58 Over 100 senior officers were removed from their posts.59 Sadat’s power to overrule his opponents was key to the integration of his political goals and military means. Good strategic assessment had one other important effect on Egypt’s military activity in 1973. Not only did it allow for the sharing and analysis of information at the apex of decision making, it ensured that the dissemination of information could be carefully controlled.60 This was essential to the limited war strategy. Key to the plan’s success, in Ahmed Ismail’s estimation, was the necessity of launching a surprise attack against Israel; a fi rst strike for which Israel was unprepared would confer significant advantages on Egypt’s forces. But achieving surprise would be difficult. Information had to be tightly controlled at the political-military apex and in the chain of command to ensure Egypt’s war plans did not become known. Careful procedures were subsequently developed for disseminating information. Accordingly, regarding the actual day and hour of attack—only the top few ([Syria’s] al-Asad, Sadat, and Ahmed Ismail) knew about it significantly before the attack.61 Egypt developed a detailed timetable that stipulated when each layer in the command structure was to be informed of the time of the crossing.62 As a result, “most Egyptian officers and troops had no idea war was imminent until the very last moment.” 63 When Israelis interviewed prisoners of war, they found that 95 percent of Egyptians captured had learned of the attack only on the morning of the sixth.64 In addition to maintaining control of information, Egypt also formulated a detailed deception plan to distract Israel from the prospect of imminent hostilities. As one analyst describes it, Egypt’s “efforts were part of an imaginative, intensive and well orchestrated strategy of deception which brought rich rewards.” 65 So effective was the deception that even overt evidence of Arab war plans did not substantially revise Israeli estimates of imminent war.66

126 Risa A. Brooks

Command and Control and Military Effectiveness As it had not been in 1967, a clear chain of command was in place in 1973. Sadat sat at its ultimate apex, General Ahmed Ismail next as minister of war, followed by the chief of staff, Lieutenant General Saad Shazli, who directed other top commanders. The integrity of command and control was maintained despite severe tests. This facilitated the integration of political goals and military activity responsive to Egypt’s strategic situation, as the following command decisions show. The fi rst test of the chain of command came shortly after Egypt’s successful crossing operation and the establishment of a bridgehead on the east bank of the canal. Taken with Egypt’s early successes, several top military commanders began to push for an expansion of the offensive to the mountain passes further inland. There were, however, serious risks involved. Egyptian capabilities were inferior to those of the Israelis, especially in air power and offensive maneuver; thus aggressive exploitation of the early successes “might have risked losing everything they won on those days.” 67 After heated debate, Minister of War General Ahmed Ismail vetoed this plan.68 Egypt nevertheless decided to resume the offensive on October 13. Sadat made this decision for political reasons, against the advice of Ahmed Ismail. He feared that Syria, which had also gone to war against Israel, would pursue a unilateral cease-fi re unless Egypt pushed the offensive to the mountain passes; Egypt’s strategy depended on Syria holding out. The military leader expressed some well-founded reservations, but the chain of command was fi rmly intact, and “Ahmed Ismail had no choice but to obey his supreme commander.” 69 The chain of command was tested again on the night of October 15–16. Partially as a result of a breakdown in Egypt’s tactical command and control (evidence of residual limitations), Israel managed to breach Egypt’s defensive line. A controversy ensued about how to respond. Many of Egypt’s commanders urged that forces be withdrawn from the east bank of the canal to support a counteroffensive. Ahmed Ismail refused. This caused a major rift in the high command, and Sadat was called to Egypt’s command center to resolve the dispute. After consulting with Ahmed Ismail, he sided with the latter against moving Egyptian forces for a counterattack.70 Sadat noted that the confl ict “ended only when I personally went to the operations room and made the decision that the armies would stay where they were.” 71 These decisions are notable, fi rst, because they reveal that the integrity of the chain of command was maintained despite significant military dissent. In each incident, Sadat successfully overruled opposition within the

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

127

high command and ensured that his desired policies were carried out. Second, although they have attracted significant post hoc criticism, the tactical decisions issued during the war were consistent with Egypt’s military strategy and with the broader grand strategy in which it was embedded. When viewed as isolated events, the rationale for these decisions can be questioned—they had extremely negative consequences for Egyptian forces on the battlefield—yet, in the context of Sadat’s overarching security objectives, the strategic logic of these decisions was sound. Sadat realized that any political leverage Egypt would have after the war depended on holding the strip of recaptured territory on the east bank of the canal when the superpowers imposed a cease-fi re. Thus he refused to allow any forces to be drawn away from the newly seized territory on the east bank of the canal, even when such a decision was otherwise tactically questionable. Political objectives dominated military strategy, facilitating the remarkable degree of political strategy and tactical integration demonstrated throughout the confl ict.

Leadership and Military Effectiveness By 1973, there had been an important change in the quality of Egypt’s military leadership. Throughout his tenure in office, Sadat retained ultimate control over the processes of officer assignments, promotions, and discipline. His authority allowed him to emphasize merit in key appointments. International events may have motivated him to seek officers who were more skilled, but the domestic political environment—in which the military had been politically tamed—permitted it. Sadat did not ignore political factors altogether; he did dismiss or rotate officers whom he viewed as potentially insubordinate. But he appointed many officers who were recognized by outside observers to be competent, and his authority helped him ensure their subordination to political authority.72 Egypt benefited greatly from the promotion of skilled and talented officers. One of the major manifestations was in the degree to which military activity was tailored to its resource constraints, which enhanced Egypt’s military’s responsiveness and therefore its effectiveness in the war. During planning for the 1973 war, Egypt tailored its military activity to its own and Israel’s strengths and weaknesses. General Ahmed Ismail, as minister of war since October 1972, was to prove the pivotal appointment in promoting these advances. As Sadat himself put it, “The first actual decision on the October 6 war was taken when I removed former War Minister Sadiq and appointed Marshal Ahmed Ismail in his place.” 73 Ahmed Ismail was a skilled and experienced military officer.74 Most useful from Sadat’s point of view, he exhibited a “keen understanding of the subtle

128 Risa A. Brooks relationship between war and politics.” 75 The general understood the limitations of Egyptian capabilities that made war difficult, as well as the political context that made it essential. Prior to developing its war plans, the high command undertook detailed studies of Israeli capabilities and assessments of its own forces.76 From these studies, Ahmed Ismail drew a number of conclusions that formed the guiding principles for Egypt’s operational plan, Plan Badr. Among them was recognition that the Israelis had superiority in the air, as well as technical and tactical superiority in offensive maneuver. Egyptian leaders consequently made a deliberate decision not to use Egypt’s air force, except for some initial prewar air strikes, and to build a dense antiaircraft zone around the West Bank area from which Egypt would launch its attack against Israel.77 A second lesson was that unlike Israel, which excelled at maneuver operations, Egypt’s forces had problems adapting in fluid and fast-paced offensive operations. Egypt had, however, advantages in manpower. The Egyptian planning staff developed its operational plan in light of these strengths and weaknesses. Plan Badr took advantage of Egypt’s superiority in numbers through the use of “steamrolling” tactics. It relied on mass over maneuver, calling for a full frontal assault along the entire length of the canal zone.78 The plan’s emphasis on manpower and static defense would allow the Egyptians to take advantage of local fi repower, offsetting the lack of speed and mobility. Such tactics were a direct counter to Israeli proficiency in mobile operations and penetration in depth, complicating Israeli efforts to plan their counterattack.79 A broad frontal assault and static defenses allowed Egypt to take advantage of its large but not well-educated army, again reflecting a high degree of responsiveness: “From the outset, Egyptian planners recognized that overall military strategy and tactics would have to be tailored to the character of the manpower available, i.e., small cadres of highly trained individuals (senior officers with extensive backgrounds, academy graduates and some pilots), but also large numbers of Egyptian peasants.” 80 Underlying all of this adaptation was a receptiveness to learning by military leaders.81 The 1956 military review that detailed Egypt’s failings in the Suez confl ict was finally released in 1969 and carefully analyzed. Egypt’s war effort in 1967 was also closely scrutinized.82 “What the Arabs did after 1967 was a much more serious and practical examination of their record. Actually, the Arab strategy in 1973 can be described as a system of remedies for the problems which had caused the Arab defeat in 1967, a set of lessons derived from their 1967 experience.” 83 A necessary precondition for this learning was the establishment of a command willing and able to learn from the past, afforded by the improvements in leadership prior to 1973.

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

129

In short, in 1973, Egypt was able to achieve substantial political, strategic, operational, and tactical integration in its military activity. Its military strategy, which was based on limited aims, supported its overarching political objective of restarting negotiations with Israel. Operational plans and decisions in the war—and particularly decisions to keep forces in place in the war’s later phases so as not to compromise the bridgehead—were consistent with those political objectives. And Egypt’s tactics—the simultaneous, massive steamrolling attack across the canal zone—were consistent both with resources (large numbers of minimally trained men) and the objective of overrunning the Bar Lev line and establishing control of the east bank of the canal. Egypt also demonstrated high levels of responsiveness. Its leaders evaluated and comprehended both their own strengths and weaknesses and Israel’s, and they tailored their strategy, operational plans, and tactics accordingly. Although Egypt’s performance was far from perfect in an absolute sense, it was therefore able to make the most of its resources in men and equipment to achieve its political objectives, and in this it demonstrated a remarkable level of military effectiveness.

Conclusion Autocracies vary in their military effectiveness. One important reason why is the balance of power in civil-military relations. When political leaders are dominant, states have important structural advantages over those in which political and military leaders are competing for control of military policymaking. Competition impairs strategic assessment, command and control, and military leadership, undermining the state’s capacity to organize and prepare for war and therefore its military effectiveness. Despite its unique qualities, the Egypt case offers potential lessons for understanding the sources of military effectiveness in other autocratic states. It suggests that special attention be paid to the specific dynamics of civilmilitary relations: power relations between political and military leaders are key to anticipating these state’s military effectiveness. Civil-military relations affect whether states can translate what may appear to be significant strengths in equipment and personnel into actual power on the battlefield.

Notes 1. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957). 2. Eliot Cohen, Supreme Command (New York: Free Press, 2002).

130 Risa A. Brooks 3. Scott D. Sagan, “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb,” International Security 21, no. 3 (1996– 97): 54–86; Stephen Van Evera, “More Causes of War: Misperception and the Roots of Confl ict,” unpublished manuscript, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001; Stephen Van Evera, “The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War,” in Steven E. Miller, Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven Van Evera, eds., Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984). Also see Jack Snyder, “Civil-Military Relations and the Cult of the Offensive, 1914 and 1984,” in Miller, Lynn-Jones, and Van Evera, Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War. 4. See Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991); Etel Solingen, Regional Orders at Century’s Dawn (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). 5. All things equal, the concentration of power in one actor should confer significant advantages in military effectiveness. Regardless, a state with a political leader who is especially distorted in his or her strategic thinking (for personality, cognitive, or other reasons) can still experience weaknesses in military activity, especially in strategic assessment: bad leaders may still make poor decisions even when they have the advantages of a process for strategic analysis and decision making unimpaired by competition with military leaders. However, regardless of how astute is a political leader, if he or she faces the structural constraints I describe here, strategic assessment should suffer. 6. This puzzle is addressed in greater detail in Risa A. Brooks, “An Autocracy at War: Explaining Egypt’s Military (In)Effectiveness, 1967 and 1973,” Security Studies 15, no. 3 ( July–September 2006): 396–430. 7. See David R. Woodward, Lloyd George and the Generals (East Brunswick, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1983); Risa A. Brooks, “Shaping Strategy: The Civil-Military Politics of Strategic Assessment,” unpublished manuscript, 2006. 8. Kenneth M. Pollack, The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness, Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996, and Arabs at War, Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991 (Lincoln: Nebraska University Press, 2002). 9. James T. Quinlivan, “Coup-Proofi ng: Its Practice and Consequences in the Middle East,” International Security 24, no. 2 (Fall 1999): 131–165; Risa Brooks, “Political-Military Relations and the Stability of Arab Regimes,” Adelphi Paper 324 (Oxford: Oxford University Press/International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1998); Dan Reiter and Allan C. Stam, Democracies at War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); Mark Heller, “Iraq’s Army: Military Weakness, Political Utility,” in Amatzia Baram and Barry Rubin, eds., Iraq’s Road to War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996); David Rapoport, “The Praetorian Army,” in Roman Kolkowicz and Andrzej Korbonski, eds., Soldiers, Peasants and Bureaucrats (London: Allen and Unwin, 1982); Pollack, Arabs at War; Aaron Belkin, United We Stand? Divide and Conquer Politics and the Logic of International Hostility (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005). Stephen Biddle and Robert Zirkle, “Technology, Civil-Military Relations, and Warfare in the Developing World,” Journal of Strategic Studies 19, no. 2 (1996): 171–212.

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

131

10. There has been some intriguing work on the contrast between the military effectiveness of democracies and that of autocracies. Few studies, however, have attempted to examine variation within autocracies. See, for example, Reiter and Stam, Democracies at War; Dan Reiter and Allan C. Stam III, “Democracy and Battlefield Military Success,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 42, no. 3 ( June 1998): 259– 77. One important exception is a study that explores the effects of differences in civil-military relations within two autocratic states, North Vietnam and Iraq, on their soldiers’ capacities to assimilate sophisticated technology. See Biddle and Zirkle, “Technology, Civil-Military Relations, and Warfare in the Developing World.” 11. Note that the power dynamics I describe later refer to relations between the head of the state (whether in uniform or not) in charge of the broad panoply of economic and other policies in the state and the military leaders that run the organization on a daily basis. The defi nition discriminates between political and military leaders based on their functional roles, not their professional experiences or their paths to power (i.e., a general can still be a political leader as long as he occupies the position of chief executive officer of the state). Accordingly, by this defi nition, political leaders who are in uniform or who took power through a coup do not automatically dominate the officers who run the military on a daily basis (that is, such leaders do not necessarily exercise political control); even rulers who are in uniform may have little power in relations with their top generals. Alternatively, a civilian political leader may have a great deal of power over the country’s generals at some point and almost none at another. 12. Some studies hint at the importance of such variation in autocracies. Although not concerned with military effectiveness specifically, Snyder fi nds important variations in the coalitions of autocratic states and their tendencies to adopt poorly integrated political and military strategies. Snyder, Myths of Empire. 13. Samuel Finer, The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics (Middlesex, UK: Penguin Books, 1962), 86–87, distinguishes states according to the degree and method of influence the military enjoys in politics. 14. R. Hrair Dekmejian, “Egypt and Turkey: The Military in the Background,” in Kolkowicz and Korbonski, Soldiers, Peasants and Bureaucrats, 29. Also see Amos Perlmutter, The Military and Politics in Modern Times (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 94– 95. 15. For a more detailed explanation of these domestic factors that influence military and political power and the conditions under which one side will dominate or power will be shared, see Brooks, “Shaping Strategy.” 16. That leaders may elevate considerations of skill over purely partisan concerns, for example, is suggested by Saddam Hussein’s leadership changes in the fi nal phases of the Iran-Iraq War. For most of his tenure in office, Hussein was content to privilege loyalty over talent in choosing his generals. However, fearing more devastating losses in the war, Hussein replaced key commanders with more capable officers. Many attribute the significant improvement in Iraq’s effectiveness observed in the war’s fi nal phases to these leadership changes. See Chapter 3 in this volume. Also see Heller, “Iraq’s Army: Military Weakness, Political Utility”; Pollack, Arabs at War.

132 Risa A. Brooks 17. See note 5. 18. See Pollack, “The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness”; Reiter and Stam, Democracies at War; Stephen Peter Rosen, Societies and Military Power: India and its Armies (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996). 19. Egypt’s political leadership was relatively unitary by the late 1950s; Gamal Abdel Nasser concentrated political power in his own hands initially as a leader of the Revolutionary Command Council after the July 1952 coup, and after 1954 as president. Sadat marginalized his opponents eight months after coming to power; in May 1971, Sadat purged Egypt’s powerful leftist constituency in his so-called corrective movement, eliminating his major competitors for power. See Brooks, “Shaping Strategy,” 24. 20. Realists might contend that Egypt did not face a real “threat” from Israel in the 1960s. Therefore Egypt had few incentives to rationalize its policies prior to 1967 and was simply caught off guard in the May–June 1967 crisis that preceded the Six Day War (thereby explaining its poor political-military coordination). However, even if Israel was not a “threat” before 1967, with the onset of a serious crisis in mid-May (a crisis the Egyptians initiated and escalated), Egypt faced substantial incentives to rationalize its decision-making structures. Yet, despite the very real possibility of war, international incentives did not alleviate, and instead exacerbated, the pathologies of strategic assessment. Note that the argument that threat was “low” is in itself debatable. Egypt was engaged in a fierce contest for influence in the region with the Arab monarchies, including actually fighting a proxy war against the Saudis in Yemen (the “Arab Cold War”). Its ally, Syria, had also had several serious runs-in with Israel. This was an extremely tense period in the region. See Brooks, “Shaping Strategy,” 23. 21. Kirk J. Beattie, Egypt during the Nasser Years (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994); Nazih N. M. Ayubi, Bureaucracy and Politics in Contemporary Egypt, St. Anthony’s Middle East Monographs No. 10 (London: Ithaca Press, 1980); Raymond William Baker, Egypt’s Uncertain Revolution under Nasser and Sadat (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978); John Waterbury, Egypt: Burdens of the Past, Options for the Future (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978); John Waterbury, The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat: The Political Economy of Two Regimes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983). 22. Malcolm Kerr, The United Arab Republic: The Domestic Political and Economic Background of Foreign Policy (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand, 1969); Beattie, Egypt during the Nasser Years. 23. Kerr, The United Arab Republic, 20. 24. Richard B. Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 84. 25. The officers of Nasser’s generation, born at the end of World War I, became full colonels after 20 years of service, at 40 years of age. In the mid-1960s, there were some officers who were brigadier-generals at age 42. Eliezer Be’eri, Army Officers in Arab Politics and Society (New York: Praeger, 1970), 323. 26. Among the titles Amer held by 1967 were fi rst vice-president of the regime, deputy commander of the armed forces, president of the Higher Economic Committee, president of the High Dam, chairman of the Committee for the Liquida-

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

133

tion of Feudalism, and executive in the soccer federation and in the fishing and transportation industries. Beattie, Egypt during the Nasser Years, 126. 27. Author’s discussion with Arab journalist and commentator, London, spring 1998. 28. See accounts in Kirk J. Beattie, “Egypt: Thirty Five Years of Praetorian Politics,” in Constantine Danopoulos, ed., Military Disengagement from Politics (London: Routledge, 1988), 43; Anwar Sadat, In Search of Identity (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 158; Robert Stephens, Nasser: A Political Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971); Anthony Nutting, Nasser (London: Constable and Company, 1972). 29. Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East, 84; Robert Springborg, “Patrimonialism and Policy Making in Egypt: Nasser and Sadat and the Tenure Policy for Reclaimed Lands,” Middle Eastern Studies 15, no. 1 (1979): 49– 69; Sadat, In Search of Identity, 167; Abdel Majid Farid, Nasser: The Final Years (Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 1994). 30. Ramses Nassif, U Thant in New York, 1961–1971 (London: C. Hurst, 1988), 74– 75; Mohamed Abdel Ghani el-Gamasy, The October War: Memoirs of Field Marshal el-Gamasy of Egypt (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1993), 37. 31. Richard B. Parker, “The June 1967 War: Some Mysteries Explored,” The Middle East Journal 46 (Spring 1992): 183; Richard B. Parker, The Six Day War: A Retrospective (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1996), 44. 32. Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East, 98. 33. Ibid., 85–86; John W. Amos III, Arab-Israeli Political Military Relations: Arab Perceptions and the Politics of Escalation (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1979), 60. 34. Gamasy, The October War: Memoirs, 45. 35. Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East, 94. 36. George W. Gawrych, “The Egyptian High Command in The 1973 War,” Armed Forces and Society 13, no. 4 (Summer 1987): 545. 37. The account of the GFC and Advance Command that follows draws from Gawrych, “The Egyptian High Command in the 1973 War.” 38. Gawrych, “The Egyptian High Command in the 1973 War,” 545. Also see Dupuy, Elusive Victory, 242. 39. Gawrych, “The Egyptian High Command in the 1973 War,” 540, 544. 40. Dupuy, Elusive Victory; Eric Hammel, Six Days in June (New York: Scribner, 1992), 144–45. 41. Gamasy, The October War: Memoirs, 37. 42. Ibid., 60. 43. “Abd al-Latif al-Bughdadi’s Memoirs,” in Selwyn Ilan Troen and Moshe Shemesh, eds., The Suez-Sinai Crisis, 1956: Retrospective and Reappraisal (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 333–56. 44. Gamasy, The October War: Memoirs, 60. 45. Lawrence L. Whetten, The Canal War: Four Power Conflicts in the Middle East (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1974), 43. 46. Even if he had been skeptical of this information, some precautions could have been taken: aircraft could have been dispersed to different runways, and

134 Risa A. Brooks some, at least, put under cover; close monitoring of the radar system could have been implemented. Amos, Arab-Israeli Political Military Relations, 84. 47. Beattie, Egypt during the Nasser Years, 211. For popular reaction to Nasser’s resignation speech, and his reinstatement, see Eric Pace, “Nasser Says He Is Resigning, But Assembly Rejects Action; Forces of Israel Invade Syria,” New York Times, June 10, 1967; James Reston, “Struggle for Control in Cairo Seen behind Nasser’s Move,” New York Times, June 10, 1967, 1. See also “Nasser Decides to Keep His Post,” New York Times, June 11, 1967. 48. “Nasser Decides to Keep His Post.” 49. Comments in conversation with author by Dr. Rifaat Said, Cairo, June 1996. 50. Raymond A. Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics under Sadat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 89. 51. In particular, the allegiances of two individuals were key to Sadat: General Nassef, commander of the Presidential Guard, and the chief of staff of the army, General Mohammed Sadiq. Sadat also reportedly met with more than 100 officers dismissed by Nasser, who promised him their support. Amos Perlmutter, Egypt: The Praetorian State (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1974). 52. For accounts of these events, see Muhammad Heikal, The Road to Ramadan (London: William Collins Sons and Company, 1975), 134; Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics under Sadat, 42–44; Ahmed Abou-Zeid Sherif, The Pattern of Relations between Sadat’s Regime and the Military Elite, M.A. thesis, American University in Cairo, 1995, 50; Raymond William Baker, Egypt’s Uncertain Revolution under Nasser and Sadat (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), 126; Beattie, “Egypt: Thirty Five Years of Praetorian Politics,” 216–17. 53. Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics under Sadat, 131. 54. Ibrahim Karawan, “Egypt’s Defense Policy,” in Stephanie Neuman, ed., Defense Planning in Less Industrialized States (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1984), 147– 66, at 153; Saad Shazly, The Crossing of the Suez (San Francisco: American Mideast Research, 1980), 308. 55. El-Sherif, The Pattern of Relations between Sadat’s Regime and the Military Elite, 29–30. 56. Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics under Sadat, 131; Karawan, “Egypt’s Defense Policy,” 152. 57. George W. Gawrych, The 1973 Arab-Israeli War: The Albatross of Decisive Victory, Leavenworth Papers no. 21 (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: U.S. Army Command and Staff College, 1996), 10; Donald Neff, Warriors against Israel (Brattleboro, Vt.: Amana Books, 1988), 100–101. 58. Gawrych, The 1973 Arab-Israeli War, 11. 59. Amos, Arab-Israeli Political Military Relations, 106. 60. For more on this theme, see Brooks, “An Autocracy at War.” 61. Amos, Arab-Israeli Political Military Relations, 171. 62. Gamasy, The October War: Memoirs, 196. 63. Anthony Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, vol. 1, The Arab Israeli Conflicts, 1973–1989 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1990), 22–23.

Civil-Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

135

64. Amos, Arab-Israeli Political Military Relations, 330. 65. On the deception plan, see Avi Shlaim, “Failure in National Intelligence Estimates: The Case of the Yom Kippur War,” World Politics 28, no. 3 (1976): 348–80. 66. As much as two weeks prior to the war, American officials began to relay information about unusual troop movements and deployments on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts (Insight Team, 1974: 91– 93). Defi nitive intelligence was passed to Golda Meir, Israel’s prime minister, on October 4 (two days prior to the planned crossing). But the Israelis were “blind to the Egyptian and Syrian force deployments in the front line areas, oblivious to the warnings that were received.” Cited in Hassan el-Badri, Taha el Magdoub, and Mohammad dia el-din Zohdy, The Ramadan War, 1973 (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1978), 57. Golda Meir and her “kitchen cabinet” of political advisers dismissed the warnings. Amos, ArabIsraeli Political Military Relations, 174. 67. Dupuy, Elusive Victory, 490. 68. The Insight Team of the London Sunday Times, The Yom Kippur War (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971), 229; Gamasy, The October War, 270. 69. Gawrych, The 1973 Arab-Israeli War, 56. 70. Ibid., 69; Dupuy, Elusive Victory, 519. 71. Interview by Sadat appearing in Al-Ahram; quoted in Amos, Arab-Israeli Political Military Relations, 184. 72. Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics under Sadat, 129. Karawan, “Egypt’s Defense Policy,” 171. 73. Amos, Arab-Israeli Political Military Relations, 118. 74. Ibid., 141; Times Insight Team, The Yom Kippur War, 221–22. 75. Neff, Warriors against Israel, 101–2. 76. The studies included inquiries into Israeli strategic theory; the temperament and thinking of the Israeli general staff; the collection of available intelligence on Israeli doctrine and force structure, and on the Bar Lev line; the reorganization of Egyptian forces that would be required to address the fi ndings of these studies; military and political considerations in choosing a date for the attack; and the problems of achieving surprise. Times Insight Team, The Yom Kippur War, 66. 77. Frank Aker, October 1973: The Arab Israeli War (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1985), 54. 78. Allan C. Stam III, Win, Lose, or Draw: Domestic Politics and the Crucible of War (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996). 79. Amos, Arab-Israeli Political Military Relations, 143, 212. 80. Ibid., 195. 81. Learning was therefore essential but also were the changes in civil-military relations that facilitated it. See Brooks, “An Autocracy at War.” 82. See, for example, Gamasy’s fi rst chapter, where he reviews these lessons. His memoirs from the 1973 war begin with several chapters on 1967, outlining the specific lessons drawn from it. Gamasy, The October War: Memoirs. 83. Louis Williams, ed., Military Aspects of the Israeli-Arab Conflict (Tel Aviv: University Publishing Service, 1975), 173.

chapter

Global Norms and Military Effectiveness: The Army in Early Twentieth-Century Ireland

6

theo farrell

soldiers, sailors, and aircrew go into battle armed with beliefs about how to fight that come from their view of themselves, their enemies, and their combat environment. Such beliefs also shape the way military communities organize themselves, plan, and prepare for war. To be sure, material things—especially force ratios and battle-space geometry—matter to combat, and preparations for war will also be influenced by available national resources. But the process whereby fighting potential is translated into fighting power is primarily a cultural one. In this chapter, beliefs that inform behavior are called norms. Culture comprises those norms that are shared and practiced by a community. An established literature in strategic studies locates norms in national and organizational settings.1 Thus Colin Gray has argued that U.S. and Soviet nuclear strategy diverged because of differing strategic cultures: the less casualty-sensitive Soviets were more prepared to contemplate unlimited nuclear war.2 Elizabeth Kier has contrasted the technophobia in intrawar British Army culture with the techno-friendly culture of the Royal Air Force (horse lovers versus plane freaks, to put it crudely).3 At the same time, the past decade has seen the dramatic rise of constructivism as a major U.S.-led research program in the discipline of international relations (IR).4 Constructivists have concentrated on norms that are shared and practiced by the society of states in a range of policy areas. Included here are studies on the evolution, diffusion, and impact of international norms legitimating and limiting violence in world politics, such as international prohibitions against use of military force by nonstate actors and against assassination as a tool of statecraft.5 What is particularly striking is the different level of analysis pursued by these two literatures: culturalists focus on

Global Norms and Military Effectiveness

137

national strategic culture, whereas constructivists focus on international society.6 Sometimes international and local norms may converge, but on other occasions they may clash. This raises the questions of which norms shape national military behavior, and to what effect. The impact of local norms on military effectiveness is dealt with in Chapter 2 of this volume by Dan Reiter, who looks at national political culture. In contrast, this chapter focuses on global norms. The fi rst section discusses global norms: what they are and how they come to shape national military behavior. In so doing it draws on the “new institutionalist” literature in sociology, which has empirically tracked the development of norms at the world level and the impact of such norms in producing worldwide isomorphism in social organization and activity. By their very nature, global norms may be expected to reduce national variation in military behavior. One may hypothesize from this that global norms will reduce military responsiveness (as defi ned in Chapter 1) as military organizations respond to global templates for action rather than tailoring their activities to local circumstances. The chapter then focuses on the content of one particular set of global norms—norms of conventional warfare—as the independent variable. These norms prescribe capital-intensive force structures based around the major military technologies of the day as the template for military organization. The new institutionalism suggests that new and developing states will be particularly influenced by norms of conventional warfare, even though many lack the resource base to sustain, or the external threat profi le to warrant, high-tech militaries. This underlines the adverse impact that global norms of conventional warfare can have on military responsiveness. This section also considers the possible impact of such norms on two other properties of an effective military: skill and integration, as defi ned in Chapter 1. In the second section, I explore the impact of global norms on military effectiveness through a case study of the army in early twentieth-century Ireland. One case study is insufficient for rigorous theory testing, but this case does provide a powerful plausibility probe for my theoretical approach. As we will see, the Irish Army had compelling reasons to respond to local circumstances by organizing for war along unconventional lines, namely, a very poor resource base combined with the threat of invasion by a vastly superior British Army. Indeed, an Irish guerrilla army had been successful, some decades previously, in pushing the British out of southern Ireland. But this time, the Irish military tried to patch together a “British Army in miniature” with which they hoped to repulse a British invasion. I argue that this lack of responsiveness by the Irish military was the result of global

138 Theo Farrell norms of conventional warfare. I examine how these norms manifested themselves in three areas of military activity: military training, doctrinal development, and weapons procurement. The case also provides some insights, albeit less conclusive ones, about the impact of norms of conventional warfare on the other properties of an effective military. It suggests that norms of conventional warfare can benefit military skill by diff using professional knowledge and standards in combat field craft, tactical leadership, and operational planning. The impact on military integration depends on context: where the resource base is available to sustain capitalintensive militarization, norms of conventional warfare can push states to improve the quality of weapon systems and to improve integration among procurement, doctrine, and training. In the Irish case, however, military integration suffered because weapons procurement could not keep pace with the army’s ambitious doctrine and training aspirations.

Global Norms in Military Action Norms are intersubjective beliefs about the social and natural world that defi ne actors, their situations, and the possibilities for action. Norms are intersubjective in that they are beliefs rooted in, and reproduced through, social practice.7 Thus diplomacy enacts and thereby reproduces accepted international beliefs about state capacity. Norms constitute actors and meaningful action by situating both in social roles (e.g., the modern state) and social environments (e.g., the modern world system); in this sense, norms literally create the social world. In addition, norms regulate action by defi ning what is appropriate (given social rules) and what is effective (given the laws of science).8 Thus norms tell military actors who they are, what their operational environment is like, and what they can and should do in war. Such norms are encoded in military doctrine and national policy, embodied in military planning and procurement, and enacted in military training and operations. Naturally, norms for military action may be derived locally from historical experience, geographic circumstance, and political culture. But they may also come from international society. This is suggested by constructivist work on the evolution and impact of international norms. However, in this chapter I take my approach from sociology’s new institutionalism because this literature focuses on the behavior of organizations (where constructivists in IR concentrate on states), and it shows how world culture can overwhelm local norms. Indeed, for new institutionalists, the reach and effect of global norms are profound: “Worldwide models defi ne and legit imate agendas for local action, shaping the structures and policies of nation-

Global Norms and Military Effectiveness

139

states and other national and local actors in virtually all the domains of rationalized social life—business, politics, education, medicine, science.” 9 New institutionalists see organizations operating in fields that are roughly coterminous with the boundaries of transnational industries (such as aerospace, biochemical, or telecommunications) and professions (medical, education, legal, and so forth). For new institutionalists, organizational forms and activities are shaped by norms that evolve and are institutionalized within these transnational fields.10 Over time, organizations within developing fields become more and more alike (a process called isomorphism) as global norms develop and take effect. Organizations in a particular field gradually develop understandings of appropriate form and behavior and, as a field becomes established, “there is an inexorable push towards homogenization.” 11 Professionalization is the process whereby these norms are formed, reinforced, and diff used. Norms are legitimated through codification in professional literature and the setting of professional standards, and they are propagated through profession-based formal education and social networks.12 Isomorphism occurs within fields as organizations fall into line with the prescriptions that flow from these norms. New institutionalists have demonstrated the impact of global norms with empirical studies of isomorphism in a range of state-organized activities, including aspects of state-organized violence.13 nor ms of con v e ntiona l wa r fa r e Norms of conventional warfare prescribe military organizations that are standing, standardized, technologically structured, and state based. Organizing for war in this manner requires long-term capital investment by states in military structures, personnel, and major weapon systems. The existence of norms of conventional warfare is strongly suggested by the worldwide predominance of capital-intensive militarization, quite out of keeping with the differing resource and security circumstances of states. Almost all states have standing, standardized, and technologically dependent armies, navies, and air forces. Many of these also make extensive use of conscripts and poorly armed infantry formations. But the actual alternative to capital-intensive militarization, that is, reliance on lightly armed militia-type forces, is very rarely chosen even where it would be more suitable for poorer and for less threatened states. In an empirical study of the ratio of major weapons systems (artillery, armored vehicles, aircraft, and the like) to personnel in all the militaries in the world, Alexander Wendt and Michael Barnett conclude that “most Third World states have sustained levels of military capitalization comparable to all but the most heavily militarized advanced industrialized states.” 14

140 Theo Farrell Norms of conventional warfare are derived from a Western model of military organization that produced, and was reproduced by, the professionalization of war.15 This model may be traced back to the introduction of standardized standing armies in seventeenth-century Europe, which enabled the development of professional skills leading, in turn, to the establishment and emulation of professional standards in warfare.16 All of this was underpinned by long-term capital investment in state-based military forces in early modern Europe, fi rst by the Dutch, Swedes, and English, and then by the Catholic powers.17 The “inexorable push toward homogenization” predicted by new institutionalists may also be seen in the worldwide spread of this Western military model, the emergence of which was intimately linked to the rise of the modern state. In Charles Tilly’s famous words, “war made the state and the state made war.” 18 The development of state bureaucracies, scientific knowledge, and mass education in Europe were shaped by, and they in turn shaped, the development of the modern military organization.19 The Western military model was imposed by European imperial powers on their colonies and voluntarily adopted by states outside Europe who sought to resist European expansion; it spread thereby throughout the world from the eighteenth century onward.20 Professionalization of the officer corps played an important part in this isomorphic process, and it continues to do so. The military revolution in seventeenth-century Europe professionalized war for soldiers but not for their officers. Officers continued to be nobles and mercenaries. Professionalization of the officer class occurred only over the next two centuries. By the end of the nineteenth century, the officer class throughout Europe—with Prussia, France, and Britain leading the way—and in the United States had become fully professionalized; purchase of commissions and social class as the criteria for entry and advancement were replaced by merit and competence.21 Professionalization of the officer class led to the worldwide institutionalization of collective beliefs about appropriate military forms and practices. Norms of conventional warfare have gained added force through institutionalization in international law. Unconventional (or guerrilla) warfare by agents of the state was fi rst outlawed in the 1863 Lieber Code, adopted by the Union side in the American Civil War.22 This legal prohibition was subsequently codified in international law in the 1907 Hague Regulations on Land Warfare, which required all military parties to wear uniforms and carry arms openly.23 This is very significant because international norms often gain force through codification in laws or treaties.24 In other words, the Lieber Code and Hague Regulations institutionalized in law those

Global Norms and Military Effectiveness

141

professional standards that defi ned military identity and the possibilities for military action in terms of conventional warfare. Norms of conventional warfare make most sense for great powers, which have the resources and risks to warrant expensive high-tech conventional forces. But as states that are increasingly removed from the great powers, in terms both of resource levels and of geostrategic circumstances, become emulators, isomorphism makes less and less military sense and is more likely to be related to normative pressures. And yet, this is where most of the emulation occurs. Indeed, new institutionalism suggests that normative isomorphism is mostly a one-way street, with “the poor and weak and peripheral copy[ing] the rich and strong and central.” 25 Small states seek the prestige attached to great-power military symbols, as well as the certainty provided by great-power scripts for military action. Norms of conventional warfare are so fundamental to military professional identity that they may affect all areas of military activity. In their study of world culture and military development, Dana Eyre and Mark Suchman highlight two such areas. The fi rst is that of weapons procurement: norms of conventional warfare will be embodied in a preference for procuring major weapon systems and other prestigious military technologies. Second is training and military education: this is a key mechanism for norm reproduction, through the diffusion of professional knowledge and the socialization of military personnel into professional standards. These diffusion and socialization processes occur at the transnational level as officers from developing countries attend courses at the military academies of the great powers. National military training and education is equally important in ensuring that professional knowledge and standards are diffused and internalized within military organizations. Thus we may expect military training to emphasize the modes and means of conventional warfare.26 An additional area of military activity obviously affected by norms of conventional warfare is doctrinal development. Doctrine is a military’s DNA, as it were, prescribing the goals, tasks, and tools of the organization. It provides common scripts and codes for military action, thereby ensuring some cohesion in how the organization goes about its business.27 Accordingly, norms of conventional warfare are likely to be encoded in doctrine. Moreover, transnational military emulation plays a part in doctrinal development. Understandably, militaries are intensely interested in each others’ doctrine, especially when they are in competition with one another.28 Following from new institutionalist theory, we may expect militaries from developing states to emulate the military doctrine of the great powers and thus, too, their doctrinal preferences for conventional force structures and operational styles.

142 Theo Farrell globa l nor ms a n d th e i r ish a r my The development of the army in early twentieth-century Ireland demonstrates how global norms can adversely shape the process whereby military organizations translate fighting potential into fighting power.29 Ireland achieved a degree of independence from Britain in 1921, after a two-year guerrilla campaign by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) against the British authorities. The fighting was concentrated in Dublin and the southern and western counties of Ireland, with IRA hit squads assassinating British officers and officials in the cities, and IRA flying columns ambushing British troops in the countryside. The Irish Free State Army was formed by the military leadership of the IRA. Whereas the outnumbered and outgunned IRA had relied on unconventional means to defeat the British, the Irish Army prepared a wholly conventional defense in the 1930s against expected invasion by an overwhelming British force. In short, the Irish military did not maximize its fighting potential given the limited resources made available to it. How might we explain this? Essentially, the Irish Army acted according to dominant norms encoded in organizational culture at the time of its birth. These norms were not homegrown but rather were imported by visionary army leaders and foreign-trained Irish officers seeking to build a professional Irish Army. In abandoning its guerrilla warfare heritage, the new army acted and organized itself as it believed a professional army should do. I have elsewhere analyzed how global norms came to be encoded in Irish Army culture.30 My account centers on the traumatic birth of the Irish Army. Following the peace treaty with Britain in 1921, Ireland was plunged into a brief but bloody civil war. Although the IRA General Staff was in favor of the treaty, most IRA field units were opposed to the treaty with Britain and to the Free State that was born of it. Thus the IRA General Staff, which formed the General Staff of the Free State Army, had an urgent need to pull together a new army to defend the new state against IRA rebels. The IRA General Staff had been attempting to professionalize its organization throughout the war of independence, and to this end it had been promoting norms of conventional war for some time. However, it made little headway because it exercised little authority over the regional brigades. The Civil War meant that those with most experience in guerrilla warfare—the most active fighting brigades of the IRA in southern and western Ireland, who rebelled against the Irish Free State—were excluded from the new Irish Army. With only 4,000 former IRA troops staying loyal to the Free State government, a brand-new army of over 50,000 was raised to fight the civil war. Many officers with IRA

Global Norms and Military Effectiveness

143

ta b l e 6.1 Global Norms and Irish Military Effectiveness Independent Variable

(global norms)

Military Activity Military training

Norms of conventional warfare

Doctrinal development

Impact on Dependent Variable (military effectiveness) Impeded responsiveness Improved skill (?) Impeded responsiveness Impeded integration

Weapons procurement

experience were demobilized following the civil war while at the same time a number of ex–British Army officers (of Irish nationality) were commissioned in the Irish Army. This organization was ripe for molding along conventional lines by its General Staff. In this chapter, I focus on the impact of norms of conventional warfare on the activities and effectiveness of the Irish Army. Table 6.1 shows the relationship among norms, activities, and effectiveness. Norms of conventional warfare were promoted in the Irish Army by foreign-trained Irish officers and reinforced through the army’s own training programs. Such training impeded military responsiveness because Irish officers blindly enacted global norms rather than adapting to local strategic circumstances. Even though skills in guerrilla operations were neglected, professional training did raise Irish troop skill levels from a chronically low baseline. In developing its force posture, the Irish Army looked to foreign militaries for ideas. In this way, norms of conventional warfare came to be encoded in the Irish Army’s doctrine and in its hopelessly ambitious procurement plans. Doctrinal development impeded military responsiveness in that it reinforced the army’s cultural bias against guerrilla warfare. It also impeded Irish military integration because weapons procurement failed to keep pace with army aspirations. t h e su ici da l a r m y At the heart of this case study is a puzzle. Why did the Irish Army adopt a conventional force posture that it knew or should have known to be suicidal under the circumstances? Irish Army behavior cannot be explained in terms of neorealist logic or organizational politics: a conventional force posture did not serve national or army interests. This suggests the need for a cultural account of Irish military action. Chapter 7 by Emily Goldman in this volume examines the neorealist approach in detail. Suffice it to note here that neorealists see the logic of

144 Theo Farrell anarchy and the ever-present threat of war as forcing states to organize for war as effectively as possible. This may involve military innovation by the most powerful states; other states will rely on emulating the structures and practices that have worked for the great powers in war.31 But in the Irish case study, the historical evidence contradicts the assumption that security imperatives dictate military organization and activity. The army’s force posture was problematic in the context of years of chronic underinvestment. The Irish Army was starved of resources throughout the late 1920s and 1930s by civilian policymakers obsessed with controlling governmental expenditure. The army had a little over 5,000 troops and an annual budget of around £1.5 million throughout the 1930s (a drop from its budget of £11 million in 1924).32 Thus the Irish Army was in no shape to mount a conventional defense against foreign invasion, which from the mid-1930s onward was expected to come from a Britain desperate to secure Irish ports for its naval campaign in the next great European war. The Intelligence Branch (G-2) of the Irish General Staff warned that the invading British could easily overwhelm and destroy any force that blocked their path into Ireland. G-2 recommended against letting “badly armed, ill-trained Irish Brigades . . . sit down to be battered . . . to pulp by vastly superior British forces,” and that the Irish Army should instead deter invasion by threatening a guerrilla-style campaign that would raise the cost of British military occupation. Army intelligence officers pointed to Ireland’s “guerrilla warfare tradition” and argued that Ireland “having fought Britain on this basis before, with a certain measure of success,” guerrilla warfare “forms the obvious basis on which we should fight them again.” 33 Two years later they reiterated that “it would be military suicide for the Defence Forces as they exist at present to make more than a show of organised resistance; they must of necessity revert to guerrilla warfare as soon as possible.” 34 Yet such an unconventional defense was roundly rejected by the rest of the Irish General Staff. The head of one Army Directorate later complained that he had not even been consulted about the idea of a guerrilla defense; another said he was “not bothering” with G-2’s plan because it bore “no relation to reality.” 35 Instead, army leaders pushed ahead in the 1930s with a massive program of modernization and expansion, which ultimately failed for lack of funding. By late 1940, the predicted threat of a British invasion seemed imminent to the Irish General Staff.36 The army chief of staff later recalled, “In the atmosphere then prevailing we could have had an invasion at any time.” 37 However, in preparing to meet this threat, officers in the Plans and Operations Branch (G-1) dismissed the earlier recommendations of their colleagues in the Intelligence Branch

Global Norms and Military Effectiveness

145

as having “no practical application” in 1940.38 Instead, the main body of the Irish Army plunked itself down on the inter-Irish border to await the unwelcome arrival of a vastly superior British force from Northern Ireland. Even at the time, it was clear that the Irish Army had no hope of repulsing a British invasion. Against a British force of 80,000, the Irish were able to muster 40,000 troops. At fi rst glance, this is a respectable force ratio from a defender’s point of view. But the fact is that the British enjoyed vast superiority in skill and quality. Facing a well-trained British Army was an Irish Army that had undergone a massive and rapid expansion the year before, taking in tens of thousands of raw recruits. The British were also expected to have over a 10-to-1 advantage in armored fighting vehicles (1,000, versus Ireland’s 73) and an 8-to-1 advantage in artillery (400, versus Ireland’s 51).39 As one Irish Army planner acknowledged, “In the nature of things unless the enemy blunders badly or we happen to be extremely lucky, the odds are against us.” 40 Reports of field exercises carried out by the Irish Army in 1942 indicate that it was the Irish who were likely to blunder, and blunder badly. These reports reveal a catalog of basic tactical errors by Irish troops that the better trained and better equipped British Army would have been able to exploit with devastating effect.41 Given overwhelming British military superiority, preparing an unconventional defense that avoided direct military engagement with the main British force, as suggested by G-2, was simply prudent. Indeed, such a strategy would have offered a considerable deterrent to British attack, given that Britain would not have wanted to have five army divisions bogged down in Ireland in the midst of a world war. At the very least, the Irish Army should have prepared for guerrilla operations as a fallback. However, guerrilla warfare got only the barest perfunctory mention in Irish Army training directives for 1940–41.42 One might argue that preparing for guerrilla warfare was too dangerous for a country that had seen one (albeit occupying) government removed by such means and had experienced civil war. However, no evidence indicates it was concerns about internal security that led the army to opt for a wholly conventional force posture. Preparing for guerrilla war would, to be sure, have involved training and arming a large portion of the population, including former IRA rebels. But the army leadership was not concerned about this. Indeed, as early as 1925, just three years after the Civil War, the army chief of staff had called for the creation of a reserve force up to 90,000 strong.43 By the time G-2 drew up its proposals for a guerrilla-style defense of Ireland, the army had even less reason to worry about internal security because the republicans who had rebelled against the Free State in 1921 had since been elected into government.

146 Theo Farrell The organizational politics approach provides one possible explanation for Irish military behavior.44 It explains state practice as the product of incessant bureaucratic warfare: the competitive nature of the domestic political system generates imperatives for military action as military organizations seek to adopt structures and strategies that will confer prestige on them, increase their resources, and secure their own autonomy.45 However, the Irish Army’s rejection of a guerrilla-style defense cannot be explained in terms of organizational self-interest. Plans for a conventional force posture did not promise to increase army prestige, resources, or autonomy because officials in the all-powerful Irish Department of Finance were staunchly pro-British (indeed many were former British civil servants) and, seeing little threat from Britain, they had consistently refused to fund any expansion and modernization of the army. Finance officials never deviated from their view, stated in 1923, that “a small infantry force well armed and with adequate transport would suffice and that many semispectacular services such as the Air Force and Cavalry should be omitted.” 46 This would, in fact, have resulted in precisely the kind of lightly armed and mobile force capable of guerrilla warfare that would be called for by the army’s Intelligence Branch in the mid-1930s. One fi nal approach combines neorealism and organizational theory. Neorealism provides the motive: the security imperative. Organizational theory provides the means: outside intervention to force major change on conservative militaries. The essence of the argument is that, worried about impending war or shocked by defeat, civilians make militaries change their ways.47 In this case, however, a conventional force posture was not forced on the Irish Army by civilian direction. Civilian policymakers were not all that interested in how the army organized for war; they were only interested in how much it would cost. Indeed, in the early years of the Free State, the army begged in vain for civilian policy direction.48 To the extent that policymakers and politicians gave any thought to Irish defense, they harked back to the Anglo-Irish War in envisaging some kind of guerrilla campaign. As the leader of the opposition told the Irish parliament in 1927, “If we are going to defend ourselves against any power we can only do it in the way we did before, and that is, not by a standing army.” 49 Moreover, such civilian views were ignored. nor ms, act i v i t i e s, a n d e f f ecti v e n e ss Culture helps us make sense of Irish military madness. The impact of global norms becomes apparent if we examine each of three military activities in turn: training, doctrine, and procurement. I conclude this section with analysis of the impact of global norms on overall Irish military effectiveness.

Global Norms and Military Effectiveness

147

Military Training Military training is the primary mechanism whereby officers are socialized into organizational culture. The military leaders of the IRA appreciated this when they sought to professionalize their organization along conventional lines. The IRA General Staff issued training manuals that emphasized such skills as the importance of close-order drill, which would be crucial for conventional armies but was irrelevant to guerrilla warfare.50 They also ordered all IRA field divisions to set up training camps for the purpose of providing uniform training for IRA officers as laid down by General Headquarters (GHQ).51 However, IRA field units did not pay much heed to directives from GHQ. IRA brigades were barely active in some counties; the most hard-pressed field units in the south and west of Ireland resented the interference and lack of material support—money and weapons—from Dublin.52 Manned as it was by thousands of raw recruits, the new army of the Irish Free State was virgin soil for the planting of norms of conventional warfare. The army leadership wasted no time in training their new army in conventional warfare. Of the 140 hours of training prescribed for infantry in 1923, not one hour was allocated to guerrilla tactics, whereas three hours were spent on learning how to salute.53 No mention is made of guerrilla operations in the Annual Training Regulations for 1926. Perhaps understandably for a new army, emphasis was placed on the basics: instilling discipline and drill in the rank and fi le.54 But the focus remained fi rmly on conventional operations in training memoranda for reserves and fulltimers throughout the 1930s and into the early 1940s.55 Irish officers were given more advanced training, but this too was entirely focused on conventional warfare. Much attention was given to learning from foreign professional militaries. Between 1927 and 1931, 25 officers received military training in U.S. or British military academies.56 Returning U.S.-trained officers established the Irish Army’s own Command and Staff Course in the early 1930s. Less than 1 percent of this course was devoted to guerrilla warfare (3 hours, of a total of 361 hours of training). In contrast, 18 hours was spent on chemical warfare, even though the army had no chemical warfare capability.57 Officers were also kept informed of foreign military practices through ad hoc training memos and regular bulletins circulated by the army’s infantry, artillery, armoured car, and army air corps.58 The impact of all this training on army culture may be gauged by looking at An t-Óglách. Originally the journal of the revolutionary IRA, it was revived in 1927 as the professional journal of the Irish Army and published monthly until 1933. Of around 300 substantive articles on military matters

148 Theo Farrell in this journal, only two were on guerrilla warfare: one was reprinted from the British Army’s journal, and the other was an unfinished paper originally written shortly after the Irish War of Independence.59 Judging by officer discourse, by the late 1920s the army’s guerrilla warfare heritage was dead. doctr i na l dev e lopm e nt In developing its doctrine, the Irish Army took the expedient route of emulating the British. This was the other key mechanism whereby norms of conventional warfare were institutionalized in Irish Army doctrine. The British model was initially chosen in the midst of civil war when the army leaders had neither the time nor the knowledge to fashion their own force structure. According to the army’s own account, The position then existing was that we had no fighting organization, nor had we sufficient training or expertise to devise one for ourselves. It was essential that we adopt some foreign system as a model, to train and experiment with, and as our armament and equipment was British this was as good a model to adopt as any other.60

In fact the Irish Army had other compelling reasons to imitate the British. First, the driving mission of the new Irish Army from 1921 to 1925 was the same as that of the former British occupiers, namely, suppression of internal rebellion.61 Second, the Irish Army contained many men who had served in the British Army. Third, it must have seemed natural for the army to model itself on its British equivalents because that was what the rest of the Irish government was doing: for the most part, the Irish merely took over the administrative structures and practices that had existed under the British, and they even kept on many British civil servants.62 So the Irish Army had good reasons for imitating its former enemy in the turbulent formative years of the Irish Free State. These reasons became less important as time went on. Following the civil war, the army was preoccupied with managing a program of massive demobilization. Army personnel were drastically cut, from 48,176 in 1923 to 16,382 in 1924, and thereafter gradually reduced to 11,572 in 1927.63 Following this program of demobilization, and with a new primary mission in mind, namely, protecting the state from external threats, the Army General Staff turned its attention to the future shape of the army. Officers were sent to foreign military academies for the express purpose of developing the professional knowledge and expertise to enable the Irish Army to develop its own doctrine. To this end, a temporary Defence Plans Division (DPD) was established in 1928 under the directorship of Major-General Hugo MacNeill, who had led the fi rst training mission to the United States.64

Global Norms and Military Effectiveness

149

Rather than challenging the British military model, the DPD reinforced its place as the template for Irish military organization and activity. In a major DPD report, Colonel Michael Costello advised that the Irish doctrine of war should be: “To concentrate in the greatest strength and with the greatest rapidity at the principal point of the invasion and to adopt and maintain the offensive until the enemy is driven out.” To Costello, “it seems that the doctrine laid down in British Field Service regulations has sufficient in common with the doctrine suggested for us to warrant the adoption of the war organization evolved in England.” 65 French, German, and American military doctrine were rejected as possible alternatives because the Irish Army had little experience of these military systems and the doctrinal manuals were difficult to acquire. Moreover, the Irish Army had mostly British arms and equipment, which, it was reasoned, were suited to British military doctrine.66 Ten years later, in 1938, Costello noted that the Irish Army was still thoroughly British in character and was likely to remain so: “Much of our present organization, and almost all handbooks and manuals approved by the Department of Defence, are British. A change to some other source of supply [would], therefore, necessitate a mental revolution in the army.” 67 What Irish military leaders failed to recognize was that the British model was not appropriate for a terribly underresourced army.

Weapons Procurement Norms of conventional warfare were also clearly enacted in the Irish Army’s procurement plans. This is most evident in the army’s 15-year plan, submitted to the civilian government in 1932, to develop a 75,000-strong force that could field a corps of three divisions well equipped with artillery, tanks, armored cars, and aircraft.68 The army chief of staff told the minister of defence that the purpose of the program was to provide for “the systematic building up . . . of a Field Force suitable to the defence requirements of this country . . . organized in a self-contained, properly balanced whole . . . [and] equipped with all the modern weapons required.” 69 The massive scale of this program can be appreciated by noting that, at the time, the army had only 13,000 troops, little artillery, a handful of armored cars, very few aircraft, and only one tank. As part of this program, the army convened a board in January 1933 to examine options for a new armored fighting vehicle, capable of countering a tank attack, to be manufactured in Ireland. After a year of deliberation, the board proposed purchasing a single light tank from a Swedish fi rm and components for two additional tanks along with assembly instructions, “with a view to gaining the practical experience which would be invaluable when the more ambitious program is undertaken.” 70 The

150 Theo Farrell Defence Department believed that assembling these tanks could “pave the way for the possible development of a mechanical industry in this line.” 71 Finance officials strongly disagreed with the army’s proposal. They saw “no future for any Irish Firm in the manufacture or even in the assembly of tanks.” In addition, the Department of Finance was skeptical about the estimated cost of the program, particularly as it was believed that the army had simply pulled the figures out of thin air.72 Accordingly, the minister of fi nance rejected the army’s proposal and gave permission only for the purchase of a second completed tank.73 So, whereas the army had wanted to start up a tank industry in Ireland, all it got was two tanks, one of which was soon destroyed by accident in tests. The rest of the army’s proposed buildup was vetoed just as effectively by the Department of Finance. Right up to the end of 1937, the army continued to press for a corps-size (three divisions) field force.74 The following year, however, the army proposed a far less ambitious program to create a field army of just two reinforced brigades. Even this extremely modest program was dismissed by the Department of Finance as being too expensive and unnecessary.75 Defense expenditure began to increase only on the eve of war, jumping from £2 million in 1938–39 to £3.5 million in 1939–40. Following direct intervention by the Irish prime minister, who overruled objections from fi nance officials, the army was given £7.5 million in 1940–41 to fund a massive and rushed expansion of the wartime army.76 But by this time it was too late, in terms of procuring weapons and munitions. Ireland’s traditional suppliers, the British, had no arms to spare from their own stocks, and they were probably disinclined to help anyway, given the deterioration in Anglo-Irish relations. The Irish were able to procure 20,000 rifles from the U.S. government. But they were unable to obtain fighter aircraft, antiaircraft (AA) guns, armored cars, or artillery.77 It was only in December 1941, following the U.S. entry into World War II, that the British government agreed to sell AA guns and artillery to Ireland. Irish military leaders took this as a sign that the threat of a British invasion had disappeared.78

Irish Military Effectiveness In this case, global norms of conventional warfare clearly did impede Irish military responsiveness. By the late 1930s, the Irish General Staff should have recognized that they were not going to get the resources to mount an effective conventional defense of the country. At the very least, they should have prepared for guerrilla warfare as a fallback. Intelligence Branch proposals for such an option were, however, roundly rejected by the Irish General Staff, who planned instead to mount a wholly conventional defense.79 Training and doctrine led the army to ignore its guerrilla

Global Norms and Military Effectiveness

151

warfare heritage, both in an immediate and in a general sense. U.S.-trained officers staffed the army’s Plans and Operations Branch.80 In contrast, the Intelligence Branch officers who advocated a guerrilla-style defense had received no foreign professional military training.81 More generally, through its training programs, the army had socialized its troops and officer corps into norms of conventional warfare. These norms were further encoded in a doctrine that was modeled on that of the British Army. Global norms also impeded Irish military integration because army procurement failed to keep pace with doctrinal development. Norms of conventional warfare led the army to pursue a hopelessly ambitious modernization program for a large force fully equipped with artillery, armor, and aircraft. Even when the army fi nally got the funds for a smaller conventional force, however, it was unable to procure the necessary items in the early war years. Army doctrinal development and procurement plans should both have adjusted to fiscal realities, and this would have resulted in closer integration of the two. However, norms of conventional warfare made this unthinkable for the Irish Army. In only one property of an effective military did global norms appear to have some beneficial effect. Irish military leaders did attempt to improve skill levels in their organization. They did this to get their organization up to the standards of comparable professional armies of other states. With war approaching, renewed effort was put into a comprehensive program of training to raise skill levels in combat field craft and tactical leadership. The massive expansion in the army in the early 1940s put a considerable strain on this new training program.82 The Irish chief of staff reported in 1941 that tremendous and rapid progress had been made in developing the fighting power of the army but also that more progress was needed, especially in training.83 Field exercises as late as 1942 revealed continued shortfalls in combat skills and tactical leadership. By 1944, however, the army reported “satisfaction at the high average standard of training reached.” 84 Although this would have been too late had the British indeed invaded Ireland in 1940–41, it did indicate how global norms provided the impetus for raising military skill levels. This was good news, in terms of developing basic combat and leadership skills, but at the same time, norms of conventional warfare led to the neglect of training in guerrilla operations. In the case of Ireland, there was much need for such skills in 1940–41.

Conclusion Global norms of conventional warfare lead states around the world to organize for war along remarkably similar lines. Almost all states have standing

152 Theo Farrell standardized militaries structured around major weapons systems. For the major powers, with large capital reserves and large requirements for military capability, this basic template for military organization makes sense. But for developing states, especially poorer or less threatened ones, this model of military organization is less appropriate. For newly independent states, such as India, which had inherited its military from its departing imperial masters, the fi nancial cost of capitalintensive militarization was probably outweighed by the political cost if the standing army had been disbanded.85 But for states such as Ireland, which had won its independence through guerrilla warfare, the switch from this labor-intensive form of militarization to a capital-intensive one was irrational. Although standing and even standardized militaries might be desirable for such states as Argentina, Brazil, and Chile that rely on the loyalty of the army to protect military regimes or not to threaten democratic ones, there is still no reason why such armies need to be structured around advanced major weapon systems such as main battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and air-defense systems. The vulnerable democratic governments in Brazil and Chile may be seeking to “buy off ” their military with new weapon systems.86 But this still begs the question. If such weapons are unnecessary, why do the Brazilian and Chilean militaries want them? The isomorphic pattern of global military development suggests the effect of global norms of conventional warfare. The Irish case dramatically illustrates how such norms can shape military activities. The Irish state was placed in jeopardy because of the impact of norms of conventional warfare on the Irish Army. Even if such an extreme outcome is rare, the fact that a state’s survival instinct can be so overwhelmed is striking evidence of the power of such norms.87

Notes I am grateful to Risa Brooks, Liz Stanley, and Daryl Press for very detailed feedback, and to Debbi Avant, Nora Bensahel, Steve Biddle, Mike Desch, Eug Gholz, Emily Goldman, Tim Hoyt, Colin McInnes, Dan Reiter, Al Stam, and Terry Terriff for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. 1. For literature reviews, see Alastair Iain Johnston, “Thinking about Strategic Culture,” International Security 19, no. 4 (1995): 32– 65; and Theo Farrell, “Culture and Military Power,” Review of International Studies 24, no. 3 (1998): 407–16. 2. Colin S. Gray, Nuclear Strategy and National Style (Lanham, Md.: Hamilton Press, 1986).

Global Norms and Military Effectiveness

153

3. Elizabeth Kier, Imagining War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997). 4. For literature reviews, see Jeff rey T. Checkel, “The Constructivist Turn in International Relations Theory,” World Politics 50, no. 2 (1998): 324–48; and Ted Hopf, “The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory,” International Security 23, no. 1 (1998): 171–200. 5. Janice Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates and Sovereigns (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994); Ward Thomas, The Ethics of Destruction (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002). 6. These two literatures are compared in Theo Farrell, “Constructivist Security Studies: Portrait of a Research Program,” International Studies Review 4, no. 1 (2002): 50– 72. 7. Ronald L. Jepperson, Alexander Wendt, and Peter J. Katzenstein, “Norms, Identity, and Culture in National Security,” in Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 54. 8. Friedrich Kratochwil, Rules, Norms and Decisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Jan Golinski, Making Natural Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 9. John W. Meyer, John Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco O. Ramirez, “World Society and the Nation-State,” American Journal of Sociology 193 (1997): 145. 10. W. Richard Scott and John W. Meyer, eds., Institutional Environments and Organizations (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1994). 11. Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields,” in Paul J. Powell and Walter W. DiMaggio, eds., The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 64. 12. DiMaggio and Powell, “The Iron Cage Revisited,” 70– 74. 13. Dana P. Eyre, The Very Model of the Major Modern Military: World System Influences on the Proliferation of Military Weapons, 1960–1990, Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1997; Ann Hironaka, Boundaries of War: Historical Change in Patterns of Warmaking, 1815–1980, Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1998. 14. Alexander Wendt and Michael Barnett, “Dependent State Formation and Third World Militarization,” Review of International Studies 19, no. 4 (1993): 328. 15. Jacques Van Doorn, The Soldier and Social Change (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1975), 29–46. 16. Geoff rey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 16–24; William McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since AD 1000 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 128–43. 17. M. D. Feld, “Middle-Class Society and the Rise of Military Professionalism,” Armed Forces and Society 1 (1975): 419–42. 18. Charles Tilly, “Reflections on the History of European State-making,” in Charles Tilly, ed., The Formation of Nation States in Western Europe (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975), 42.

154 Theo Farrell 19. Barton C. Hacker, “Engineering a New Order: Military Institutions, Technical Education, and the Rise of the Industrial State,” Technology and Culture 34 (1993): 1–27. 20. David B. Ralston, Importing the European Army: The Introduction of Military Techniques and Institutions into the Extra-European World, 1600–1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); Christon I. Archer, John R. Ferris, Holger H. Herwig, and Timothy H. E. Travers, World History of Warfare (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), 440–82. 21. G. Teitler, The Genesis of the Professional Officers’ Corps (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1977), 34–37; Huntington, The Soldier and the State, 19–58. 22. Richard S. Hartigan, Lieber’s Code and the Law of War (Chicago: Precedent, 1983). 23. Additional Protocol I to the Hague Convention, which was adopted in 1977, does permit irregular combatants to wait until the moment of attack before revealing their weapons and identities. However, states must freely sign on to this protocol, and many have not (including great powers such as the United States) because they do not recognize the lawfulness of guerrilla warfare. Knut Ipsen, “Combatants and Non-Combatants,” in Dieter Fleck, ed., The Handbook of Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflicts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999 [1995]), 65–104. 24. Ethan A. Nadelmann, “Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution of Norms in International Society,” International Organization 44, no. 4 (1990): 479–526. 25. John M. Meyer, John Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco O. Ramirez, “World Society and the Nation-State,” American Journal of Sociology 103 (1997): 164. 26. Dana P. Eyre and Mark C. Suchman, “Status, Norms, and the Proliferation of Conventional Weapons,” in Katzenstein, Culture of National Security, 92, 112. 27. For discussion on this, see Theo Farrell, “Making Sense of Doctrine,” in Michael Duff y, Theo Farrell, and Geoff rey Sloan, eds., Doctrine and Military Effectiveness (Exeter: The Strategic Policy Studies Group, 1997), 1–5. 28. On “doctrinal races,” see Kimberly Martin Zisk, Engaging the Enemy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993). 29. This section draws on material published in Theo Farrell, “Professionalization and Suicidal Defence Planning by the Irish Army, 1921–1941,” Journal of Strategic Studies 21, no. 3 (1998): 67–85; and Theo Farrell, “Transnational Norms and Military Development: Constructing Ireland’s Professional Army,” European Journal of International Relations 7, no. 1 (2001): 63–102. 30. Farrell, “Transnational Norms.” 31. João Resende-Santos, “Anarchy and Emulation of Military Systems: Military Organization and Technology in South America, 1870–1930,” Security Studies 5, no. 3 (1996): 193–260. 32. John P. Duggan, A History of the Irish Army (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1991), 155– 62; Peter Young, “Defence and the New Irish State, 1919–1939,” The Irish Sword 19 (1993– 94): 6– 7. 33. General Staff, “Estimate of the Situation That Would Arise in the Eventu-

Global Norms and Military Effectiveness

155

ality of a War between Ireland and Great Britain,” no. 1 (October 1934), Military Archives (MA) DP/00020, 89, 91. 34. General Staff, “Fundamental Factors Affecting Saorstát Defence Problem,” May 1936, MA G2/0057, 77– 78. 35. Captain R. Boyd, “Memorandum on ‘Present Commitments and Future Policy and Programme’ period about 1937,” February 9, 1945, University College Dublin Archives (UCDA), Bryan papers, P71/27, 9. 36. This was not paranoia on the part of the Irish military: the British were planning to retake the Irish ports by force when U.S. entry into the war removed overnight the need for such drastic action. Robert Fisk, In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality, 1939–1945 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1983), 116–17. 37. General Dan McKenna, “Defence Problems, 1939–1945,” text of address to the Military College, October 12, 1967, MA SCS 1/3, 4. 38. General Staff (G-1), “Memorandum No. 2: Observations on General Staff Estimate of the Situation No. 1,” 1940, MA, Emergency Defence Plans (EDP) 1. 39. General Staff (G-1), “Outline of General Defence Plan No. 2 (Final Draft),” November 28, 1940, MA EDP 1/2. 40. Major James Flynn, “Memo: General Defence Plan 2—Final Outline,” November 29, 1940, MA EDP 1/2, 1–2. 41. General Staff, “Report on Army Exercises,” Parts I and II, January 1943, MA. 42. General Staff, “Training Directive 1941,” G.1/199, November 21, 1940, MA EDP 1/12. 43. Army Chief of Staff, “Formation of Special Reserve,” November 12, 1925, MA GS/0/2. 44. Theo Farrell, “Figuring Out Fighting Organizations: The New Organizational Analysis in Strategic Studies,” Journal of Strategic Studies 19, no. 1 (1996): 122–35. 45. Graham T. Allison, The Essence of Decision (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973); Morton H. Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1974). 46. Department of Finance, “Memorandum,” December 10, 1923, National Archives of Ireland (NAI) Department of Finance fi les (D/F) 747/148. 47. Barry Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984). 48. Memo from Defence Council to Executive Council, “Defence Policy for Saorstat Eireann,” July 22, 1925, UCDA, Blythe papers, P24/107. 49. Dáil Debates, November 16, 1927, cited in Colonel Michael Costello, “Some Features of Our Defence Problem,” An t-Óglác, January 1928, 5. 50. General Headquarters (GHQ), An Introduction to Volunteer Training, IRA, 1920, UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7a/22. 51. GHQ, Training Manual, IRA, 1921, UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7a/22. 52. Joost Augusteijn, From Public Defiance to Guerrilla Warfare (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1996); Peter Hart, The IRA and Its Enemies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

156 Theo Farrell 53. GHQ, General Staff Training Memo No. 1: Syllabus for One Month’s Progressive Training for an Infantry Company (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1923), UCDA Mulcahy Papers, P7a/71. 54. Defence Force Regulations: Annual Training (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1926). 55. G-1, “Instructions for the Training of Infantry Units of the Class B Reserve,” March 19, 1931, MA MB3; G-1 “General Staff Training Memoranda,” 1940, MA MB5/27. 56. Department of Defence, “Response to Deputy O’Maolian’s Question No. 11 for the meeting of An Dáil on 22 April, 1931,” NAI Department of Taoiseach fi les (D/T), S5701. 57. “Summary of Syllabus, Command and Staff Course: 1934–35,” UCDA, Bryan Papers. 58. See, for example, Commandant P. Tuite, (A)D/Inf., “Infantry Training Memo No. 2,” July 1933, MA MB5/28. Also see The Infantry Bulletin, Bulletin of Army Air Corps, Bulletin of Army Artillery Corps, Bulletin of Army Armoured Car Corps, MA MB7/1-MB7/4. 59. Major B. C. Dening, “Problems of Guerrilla Warfare,” An t-Óglách, October 1927, 45–50; Colonel J. J. O’Connell, “Guerrilla Warfare as Standard Form,” An t-Óglách, April 1930, 50–52. 60. General Staff, “Estimate of the Situation, no. 1,” 89. 61. This point was emphasized in a public talk by one leading Irish Army officer of the time who argued that the army was “raised for the express purpose of suppressing internal rebellion.” He went on to note that the army became less concerned with this internal security mission after late 1925. Major-General Hugo MacNeill, “The Defence Plans Division,” An t-Óglách, April–June 1928, 7. 62. Ronan Fanning, “Britain’s Legacy,” in P. J. Drudy, ed., Irish Studies 5: Ireland and Britain Since 1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1986), 45– 63. 63. “Memorandum on the Development of the Defence Forces,” 6. 64. MacNeill, “The Defence Plans Division,” 7–17; Chief of Staff to Minister of Defence, October 20, 1927, MA; Chief of Staff to Minster of Defence, “Conferences on 4th and 8th November to discuss recommendations of Military Mission to the United States,” November 14, 1927, MA. 65. Colonel Michael Costello, “Preparation for War: Draft for War Plans Division,” 1928, MA, Michael J. Costello fi les (hereafter cited as MJC)/9, PC 586, 27–28. 66. General Staff, DPD(T), “Special Memo No. 2: Tactical Organisation of the Defence Forces,” 1928, MA MJC. 67. Colonel Michael Costello, “Outline of a Suggested Organisation for the Defence Forces,” January 1938, MA MJC/13, PC586, 13. 68. Chief of Staff to Minister of Defence, September 22, 1932, MA, fi les of the assistant chief of staff (ACS) 2/72. 69. General Staff, “Comments on the Estimates 1933–34: Prepared by the General Staff on the Basis of the ‘Notes’ Prepared by the Secretariat,” March/April 1933, MA ACS 2/72, 1. 70. Department of Defence to Department of Finance, January 22, 1934, NAI D/F S.4/170/33.

Global Norms and Military Effectiveness

157

71. Minister of Defence to Minister of Finance, March 23, 1934, NAI D/F S4/170/33. 72. Walter Doolin to Minister of Finance, February 27, 1934, NAI D/F S.4/170/33. 73. Department of Finance to Department of Defence, March 9, 1934, NAI D/F S.4/170/33. 74. Colonel Michael Costello, “Notes on the Proposition That We Need Only One Brigade,” November 24, 1938, MA MJC/13, PC586, 2. 75. Department of Defence to Department of Finance, December 23, 1938, UCDA, MacEntee papers, P67/196. 76. Captain H. K. Bonar, “Investment in Defence,” paper for Diploma in Administrative Science, Institute for Public Administration, Dublin, 1983, 11. Confidential paper released by the Military Archives. 77. See the correspondence from June to December 1940 between Dublin, London, and Washington in NAI Department of Foreign Aff airs fi les, P1a. 78. McKenna, “Defence Problems,” 10. 79. The plan was for a fighting retreat by the army instead of reversion to guerrilla operations. J. J. O’Connell, “Question of Retreat on Dublin,” 1940, IMA EDP/misc. 80. “Military Mission in U.S.A.: American Tribute to Irish Officer’s Remarkable Progress,” An t-Óglách, December 11, 1926, 10–11. 81. These officers, both leading lights in the Intelligence Branch, were Colonel Liam Archer and Colonel Dan Bryan. Eunan O’Halpin, “Aspects of Intelligence,” The Irish Sword 19 (1993– 94): 59. 82. Denis Parsons, “Mobilisation and Expansion, 1939–40,” The Irish Sword 19 (1993– 94): 17. 83. Donal O’Carroll, “The Emergency Army,” The Irish Sword 19 (1993– 94): 42. 84. Headquarters, First Division, “Training Instruction No. 7/1944,” June 1, 1944, MA MB5/18. 85. Stephen P. Cohen, The Indian Army: Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). 86. Wendy Hunter, State and Soldier in Latin America: Redefining the Military’s Role in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute for Peace, 1996). 87. I thank Daryl Press for suggesting this point. On the importance of “the crucial case” in confi rming theories, see Harry Eckstein, “Case Study and Theory in Political Science,” in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson Polsby, eds., Handbook of Political Science, vol. 7 (Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1975).

chapter

International Competition and Military Effectiveness: Naval Air Power, 1919–1945

7

emily o. goldman

threat to state survival—to political regimes, national institutions, and ways of life—is an enduring problem created by the conditions of anarchy and competition that defi ne the international system. These conditions create powerful incentives for states to adjust their military activities to compete effectively. Because national survival often depends on battlefield success, states should be highly responsive to threats, whether defi ned by the capabilities of others, by their intentions, or both. In other words, we should expect to fi nd that international competition, and in particular the external threat environment, should be causally linked to military effectiveness. This chapter investigates the relationship between international competition and military effectiveness. It reviews the relevant theoretical literature and derives a series of hypotheses about how the level of threat and diversity of threat affect three attributes of military effectiveness: integration, responsiveness, and quality. The chapter illustrates and evaluates those hypotheses through a longitudinal and comparative analysis of British and U.S. responses to developments in naval air power between the two world wars. These cases suggest that the quality of threat—or its diversity—has more consequences for military effectiveness than the quantity or level of threat. The British case shows how a period of low threat in the 1920s saw drastic budget cutbacks that weakened Britain’s defense sector, stunted research and development (R&D), and slowed innovation. These undermined responsiveness to rising threats in the mid-1930s and decreased the quality of the weapon systems the British could muster once war broke out. Over the course of the interwar period, a highly diverse threat environment

International Competition and Military Effectiveness

159

complicated Britain’s strategic assessment and undermined its politicalmilitary coordination. Inability to predict who they would be fighting reduced integration and responsiveness, exacerbated the resource problem, and had a direct bearing on the quality of systems the British produced. During the same period, the Americans had more specific incentives: they knew who their enemy was, the type of war they needed to fight, and what they needed to produce. This created an environment conducive to innovation. The U.S. case demonstrates how lack of diversity in threat can improve quality, responsiveness, and integration, and a low level of threat, by itself, need not undermine military effectiveness. The U.S. Navy was very innovative between the wars, which supports the argument that innovation can occur when organizations have the luxury to experiment and ponder new ways of war. However, peacetime innovation works better when there is a clear problem to solve. Over a 25-year period, from the introduction of aircraft at sea to the Battle of Midway, air power revolutionized naval warfare. The role of the aircraft carrier was dramatically reformulated, from that of reconnaissance and support for the main battle line to that of independent strike platforms that were massed together to maximize offensive fi repower and defensive protection. All navies had realized that air power had an important defensive role to play in spotting, scouting, and reconnaissance. The early dispute was whether carrier air power could operate effectively as an offensive strike element. The British success against the Italian fleet at Taranto in 1940 was the fi rst time a large, heavily defended harbor facility was attacked with carrier-based planes. It hinted at the offensive potential of the aircraft carrier that would be realized a year later and 12,000 miles away with the Japanese carrier-based strikes on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor in December 1941.1 After Japan’s defeat at the Battle of Midway in June 1942, the aircraft carrier became the new capital ship of modern navies.2 Naval air power is an instructive case for several reasons. First, the U.S. and British cases display significant variation in the diversity of threat each faced, and this affected how and to what extent their navies integrated air power into naval operations, organizations, and doctrine. The British were slow to adapt and relegated carrier air power to a defensive role. The Americans were quicker to adopt the carrier as an offensive strike weapon, and they were more successful in exploiting the potential of carrier aviation. Second, the period from 1919 to 1945 covered by this case spans both peace and war, permitting comparison, both geographically across space and longitudinally over time, of the impacts of different levels of threat on military effectiveness.

160 Emily O. Goldman Third, this chapter focuses on naval warfare, while many of the other chapters in this volume focus on land warfare. Military strategists and theorists recognize differences between warfare on land and warfare at sea.3 Theories of war were originally elucidated by soldiers, and their conclusions were assumed to be universally applicable. But unlike on land, at sea there are no positions to defend and no territory to take. And whereas an army depends on definite lines of communication that it must protect to ensure supplies, a fleet carries its necessities with it. Theories about military effectiveness will be stronger if they apply across all domains of military operations. Hence it is important to examine the dynamics of military effectiveness at sea. The case of naval air power is particularly useful because it transcends two operational domains—air and sea.

Theoretical Overview To understand how threat influences military effectiveness, we must develop a useful conceptualization of threat. Neorealist theory identifies threat as the most crucial independent variable for explaining patterns of arming and alliances among states, although neorealist scholars differ on how they conceive, assess, and measure threat. For Kenneth Waltz, threat is a question of capabilities.4 Waltz characterizes threat in terms of aggregate resources, which define the system’s polarity; he argues that bipolar systems are more certain and stable than multipolar systems. “In the great-power politics of multipolar worlds, who is a danger to whom, and who can be expected to deal with threats and problems, are matters of uncertainty. In the great-power politics of bipolar worlds, who is a danger to whom is never in doubt.” 5 Because the threat in a bipolar world is simpler to understand, we should expect military effectiveness to rise. The causal path, however, is not specified: perhaps greater consensus on the threat improves political-military integration in bipolar systems; perhaps the military is more responsive to a clearer threat; perhaps it is easier to train for fewer and more likely contingencies and to build high-quality weapons for a smaller number of missions. As a systemic theory, Waltzian neorealism does not address these processes. John Mearsheimer, an offensive realist, also focuses on the gross structure of international power and on capabilities as a surrogate for threat.6 In Mearsheimer’s world, threats are ever present because future intentions can never be known with confidence. Offensive realists such as Randall Schweller and defensive realists such as Charles Glaser argue that intentions can be known, so they do not defi ne threat exclusively by capabilities. States are either status quo or greedy, and only greedy states pose

International Competition and Military Effectiveness

161

threats. Status quo states use their capabilities to keep things as they are; greedy states seek to overthrow or change the system. In the defensive realist’s world, unlike Mearsheimer’s chronically uncertain world, states can acquire information about others’ intentions relatively easily, by monitoring one another’s capabilities and weapons acquisitions, and through costly signaling.7 For Waltz and Mearsheimer, polarity is an important causal factor in explaining system behavior. Polarity influences how states choose to augment their military power. In bipolar systems, states tend to arm to increase their power, whereas in multipolar systems, they tend to form alliances. Each strategy has potential implications for military effectiveness. Reliance on allies may be a quick way to increase capabilities, but it risks abandonment, entrapment, and loss of autonomy, which could undermine military effectiveness. Internal resource aggregation can threaten the long-term health of the economy because of the diversion of resources to defense, and it might as a result undermine domestic political support for the ruling elite. Either could degrade military effectiveness. Mearsheimer says, however, that states are better off to seek internal resource aggregation, due to uncertainty about future allies, and to seek short-term military preparedness over longer-term economic prosperity. The advantage, he points out, is the potential to stimulate innovation (an attribute of effectiveness) and place the state in a position of dominance. If it gets far enough ahead, no other state or set of states could hope to balance against it. Stephen Van Evera and Stephen Walt offer alternative versions of realism. Van Evera proposes a more “fi ne-grained structural realism,” in which misperceptions of the offense–defense balance, the size of firstmove advantages, the size and frequency of power fluctuations, and the cumulativeness of resources affect the likelihood of war.8 Van Evera’s theory is a systemic one, defi ning the level of threat in terms of characteristics of the system, specifically the structure of military capabilities or the offense– defense balance. When the structure of capabilities favors the offense, states have an incentive to attack fi rst and conquest is perceived to be easy. Both offense dominance and perceptions of offense dominance make the international system more war-prone or threatening.9 International politics is also more competitive when resources are more cumulative or are believed to be so. Walt develops a composite threat variable comprising capabilities, proximity, offensive ability, and malign intention.10 The variables that drive his balance-of-threat theory are not systemwide, like the offense–defense balance or distribution of power, but rather they are specific to some states: proximity, large offensive capabilities, aggressive intentions, and high ag-

162 Emily O. Goldman gregate resources (including population, industrial and military capability, and technological prowess).11 The level of threat facing a state should, by his logic, rise if it is surrounded by large, wealthy states with offensive capabilities and aggressive intentions. If threats are closely tied to capabilities, states have incentives to respond quickly to new military methods, and responsiveness is an attribute of military effectiveness. João Resende-Santos predicts that states will emulate the successful innovations of others out of fear of the disadvantages that arise from being less competitively organized and equipped.12 Waltz also predicts that states will be very responsive to demonstrations of superior military practices and will strive to emulate new technologies and military practices to prevail in battle.13 Given its concern with state survival and the military domain, we can infer that neorealist theory, in each of its variants, would predict that heightened threat would increase motives to improve military effectiveness. However, realists operationalize military behavior in terms of particular military activities: alliance choices,14 military doctrine,15 and emulation or innovation.16 They have not explicitly examined military effectiveness as defined in this volume. Moreover, realists differ with respect to how threatening they see the international system. For Mearsheimer, the lack of overarching authority characteristic of anarchy means that “all other states are potential threats.” 17 Any decline in a state’s power might cede superiority in capabilities to another state, which might harbor aggressive motives. Defensive realists do not see the external environment as constantly threatening. States can sometimes afford to emphasize long-term economic prosperity at the expense of short-term military preparations, particularly if the defense has the advantage, the state is surrounded by weak or status quo neighbors, or it enjoys defensible borders by virtue of geography.18 When threats are low, defensive realists “posit an explicit role for leaders’ preexisting belief systems, images of adversaries, and cognitive biases in the process of intelligence gathering, net assessment, military planning, and foreign policy decision making.” 19 They also see a more influential role for domestic politics. “National leaders will have more difficulty mobilizing domestic resources for foreign policy” when threats are low, and “leaders’ mobilization efforts may later restrict their ability to readjust their foreign policies in response to changes in the external environment.” 20 Barry Posen makes the strongest claims that when systemic pressures are low, organizational dynamics take over and dominate policy choices.21 One can infer from the arguments of defensive realists that military effectiveness is undermined when threats are low because policy choices will

International Competition and Military Effectiveness

163

be driven by individual, organizational, and domestic pressures instead of the exigencies of the external environment.

Hypotheses on Threat and Military Effectiveness As this review of the literature suggests, it is advantageous to view threat as both a property of the system and as a property of the unit. Although the level of threat can be assessed at the system level in terms of the imminence of war, states still face different types of threats in the same system, based on their position within it. Factors such as geopolitics (e.g., whether a state is primarily a land power or a maritime power) and distance from potential adversaries can alter the preferences of otherwise similarly placed states. Accordingly, the independent variables in this analysis are both system level (level of threat) and unit level (diversity of threat).22 In this chapter, a system variable, level of threat, is operationalized in terms of the imminence of war. For the interwar period, the level of threat is coded as low in the relatively peaceful years of the 1920s when great-power war was remote, and high in the late 1930s when war was increasingly imminent. Over the course of the interwar period, the system moved from multipolarity to bipolarity, suggesting greater certainty about threats, although there is dispute about whether the late 1930s international system should be considered an unbalanced multipolar system or a bipolar system.23 Either way, the level of threat rose precipitously. Level of threat is conceived as a systemic variable, but it interacts with unit-level attributes. For example, states that have defensive advantages, related to geography or distance from threats, should be less motivated to react to international pressures, and this could be expected to undermine integration, responsiveness, and quality. Conversely, even when the imminence of war may be low for the system overall, individual states may still confront specific strategic threats, which should enhance integration, responsiveness, and quality. Variation in the level of threat should, logically, affect military effectiveness (see Table 7.1). In periods of rising international tensions, we should expect to see better political-military coordination, which increases integration. Posen hypothesizes that this is because civilians will intervene to ensure that parochial organizational agendas give way to external strategic imperatives.24 Rising threats also create a strong incentive for states to improve military responsiveness. Increased military expenditures can accelerate research, development, and experimentation, thereby improving responsiveness.25 Military organizations have an incentive to modify doctrine to respond to new threats and vulnerabilities. A very threatening

164 Emily O. Goldman t a b l e 7. 1 Hypotheses on Level of Threat A. Effect of level of threat on integration A1. High threat → civilian intervention → improved political-military coordination → more integration A2. Low threat → parochial organizational agendas → less political-military coordination → less integration A3. Low threat → less funding for military obligations → less integration B. Effect of level of threat on responsiveness B1. High threat → increased military budgets → accelerated R&D → high responsiveness B2. High threat → increased efforts to modify doctrine → high responsiveness B3. Low threat → declining defense budgets → stunted R&D → low responsiveness B4. Low threat → declining defense budgets → high bureaucratic rivalry → low responsiveness B5. Low threat → organizational inertia → low responsiveness C. Effect of level of threat on quality of equipment C1. High threat → reliance on standard procedures → lower quality of equipment C2. Low threat → increased experimentation → better quality C3. Low threat → organizational inertia → lower quality C4. Low threat → declining defense budgets → reduced R&D → lower quality

environment, however, can degrade quality because there is insufficient time to make major force structure changes.26 Conversely, when threats are low, we should expect to see less politicalmilitary coordination and poorer integration, perhaps because parochial organizational agendas take over,27 or perhaps because civilian preferences for economy produce cuts in defense spending, undermining the military’s capabilities.28 When threats are low, defense budgets fall; as they do, interservice rivalry rises as organizations seek to protect their interests. Organizational inertia sets in and, as militaries rely on standard scenarios to set the contingencies for which they prepare, responsiveness falls. Declining defense budgets can also stunt R&D and lead to deterioration of the defense industrial base, thus undermining the ability of the state to respond when threats do emerge. The impact of a period of low threat on quality and innovation is less clear. Stephen Rosen argues that it is precisely in peacetime that military organizations have the luxury to think about the future and to experiment, which creates an environment ripe for innovation.29 Posen, by contrast, argues that in peacetime, organizational inertia sets in and bureaucratic tendencies flourish: organizations place a premium on predictability, stability, and certainty, which are inimical to innovation.30 Organizations, he argues, become biased toward incremental change to preserve their

International Competition and Military Effectiveness

165

t a b l e 7. 2 Hypotheses on Diversity of Threat D. Effect of diversity of threat on integration D1. High diversity → complex strategic assessment → less integration D2. Low diversity → focused strategic assessment → more integration E. Effect of diversity of threat on responsiveness E1. High diversity → competing strategic priorities → diffuse R&D priorities → low responsiveness E2. Low diversity → specific strategic priority → focused R&D and experimentation → high responsiveness F. Effect of diversity of threat on quality of equipment F1. High diversity → procurement of multipurpose weapons systems → lower quality F2. Low diversity → procurement of single-purpose weapons systems → higher quality

resources and mission responsibilities. Officer selection and promotion favor existing warfare areas rather than new ones. Research and development priorities, as well as training and education, are tailored to existing missions and scenarios. Stagnation, not innovation, results. Declining defense budgets can stunt R&D and harm quality as organizations fail to keep pace with technological trends. In contrast to level of threat, diversity of threat is treated as a unit-level variable (see Table 7.2). It captures whether the state confronts an overarching enemy or dominant scenario that makes strategic priorities clear, or whether instead the state faces multiple enemies and strategic challenges of different types, posing different contingencies and competing strategic, doctrinal, and force structure requirements. A highly diverse threat environment complicates strategic assessment, often producing ambiguous political guidance. Organizations can be expected to take refuge in existing beliefs and practices, which undermines integration, until either civilians intervene or the military is defeated. Multiple and often competing strategic priorities may diffuse R&D efforts, undermining responsiveness. A diverse threat environment may also encourage the development of multipurpose weapon systems that degrade quality because they perform none of their missions well. A threat environment characterized by a single overarching contingency should simplify strategic assessment and thus facilitate politicalmilitary integration. A clear strategic priority should focus R&D, weapons procurement, and training, to enhance responsiveness to that threat or contingency. Low diversity of threat should also permit the development

166 Emily O. Goldman of single-purpose weapon systems, which are more likely to be able to perform their designated mission effectively; thus we should expect to see quality increased. Tables 7.1 and 7.2 summarize these hypothesized relationships among threat, military activities, and military effectiveness. Many of these are illustrated in the case studies of Britain and the United States that follow, which examine how two leading naval powers adapted to the revolution in maritime air power. The cases structure the comparison and focus the analysis on the impact of level of threat and diversity of threat on military effectiveness.31 Britain especially shows how low threat and high diversity in threat can undermine integration, responsiveness, and quality. The U.S. case especially shows the ways a specific threat can improve integration, responsiveness, and quality, even when threats are low and war is not imminent.

Great Britain The British case demonstrates the ways military effectiveness can be undermined when threats are low. Policies implemented in the 1920s when war was remote hindered British military effectiveness in the 1930s and during World War II. All states faced a more benign threat environment in the 1920s, but the threat environment Britain faced was highly diverse as well.32 The British were the inventors of the aircraft carrier, the fi rst to assign aircraft to ships on a regular basis, and they had the most advanced carrier design and development by the end of World War I. However, despite their success with carrier attacks at Taranto, the British failed to develop the potential of this new weapon system. Only after operating alongside the United States in the Okinawa campaign of 1945 did the Royal Navy come to appreciate the offensive potential of carrier air power.33 A low-threat environment allowed the government to undertake fiscal retrenchment, which stunted R&D, harming responsiveness and quality. Budget cutbacks in the 1920s and 1930s contributed to deficiencies in military preparedness and weaknesses in Britain’s defense-industrial sector. The problem was not that of the normal demobilization that would be expected to occur as soldiers return home after the cessation of hostilities, but rather of a long and continuing reduction of the armed forces between the wars and the erosion of defense matériel and defense industries. A virtual termination of shipbuilding resulted in a significant decline in industrial capacity. The Royal Navy became dangerously deficient in all types of naval vessels, as well as in skilled engineers and tradespeople.34

International Competition and Military Effectiveness

167

The cessation of warship construction hurt the iron and steel industries and a myriad of secondary suppliers. Loss of skilled workers and managerial staff and lack of modern techniques and equipment would hamper Britain’s ability to meet the flood of orders that began in the mid-1930s, undermining responsiveness.35 This is evidence of Hypothesis B3, that deep cuts in defense budgets reduce R&D, which harms responsiveness to newly emerging threats. The British had possessed a large number of carriers at the end of World War I, but those carriers were designed for smaller, lighter airplanes and had limited deck and hangar capacity; they quickly became obsolete as aircraft designs improved. This prevented adaptation and responsiveness to the rapidly expanding capabilities of aircraft during the period between the wars.36 The aircraft industry was also downsized between the wars, and military aircraft orders were drastically cut. Established fi rms left the industry, and stocks were permitted to dwindle. By the time rearmament became necessary, the aircraft industry was crippled. It had little experience in mass production.37 It was incapable of meeting all orders once war began, and fi rst priority went to the Royal Air Force, leaving naval aviation short. The United States and Japan each entered World War II with over 600 front-line aircraft at sea, but the British had just 230.38 British inability to manufacture aircraft, coupled with the unwillingness of the Royal Air Force (RAF) to design and fund adequate numbers of naval aircraft, dramatically hampered the capacity of naval aviation to perform existing missions, let alone make the leap from ancillary weapon system to fleet backbone. Consistent with Hypothesis C4, cuts in defense budgets reduced R&D, and lowered the quality of military platforms and equipment. The low-threat environment between the wars also contributed to the Admiralty’s failure to adopt innovative carrier practices or to respond to technological innovations introduced by other naval powers. Absent a compelling external imperative, like all organizations it tended to fall back on traditional practices, and as Hypothesis C3 suggests, this lowered the quality of British naval forces. Although all navies of the period were imbued with the big ship–big gun naval orthodoxy, the Royal Navy had the strongest “gunnery” bias.39 The British realized the dangers of air attacks on battleships, but they continued to believe that with better protection, better antiaircraft gunnery, and the use of fleet fighter aircraft, the battleship could compete. The British opted during the interwar period to rely nearly exclusively on the gunnery solution, using carrier aircraft to spot for the battleship’s guns rather than as an offensive strike element in their own right.

168 Emily O. Goldman Compounding the problem was the fact that offensive carrier practices clashed with much of Britain’s previous wartime experience. In World War I, the Royal Naval Air Service had had little success bombing German U-boat bases in Belgium, and aircraft had failed to destroy any ships of importance during the war.40 Although Admiral Jellicoe’s Grand Fleet let the German High Seas Fleet escape at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, the naval engagement nevertheless reinforced Britain’s belief in the value of the main fleet: reconnaissance planes would locate the enemy fleet and torpedo bombers would slow the enemy, but the naval battle line would close for the decisive engagement.41 The value of naval air power lay in forcing a foe out of the security of its ports or defeating it in harbor.42 The consensus among naval officers was that the relatively small numbers of aircraft the Royal Navy could launch at any one time was the best that could be achieved. The British continued to doubt American claims about the numbers of aircraft that could operate off U.S. carriers.43 As Hypothesis B5 suggests, organizational inertia prevented the British from responding to the growing capabilities of naval air power. As the preceding evidence demonstrates, the low level of threat accounts for Britain’s drastic budget cutbacks during the interwar period, which stunted R&D. These harmed responsiveness to rising threats later on and the quality of weapon systems the British could muster once war broke out.44 The British did respond to the rising threat environment in 1939 by increasing their military budgets, as Hypothesis B1 would lead us to expect. But although military budgets rose, responsiveness was still compromised by the need to respond to diverse threats. For example, Britain’s responses to the strategic situation in the Mediterranean undermined its ability to exploit the potential of maritime air power. Specifically, armoring its carriers to protect them from enemy land-based air power reduced the carrier’s airplane capacity and thus its offensive potential. Diversity of threat up until the eve of war complicated Britain’s strategic assessment and undermined its political-military integration. In the interwar period, the British faced neither a single threat nor a set of agreed-upon threats. Geoff rey Till argues that British strategists saw four different types of threat, each of which in fact materialized during World War II.45 With little political consensus, each service developed its own working assumptions independently, and little guidance was provided to cause the services to integrate those visions with one another or with those of civilian leaders. In the absence of a highly salient enemy, strategic debate at the highest levels ran the gamut of possibilities, asserting a particular threat one year and denying its existence the next. For example, in the 1920s, the British foresaw potential long-term strategic problems with each of the great

International Competition and Military Effectiveness

169

powers—Russia, Germany, France, the United States, and Japan—and with various combinations of powers, such as Russo-German-Japanese or RussoGerman-Turkish.46 Civilian views of which threats required insurance shifted yearly, codified in dictates to the military to refrain from preparing against a potential adversary one year and then to plan against that same opponent the following year. In 1924, for example, the Committee on Imperial Defense (CID) decided that France, Japan, and Germany should be identified as potential opponents for planning purposes, but the following year it decided that Britain should not prepare for a war with Japan or France before 1935.47 Most civilian leaders remained convinced it was Russia that posed the greatest threat to British interests in India, Afghanistan, Persia, and China.48 With no immediate problems seen in Europe, planning shifted to imperial security and preserving supremacy in India. In response, each of the services attempted to chart its own course, constrained only by the overriding political imperative of reducing service budgets to bolster the economy, in line with the “10-year rule.” 49 The evidence is consistent with Hypothesis D1, which predicts that high diversity of threat will complicate strategic assessment and that when political leaders cannot provide clear guidance to the military, the services are more likely to operate independently, which reduces integration. The low level of these threats compounded the problems created by the diversity of threats. Consistent with Hypothesis A2, parochial organizational agendas took over and reduced integration. Left to its own devices, the army focused on policing the empire and preparing an expeditionary force for the continent; the RAF focused on the air threat from Europe, arguing that land-based air power was also the best method to defend imperial bases; the Admiralty concentrated on defending the empire’s vulnerable sea-lanes from Japan and also kept an eye on the possible reemergence of a German naval threat. As both a continental power and an imperial power, Britain lacked the resources to meet all of its strategic requirements. Till argues that all of these strategic visions were in part correct, but notes that in the interwar period they resulted in a diff usion of effort.50 Coupled with severe resource constraints, which fueled interservice rivalry, they made it impossible for Britain to develop a unified strategic vision of future war. This was particularly harmful to funding for maritime air power, which required the cooperation of more than one service. The result, consistent with Hypothesis E1, was that the competing strategic priorities that followed from a highly diverse threat environment led to a broad range of often competing R&D priorities, and, as a result, the needs of some areas, naval aviation in this case, were not met.

170 Emily O. Goldman As war approached, the British confronted three enemies, and each had different implications for Britain’s mission requirements and force structure. In their primary theater of operations—Europe—the British faced the Germans and Italians, both lacking aircraft carriers. In the Pacific, they faced the Japanese, who had a well-developed offensive carrier doctrine and 10 fleet carriers by the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor.51 The most immediate threat was Germany, so the British adopted a “Germany-fi rst” strategy while making every effort to avoid war with Japan. Greater resources were allocated to the RAF and its land-based strategic bomber force to meet the more proximate threat to the homeland of land-based air attacks by the Luftwaffe. Offensive carrier operations could not protect London from bombing or protect British shipping, except to the extent that carriers enhanced the battleship fleet’s ability to secure sea control.52 Because Britain was a maritime empire that depended on defense of its trade and communications, the primary naval mission through mid-1944 was keeping the sea-lanes open. All Royal Navy carriers, therefore, were assigned to the defensive role of trade protection. Even main fleet carriers were to operate singly with escorts to keep the sea-lanes open, as well as to spot and scout for the battleship fleet and to control the air over a battle area so the battleships could achieve maximum effectiveness.53 Still, the British did have strategic interests where offensive carrier air power could have been used effectively. Britain depended on access to Middle East oil. Keeping the sea-lanes to Suez open required neutralizing the Italian fleet at a time when land-based air support was not an option because of German operations on the continent and Italy’s entry into the war. The British were the only navy with fi rsthand experience with offensive naval air power: when their small carrier force had reversed the local balance of sea power at Taranto in 1940, it demonstrated that naval forces could exert considerable influence. Carrier mobility permitted greater concentration of air power than was possible with land-based aircraft.54 Yet the British failed to exploit the potential of massed carrier attacks suggested by their raid on the Italian fleet at Taranto, despite an increasingly threatening situation. Here again is evidence that competing strategic priorities diffused British R&D efforts, and doctrinal experimentation and innovation, reducing responsiveness as predicted by Hypothesis E1. Diversity of threat undermined responsiveness in another way. The British assumed that their carriers would need to operate in Europe’s narrow waters, which heavily influenced their approach to carrier design. Close proximity to enemy land-based air power pushed the British to pioneer development of armored aircraft carriers that could absorb heavy damage.55 Given international treaty limits on carrier displacement,

International Competition and Military Effectiveness

171

however, the effect of armor was to decrease the overall size of the ship, as well as the volume of the hangars.56 The British practice of storing aircraft in the hangar (in contrast to the American practice of stowing them on deck) limited the carrier’s airplane capacity. Thus there was a direct tradeoff between protection and offensive carrier capability.57 Had the British not faced a continental European threat that required all this armor, they might have made greater strides in offensive carrier warfare. Diversity of threat also undermined quality. Coupled with resource constraints, it explains Britain’s general preference for “knock-about aircraft for general purposes, largely because the few aircraft the fleet could carry should be as versatile as possible.” 58 Most of the aircraft ordered between the wars were light types designed to be general purpose for colonial warfare. “The Hawker Hart was the epitome of this jack-of-alltrades-and-master-of-none concept.” 59 The inferior quality of carrier aircraft and their low numbers hampered carrier potential. Here is evidence of Hypothesis F1: in a diverse threat environment, one cannot easily focus on a single adversary and develop weapons optimized for a single purpose. Instead, the tendency is to produce multipurpose weapon systems, not optimized for any particular purpose, which therefore perform no purpose particularly well. The inferior quality undermines military effectiveness. No discussion of British naval air power in the interwar period would be complete without some reference to the long period of RAF control over the Naval Air Arm,60 which depleted naval aviation of its top leaders and trained personnel and prevented the establishment of a solid career path for new personnel. General service officers, not aviators, commanded British carriers. The RAF retained control over research, experimentation, development, and supply of aircraft, leaving few opportunities for carrier proponents to prove their case. The key issues for our purposes were the source of this dual control and how it interacted with systemic dynamics to reduce military effectiveness. The Americans and Japanese lacked Britain’s independent air force, and Till argues that this was no bureaucratic accident.61 The British, unlike their American and Japanese counterparts, also faced the prospect of aerial attack from nearby land; moreover, Britain’s strategic problems at sea were more complex. The division of control of naval aviation between the Royal Navy and RAF directly hampered British developments in naval aviation, but it also indirectly hampered military effectiveness because it exacerbated interservice rivalry. Bureaucratic rivalry, and the parochial organizational agendas that feed it, appear in the causal chains of some of the hypotheses laid out in Tables 7.1 and 7.2. Although some bureaucratic rivalry is natural and healthy, acute rivalry undermines military effectiveness by depriving

172 Emily O. Goldman one service of capabilities critical for its missions. Rivalry between navies and air forces for control over air assets was more acute in those countries like Britain, Italy, and Germany that possessed independent air forces. Naval aviation suffered severely in each. The British entered World War II fielding obsolete carriers and an inadequate number of nearly obsolete aircraft. Their assumptions about the importance of naval aviation go a long way toward explaining why the British were so far surpassed by the Americans and Japanese. Those assumptions were shaped in large part by a strategic environment in which low threat early on produced deep cuts in defense, hampering later technological innovation and experimentation, and by a diverse and complex strategic environment. Britain lacked the resources to deal with the multiplicity of risks inherent in a diverse threat environment. In Till’s words, For the British, fundamental uncertainty about what they needed to produce exacerbated [the resource] problem. The ability to predict who they would be fighting and when was especially uncertain, and this shortcoming had a direct bearing on the capabilities the Royal Navy needed to produce. Having more specific incentives, the Americans and Japanese were better placed, at least to know what they wanted. Knowing what they needed to do helped create a more conducive climate to innovation.62

The United States Differences between U.S. and British developments in carrier air power were strongly influenced by differences in the diversity of threat each faced. In the United States, with a single overarching problem to solve, the simpler threat environment focused military efforts. The U.S. case demonstrates how a less diverse threat can facilitate integration, responsiveness, and quality. However, it also contradicts some of the low-threat hypotheses. Predominantly, however, this case demonstrates that the dynamics of peacetime innovation were shaped by low diversity of threat. By many indicators, the United States faced a far less threatening environment than did Great Britain after World War I. Distance, combined with the state of aviation technology, made the United States geographically invulnerable. This was reinforced by America’s overwhelming economic superiority. The nations of Europe had suffered tremendous human losses during World War I, amassed huge war debts, and faced the daunting task of physical reconstruction. By contrast, at this time, “the United States remained an industrial giant, producing an output of manufactures larger than that of the other six major powers—Great Britain, Germany, France, the Soviet Union, Italy, and Japan—combined.” 63

International Competition and Military Effectiveness

173

With the prospect of war remote, the United States cut resources devoted to defense, although never back to the levels before World War I. Civilian policymakers emphasized economic and diplomatic instruments as more effective and cheaper ways to promote national security. By failing to fund the services at a level sufficient to support U.S. political commitments, however, they failed to align military policy with the broader contours of national security policy, a case of poor integration. As Hypothesis A3 suggests, reductions in military funding when threats are low can produce inadequate military capabilities for political commitments. The Far East saw the greatest shortfall: U.S. civilian leaders aggressively pursued naval arms control there while assuming obligations that the army and navy were inadequate to meet. For example, civilian policymakers had defi ned defense of the Philippines as in the U.S. national interest, which was beyond the capacity of the U.S. Army and Navy.64 The army would be incapable of holding open Manila Bay for the estimated 60 days required for the U.S. battleship fleet to arrive because the U.S. battleship fleet lacked enough supporting vessels to escort it across the Pacific.65 Civilian officials made political commitments, and cuts in funding during a period of peace left the services with insufficient resources to meet those obligations.66 The services complained about the lack of resources, absence of strong and consistent policy guidance from the White House and State Department, and the lack of a formal mechanism for coordination of diplomatic and military policy.67 Louis Morton points out that the prospects for developing understanding between civilian policymakers and military planners were not totally lacking during this period, particularly at lower levels of the bureaucracy where exchanges of intelligence information occurred and where junior officers and their counterparts in the Foreign Service served on various interdepartmental boards.68 But for the most part, “the architects of national policy and makers of military strategy traveled their separate ways along paths that seemed sometimes to lead in opposite directions.” 69 Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes paid little attention to service advice at the Washington Naval Conference of 1921–22, and Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson ignored the navy General Board’s advice at the London Naval Conference of 1930.70 As in Great Britain, politicians failed to lay out guiding principles for strategy or to integrate the various components of national strategy. With weak guidance from above, the services adapted independently. Maurice Matloff argues that American strategic theory and planning between the wars developed essentially along individual service lines, with no serious attempt by any of the presidents of the period to develop a coherent national strategic doctrine or to link foreign policy with military planning.71

174 Emily O. Goldman The War Plans Divisions of the army and navy followed different paths: the navy planned for war against Japan, the army for war against a major European power. However, although the services were left to shape their own strategies, parochial organizational imperatives did not dominate their priorities. Service strategies tended to develop in response to external environmental imperatives, rather than exclusively to parochial organizational interests. This evidence is contrary to Hypothesis B4, which predicts that organizations, when left to their own devices, pursue parochial agendas to enhance their resources and power, resulting in confl icts with other organizations over resources and turf, thereby undermining responsiveness to international threats and vulnerabilities. Recognizing the need to project power across the vast expanses of the Pacific without the luxury of bases, the Marine Corps embarked on the risky strategy of amphibious assault; a battleship-dominant U.S. Navy supported carrier development as early as 1919. The interwar domestic political climate was very hostile to defense spending. The political environment made it virtually impossible for the services to “secure the fi nancial, industrial, and human resources which they considered necessary to attain even the minimum level of military capability to carry out their anticipated wartime missions.” 72 The army and navy remained larger and more powerful between the wars than they had ever been in peacetime.73 The navy, despite overall cuts, as the nation’s fi rst line of defense, was permitted a modest increase in appropriations to start a new shipbuilding program in the mid-1930s.74 However, “the Army was less favored, presumably because there was the continuing public confidence, shared by the White House and Congress, in oceans as a bulwark and a belief that the Navy could safely be thought of not merely as the traditional ‘fi rst line of defense’ but as the only really necessary line of defense for the time being.” 75 The U.S. Navy nonetheless faced financial constraints in the 1920s and 1930s. It had fewer carriers and aircraft than it wanted. However, the reason was only indirectly the level of threat. An important intervening variable was the limits set by international treaties. The low proportion of the navy’s property investment in carriers (10 percent from 1919 to 1941) was largely the result of the Washington Treaty limits on aircraft carrier tonnage. A movement of resources toward naval aviation was evidenced by the growth in the percentage of naval budgets expended on aircraft carriers and their aircraft; however, most modernization money was spent on battleships. Thomas Hone argues that the reason for this was that the pace of technological change for battleships supported continued battleship modernization.76 Advances in battleship design introduced the

International Competition and Military Effectiveness

175

possibility that the battleship could retain its armor and endurance levels while increasing its speed. Treaty limits on individual displacement meant that the only way to build faster warships was to increase the efficiency of engineering designs, which was more costly. With battleship costs rising, fewer dollars were left to buy other ship types. Constraints on carrier development were not related to bureaucratic rivalry in an era of scarce resources, as predicted by Hypothesis B4, or to organizational inertia, as suggested by Hypothesis C3. The evidence undercuts both hypotheses: that in situations of low threat, organizations will strive to protect vested interests. Instead, here the leaders of the battleship-dominated navy appreciated the need to develop naval air power. They were responsive to the strategic situation in the Pacific and did innovate, even though the prospect of carriers as replacements for, rather than simply adjuncts to, battleships threatened the traditional idea of a battleship-centered navy, challenging that organization’s “self-concept” or essence. Although the 1920s were a period of great-power peace, the vulnerability of U.S. Pacific interests rose as a result of several factors. First, the Washington treaties of 1922 constrained the navy’s size and structure. Most crucial for U.S. developments in naval air power, the treaties froze the status quo of certain base fortifications in the Pacific, depriving the U.S. Navy of a major naval base in the western Pacific from which to operate land-based aircraft and rendering U.S. defense of the Philippines and U.S. interests in China impossible. Second, Japan’s acquisition of the former German Pacific islands placed it astride the U.S. fleet’s line of communications. The Japanese navy could make extensive use of long-range land-based bombers, which were subject to no arms control limits, by operating them from the island chains Japan acquired at the end of the First World War. Third, it was also in the Far East that a naval building race threatened to erupt: Japan initiated it with adoption in July 1920 of the “eight-eight” plan, designed to give the Imperial Navy, by 1927, eight super-Dreadnoughtclass battleships and eight giant battle cruisers, all less than eight years old. In response, the British announced in March 1921 their intention to initiate naval construction to retain British naval predominance. The Harding administration expected that if the United States became involved in a war, it would be with Japan.77 This naval race was averted with the Washington and London naval treaties, but U.S. leaders remained preoccupied with the balance of naval power in the Pacific, particularly because the treaties left the United States as the only naval power without a major base in the western Pacific. Although a significant degree of diplomatic compromise and naval cooperation was achieved between the United States and Japan,

176 Emily O. Goldman up until the unification of China in 1928, U.S. political and military leaders remained concerned over the prospect of Japan as a rising competitor across the Pacific. The Pacific was the arena where U.S. civilian leaders anticipated the most likely challenges to the nation’s interests. The Washington naval treaties increased the relative power of Japan and the vulnerability of U.S. interests in the western Pacific. Fleet aviation, centered on the carrier concept, offered a way for the United States to remedy its deficiency in bases within treaty constraints. The navy’s conviction that it must be able to project power across the Pacific despite a loss of bases motivated it to develop weapon systems and their support elements—long-range submarines, long-range patrol bombers, and the fleet train, comprising flotillas of logistics ships and mobile floating docks to repair and maintain warships and keep them stocked with food and supplies—along with the doctrine to operate carriers in the Pacific. The Marine Corps, for its part, developed an island-hopping capability to overcome the loss of the Philippines, which could be expected early in a war. In the 1920s, the United States faced high vulnerability although not high threat. The result in the United States contradicts hypotheses B1 through B5, all of which say that a high level of threat improves responsiveness and a low level of threat harms responsiveness. U.S. strides in carrier development depended on low diversity of threat. The U.S. military had few duties in peacetime, unlike its British counterpart. Because the United States did not face the prospect of aerial attack from nearby hostile territory, it could devote more air assets to maritime matters than Britain. This also partly explains why the United States did not develop an independent air force at this time: instead, the U.S. Navy retained control over its air assets and made the administrative changes early on that paved the way for an air-centered vision of naval operations.78 As Hypothesis E2 suggests, low-threat diversity makes it easier for leaders to identify strategic priorities around which they can focus R&D efforts and experimentation. The result was high responsiveness and improved military effectiveness. World War I had drastically altered the strategic position of the United States. Because Japan had kept the German Pacific islands it had taken during the war, “U.S. strategic thought from 1919 to 1938 was largely oriented towards the Pacific and the problems arising out of possible Japanese aggression against American interests or territory there.” 79 Although political-military integration was low—commitments were undertaken without adequate allocation of military resources—low diversity of threat permitted civilian-military consensus that U.S. strategic priorities lay in the Pacific. Even army planners gave a great deal of thought to operations against Japan.80 The Harding administration permanently

International Competition and Military Effectiveness

177

stationed in the Pacific its most powerful naval military unit, the battle fleet of modern oil-fi red battleships, with complements of cruisers, destroyers, and carriers. With the navy’s fastest and most modern battleships assigned to the Pacific, improvement in fleet base facilities at Pearl Harbor proceeded rapidly. The whole basis of U.S. peacetime planning rested on the assumption that the navy must take the offensive into the Pacific. By the mid-1930s, the navy had adopted the strategy of “progressive advance” across the Pacific, retaking the Philippines by way of the Marshalls, Truk, and the Marianas.81 In the course of solving the problems of transoceanic passage, the U.S. Navy focused on offensive technologies and doctrines, including a new offensive role for the carrier. Melhorn notes that, “the U.S. Fleet would have to mount sufficient strength in the air to overwhelm the enemy’s combined fleet and shore-based air force. Hence the necessity for large numbers of U.S. naval aircraft and the carriers from which to fly them.” 82 Confi rming Hypothesis E2, low diversity of threat stimulated more responsiveness as naval leaders had to innovate doctrine. Even when defense budgets are low, low diversity can still produce innovations in doctrine. The evidence shows how conceptual responsiveness occurred as the U.S. Navy laid the foundation for new doctrine and tactics. Low diversity of threat also explains the navy’s vigorous efforts to wargame Plan Orange, the set of contingency plans for war against Japan drawn up in the four decades before World War Il.83 Consistent with Rosen’s theory, a key to the intellectual breakthroughs that led to the reformulation of the role of the carrier were simulations conducted at the U.S. Naval War College throughout the interwar years, a period of relative great-power quiescence during which naval leaders could experiment with new doctrine and tactics.84 These war games were a centerpiece of the navy’s intellectual development; the problems of a Pacific campaign drove realistic simulation exercises against a tactically superior adversary called Orange but modeled on Japan. Till notes, “the American ability to point at the Japanese as a clear potential opponent was an asset in many ways; it provided a criterion against which they could judge their tactics and equipment.” 85 Consistent with Hypothesis C2, which predicts increased experimentation and better quality when threats are low, and Hypothesis E2, which predicts increased experimentation and higher responsiveness when threat diversity is low, the navy transformed its mere transit itinerary into a doctrine of progressive transoceanic offensive operations.86 In the early 1920s, a Pacific campaign was envisioned as swift, offensive, and decisive; by 1928, however, a protracted war of attrition dominated planning. The emphasis was on mobilization and oceanic logistics, joint operations

178 Emily O. Goldman with the army, coalition operations, air superiority, and large-scale amphibious assault that would develop into the serial amphibious process of island hopping. Numerical inferiority in battleships was compensated for by air superiority. The intellectual breakthroughs that developed out of these simulations highlighted the importance of the carrier as an independent offensive striking force and the need to mass aircraft for strikes, rather than assigning aircraft to scout for each battleship.87 The Pacific situation also shaped the fleet exercises that were crucial to piecing together the carrier air-power paradigm. The 1927 exercise called Fleet Problem VII demonstrated the value of carrier mobility and led to the recommendation that carrier admirals be given complete freedom of action in employing carrier aircraft. Fleet Problem IX, in 1929, showed the value of the large, fast fleet carrier as a separate offensive striking force; in this exercise, Admiral Pratt’s carrier task force achieved a devastating surprise attack on the Panama Canal with the Lexington and Saratoga. Despite these advances, the United States entered World War II with the carrier still subordinate to the battleship line, in large part as a result of carrier vulnerabilities and the technical limitations of carrier aircraft.88 These reinforced the pro-battleship sentiment of many admirals until after the American successes at the Coral Sea and Midway. But the groundwork for a profound transformation in naval warfare had been laid between the wars. The arrival of new carriers in the summer of 1943, the introduction of advanced communications equipment—radar and radio—to coordinate antiaircraft fire, improved antiaircraft guns with proximityfused shells, and the Hellcat fighter, superior to the Japanese Zero, all furthered acceptance of multicarrier task forces.89 Successes in November 1943 in the Gilbert Islands campaign demonstrated the importance of operational flexibility and convinced even the most conservative naval officers that aviation and the carrier had become the dominant elements in the fleet.90 A fi nal important difference between British and U.S. carrier policy, linked to diversity of threat, was in the quality of aircraft produced. British aircraft were inferior because they were designed to be multipurpose. The United States, although it entered the war with inadequate aircraft, eventually produced planes that were far superior to their British counterparts and to most shore-based aircraft because they were single duty. Here, again, is evidence supporting Hypothesis F2: a threat environment that was not diverse allowed focus on a single adversary and development of weapons optimized for a single purpose, and therefore increased their quality, thus contributing to military effectiveness.

International Competition and Military Effectiveness

179

Conclusion Level of threat and diversity of threat have important consequences for military effectiveness. A period of low threat and high diversity undermined military integration, responsiveness, and quality in Britain. The British grafted air power onto existing doctrine and kept the carrier in a defensive role, subordinate to and part of the battle line.91 They failed to develop the offensive potential of naval air power despite the hints in their 1940 raid on Taranto. In the U.S. case, by contrast, low threat had greater impact on integration than on responsiveness or quality. The Americans made air power the centerpiece of their navies, transitioned to air-centered naval organizations and operations, and concentrated and operated carriers independently in carrier battle groups. Low diversity of threat made it easier for the Americans to set priorities in peacetime and to understand the consequences of their deficiencies, thus enhancing responsiveness and quality. This explains the U.S. Navy’s greater success in gaining more funding for naval aviation after 1937. The British faced a far more complex strategic environment, one on which civilians were unable to reach a consensus, and so they failed to provide guidance to the military on Britain’s strategic priorities.92 The inability of the British to defi ne their strategic priorities drastically undermined their military effectiveness, whereas the ability of the Americans to focus on the Pacific enhanced theirs.

Notes 1. Thomas P. Lowry and John W. G. Wellham, The Attack on Taranto: Blueprint for Pearl Harbor (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1995). 2. Robert Gardiner, ed., The Eclipse of the Big Gun: The Warship 1906–45 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1992), 32. 3. Julian S. Corbett, “Inherent Differences in the Conditions of War on Land and on Sea,” in Julian S. Corbett, ed., Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, Part III, Conduct of Naval War (London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1918), 139–45. 4. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: AddisonWesley, 1979). 5. Ibid., 166–176, 170. See Karl Deutsch and J. David Singer, “Multipolar Power Systems and International Stability,” World Politics 16, no. 3 (Summer 1964), 390–406, for the argument that multipolar systems are more stable precisely because uncertainty induces caution, whereas certainty induces recklessness and encourages more powerful states to seize an opportunity to eliminate or dimin-

180 Emily O. Goldman ish weaker rivals. However, the vast majority of scholars view bipolar systems as more stable. John Lewis Gaddis, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 105–10; John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 2001), 13–19, 21–29. 6. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. 7. Andrew Kydd, “Why Security Seekers Do Not Fight Each Other,” Security Studies 7, no. 1 (Autumn 1997): 114–54. Costly signaling theory proposes that expensive and often seemingly arbitrary or wasteful behavior is designed to convey honest information benefiting both signalers and observers. Costly signals reveal information about the underlying qualities of the signalers, qualities that are important to the observers and will affect social interaction but are not directly observable (e.g., political intent, dedication to cooperation). Amotz Zahavi, “Mate Selection: A Selection for Handicap,” Journal of Theoretical Biology 53 (1975): 205–14; Herbert Gintis, Eric Alden Smith, and Samuel Bowles, “Cooperation and Costly Signaling,” Journal of Theoretical Biology 213 (2001): 103–19. 8. Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999), 10–11. 9. Van Evera, Causes of War, 108. One prediction that Van Evera makes that is relevant to attributes of military effectiveness is that under conditions of offense dominance, militaries will adopt offensive force postures, which could undermine integration and responsiveness. Posen makes similar predictions from organization theory that militaries prefer offensive doctrines to reduce uncertainty. Van Evera, Causes of War, 167; Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984). The offense–defense balance is usually defi ned in terms of the ability to seize and hold land. Because there is no maritime analogy to occupying land, the meaning of offense and defense in the maritime domain is not straightforward. Sea control would probably count as offense and sea denial as defense. For assessments of offense–defense theory, see Kier A. Lieber, “Grasping the Technological Peace: The Offense-Defense Balance and International Security,” International Security 25, no. 1 (Summer 2000): 71–104; Sean M. Lynn-Jones, “Does Offense-Defense Theory Have a Future?” paper presented to the Research Group in International Security at McGill University, October 20, 2000 (www .ciaonet.org/wps/lys03/lys03.pdf ). 10. Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), 21–26. 11. Colin Elman, The Logic of Emulation, Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1999, 480, notes the difficulty with categorizing Walt’s balance-of-threat theory in that it is not a domestic explanation because the state is reacting to something in the external environment. However, what it is reacting to is not systemic. Elman asks, “To be systemic, does the variable have to be common to all states, most states, or just not limited to any one of them?” 12. João Resende-Santos, “Anarchy and Emulation of Military Systems: Military Organizations and Technology in South America, 1870–1930,” Security Studies 5, no. 3 (Spring 1996): 196. 13. For qualifications to these predictions about the imitative nature of responsiveness, see Elman, Logic of Emulation, 55–56, 63–71.

International Competition and Military Effectiveness

181

14. Waltz, Theory of International Politics; Walt, The Origins of Alliances. 15. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine. 16. Resende-Santos, “Anarchy and Emulation of Military Systems”; Elman, Logic of Emulation; Emily O. Goldman and Leslie C. Eliason, eds., Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003). 17. John J. Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War,” International Security 15, no. 1 (Summer 1990): 12. 18. Jeff rey W. Taliaferro, “Security Seeking under Anarchy: Defensive Realism Reconsidered,” International Security 25, no. 3 (Winter 2000/2001): 137–38. 19. Ibid., 141. 20. Ibid., 142. 21. Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine. 22. Diversity of threat is at the heart of the debate over the relative stability of bipolarity and multipolarity, so it can be conceived as a system-level variable. However, polarity does not fully capture the nature of diversity, and so diversity is best conceived as a unit-level variable. Two examples are instructive. First, both Britain and the United States existed in the same multipolar system but faced different numbers of great power competitors because of proximity. Second, Britain not only had to prepare for military scenarios with a range of great powers but also for the low-intensity confl icts associated with imperial management. Polarity does not capture this type of mission diversity. 23. Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics. 24. Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine. 25. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, argues that in multipolar systems, states increase power externally, through alliances, rather than through internal aggrandizement. 26. Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine; Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991). 27. Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine. 28. Other factors that are beyond the scope of this analysis may alter the causal chain. For example, the nature of civil-military relations may produce high integration despite low budgets, whereas poor civil-military relations may undermine integration despite ample funding. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how systemic pressures affect military effectiveness, rather than to test competing theories of military effectiveness. 29. Rosen, Winning the Next War. 30. Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine, 46. 31. Alexander L. George, “Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison,” in Paul Gordon Lauren, ed., Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory, and Policy (New York: Free Press, 1979), 43–68; Alexander L. George and Timothy J. McKeown, “Case Studies and Theories of Organizational Decision Making,” Advances in Information Processing in Organizations, vol. 2 (Stamford, Conn.: JAI Press, 1985), 21–58. 32. See Emily O. Goldman, “Thinking about Strategy Absent the Enemy,” Security Studies 4, no. 4 (Autumn 1994): 40–85, for a more detailed analysis of British strategic behavior in the 1920s.

182 Emily O. Goldman 33. Norman Friedman, British Carrier Aviation (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1988), 10; Marc Milner, “Anglo-American Naval Cooperation in the Second World War, 1939–45,” in John B. Hattendorf and Robert S. Jordan, eds., Maritime Strategy and the Balance of Power (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 262. 34. Robin Higham, Armed Forces in Peacetime (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1962), 118, 145–46; Leslie Jones, Shipbuilding in Britain (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1957). 35. Williamson Murray, “British Military Effectiveness in the Second World War,” in Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, eds., Military Effectiveness, vol. III, The Second World War (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1988), 96. 36. That Britain already possessed some carriers made it difficult for the Admiralty to make the case to the Treasury for construction of new (and more advanced) carriers between the wars. Geoff rey Till, “Adopting the Aircraft Carrier: The British, American, and Japanese Case Studies,” in Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, eds., Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 199. 37. Malcolm Smith, British Air Strategy between the Wars (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), 229, 312. 38. Geoff rey Till, Airpower and the Royal Navy 1914–1945 (London: Jane’s Publishing, 1979), 95, 187. 39. Sir Arthur Hezlet, Aircraft and Sea Power (New York: Stein and Day, 1970), 111. 40. Ibid., 112. 41. Friedman, British Carrier Aviation, 13. The battle line refers to battleships, historically the fi nal arbiter of sea power. The term descends from “battle ship of the line.” These were the largest and most heavily gunned sailing warships. At the end of the age of sail, the most heavily armed and protected warships were called “battleships.” The expectation was that in war, battleships would meet their enemy in a battle where one battle line would steam parallel to the enemy battle line and they would shoot it out until one battle line sank. This rarely happened. Jutland was one example, although the German Fleet fled, so the battle was indecisive. 42. See Till, “Adopting the Aircraft Carrier,” 215. 43. Barry Watts and Williamson Murray, “Military Innovation in Peacetime,” in Murray and Millett, Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, 403. 44. A plausible counterargument to the explanation offered here is that the British failed to adapt because they were locked in based on decisions made early on. This might apply to decisions that virtually dismantled Britain’s defense industries. However, it cannot logically account for the failure to adapt doctrine. The United States also made cutbacks, but these did not undermine responsiveness or innovation. An additional and telling example is provided by the Japanese case. In the early 1930s, the Imperial Navy lacked the resources to continue to develop its carrier capacity, but this did not affect their ideational adoption of the offensive carrier paradigm. See Emily O. Goldman, “Receptivity to Revolution: Carrier Air Power in Peace and War,” in Goldman and Eliason, Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas, 285–86.

International Competition and Military Effectiveness

183

45. Till, “Adopting the Aircraft Carrier,” 200. 46. John Robert Ferris, Men, Money, and Diplomacy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), 92–93. 47. Ibid., 154–55, 172. 48. Ibid., 154–55. 49. In 1919, the British cabinet directed the services to draw up their annual budgets with the assumption that the British Empire would not be engaged in any great war during the next 10 years. 50. Till, “Adopting the Aircraft Carrier,” 201. 51. There are several different types of carriers. The focus of this analysis is on the fast fleet, or main fleet, carrier as distinct from the smaller, slower escort and trade-protection carriers. Escort carriers provided convoy protection. Tradeprotection carriers searched and made limited strikes against surface raiders. Main fleet carriers initially operated singly with escorts to keep the sea-lanes open, spotted and scouted for the battle fleet, and controlled the air over a battle area so the battleships could achieve maximum effectiveness. Eventually in the U.S. and Japanese navies, main fleet carriers operated in groups called “carrier battle groups.” 52. Offensive carrier operations had greater applicability to the Mediterranean than the British at fi rst realized, although Taranto had foreshadowed this. Till points out that carrier and land-based maritime aircraft “offered the most effective means of protecting shipping—merchant as well as military—against air and submarine attack, and proved to be a potent means of attack on enemy warships and maritime commerce.” Till, “Adopting the Aircraft Carrier,” 191. 53. Friedman, British Carrier Aviation, 9. 54. Ibid., 10. 55. The British “armored fl ight deck” carriers had armored hangars, which meant armoring part of the fl ight deck above the hangar and also the sides of the hangar. There was also a belt for side protection to resist cruiser shellfi re. 56. Displacement refers to the weight of a ship, as measured by the amount of water displaced when placing the vessel in water. 57. The fundamental measure of offensive carrier effectiveness was the number of aircraft a carrier could launch for a given mission. See Watts and Murray, “Military Innovation in Peacetime,” 399–400. 58. Till, “Adopting the Aircraft Carrier,” 219. 59. Higham, Armed Forces in Peacetime, 206. 60. In 1918, a unified Royal Air Force secured control over all air assets. The Fleet Air Arm was transferred back to the navy in 1937, but the transfer took two years to complete, and centralization of aircraft procurement persisted. By 1938, the RAF was receiving the lion’s share of service allocations, and it dramatically reduced funding for naval aircraft, championing seaplanes and long-range landbased aircraft as cheaper alternatives. Friedman, British Carrier Aviation, 17. 61. Till, “Adopting the Aircraft Carrier,” 203. 62. Ibid., 226. 63. John Braeman, “Power and Diplomacy: The 1920s Reappraised,” Review of Politics 44 ( July 1982): 345.

184 Emily O. Goldman 64. Louis Morton, “National Policy and Military Strategy,” The Virginia Quarterly Review 36, no. 1 (Winter 1960): 5; Russell F. Weigley, “The Role of the War Department and the Army,” in Dorothy Borg and Shumpei Okamoto, eds., Pearl Harbor as History: Japanese-American Relations, 1931–1941 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973). 65. Weigley, “The Role of the War Department and the Army,” 170; Louis Morton, “War Plan ORANGE: Evolution of a Strategy,” World Politics ( January 1959): 221–50; Ronald Spector, “The Military Effectiveness of the U.S. Armed Forces, 1919–39,” in Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, eds., Military Effectiveness, vol. 2, The Interwar Period (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1988), 79–80. 66. See Weigley, “The Role of the War Department and the Army,” 168–75. 67. Spector, “The Military Effectiveness of the U.S. Armed Forces,” 78; Fred Greene, “The Military View of American National Policy, 1904–1940,” American Historical Review 66, no. 2 ( January 1961): 354; Louis Morton, “Interservice Cooperation and Political-Military Collaboration,” in Harry L. Coles, ed., Total War and Cold War: Problems in Civilian Control of the Military (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1962), 131–60; Ernest R. May, “The Development of PoliticalMilitary Consultation in the United States,” Political Science Quarterly 70 ( June 1955): 161–80. 68. Morton, “National Policy and Military Strategy,” 148. 69. Ibid., 149. 70. Ibid., 150; Weigley, “The Role of the War Department and the Army,” 171. 71. Maurice Matloff, “The American Approach to War,” in Michael Howard, ed., The Theory and Practice of War (London: Cassell, 1965), 228. 72. Spector, “The Military Effectiveness of the U.S. Armed Forces,” 70. 73. Arthur A. Ekirch, “The Popular Desire for Peace as a Factor in Military Policy,” in Coles, Total War and Cold War, 163–64. 74. Mark Skinner Watson, United States Army in World War II, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations (Washington, D.C.: Historical Division Department of the Army, 1950), 15. 75. Ibid. 76. Thomas C. Hone, “Spending Patterns of the United States Navy, 1921– 1941,” Armed Forces and Society 8, no. 3 (Spring 1982): 443–62. 77. Eugene P. Trani and David L. Wilson, The Presidency of Warren G. Harding (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1977), 157–58. 78. Till, “Adopting the Aircraft Carrier,” 203. 79. Matloff, “The American Approach to War,” 220. 80. Ibid. 81. Ibid., 221. 82. C. M. Melhorn, Two Block Fox: The Rise of the Aircraft Carrier 1911–1929 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1974), 88. 83. Michael Vlahos, The Blue Sword: The Naval War College and the American Mission, 1919–1941 (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College Press, 1980), remains the authority on the subject.

International Competition and Military Effectiveness

185

84. Rosen, Winning the Next War, 69–71. 85. Till, “Adopting the Aircraft Carrier,” 203. See also Spector, “The Military Effectiveness of the U.S. Armed Forces,” 73, 82, 89. 86. Vlahos, The Blue Sword, 17–19. 87. Rosen, Winning the Next War, 69–71. 88. Till, “Adopting the Aircraft Carrier,” 197, 221. 89. See Clark G. Reynolds, The Fast Carriers: The Forging of an Air Navy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), 53–69, for a discussion of these new weapons. 90. For discussion of the administrative and bureaucratic forces that delayed adoption of the multicarrier task force by the U.S. Navy, see Goldman, “Receptivity to Revolution.” 91. James H. Belote and William M. Belote, Titans of the Seas: The Development and Operations of Japanese and American Carrier Task Forces during World War II (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 30–31. 92. Till, “Adopting the Aircraft Carrier,” 204.

chapter

International Alliances and Military Effectiveness: Fighting Alongside Allies and Partners

8

nora bensahel

throughout history, most countries have chosen to conduct their wars alongside partners and allies instead of fighting unilaterally. Starting with the Greek city-states, and continuing through the Thirty Years’ War, the Napoleonic Wars, and the two World Wars, great powers have often chosen to conduct warfare multilaterally rather than unilaterally.1 This holds particularly true for the United States: from the Revolutionary War through the recent interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States has fought almost all of its wars alongside other countries.2 The complexities of the current strategic environment suggest that the preference for multinational warfare will continue into the future. In fact, some countries explicitly incorporate multinational requirements into their training and doctrine. Both the British and Australian militaries, for example, have made alliance interoperability one of their highest strategic priorities, and they expect that virtually all of their future military operations will involve international partners.3 How does the process of collaborating with foreign militaries affect military effectiveness? Do international partners enhance military effectiveness, by bringing additional capabilities and resources to bear? Or do they undermine military effectiveness, by imposing significant transaction costs to overcome differences in equipment, training, and doctrine? Although much depends on the specific institutional arrangements that are established, generally speaking, multilateral military operations create a trade-off. Gaining the benefits of international cooperation and keeping the participating states focused on a common set of political objectives may require military activities that sacrifice technical proficiency. The

International Alliances and Military Effectiveness

187

mechanisms required to retain political-strategic integration may reduce integration, skill, and responsiveness at the operational and tactical levels. Thus operations involving two or more countries may suffer from reduced effectiveness in particular areas. However, these battlefield costs of international cooperation may be worth paying because of the strategic benefits that can be gained by enhancing the legitimacy of a military operation. This chapter starts by defi ning alliances and reviewing the widespread assumption that these institutions can effectively aggregate the capabilities of their members. The next section examines three of the independent variables specified in this study, to see how each of the aspects of military activity identified in Chapter 1 of this volume affect military operations involving two or more countries. The chapter concludes by examining how these independent variables affect the dependent variable of military effectiveness, clustering the fi ndings according to the categories of skill and quality, integration, and responsiveness that form the framework of this volume.

Alliance Theory:The Capability Aggregation Model Alliances are generally defi ned as an agreement among two or more states to cooperate in particular military contingencies.4 The degree of formalization can vary considerably across alliances: some are highly institutionalized, such as NATO; others result from verbal agreements among state leaders.5 Nevertheless, some sort of agreement must be reached, even if it is not written down, about the types of contingencies that will involve the alliance and the extent of cooperation that the allies can expect from each other. For example, members must agree as to whether their alliance is primarily defensive, with members expected to assist each other in the event of an external attack, or whether it is an offensive alliance, intended to assist its members to defeat their enemies and capture territory. Such decisions shape the purpose, scope, and form of the institution that the allies create. Most theoretical work assumes that alliance operations are just as effective as unilateral military operations. It assumes that alliances aggregate the capabilities of their individual members, without discussing the processes through which that aggregation occurs. However, the causal mechanisms identified in Chapter 1 of this volume suggest that alliances do not always aggregate the power of their individual members effectively and may suffer from reduced operational and tactical proficiency as a result. Building on the realist tradition, most of the literature on alliances starts from the premise that in an anarchic international system, states must

188 Nora Bensahel ensure their own survival. When power imbalances emerge, states naturally form balances of power to counter the growing threat.6 States can balance in one of two ways: they can balance internally, by increasing their military capabilities, or externally, by seeking allies.7 Internal balancing is often preferable because states retain full autonomous control of their military forces. Waltz writes that internal balancing is “more reliable and precise than external balancing” because it reduces uncertainty and the potential for miscalculation.8 However, internal balancing is not always desirable or possible: it takes a lot of time and money to build and train a military force. Not all states choose to allocate their resources in this manner, and some states simply do not possess enough resources to compete in arms races. It is usually cheaper and faster to form an alliance than to develop a national defense force. Of course, the choice between internal and external balancing is almost never mutually exclusive, and states usually pursue a mixed strategy.9 When states choose to balance externally, realist theories predict that states will seek allies whose military capabilities complement the weaknesses of their own military forces. Alliances can therefore be seen as capability aggregators, which combine their members’ strengths in order to counter threats to their security. This capability aggregation model dominates the theoretical literature on alliances. George Liska explicitly argues that “states enter into alliances with one another in order to supplement each other’s capability,” and most subsequent scholars have not challenged this assertion.10 In their survey of the alliance literature, Ole Holsti, Terrence Hopmann, and John Sullivan found that one of the most common assumptions was that “alliances exist to provide institutions within which nations may combine their capabilities in defense against an external common enemy.” 11 More recently, James Morrow has argued that “capability aggregation is the central theme of most work on alliances.” 12 In his influential work on the origins of alliances, Steven Walt states, “the primary purpose of most alliances is to combine the members’ capabilities in a way that furthers their respective interests. . . . Most great-power alliances have arisen in order to aggregate power.” 13 Although the capability aggregation model dominates the theoretical literature on alliances, it suffers from a very serious weakness: it treats alliances as black boxes, paying little attention to the mechanisms through which alliances function. It simply assumes that alliance members can transform a verbal or written alliance agreement into a militarily effective fighting force. Holsti and colleagues note that most authors assume that “the strength of an alliance may be determined by summing the contributions of each nation.” 14 Michael Ward argues that the conventional

International Alliances and Military Effectiveness

189

wisdom about alliances is based on “the presumed power of aggregated scale effects,” and that “through aggregating individual military might, total power is assumed to be enhanced.” 15 After surveying realist views on alliances, including those of Hans Morgenthau, Allan Stam concludes that realists assume military power “follows the rules of classical mechanics” and alliance power can be measured by adding up the military resources of the alliance members.16 This may well be true under certain circumstances, but it must be demonstrated rather than assumed. Some scholars do challenge this capability aggregation assumption. Holsti and colleagues, for example, note that the power of an alliance may not be equal to the sum of its parts. Economies of scale may increase the alliance capabilities, but: the more usual case is that for various reasons alliance capabilities are less— perhaps substantially less—than that of the individual nations combined, resulting from poor staff coordination, mistrust, incompatible goals, logistical difficulties, dissimilar military equipment and organization, and other problems.17

Steven Miller makes a similar point when he argues that the logic of collective security “ignores the diseconomies associated with coalition warfare. While the advantages of an international coalition are obvious, the difficulties of creating effective multinational forces are often overlooked.” 18 Robert Powell also states that the process of aggregating military capabilities may involve increasing, constant, or decreasing returns to scale, which means that the alliance may have more power, equal power, or less power than its constituent members, respectively.19 Glenn Snyder develops a theory of alliance management that emphasizes bargaining as the glue that holds alliances together, but his theory focuses on bargaining strategies and outcomes rather than the effects of those outcomes on capability aggregation.20 Ronald Krebs and Patricia Weitsman both challenge the capability aggregation model by arguing that alliances can have perverse consequences, causing adversaries to ally with each other even though that may actually intensify their confl ict.21 However, none of these authors addresses the implications for military effectiveness. They acknowledge that the capability aggregation process does not always proceed smoothly, but they do not offer many insights about the conditions under which alliances are likely to aggregate power effectively and when they are not. The remainder of this chapter seeks to fi ll this gap in the literature, using the framework developed in Chapter 1 of this volume. Each of the next three sections explores the way that alliance operations affect a different intervening variable—strategic command and control, tactical command and control, and intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination—and

190 Nora Bensahel how each one affects some of the attributes of military effectiveness. The fourth section offers several hypotheses about the conditions under which these variables will have the greatest impact on military effectiveness. The fi nal section concludes by examining multinational operations in a broader strategic context, where some of the political benefits of operating as part of an alliance may outweigh the cost of sacrificing some degree of integration, skill, and responsiveness.

Strategic Command and Control When two or more states conduct military operations together, they must develop strategic command and control structures that translate political guidance from civilian leaders into military orders. In a multinational environment, such structures are usually designed more to maximize political cohesion among the contributing states than to maximize operational and tactical proficiency. Political cohesion is often a weakness of alliance operations; adversaries often seek to break the alliance by dividing its members over questions of strategy, tactics, and willingness to bear costs. To minimize the chances that an adversary can successfully adopt such a strategy, alliance members often create strategic command and control structures that emphasize deliberation, national control, and consensus rather than speed, integration, and decisiveness. Maintaining political and strategic integration within a multinational operation can harm operational and tactical integration and responsiveness, two of the key properties of an effective military identified in Chapter 1. r e duced i n t egr ation: mu lti ple ch a i ns of com m a n d Integration is “the degree to which different military activities are internally consistent and mutually reinforcing” and it “means the achievement of consistency within and across levels and areas of all military activity.” 22 This is not easy to achieve in a unilateral operation, as the other chapters in this volume demonstrate, but it becomes even more challenging when military forces from two or more countries are involved. Achieving consistency becomes difficult when two or more commanders are involved, no matter how closely they work together. This problem is often exacerbated by the fact that alliance members often develop strategic command and control structures that involve multiple or overlapping chains of command as alliance members seek to preserve authority over their own forces. Such structures, however, make integration even more difficult to achieve. They violate the key military principle of unity of command and often the less restrictive principle of unity of effort as well.23

International Alliances and Military Effectiveness

191

The 1991 Gulf War, for example, involved a parallel command structure. The Saudis did not want to place their forces under U.S. command, so they agreed that the operation would have two separate but technically equal commanders: U.S. general Norman Schwarzkopf commanded Western military forces and Saudi general Khalid bin Sultan commanded all Arab forces. This arrangement worked well in practice because Khalid understood that his role was mostly symbolic, and ground operations against Iraq were much easier than military planners had anticipated. Yet such a parallel command might have become extremely problematic if a more challenging military operation had led the Saudi commander to disagree seriously with the U.S. commander at any point because there was no higher military authority to reconcile their differences.24 Parallel chains of command within an alliance operation can reduce the degree of integration because multiple commanders may not coordinate their actions into a coherent strategy, which in turn can undermine military effectiveness. The international intervention in Somalia further illustrates the problems that can be caused by parallel chains of command.25 The United States commanded all military forces when the operation started in December 1992, but it sought to transfer command to the United Nations as quickly as possible. The UN, however, did not believe it had enough forces available to run the operation effectively. By May 1993, they reached a compromise that involved three chains of command. The UN commanded two of the chains: one containing all non-U.S. forces in Somalia and a second containing some U.S. support troops. The United States commanded a third chain, which included a U.S. Quick Reaction Force (QRF) based offshore that would assist the UN if necessary. The QRF became increasingly involved in the fighting as the military situation deteriorated during the summer of 1993. The QRF did not coordinate its actions with the UN forces because they reported through different chains of command, which caused considerable confusion when these forces ran into each other on the battlefield. The situation became even more complicated in August 1993 when the United States sent Task Force Ranger, comprising U.S. Army Rangers and other special operations forces, to capture one of the Somali warlords. This added a fourth chain of command: U.S. special forces report through different channels than conventional U.S. forces. The coordination and integration problems that this arrangement posed were demonstrated all too vividly on October 3, 1993, when a Black Hawk helicopter was shot down after Task Force Ranger raided the Olympic Hotel.26 The Pakistani and Malaysian armored units that were then called to assist had no idea that Task Force Ranger was conducting such an operation at the hotel. It

192 Nora Bensahel took them more than seven hours to assemble a rescue convoy, by which time night had fallen, complicating matters further. The confusion sown by the command arrangements was one of the factors that turned an operation scheduled for 90 minutes into an 18-hour fi refight in which 18 U.S. soldiers perished. The lack of integration among the multiple chains of command meant that the Pakistani and Malaysian units could not effectively support Task Force Ranger when it encountered resistance, and it contributed directly to the large number of fatalities. A third example is the dual-key structure in Bosnia between 1993 and 1995.27 In August 1993, after months of disagreement over whether NATO should fulfi ll a UN mandate to protect the safe areas in Bosnia,28 the United States and its allies reached a compromise agreement. NATO would provide close air support to the safe areas, but France, Canada, and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom insisted that the UN retain the right to veto specific NATO air operations. These three countries had significant numbers of troops on the ground as part of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), and they argued that such a veto was the only way to protect their forces. Whereas NATO’s political authorities delegated their authority over air strikes down through the alliance’s integrated military command structure, UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali initially chose not to delegate any such authority, meaning that every decision to use air power had to be relayed to New York and personally approved by Boutros-Ghali. After a few weeks, the inevitable delays caused by this arrangement convinced Boutros-Ghali that he needed to delegate authority to someone in the field, but he chose to delegate that authority to his civilian special representative in theater, not the UNPROFOR commander. This meant that the NATO military commander and the civilian UN Special Representative both had to approve the use of air power before strikes could be launched. Their continuing disagreements essentially prevented air strikes during most of the operation. The lack of integration and strategic coordination between the UN and the NATO led to paralysis while UN forces continued to absorb attacks and the slaughter of civilians continued. r educed r esponsi v e n ess: th e de m a n ds of conse nsus A responsive military is one that “adjusts its operational doctrine and tactics to exploit its adversary’s weaknesses and its own strengths” and “adjusts and compensates for external constraints.” 29 As with integration, the normal difficulties with achieving responsiveness in a single military are exacerbated in a multilateral context. To the extent that alliances require debate and discussion to generate consensus among participating states,

International Alliances and Military Effectiveness

193

their military forces may lack the flexibility necessary to respond to rapid developments and changing situations. The targeting disputes that emerged during Operation Allied Force in Kosovo illustrate this dynamic. Because the NATO allies believed that Slobodan MiloŠeviÇ would capitulate after a few days of bombing, the alliance’s military had prepared only 169 targets, and the North Atlantic Council (NAC), the alliance’s supreme civilian authority, had approved striking only 51 of those targets. Each of the additional 807 potential targets that were identified during the 78-day campaign had to be proposed, reviewed, and approved by NATO and national authorities. Any one of the alliance’s 19 members could veto a proposed target, and many allies exercised that right. France, for example, opposed striking bridges in Belgrade, the power grid, and targets in Montenegro, even though NATO’s air commander believed that this decision reduced his effectiveness by increasing the danger to his forces and leaving strategic targets intact.30 The need to maintain political consensus made the targeting process extremely cumbersome, and it limited NATO’s ability to respond effectively to the unanticipated duration of the campaign and to adapt to changes in Serbian tactics.31 Furthermore, responsiveness suffers dramatically when alliance members do not share the same strategic and political goals. Different states join multinational operations for different reasons, and sometimes their strategic interests are mismatched or even incompatible. In Bosnia, for example, the dual-key structure just described resulted from two different strategic approaches: the United States favored a strategy based on air strikes, whereas the Europeans and Canadians were already pursuing a strategy based on the presence of ground forces. The participants thought that the dual-key structure was an acceptable compromise, but it never worked effectively because their fundamental differences in strategy had never been resolved. Operations in Somalia during the summer of 1993 provide an even clearer example. After a major attack on UN forces in June, the UN command sought to apprehend Mohammed Aideed and those responsible for the attack. The Italians, however, disagreed with this approach, believing a strategy of accommodation would defuse the increasingly tense situation and that it provided the best hope for a lasting peace. Italian forces in Somalia started negotiating with Aideed, even when that contradicted the UN commander’s directions and intent, and rumors abounded that the Italians had cut some sort of deal with Aideed’s forces so they would not be attacked.32 Multinational military forces cannot be considered responsive in any way when individual force contingents are taking actions that undermine the strategic, operational, and tactical objectives of the military commander.

194 Nora Bensahel

Tactical Command and Control Alliances must establish coordination structures at the tactical as well as at the strategic level to function effectively.33 Army units from different countries must be able to tell where all friendly forces are on the battlefield, to avoid redundancy at best and fratricide at worst.34 Yet the coordination structures that are established to achieve this goal may reduce integration, by separating national contingents and making communication among them more challenging. They may also reduce overall levels of skill because widely varying skill levels and types of skills among alliance members may pose significant operational and tactical challenges. r e duce d i ntegr ation: sector assignm e nts a n d li a ison t e a ms One way that alliances manage skill differences across force contingents is to separate them physically from each other on the battlefield. That way, each contingent can conduct operations in its own way within its own area, without having to work directly with more or less skilled contingents. Each country is assigned its own sector of the battlefield and may not cross sector boundaries without express permission from the highest levels of command. Perhaps the best known sector model was NATO’s “layer cake” approach for defending Europe in the event of a Soviet attack during the Cold War, where national corps sectors were arrayed on West Germany’s eastern front.35 Sector models have also been used in a number of recent operations, including the 1991 Gulf War and the peace enforcement operation in Bosnia and Kosovo. Geographic separation measures are attractive in their simplicity, but they hinder integration by creating inconsistent approaches across the battlefield and leaving vulnerable “seams” that the adversary can exploit. Furthermore, to the extent that capabilities are not spread equally throughout all sectors, geographic separation measures may make it easier for the adversary to detect the weakest points and alter military plans accordingly. Alliances often try to manage the integration problems caused by geographical sectors by exchanging liaison teams with each other. The U.S. military has relied heavily on liaison teams in recent years, either on their own or in combination with the geographic separation measures just described. During the 1991 Gulf War, U.S. liaison teams were attached to Arab forces at every echelon down to the battalion level, and large liaison teams were sent to the two major Arab command headquarters. There was also considerable liaison between the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps and the French division at the corps, division, and brigade levels.36 Before and

International Alliances and Military Effectiveness

195

during the multinational operation in Haiti in 1994, U.S. coalition support teams served as liaisons with contingents from other countries and also provided them with communications and training.37 In Bosnia, U.S. special forces formed liaison teams with foreign military units to coordinate numerous battlefield functions, and U.S. and Russian units exchanged liaison teams at both the headquarters and field level.38 Peacekeeping operations in both Bosnia and Kosovo rely on liaison teams for coordination between U.S. brigade headquarters and foreign battalions that operate in U.S.-led multinational sectors.39 Liaison teams cannot, however, fully compensate for the reduced integration that occurs in multinational military operations. They require significant resources, which may come at the expense of war-fighting missions. Furthermore, they often lack the specialized regional or technical expertise necessary to promote integration. The U.S. Army, for example, does not have specifically trained tactical liaison personnel.40 When a requirement emerges, teams are assembled through a process that one observer described as a “hey, you” staffing procedure: individual personnel are pulled from their regular assignments, told to work with other U.S. Army personnel that they do not know, and assigned to work with foreign units or even foreign countries with which they have no previous experience.41 The army sometimes relies instead on special forces to provide liaison teams, but this is only a partial solution at best. Special forces report through their own command and control structures,42 which makes it extremely difficult for them to provide timely and effective coordination between fielded conventional land force units; increasing demands for special forces mean that they will not always be available to provide this function for the army. These trends will limit the degree of integration that can be achieved in future alliance operations. In addition to geographic separation measures and liaison teams, alliance members often try to improve their technical interoperability, so their tactical command and control systems can work together as seamlessly as possible. Technical interoperability promotes integration in a multinational context because it enables different force contingents to communicate and coordinate their actions. However, it is extremely difficult to achieve. Technical interoperability remains a significant challenge for NATO, even though the allies have been working on it for more than half a century. Many allies, including the United States, do not adhere to the interoperability standards that they have committed themselves to adopt, for reasons that range from sensitivities about sharing advanced technologies to the desire to bolster national defense industries. Furthermore, technical interoperability is an available option for only a handful

196 Nora Bensahel of the world’s armies because most armies do not possess highly advanced technical systems that can be networked together. Technical interoperability is the best (if still imperfect) solution to integration problems at the tactical level, but alliance operations often involve participants for whom this is not technically possible. Geographic separation measures, liaison teams, and technical interoperability are all ways to improve tactical command and control in a multinational operation, but their various limitations mean that alliances often suffer from reduced integration, which in turn reduces military effectiveness. r e duce d sk i ll: ca pa bi lit y aggr egation proble ms Skill reflects the extent to which military personnel can prepare for and execute the fundamental tasks of war fighting. According to Chapter 1 of this book, there are a number of different indicators of military skill, including levels of initiative, motivation, adaptability, proficiency at executing doctrine, and ability to assimilate technology.43 Because individual militaries vary across a wide continuum on this dimension, it naturally follows that multinational military operations are likely to include contingents with varied levels of skill. Almost by defi nition, the resulting alliance force will possess less skill than if the most capable military contingent were conducting the operation unilaterally. Furthermore, the most capable military may not be able to execute operations in its preferred manner if it is operating as part of an alliance: it may have to adjust the very qualities that make it so capable to accommodate its allies and partners. It may not be possible, for example, to execute highly flexible and adaptive operations when inflexible and static partners are present on the same battlefield, or to use the full capabilities of advanced technologies alongside militaries that cannot operate in a similar manner. States whose militaries possess low degrees of skill may seek to join alliances alongside more skilled partners in the hope that learning will improve their own skills. This may well occur in alliance operations that are well integrated and where different national contingents work closely together. Yet if the degree of integration is low, and national contingents are separated by different chains of command at the strategic level or geographic separation measures at the tactical level, the chance that learning will improve skills across alliance contingents remains low as well. Even if two or more militaries with very high levels of skill choose to operate together, the resulting multinational operation will not necessarily reflect a high level of skill. This is the central fallacy of the capability aggregation model: militaries in multinational operations do not auto-

International Alliances and Military Effectiveness

197

matically combine their capabilities effectively. One military may have achieved a high level of skill through intensive personnel training and allowing junior officers a great deal of flexibility, whereas another military may have achieved a similarly high level of skill by incorporating advanced technologies in every command echelon and relying on senior officers to direct the battle based on their ability to process the information provided by such technologies. Differing command styles, doctrine, and training would make it very difficult for personnel from two such militaries to operate as effectively together as each one would on its own. i nte llige nce collection, disse m i nation, a n d a na lysis Intelligence collection, dissemination, and analysis is a third activity that alliance operations affect. Intelligence sharing is a perennial problem in alliance operations.44 Accurate and timely intelligence is a crucial enabler of effective military operations, allowing mission capabilities and tactics to be tailored to the latest conditions. In multinational operations, however, national sensitivities often limit information sharing among partners and allies. This problem particularly plagues multinational operations involving the United States because U.S. technical collection capabilities and advanced military technologies are unrivaled throughout the world. The United States is often very reluctant to share information with its alliance partners, to protect its sources and methods and to prevent unauthorized leaks. This reduces integration: participating military forces are more likely to make inconsistent decisions when they have inconsistent information and intelligence available to them. r e duce d i ntegr ation: r estr ictions on i n t e llige nce sh a r i ng Problems with information sharing affect all countries participating in multinational operations, even among close allies. In the 1991 Gulf War, for example, the small planning group that developed the plans for Desert Storm included a British brigadier, but U.S. members of the group regularly classified their documents as NOFORN, meaning “no foreigners,” and once tore their maps from the wall when the British officer entered the room.45 In Haiti, the procedures for release of intelligence were so stringent that the United States provided virtually no information to its foreign partners at the outset of the operation, although these procedures were later modified a bit.46 In Kosovo, the United States was extremely reluctant to share intelligence with its NATO allies because of fears of leaks, and decided that information about the most sensitive air operations should not be given to the allies.47 Operation Allied Force therefore

198 Nora Bensahel involved two separate Air Tasking Orders (ATOs): one that was released to NATO, which included all fl ights by European aircraft and nonstealthy U.S. aircraft, and one that the United States classified as NOFORN, which included all fl ights by B-2 bombers and F-117 fighters, and strike packages that included U.S. Tomahawk and conventional air-launched cruise missiles. The dual ATOs caused serious confusion when U.S. aircraft suddenly appeared on NATO radar screens without any advance warning.48 This impedes integration because aircraft have to be assigned to missions without knowing what missions other alliance aircraft are undertaking, and it increases the potential for friendly fi re incidents. Recent operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have been plagued by intelligence-sharing problems as well. In Afghanistan, operational security was deemed so important that information was highly compartmentalized and not releasable. The involvement of special forces intensified this problem because they use their own classification scheme and their information and intelligence is generally not even releasable to conventional U.S. forces. U.S. commanders often asked other countries to undertake missions without being able to tell them the reason for the mission. This reduced responsiveness by making it very difficult for military and civilian leaders from foreign countries to calculate the risks and benefits of their own operations.49 Many partners also grew frustrated that they shared intelligence with the United States but did not receive any intelligence in return. Information provided by a foreign partner occasionally became classified as NOFORN within the U.S. system, meaning the intelligence could not be shared with the country that provided it in the first place.50 In both Afghanistan and Iraq, foreign partners complained they did not have access to the SIPRNET, the secure Internet that the U.S. military uses to share classified information. Most U.S. operational planning routinely occurs on the SIPRNET, but allies and partners are not allowed to access it because the system contains some information that is classified NOFORN. In Afghanistan, U.S. planners put coalition planning tools on the SIPRNET, apparently unaware that foreign partners would not be able to access these at all.51 In Iraq, British and Australian military officers report that U.S. officers occasionally skirted these restrictions by pulling up information on the SIPRNET while they were present and then deliberately looking away.52 Problems with intelligence sharing can never be fully resolved because national sensitivities and concerns about operational security concerns will always be present and leaks remain a real possibility. Yet these problems have the unintended consequence of limiting integration. Alliance members who rely on different information and intelligence are likely to make

International Alliances and Military Effectiveness

199

different strategic, operational, and tactical decisions, thereby hindering integration within the overall operation. Even when information can be shared, lengthy declassification procedures may further exacerbate these problems by making information irrelevant by the time it can be released. Concerns about sources, methods, and leaks are certainly legitimate, but they do pose problems for achieving good integration within alliances.

When Do These Factors Have the Biggest Effect? As described in Chapter 1, integration, skill, and responsiveness are continuous rather than dichotomous variables. Militaries have greater or lesser degrees of these qualities, rather than simply being characterized by their presence or absence. The previous three sections discussed dynamics that have the potential to reduce military effectiveness but their effect is not automatic. This section offers several hypotheses about the conditions under which the dynamics described earlier will have the greatest impact on military effectiveness. These hypotheses will certainly need to be refi ned through empirical testing, but they do offer some deductive insights about the effectiveness of multinational military operations. We should expect alliance operations to lead to decreasing integration, skill, and responsiveness as the participants and their capabilities grow increasingly heterogeneous. Alliances where members contribute wholly separate capabilities may not suffer from these problems; for example, if one country provides ground forces for an operation and another provides airlift capacity, then military efficiency may not suffer at all. But when multiple countries contribute ground forces, the inevitable variations among them may indeed undermine military efficiency. More specifically, we should expect reduced effectiveness in any of the five following circumstances. First, effectiveness will be decreased when participants lack a history of military cooperation. The more experience countries have in conducting military operations together, the more likely they are to develop workable command and control structures and information-sharing procedures. Established alliance relationships do not guarantee effectiveness; as NATO demonstrates, even long-standing commitments to cooperation do not always guarantee smooth interaction. Yet we should generally expect that states without such a history of cooperation will be even less likely to fight together effectively than states with some previous history of addressing the challenges of multinational operations. Second, effectiveness will be decreased when training and doctrine for multinational operations is limited or unrealistic. In contrast, militaries that incor-

200 Nora Bensahel porate preparations for multinational operations into their own doctrine and training—even if they do not train together with their potential future partners—should be more flexible and adaptable during multinational operations than militaries that focus primarily on unilateral operations. Such preparations can help militaries identify inadvertent mistakes and unforeseen trade-offs before actually conducting such operations, enabling them to develop solutions and work-arounds. Third, effectiveness will be decreased when equipment varies widely. It should be easier to integrate military forces using similar types of equipment—such as two types of main battle tanks—than to integrate those whose equipment is dissimilar. Fourth, effectiveness will be decreased when technology varies widely. Militaries that rely on advanced technologies will fi nd it difficult to operate alongside militaries that do not. Not only will technical interoperability problems arise, but doctrine and concepts of operations that rely on advanced technologies may simply be unworkable in alliances that include members who are less technologically advanced. Fifth, effectiveness will be decreased when insufficient language or area expertise is available. Alliance members often speak different languages and come from different cultures while conducting operations in unfamiliar parts of the world. Linguists and regional experts can minimize these frictions, but they are rarely available in sufficient numbers and with adequate skill levels to overcome the linguistic and cultural challenges of a heterogeneous alliance or one that is conducting operations far from home.

Conclusion: Alliances in Strategic Context Alliance operations pose significant problems at the tactical, operational, and even the strategic level, which often make them less integrated, skillful, and responsive compared to unilateral operations. Yet it is very important to note that multinational operations offer considerable geostrategic and political advantages to their members and facilitate political-military integration that may well often outweigh the costs of reduced military effectiveness in these areas. States that choose to participate in multinational operations may, therefore, demonstrate high integration between their policy goals and their choice of military strategy, but the political benefits that they receive may come at the cost of some integration, skill, and responsiveness. What political benefits of operating in alliances might make states willing to absorb these specific costs in terms of effectiveness? Political legitimacy is the single most important political benefit that multinational

International Alliances and Military Effectiveness

201

military operations provide. Operations that involve more than a single country tend to be viewed as more legitimate by domestic and international audiences alike, and the impact of this legitimacy should not be underestimated.53 Sometimes legitimacy is formally bestowed on a multinational military operation by international organizations such as the UN, as was the case for the 1991 Gulf War, or through standing alliances like NATO, as in the 1999 war over Kosovo. Yet multinational operations can also produce legitimacy, in addition to having it bestowed on them. In Afghanistan, for example, foreign participation in ongoing combat and reconstruction efforts helps reinforce the legitimacy of these operations.54 Legitimacy is also produced by the fact that alliance members share the risk that is an integral part of combat operations. Countries do not lightly choose to place their military forces in harm’s way, and they are unlikely to do so unless they strongly support the political objectives of the operation. Generally speaking, the legitimacy of a military operation tends to increase as more countries are willing to accept the possibility that their sons and daughters will die fighting for the objectives at stake. A military operation where one country bears most of the risk, or where allies and partners only play a small role, is likely to be viewed as less legitimate than multinational operations where risks are spread evenly among the participants. Why does legitimacy matter? From a strictly military perspective, mission objectives can often be achieved whether an operation is considered legitimate or not. But legitimacy often becomes a crucial factor in the broader political context and in securing the political objectives of the military operation. Legitimacy matters domestically, for public opinion is more likely to support multinational rather than unilateral operations. Legitimacy also matters internationally, for it bolsters global support for the operation, and other countries are less likely to feel threatened when powerful countries such as the United States choose to exert their power in cooperation with others, rather than on their own. Perhaps most importantly, legitimacy often helps promote the long-term success of an operation. Many recent U.S. military operations, including those in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and most recently Iraq, have been conducted not only to defeat the enemy but also to create a new political order. Over the long term, such operations depend on support and cooperation from local populations. In such situations, multinational alliances are generally perceived as being less self-interested and more impartial than unilateral interveners. Legitimacy in this context can strengthen acceptance of the new political order, which is a key element of mission success. The political benefits provided by legitimacy are strong enough that, for these reasons alone, state leaders will often seek allies and partners in

202 Nora Bensahel military operations, despite some of the operational and tactical costs. No country will ever give up its right to conduct unilateral operations, but particularly in the ever-changing strategic environment, unilateral operations are likely to become the exception rather than the rule. Even though alliance operations are likely to be less effective in military terms than unilateral operations, they may nonetheless remain very attractive options for civilian leaders who must factor the political benefits of multinational operations into their equations. Military planners must not assume that civilian leaders will avoid multinational operations because of their reduced military effectiveness. Rather, prudence requires that militaries prepare for multinational operations despite their reduced effectiveness in particular areas in some tactical activities. The decision to operate as part of an alliance is ultimately a political judgment, not a military judgment. Whether it is worth sacrificing effectiveness in some areas to obtain benefits in other areas is a question that politicians alone must answer—but it is a trade-off that they are often willing to make.

Notes 1. For general discussions of wars fought as part of multinational alliances, see Paul W. Schroeder, “Alliances, 1815–1945: Weapons of Power and Tools of Management,” in Klaus Knorr, ed., Historical Dimensions of National Security Problems (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1976), 227–62; Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987); and William J. Astore and James E. Kinzer, Future War: Coalition Operations in Global Strategy, Executive Summary of the Eighteenth Military History Symposium, United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, October 21–23, 1998. 2. The Spanish-American War is usually cited as the exception to this generalization. For more on the U.S. experience with multinational operations, see Walter D. Freeman, Randall J. Hess, and Manuel Faria, “The Challenges of Combined Operations,” Military Review 72, no. 11 (1992): 2–11; Jeff rey W. Yaegar, “Coalition Warfare: Surrendering Sovereignty,” Military Review 72, no. 11 (1992): 51–63; John D. Becker, “Combined and Coalition Warfighting: The American Experience,” Military Review 73, no. 11 (1993): 25–29; and Steve Bowman, “Historical and Cultural Influences on Coalition Operations,” in Thomas J. Marshall, ed., Problems and Solutions in Future Coalition Operations (Carlisle, Pa.: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 1997), 1–21. 3. Neither country has ruled out the possibility of using force unilaterally, but when pressed, civilian and military officials in both countries had great difficulty specifying a scenario that would require unilateral action. Author interviews in the United Kingdom (August 2002, April 2003, and August 2003), and in Australia ( June 2003).

International Alliances and Military Effectiveness

203

4. This defi nition synthesizes the most common elements of defi nitions of alliances, which vary considerably. For more on those defi nitions, see Nora Bensahel, The Coalition Paradox: The Politics of Military Cooperation, Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1999, Chapter 2. 5. In military usage, the term alliance refers to an explicit and formal agreement among two or more states to cooperate together on military matters, generally with some expectation of long-term cooperation. By contrast, the term coalition refers to informal groupings of states that come together to respond to a particular contingency, with no expectation of continued cooperation beyond that contingency. This chapter uses the term alliance to encompass coalitions as well because the distinctions between them do not significantly affect the variables being examined in this volume. 6. States also have the option of bandwagoning with the growing threat, but the risks inherent in this strategy led Waltz to conclude that “balancing, not bandwagoning, is the behavior induced by the system.” Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979), 126. For more on the dominance of balancing behavior, see Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), 147–80. 7. Although the distinction between internal and external balancing is generally associated with Waltz’s work, earlier classical realists make the same point. According to Hans Morgenthau, states “have three choices in order to maintain and improve their relative power positions. They can increase their own power, they can add to their own power the power of other nations, or they can withhold the power of other nations from the adversary. When they make the fi rst choice, they embark upon an armaments race. When they choose the second and third alternatives, they pursue a policy of alliances.” Hans J. Morgenthau, “Alliances in Theory and Practice,” in Arnold Wolfers, ed., Alliance Policy in the Cold War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1959), 185. 8. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 168. 9. The relative levels of internal and external balancing are often determined by a combination of systemic and domestic interests. See James D. Morrow, “Arms versus Allies: Trade-offs in the Search for Security,” International Organization 47, no. 2 (1993), esp. 231. 10. George Liska, Nations in Alliance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962), 26. 11. Ole R. Holsti, P. Terrence Hopmann, and John D. Sullivan, Unity and Disintegration in International Alliances: Comparative Studies (New York: Wiley, 1973). Similar statements can be found in Glenn H. Snyder, “The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics,” World Politics 36, no. 4 (1984): 462; and Michael Don Ward, Research Gaps in Alliance Dynamics, Monograph Series in World Affairs 19, no. 1 (Denver: Graduate School of International Studies, 1982), 7. 12. James D. Morrow, “Alliances and Asymmetry: An Alternative to the Capability Aggregation Model of Alliances,” American Journal of Political Science 35, no. 4 (1991), 904–33. 13. Walt, Origins of Alliances, 157. 14. Holsti, Hopmann, and Sullivan, Unity and Disintegration in International Alliances, 22.

204 Nora Bensahel 15. Ward, Research Gaps in Alliance Dynamics, 12. Emphasis added. 16. Allan C. Stam III, Win, Lose, or Draw: Domestic Politics and the Crucible of War (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 89–91, 148–49; quotation, 149. 17. Although the authors point out these problems in their literature review, their own analysis rests on the assumption that “nations enter an alliance in order to increase their military capability.” Holsti, Hopmann, and Sullivan, Unity and Disintegration in International Alliances, 22 and 55. 18. Steven E. Miller, quoted in John G. Heidenrich, “Arming the United Nations: Military Considerations and Operational Constraints,” in Fariborz L. Mokhtari, ed., Peacemaking, Peacekeeping and Coalition Warfare (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1994), 41–56. 19. Robert Powell, In the Shadow of Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 163–64. 20. Glenn H. Snyder, Alliance Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997). 21. Ronald R. Krebs, “Perverse Institutionalism: NATO and the GrecoTurkish Confl ict,” International Organization 53, no. 2 (1999): 343–77; Patricia Weitsman, Dangerous Alliances, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004). 22. See Chapter 1 of this book. 23. Unity of command requires that all forces operate under a single commander, with authority passed down in clear vertical lines to the smallest unit in the operation. Unity of effort requires all forces within an operation to be working toward the same military and political objectives. For more on these two definitions, see United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-0: Doctrine for Joint Operations (Washington, D.C.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, September 10, 2001), A-2. 24. See Bensahel, The Coalition Paradox, Chapter 3. 25. Ibid., Chapter 4. 26. See Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1999). 27. See Bensahel, The Coalition Paradox, Chapter 5. 28. The formation of the safe areas is itself an example of how the need to maintain political cohesion can outweigh considerations of operational efficiency. In March 1993, UN force commander Philippe Morillon had found himself trapped in Srebrenica by Muslims demanding safety guarantees, and he declared, “You are now under the protection of the United Nations.” Although Morillon had no authority to make that promise, the Security Council decided it had to back him up and officially recognize several safe areas, to maintain cohesion and credibility. The UN estimated that protecting the safe zones would require between 17,000 and 34,000 troops, yet a total of only 7,000 troops was provided for this mission. The concern for political cohesion and credibility thus drove a decision that was militarily ineffective because the numbers of troops committed were clearly insufficient to achieve the stated objective. Ibid., 164–69. 29. See Chapter 1 of this book. 30. In another example, the Netherlands consistently opposed targeting the presidential palace in Belgrade—a key facility and symbol of the MiloŠevic´ re-

International Alliances and Military Effectiveness

205

gime—because a Rembrandt painting was located inside. See John E. Peters, Stuart Johnson, Nora Bensahel, Timothy Liston, and Traci Williams, European Contributions to Operation Allied Force: Implications for Transatlantic Cooperation (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, MR-1391-AF, 2001), 25–29. 31. Peters et al., 99, conclude that NATO needs “a more responsive system for requesting forces and assets from its members” and recommend that the alliance adopt “a faster, more flexible system for making operational decisions such as targeting.” 32. At one point, the UN commander tried to fi re the Italian force commander, but the Italian authorities stated that they did not accept his authority to do so. The Italian force commander remained in his position until his regularly scheduled rotation out of theater. For more on the Italian challenge to operations in Somalia, see Bensahel, The Coalition Paradox, 130–35. 33. This section summarizes unpublished work done by Adam Grissom, Nora Bensahel, John Gordon, Terrence Kelly, and Michael Spirtas at RAND during 2003 and 2004. 34. Tactical command and control arrangements are much easier to achieve for air and naval forces than for land forces. Air and naval assets can be individually rotated in an Air Tasking Order or a naval task force as requirements change, but land forces cannot be quickly moved or reassigned. This section therefore focuses on tactical command and control for land forces. 35. This arrangement was referred to as the “layer cake” because the sectors were stacked on top of each other. For more on this arrangement, as well as a map depicting the sector assignments, see Richard L. Kugler, Commitment to Purpose: How Alliance Partnership Won the Cold War (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, MR190-FF/RC, 1993), 202–4. 36. United States Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), 235, 494, and 501; Michele Zanini and Jennifer Morrison Taw, The Army and Multinational Force Compatibility (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, MR-1154-A, 2000), 53–54. 37. Zanini and Taw, The Army and Multinational Force Compatibility, 59–61. 38. Richard L. Layton, “Command and Control Structure,” in Larry Wentz, ed., Lessons from Bosnia: The IFOR Experience (Washington, D.C.: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 1997), 47; Major Charles J. McLaughlin, “U.S.-Russian Cooperation in IFOR: Partners for Peace,” Military Review 77, no. 4 (1997): 129–30. 39. Author interview, June 2002. 40. The U.S. Army’s Foreign Area Officer (FAO) program produces soldiers with specific linguistic skills and regional knowledge, but they focus primarily on political-military issues at the strategic level rather than on the tactical level. They lack the equipment, technical training, and often the staff expertise necessary to serve as effective tactical liaison officers. See Captain Joseph B. King, “Foreign Area Officers and Special Forces: Synergy in Combined Peacekeeping Operations,” Center for Army Lessons Learned, 1998.

206 Nora Bensahel 41. Lieutenant Colonel David H. Robinson, “Liaison: Our Doctrinal Stepchild,” U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1993, available at www .globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1993/RDE.htm. 42. Special Forces report to the Joint Special Operations Task Force ( JSOTF) commander in theater, who reports through the Joint Special Operations Command ( JSOC) to the secretary of defense and the president. Conventional army units, by contrast, usually report through the joint or combined land force component commander ( JFLCC or CFLCC), through the Unified Combatant Command for that region, to the secretary of defense and the president. 43. See Chapter 1 of this book. 44. This section draws heavily on Nora Bensahel, “Preparing for Coalition Operations,” in Lynn E. Davis and Jeremy Shapiro, eds., The U.S. Army and the New National Security Strategy (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, MR-1657-A, 2003), 117–18. 45. Peter de la Billière, Storm Command (London: HarperCollins, 1992), 90–91; Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Generals’ War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995), 166. 46. Zanini and Taw, The Army and Multinational Force Compatibility, 58. 47. These fears may well have been justified. French officers serving at NATO headquarters had long been accused of leaking alliance information, and in 1998, a French officer serving at NATO headquarters was arrested for allegedly leaking information about NATO’s plans in Kosovo to officials in Serbia. Peters, et al., 40–41. 48. Peters, et al., European Contributions to Operation Allied Force, 39–41. 49. Author interviews, June and July 2002. 50. Author interviews, July 2002. 51. Author interviews, July 2002 and June 2003. 52. Author interviews, June and August 2003. 53. For a discussion of how multilateral operations have come to be seen as more legitimate than unilateral operations, see Martha Finnemore, The Purpose of Intervention (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003), esp. Chapter 3. 54. One might also argue that the converse is occurring in Iraq as of this writing: the lack of broad-based international participation in major combat and in the early phases of reconstruction undermined the legitimacy of the operation, particularly for many Iraqis.

chapter

Explaining Military Outcomes

9

stephen biddle

military effectiveness matters chiefly because it shapes military outcomes: other things being equal, “effective” militaries ought to win more often than ineffective ones. But this simple intuitive notion leaves much unsaid. How does effectiveness influence outcomes? Is this influence strong or weak relative to other potential contributors, such as the size of the respective forces? How do the material and nonmaterial components of effectiveness interrelate, and which is more important? These questions are crucial. They are also large and complex. Warfare is a social phenomenon at least as complicated as the workings of markets or elections. Yet by comparison with markets or elections, modern social science has paid remarkably little systematic attention to cause and effect in the conduct of war.1 To explain combat outcomes will surely require sustained study using the same rigor we would normally consider necessary for the study of political economy or voting behavior. This is a big job, a project that can profit from the work of many hands. A literature, not a chapter, or even an anthology, is needed. This volume offers a useful road map for the journey required, which spans causal relationships reaching from fundamental cultural, social, institutional, or systemic root causes, through intermediate variables such as skill, responsiveness, and integration, to the ultimate outcomes that are of interest: the results of combat. In a single chapter, my purpose is not to span this range but rather to fi ll a gap: what role do the nonmaterial intermediate variables, treated as outcomes in this volume’s other chapters, play as causes for the fi nal outcome of interest—the results of armed combat? I do not try to address all intermediate variables with potentially important influence or all the manifold outcomes of war. Rather, I focus here on one particularly important nonmaterial causal variable—skill—and one particularly

208 Stephen Biddle important outcome of combat—casualties—for mid- to high-intensity conventional land warfare.2 I argue here that, for this outcome, skill interacts with technology and numerical preponderance in a powerful, nonlinear way. Modern weapons are tremendously lethal. Since 1900 or before, massed exposed targets caught in the open have been fatally vulnerable. As technology has improved, the ranges at which exposed targets can be annihilated have grown, and the time needed to annihilate them has shrunk. To survive has thus long required some form of cover and concealment to reduce exposure to enemy fire. In principle, such cover is widely available; the natural complexity of the earth’s surface offers a wealth of opportunities to evade hostile fi re. But to take advantage of these opportunities while accomplishing meaningful military missions is very difficult. Considerable skill is required—skills some militaries have had but others have not. Those who have mastered the needed skills have sharply reduced their vulnerability even to twenty-fi rst-century weapon technology. Casualty rates in warfare between highly skilled opponents have thus changed little over time, even as technology has changed dramatically. By contrast, militaries without the skills needed to reduce their exposure have been very vulnerable to their enemies’ weapons. As weapons have become more lethal, unskilled militaries’ casualty rates have thus grown rapidly. The net result has been a growing gap between the casualty rates of skilled militaries and those of unskilled militaries over time: technology has acted as a wedge that drives apart the real military power of the skilled and of the inept, but with much less effect on the outcomes of wars between the highly skilled. And because the two sides’ losses are reciprocally related, this in turn means that increased weapon lethality can actually reduce skilled militaries’ casualties: even where everyone’s weapons are nominally more lethal, if side A’s troops are largely shielded, A’s surviving troops can kill more of B’s shooters, reducing the fi re A receives in turn and thereby reducing A’s casualty rate below that achievable in an era of less lethal weapons. Technology’s effects are thus powerfully influenced by skill: the same technological change can induce opposite effects on losses, as a function of the respective sides’ relative levels of skill. Skill is also essential to understanding the role of numerical preponderance in war. Many suppose that victory normally goes to the numerically larger side. Without exposure reduction, however, armies cannot survive long enough to make their numbers tell. Superior numbers could be decisive or could be almost irrelevant, depending on the two sides’ ability to reduce their exposure to hostile fi re, and this in turn is shaped powerfully by the combatants’ skill levels.

Explaining Military Outcomes

209

If so, then to assess military outcomes without taking skill into account is to risk major error. Assessments focusing solely on matériel will radically overestimate well-equipped but unskilled armies—such as the Iraqis in 1991 or 2003—and underestimate poorly equipped but highly skilled troops, such as the North Vietnamese in 1965–72. The same policy initiatives can have opposite effects, depending on the two sides’ skills. Typical cost-effectiveness analyses that judge weapons in controlled comparisons where only the weapons differ can thus be dangerously misleading: a new weapon can look wonderful when an inept opponent is assumed but terrible if the enemy behaves differently, and neither assumption will hold true all the time. In fact, analyses considering matériel alone may be little better than blind guesses. The balance of the chapter supports these claims in four steps. First, I review the existing literature. Second, I elaborate the causal logic just sketched, providing a theory to relate skill to casualty rates in mid- to high-intensity warfare. Third, I present some preliminary tests of this theory via a series of short case studies. I conclude by considering in more detail the implications for scholarship and policy. pr ior wor k on sk i ll a n d com bat outcom es As Chapter 1 of this book demonstrated, the military effectiveness literature is heavily materialist. Unsurprisingly, then, little research explicitly connects skill, a nonmaterial variable, with casualties in battle. An extensive literature on casualty prediction exists, but it is overwhelmingly materialist.3 There is also a literature on skill, but it is largely disconnected from the outcomes of battle. The U.S. Army, in particular, has devoted considerable effort to assessing the connection between skill and its determinants in training or in personal qualities such as intelligence or mechanical aptitude. The army knows it wants skilled soldiers and is very interested in what it must do to produce these. It has thus commissioned an extensive body of research on the determinants of skills, especially at the individual and small-unit level.4 This research has important limitations for my purposes, however. First, it is restricted largely to an American context. Its goal is to improve the performance of American soldiers—hence its research subjects are almost always American; the doctrine, tactics, and equipment are almost always American; and the cultural, demographic, socioeconomic, and political context is almost always American. This necessarily limits the fi ndings’ applicability for other militaries in other circumstances. Second, this literature treats skill essentially as a dependent variable. Its importance or utility is taken largely for granted; the concern is to fi nd

210 Stephen Biddle more efficient ways to produce it. Few researchers in this literature have challenged this assumption of skill’s utility or have explicitly analyzed its battlefield role. An important exception is a body of work that uses results of maneuvers at the army’s National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin, California, as a proxy for the outcomes of real combat and assesses the relative importance of a variety of potential contributors to success in these simulated battles.5 Among the contributors considered has been, effectively, skill, in the form of a unit’s ability to master particular tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP), and in the form of training effort completed prior to a unit’s arrival at the NTC. Although valuable, even this work falls short of fully specified causal theory: the research designs are almost entirely correlational, with no systematic deductive causal logic to explain how or why skill might affect battle outcomes. And of course the empirical content is, at best, a step removed from real warfare because “battles” at the NTC are necessarily simulations, although they are remarkably realistic ones.6 A different body of literature focuses on particular cases—especially cases of extremes in military skill. Many of these concern the German, Israeli, and Arab militaries in the twentieth century, which are widely considered to be cases of unusually high (German, Israeli) or unusually low (Arab) martial ability.7 Here, too, however, the tendency is to treat skill chiefly as a dependent variable: the main concern is usually to discover how the Germans and Israelis managed to produce the skills they apparently displayed or why the Arabs seemed unable to do so. The role of these skills in military outcomes is more often assumed (or asserted) than analyzed in any detail. External validity is also a concern in a literature focused so tightly on particular cases. It is not clear that the interaction of skill and battle outcomes for the Wehrmacht in World War II or the Israelis in the Arab-Israeli confl icts can safely be generalized to other wars fought between other parties in other parts of the world or other historical eras. Intelligence agencies, military staffs, and net assessment offices also produce assessments of foreign militaries’ skills.8 As Chapter 1 suggested, however, these have often failed to predict subsequent combat outcomes. None of the great powers prior to 1914 anticipated trench stalemate; if they had, the war might never have happened.9 In 1940, Allied leaders were astonished by the Germans’ lightning victory over France. They had expected something closer to the trench warfare of 1914–17; even the victors were surprised, with most German planners expecting an extended war of attrition in France and the Low Countries.10 In 1973, both Israelis and Arabs alike were stunned by the October War’s staggering losses, which forced Israel to beg emergency aid from America and spurred a wave of

Explaining Military Outcomes

211

postwar pronouncements that tanks were thenceforth doomed, given their apparent vulnerability to guided missiles.11 As recently as 1991, a massive effort using state-of-the-art methods and the nation’s best analysts radically overestimated U.S. losses in the upcoming Gulf War. The majority of these predictions were off by more than an order of magnitude, and official estimates were reportedly high by at least that much; some official projections erred by a factor of more than 200.12 Another potentially relevant body of research concerns combat motivation, a component of skill that has attracted a large literature straddling sociology, political science, and military history.13 Here, too, however, most work treats motivation (hence skill) as a dependent rather than an independent variable. The relative importance of political ideology and small-unit dynamics as causes of combat motivation has received particular attention. But combat motivation’s role as a cause of combat outcomes has mostly been assumed rather than investigated. Similarly, technology absorption is treated as an aspect of skill; although military technology absorption has not received the scale of scholarly attention devoted to combat motivation, it has attracted a small but growing literature.14 It has also been touched on as a cause of other political outcomes, especially shifts in the international balance of power.15 Even here, though, attention is directed chiefly to the causes of success and failure in absorption per se, and there is little sustained or detailed analysis of the link between successful technology use and success on the battlefield. In this literature, too, skill—here in the form of technology absorption— is chiefly a dependent variable, with its role in combat outcomes taken mostly for granted. A small political science literature has begun to consider skill and its relation to military outcomes in an explicitly theoretical way.16 Much, however, remains to be done. In particular, skill is still treated primarily as either a dependent or an intervening variable, and as the latter, it typically receives much less attention than the factors at either end of the causal chain.17 Although this work is a useful start, it still falls short of a fully specified, empirically tested theory of skill’s role in military outcomes. a t h eory of sk i ll –m at é r i e l i n t e r act ion How, then, might skill be brought into a systematic theory of combat outcomes? A point of departure is to consider its role in one particularly important battlefield function: countering modern weapons’ effects in mid- to high-intensity land warfare.18 In particular, I focus here on the role of skill in enabling militaries to exploit the potential of terrain to reduce exposure to fire. Weapon

212 Stephen Biddle technologies’ actual effects differ radically as a function of their targets’ exposure. Exposure is in turn shaped by combatants’ ability to exploit the natural cover and concealment provided by terrain. Caught in the open, a company of 10 T-62 tanks in the North German Plain could be destroyed by a single M-60A1 in a matter of minutes. If able to use the terrain to maximum advantage, however, the same company could advance unhindered to within a few hundred meters before overwhelming the opponent in a short rush at point-blank range.19 A platoon of infantry that could be wiped out by a single battery volley of artillery or a single sortie of ground attack aircraft, if caught in the open, can be nearly unscathed by the same adversaries if concealed in the buildings or courtyards of built-up areas. Such natural cover is widespread. The earth’s surface is extremely irregular, and less than 2 feet of net elevation difference can conceal a prone soldier from a machine gunner dug in with the barrel at ground level. Even in the apparently open rural terrain of the North German plain, more than 65 percent of the ground within 1,000 meters is invisible to a typical weapon position. In the more rolling, broken terrain of the Fulda Gap, more than 85 percent is invisible.20 Forests and buildings are opaque even to today’s sensors and are very common: more than 40 percent of Germany’s land area, for example, is forested or built up.21 Almost a third of Poland is forested, as is 39 percent of Bosnia, 14 percent of China, and 65 percent of South Korea.22 Middle Eastern deserts, of course, have little woodland, but much of the geostrategically meaningful land area is urban, and these urban areas can be very large. Baghdad, for example, stretches over more than 300 square kilometers.23 This natural cover, although widespread, is difficult to exploit. Irregular folds in the ground or small human-made features offer much of the available rural cover but cannot shield massed units or geometrically arranged formations. Troops cannot simply be laid out in standard textbook formations and marched toward the objective or deployed in formulaic cookie-cutter defensive layouts. To realize the terrain’s potential instead requires all of the thousands of local commanders in a mass army to fashion their own unique plans for movement and disposition based on the specific local conditions. Patches of cover rarely provide interconnected approach routes all the way to the objective; irregular stretches of open ground must be crossed, and this requires suppressive fi res to keep the enemy’s heads down during sprints from cover to cover. Proper use of suppressive fi re, however, requires very tight coordination between widely separated moving units

Explaining Military Outcomes

213

and multiple commanding officers. To protect moving assault units, suppression must be maintained until the last possible minute but lifted in time to allow the assault to overrun the objective without taking casualties from friendly fi re. Sightings of enemy weapons must be communicated to distant supporting units and suppressive fi re redirected as intelligence is developed. Because the pace of an assault varies unpredictably with local terrain or unanticipated enemy action, maintaining continuous suppression thus requires a complex combination of planning, adaptation, and efficient communications among harried commanders at many different echelons. Urban areas provide much of the usable cover in deserts or steppes, but urban terrain atomizes a battlefield, compartmentalizing small actions on adjoining blocks and forcing small units to fight independently of one another. This in turn demands greater initiative and tactical judgment from junior leaders; makes it harder for those leaders to see and communicate with their troops; and challenges morale and combat motivation by putting more distance between soldiers, reducing the power of group reinforcement to motivate individual behavior. These challenges place a premium on skill. To make the most of the available cover requires soldiers and junior leaders who can identify key terrain and seek it out, who can assess the local situation and reach sound decisions without constant guidance from higher command, and who can motivate their comrades to act when mostly on their own. It requires commanders and staff officers who can combine careful advance planning with rapid adaptation to varying ground and changing unit positions. The more advanced the weapons, moreover, the more demanding the skills required. As technological change has increased weapons’ range and lethality, the depth over which cover must be provided has grown. When weapon ranges were limited to 2 to 5 km, and aviation was in its infancy, only frontline units needed to be covered, concealed, dispersed, and integrated; units to their immediate rear could mass in assembly areas and move safely in the open. The advent of longer-range weapons and airpower extended the depth over which cover, concealment, dispersion, and integration would be needed to the point where both frontline units and their immediate supporting elements required such complex countermeasures. Current-day ground and air systems can place entire theaters at risk, and thus demand theaterwide distribution of the needed skills and their continuous application across the entire theater. Some militaries have been able to provide such skills; others have not.24 The former have been able to screen themselves from the worst effects of

214 Stephen Biddle their enemies’ weapons; the latter have remained exposed. The result has been a widening gap between the casualty exposure of the skilled and the unskilled as weapons have grown in range and lethality. In fact, the effect compounds: not only are the skilled less exposed to the fire of any given number of hostile shooters, but because more of the skilled will survive to fi re their own weapons, they will kill more of the enemy and thus reduce the number of hostile shooters fi ring on them. Advanced weapons thus magnify the effects of skill differentials for casualty infl iction. This in turn means not only that casualty rates will be closely related to skill, but that the effects of skill and technology will interact nonlinearly. Systemic technological changes that increase weapon range or nominal lethality will increase casualty rates for unskilled militaries but can decrease them for skilled ones (because they enable skilled survivors to kill more unskilled enemies than would less lethal or shorter range weapons, reducing the number of enemies shooting at them). The same technological changes can thus have opposite effects on combat outcomes, depending on the skill levels of the two sides. Skill similarly influences the effects of numerical preponderance. Modern weapons are so lethal that even a handful can wipe out much larger formations if the latter are caught in the open and fail to suppress hostile fi re. A 1915 machine gun could fi ll the space in front of it with 400 to 600 bullets per minute for as long as it had ammunition and replacement barrels; a single gun could slaughter whole battalions if they tried to rush it in the open.25 A single 155-mm howitzer can kill any exposed infantry over an area of more than four football fields in just two minutes; massing more troops in the area would only raise the toll.26 In principle, even such enormous fi repower can eventually be soaked up with more targets than the shooters can kill, but the costs are staggering. Few forces are willing to lose 20 to 100 or more of their own soldiers for each of their opponent’s, and few armies can routinely motivate troops to such suicidal self-sacrifice.27 In practical terms, armies that cannot reduce their exposure thus cannot compensate by absorbing their opponents’ fi repower with sheer numbers. Without the skills needed for exposure reduction, even very preponderant forces cannot survive long enough to make their numbers tell.

Testing the Theory Of course, these are just conjectures pending rigorous empirical tests. Space precludes a complete or exhaustive program of testing here, but several illustrative plausibility probes can be provided.28

Explaining Military Outcomes

215

ti m e-se r i es com pa r isons: ge r m a n y i n wor ld wa rs i a n d i i a n d isr a e li a n d a r a b a r m i es i n th e 1948– 73 m i de ast wa rs Plausibility of these hypotheses can be assessed by considering a number of controlled time-series case comparisons to observe the effects of technology change on a single army of known skill. The German Army, for example, is widely held to have been among the most tactically skilled of the twentieth century.29 The theory implies that such an army should have seen little or no increase in its casualty rate in spite of significant technological advancement; in fact, this is the case. Although weapon range and lethality increased dramatically from 1914 to 1945, German casualty rates actually fell, from 40.6 battle deaths per 1,000 soldiers per month in World War I to just 18.7 in World War II. 30 The Israeli Army is also generally held to have been highly skilled.31 Between 1948 and 1973 Israeli loss rates rose, but they did so gradually: from 7.5 battle deaths per 1,000 soldiers per month in the 1948 War of Independence, to 8.9 in the 1956 Sinai War, 15.6 in the 1967 Six Day War, and 18.5 in the 1973 October War 32 (see Table 9.1). Over the same interval, mean antitank weapon penetration range, for example, increased by nearly a factor of 10, from 229 meters in 1945 to 2,048 meters in 1975.33 By contrast, the Egyptian and Syrian armies in the Mideast wars have generally been regarded as unskilled and poorly suited to the management of complex operations, at least for the period from 1948 to 1967.34 The theory implies that such armies should have seen a much larger increase in their casualty rates over time, and this, too, is generally the case. Egyptian loss rates rose from 6.6 battle deaths per 1,000 soldiers per month in 1948 to 108 in 1956, and 185 in 1967, a total increase of more than 170, or by a factor of almost 30 over the interval as a whole. The Syrian loss rate rose by more than 130, from 50 in 1948 to 184 in 1967, or an increase of nearly a factor of 4.35 Over the same interval, Israeli loss rates rose by only 8.1 deaths per 1,000 per month, or less than 10 percent of either the Egyptian or the Syrian increase. An exception to the general trend, however, is the 1973 October War. Syrian loss rates remained relatively high at 116 (by comparison to the Israeli rate of 18.5); the Egyptian rate, however, fell significantly from 185 in 1967 to 28 in 1973. Although still about 50 percent higher than the comparable Israeli figure, this represents a major departure from the general Arab trend. In part this may be related to the unusual tactical circumstances of the 1973 war: the Israelis, not the Arabs, were taken by surprise in the initial attack and found themselves engaged in hasty, poorly coordinated

216 Stephen Biddle ta b l e 9.1 Battle Deaths per Thousand Soldiers per Month, Mideast Wars Year

Egypt

Syria

Israel

1948 1956 1967 1973

6.6 108.0 185.0 28.0

50.0 NA 184.0 116.0

7.5 8.9 15.6 18.5

s o u r c e : J. David Singer and Melvin Small, Correlates of War Project: International and Civil War Data, 1816–1992 (computer fi le) (Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, 1994); Israeli fi gures use mobilized strength as given in Larry H. Addington, The Patterns of War since the Eighteenth Century (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), p. 303, rather than prewar active-duty military personnel as given in the Correlates of War Project data.

counterattacks. In part, however, it may also be because of a very different behavioral pattern by the Egyptians, who had carefully planned their operations and thoroughly drilled their troops in a limited repertoire of key functions, especially dismounted antitank defense from prepared, covered, and concealed positions. Although the Egyptians in 1973 were certainly not as broadly capable an organization as, say, the Germans in World War II, they were thus able to develop the skills needed to implement more complex techniques in at least a few especially important areas. In combination with Israel’s failure to seek cover during its exposed Sinai counterattacks, this enabled the Egyptians to improve their performance substantially relative to their earlier experience.36 Further research is required to develop a full characterization of Egyptian skills as demonstrated in the 1973 war, but in the meantime there is reason to suspect that the case may still be consistent with the general prediction of a lower casualty rate for armies able to exploit more complex tactics. th e batt le of la h ay e du pu its, ju ly 194 4 A different perspective can be gained by holding technology constant and considering a cross-sectional comparison of forces with differing skills against a common opponent. The Battle of La Haye du Puits, fought in Normandy from July 3 to 7, 1944, is particularly instructive in this regard. In this action, three U.S. divisions, the 90th and 79th Infantry Divisions and the 82nd Airborne Division, conducted a simultaneous assault on contiguous and closely comparable elements of the same German formation, the LXXXIV Corps. The hedgerow terrain, clear weather, opposing forces, and mission of deliberate assault on a prepared defense were common to all three U.S. divisions. The opponent’s weapon holdings were effectively

Explaining Military Outcomes

217

ta ble 9.2 Combat Outcome: Battle of La Haye du Puits Division

82nd 79th 90th

Ground seized (km2/h)

Losses for ground taken (TBC/km2/h)

.28 .22 .17

564 841 1,035

n o t e : TBC = total battle casualties per 1,000 troops engaged. s o u r c e : Martin Blumenson, United States Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations: Breakout and Pursuit (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1961), pp. 60–77.

common to all three. U.S. weapon holdings were similar for the 79th and the 90th, although the 79th deployed about 10 percent fewer troops and 24 percent less artillery than the 90th. The 82nd Airborne, however, was significantly smaller and lighter than the other two divisions. It had about half the troop strength and significantly less fi repower: about half as much artillery of the 90th, about three fourths as many mortars and machine guns, and no tanks.37 Orthodox combat models based on the number and types of weapons in use would thus predict that the 90th division should have performed best because it deployed a larger number of heavier weapons against a common opponent under common conditions, and the 82nd should have performed worst. The skills of the three U.S. divisions, however, suggest quite the opposite. The 82nd was an elite airborne unit that was trained intensively in the United States with consistently excellent exercise evaluations, followed by six months of unit-level training overseas and three months of combat experience prior to the Battle of La Haye du Puits. The 90th and 79th, by contrast, were standard infantry divisions with less training and experience. Neither the 90th nor the 79th had received any overseas unitlevel training, and neither had seen more than a few days of prior combat. The 90th had, in fact, been idle for six months prior to its commitment to France in late June 1944; the 79th had been idle for two months. In addition, the 90th had suffered significant personnel turbulence: it was reorganized no less than three times during its training in the United States (unlike the 79th and 82nd).38 Two of the commanding generals of the 90th had been relieved for poor performance, and it had consistently received exercise evaluations of “poor” from army trainers. 39 On the basis of their training and skills, one would predict that the 82nd should have performed the best, and the 90th the worst, the opposite of the prediction based on weaponry.

218 Stephen Biddle The outcome of the battle contradicts the orthodox technology-based prediction and corroborates the prediction based on the units’ skills. Controlling for the U.S. divisions’ objectives and the amount of time it took each to reach those objectives, the 82nd maintained the fastest rate of advance with the lowest casualty rate per square kilometer of ground taken. The 90th had the slowest rate of advance and suffered the highest casualty rate (see Table 9.2).40 To analyze this battle using standard models of purely material interactions would thus introduce significant bias into the results: relative advance rates would be off by at least 65 percent (and possibly a great deal more than that); casualty rates would be off by at least 84 percent.41

Conclusions and Implications The empirical probes described here, although insufficient to establish the theory, may, together with more extensive testing, be sufficient to warrant considering the theory’s implications for policy and scholarship. The most immediate implication is that matériel alone offers a poor explanation of casualty rates. To ignore nonmaterial variables such as skill is to risk gross error in any model’s projections of likely combat outcomes. This in turn suggests that the enormous body of international relations scholarship and defense policy analysis built on materialist theories of combat rests on a dangerously skewed foundation. The defense debate, for example, is increasingly focused on technology. The widespread assumption that, in the information age, superior technology wins wars, fuels growing pressure to speed modernization at the expense of force structure, logistical support, or even training and readiness. Official analyses reinforce this trend: official models that focus on matériel and exclude skill inevitably overvalue the former and undervalue the latter.42 Policy decisions informed by such models are thus likely to overspend on matériel and underspend on the readiness and training needed for skilled force employment. Similarly, threat assessments based on the numbers and types of hostile weapons are likely to overestimate the real capabilities of enemies with modern equipment but limited skills and underestimate militaries with older equipment but high skills. Ensuing intervention and use-of-force decisions could produce overconfidence and overcommitment against ill-equipped but adept militaries or underconfidence and unnecessary caution against enemies with state-of-the-art weapons but little skill in their use. For international relations theory, the weakness of simple material proxies poses serious problems. Military power plays a pervasive role in the

Explaining Military Outcomes

219

study of international politics; in fact, much of modern international relations (IR) theory amounts to a debate on its influence over state behavior. Yet it all rests on very simplistic treatments of its nature and determinants. The exclusion of nonmaterial contributors to military power and the reliance on simple material proxies undermines existing empirical fi ndings and suggests that the literature may have underestimated capability’s effects. Analyses of deterrence, power distribution, and polarity rest on especially thin ice given the weakness of the measures used to represent capability. The mercantilist position in international political economy is based on the proposition that economic preponderance is conducive to greater military power, yet the relationship between economic strength and real capability may be much weaker than it is commonly thought to be. More broadly, much of the empirical and theoretical literature must be revisited in light of a more meaningful measure of real capability. For both policy and scholarship, the preceding argument points to a further implication: the inherently two-sided nature of combat. Analysis of one side’s strengths in isolation from its opponent can never provide more than a dangerously partial picture: the military implications of skill and high technology can be very different as a function of the enemy’s skills and equipment. Yet it is common to evaluate militaries in isolation. Much of the current debate over American military “transformation” amounts, in effect, to a claim that American strengths (especially in information technology and standoff precision) will produce outcomes like those of 2001–2002 in Afghanistan or 2003 in Iraq regardless of the opponent or their skills.43 Yet technologies’ performance against unskilled enemies such as Afghanistan’s indigenous Afghan Taliban or Iraq’s Republican Guard does not imply comparable success against better skilled enemies elsewhere.44 For scholars, insistence on defi ning “effectiveness” or “power” as a monadic attribute of individual militaries independent of their enemies runs the risk of focusing analysis on only half of the problem: for the outcome that matters most—who wins or loses battles and wars—one side’s attributes cannot get the analysis very far. Monadic attributes clearly matter. Although the earlier chapters in this volume offer great insight on their determinants, these are beginnings, not endings. The heart of military success and failure lies in the interaction of two sets of attributes; the scholarly analysis of war can only get so far without dyadic analysis. Finally, an implication of the fi ndings here—and elsewhere in the volume—is the importance of continued research on the nonmaterial causes of military outcomes. These causes comprise a host of potentially important variables that have largely been excluded from both the policy and the

220 Stephen Biddle IR theoretic literature on combat. Skill is an important variable, but only one. Mid- to high-intensity conventional land warfare is only one of many important domains in which the role of such variables needs examination. Modern empirical social science has much to offer here yet has been little exploited to date. The stakes could hardly be higher; in a time of war, understanding the causes of military success and failure is of paramount national importance. Few topics offer a more promising opportunity to combine scholarly significance and policy relevance on significant questions. This opportunity should be exploited: much remains to be done.

Notes The views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily represent positions of the U.S. Army, the Army War College, or the Department of Defense. 1. See Chapter 1 of this book for a review of the social scientific literature on the conduct of war. 2. This argument is one element of a much broader analysis presented in Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004). In the following discussion, I use the defi nition of “skill” presented in Chapter 1; on its relationship to the broader concept of “force employment” as used in Military Power, see Biddle, Military Power, 48–51. By “mid- to high-intensity confl ict,” I mean the middle part of a spectrum ranging from guerrilla warfare at the low end to global thermonuclear war at the high end. “Mid-intensity” confl icts would include regional conventional wars such as the recent campaigns in Afghanistan, the Balkans, or Kuwait; the Arab-Israeli wars; the Sino-Vietnamese War; or the Indo-Pakistani wars. “Highintensity” confl icts are conventional world wars among the great powers. I thus exclude guerrilla warfare at the low end and warfare involving nuclear, chemical, or biological mass destruction at the high end of the spectrum of confl ict. The analysis here focuses at the tactical level of war. This is not to suggest that operational art, theater strategy, or grand strategy are unimportant; quite the contrary (Biddle, Military Power, for example, treats levels of war from the tactical through the operational or theater strategic). For a brief exposition, however, the tactical level affords a point of departure in which the role of skill can be seen clearly and analyzed concretely. This is meant as a beginning rather than as a conclusive resolution of skill’s role in military outcomes generally. 3. For a review and critique, see Biddle, Military Power, Chapter 2. 4. The U.S. Army Research Institute (ARI) has played an especially significant role in this effort, producing a substantial literature on the subject over more than 20 years of sustained research. For examples of this work, see Robert F. Holz, Jack H. Miller, and Howard H. McFann, eds., Determinants of Effective Unit Performance: Research on Measuring and Managing Unit Training Readiness (Alexandria, Va.: U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences [ARI],

Explaining Military Outcomes

221

1994); Michael D. Mumford et al., Characteristics Relevant to Performance as an Army Leader: Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Other Characteristics and Generic Skills (Alexandria, Va.: ARI, 1986), ARI Research Note 86-24; David K. Horne, The Impact of Soldier Quality on Performance in the Army (Alexandria, Va.: ARI, 1986), Technical Report 708; Steven R. Stewart, Leader Development Training Assessment of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Brigade Commanders (Alexandria, Va.: ARI, 1987), Technical Report 969; Steven R. Stewart and Jack M. Hicks, Leader Development Training Needs Assessment of U.S. Army Battalion Commanders (Alexandria, Va.: ARI, 1992), Technical Report 1454; Stanley M. Halpin, The Behavioral Dimensions of Battle Command: A Behavioral Science Perspective on the Art of Battle Command (Alexandria, Va.: ARI, 1996), Technical Report 1696; James W. Lussier and Terrill F. Saxon, Critical Factors in the Art of Battle Command (Alexandria, Va.: ARI, 1994), Study Report 95-01. 5. See, e.g., Robert F. Holz, Francis O’Mara, and Ward Keesling, “Determinants of Effective Unit Performance at the National Training Center: Project Overview,” in Holz, Miller, and McFann, eds., Determinants of Effective Unit Performance, 81–96; Bryan Hallmark and James Crowley, Command Performance at the National Training Center: Battle Planning and Execution (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1997), RAND MR-846-A; Martin Goldsmith, Battalion Reconnaissance Operations at the National Training Center (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1996), RAND MR-571-A; Martin Goldsmith, Jonathan Gary Grossman, and Jerry M. Sollinger, Quantifying the Battlefield: RAND Research at the National Training Center (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1993), RAND MR-105-A; Martin Goldsmith, James S. Hodges, and M. L. Burn, Applying the National Training Center Experience: Artillery Targeting Accuracy (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1990), RAND N-2984A; Martin Goldsmith and James S. Hodges, Applying the National Training Center Experience: Tactical Reconnaissance (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1987), RAND N-2628-A. 6. On the National Training Center and its capabilities, see, e.g., Anne W. Chapman, The Origins and Development of the National Training Center, 1976–1984 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1992); Anne W. Chapman, The National Training Center Matures, 1985–1993 (Fort Monroe, Va.: Military History Office, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1997); Daniel P. Bolger, Dragons at War: 2–34 Infantry in the Mohave (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1986). 7. See, e.g., Martin Van Creveld, Fighting Power: German and U.S. Military Performance, 1939–1945 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982); Trevor N. DuPuy, A Genius for War: The German Army and General Staff, 1807–1945 (London: MacDonald and Jane’s, 1977); Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, vol. 1 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1990), 351, 354–55; Edward Luttwak and Daniel Horowitz, The Israeli Army, 1948–1973 (Cambridge, Mass.: Abt Books, 1983 [1975]); Chaim Herzog, The Arab-Israeli Wars (New York: Random House, 1982), e.g., 152, 157, 159, 161; Kenneth M. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002); Anthony Pascal, Michael Kennedy, and Steven Rosen, Men and Arms in the Middle East: The Human Factor in Military Modernization (Santa Monica: RAND, 1979), RAND R-2460-NA; Anthony Pascal, “Are Third World Armies Third Rate?

222 Stephen Biddle Human Capital and Organizational Impediments to Military Effectiveness,” Research in Public Policy Analysis and Management 2 (1981): 245–66. 8. For a recent and unusually systematic example, see Gerald A. Halbert, Methodology for Quantifying Foreign Ground Force Performance Factors (Charlottesville, Va.: Department of the Army National Ground Intelligence Center, 1996). A more typical illustration can be found in Major Thomas Evans, Current Objectives and Defi ciencies in the Training of the Soviet Tanker (Garmisch, Germany: U.S. Army Institute for Advanced Russian and East European Studies, 1975). 9. Stephen Van Evera, “The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War,” International Security 9, no. 1 (Summer 1984): 58–107; Jack Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984); Geoff rey Blainey, The Causes of War, 3rd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1988), 108–24. 10. See, e.g., Gerhard Weinberg, A World at Arms (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 67–68, 109–12; John Mearsheimer, Conventional Deterrence (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983), 67–133. 11. For an overview of this debate, see James Jay Carafano, “Myth of the Silver Bullet: Contrasting Air Force-Army Perspectives on ‘Smart Weapons’ after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the 1991 Gulf War,” National Security Studies Quarterly, Winter 1998, 1–20. 12. Crisis in the Persian Gulf: Sanctions, Diplomacy and War: Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1991), HASC No. 101–57, 448, 462, 463, 485, 917; “Defense Analysts: Limited War to Free Kuwait Could Cut Casualties by Over Half,” Inside the Army, December 10, 1990, 11; “Air Strike on Iraq, the Favored Strategy, Means Big Risks for Both Sides,” New York Times, October 23, 1990, A10. For reported prewar Defense Department estimates, see, e.g., Lawrence Freedman and Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict, 1990–1991: Diplomacy and War in the New World Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 391; Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, The Generals’ War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995), 132–33, 174; U.S. News and World Report, Triumph without Victory (New York: Random House, 1992), 129, 141; Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 349; Tom Matthews, “The Secret History of the War,” Newsweek, March 18, 1991, 28 ff. 13. See, e.g., Samuel A. Stouffer, Arthur A. Lumsdaine, Marion Harper Lumsdaine, Robin M. Williams Jr., M. Brewster Smith, Irving L. Janis, Shirley A. Star, and Leonard S. Cottrell Jr., The American Soldier: Combat and Its Aftermath (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949); Edward Shils and Morris Janowitz, “Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II,” Public Opinion Quarterly 12, no. 2 (Summer 1948): 280–315; Charles Moskos, The American Enlisted Man: The Rank and File in Today’s Military (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1970); Omer Bartov, Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis and War in the Third Reich (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); John Lynn, The Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary France, 1791–94 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984); Richard Holmes, Acts of War: The Behavior of Men in Battle (New York: Free Press, 1986). For a review of this literature and an

Explaining Military Outcomes

223

analysis of recent evidence from the war in Iraq, see Leonard Wong, Thomas A. Kolditz, Raymond A. Millen, and Terrence M. Potter, Why They Fight: Combat Motivation in the Iraq War (Carlisle, Pa.: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2003). 14. See, especially, Emily O. Goldman and Leslie C. Eliason, eds., The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003); also Emily O. Goldman and Thomas G. Mahnken, eds., The Information Revolution in Military Affairs in Asia (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Stephen Biddle and Robert Zirkle, “Technology, Civil-Military Relations, and Warfare in the Developing World,” Journal of Strategic Studies 19, no. 2 ( June 1996): 171–212; João Resende-Santos, “Anarchy and Emulation of Military Systems: Military Organizations and Technology in South America, 1870–1930,” Security Studies 5, no. 3 (Spring 1996): 190–245; Paul Bracken, “Non-Standard Models of the Diff usion of Military Technologies,” Defense Analysis 14, no. 2 (August 1998): 101–14; Andrew L. Ross, “The Dynamics of Military Technology,” in David Dewitt, David Haglund, and John Kirton, eds., Building a New Global Order: Emerging Trends in International Security (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Pascal, Kennedy, and Rosen, Men and Arms in the Middle East; Pascal, “Are Third World Armies Third Rate?” 15. See, especially, Bracken, “Non-Standard Models of the Diff usion of Military Technologies.” Biddle and Zirkle, “Technology, Civil-Military Relations, and Warfare in the Developing World,” treats technology absorption as a cause of battlefield success but focuses chiefly on the causes of successful absorption rather than the causal logic of absorption as an independent variable. 16. See, e.g., Dan Reiter and Allan C. Stam, Democracies at War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), Chapter 3; Dan Reiter and Allan C. Stam, “The Soldier’s Decision to Surrender: Prisoners of War and World Politics,” presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., August 1997; Richard K. Betts, Military Readiness (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1995). 17. Exceptions being Biddle, Military Power; and Michael P. Fischerkeller, Wade P. Hinkle, and Stephen D. Biddle, “The Interaction of Skill and Technology in Combat,” Military Operations Research 7, no. 1 (2002): 39–56, from which much of the following analysis is derived. 18. For formal specifications of this argument, see Biddle, Military Power, appendix; also Fischerkeller, Hinkle, and Biddle, “The Interaction of Skill and Technology in Combat,” 41–42. 19. David C. Isby and Charles Kamps Jr., Armies of NATO’s Central Front (New York and London: Jane’s, 1985), 50–51, assuming four shots per minute. In 1991, U.S. tank crews attained fi ring rates of over 10 rounds per minute: Michael Krause, The Battle of 73 Easting, 26 February 1991 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center for Military History and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, August 27, 1991), 11–12; personal communication, Major H. R. McMaster, U.S. Army, September 8, 1995. 20. L. G. Starkey et al., Capabilities of Selected U.S. and Allied Antiarmor Weapon Systems (Alexandria, Va.: Weapon System Evaluation Group [WSEG], May 1975),

224 Stephen Biddle WSEG Report 263, declassified December 31, 1983, 35–36; Warren Olson, A Terrain Analysis of Four Tactical Situations (Aberdeen, Md.: U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Agency, 1972), AMSAA Technical Memorandum No. 158; Richard Simpkin, Race to the Swift: Thoughts on Twenty-First Century Warfare (New York: Brassey’s, 1985), 69. 21. Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, 1999, www.odci.gov/ cia/publications/factbook; Hans Essmann, “Land Use and Forest Policies to Enhance Biodiversity in Germany,” Finnish Forest Research Institute, www.metla .fi/conf/iufr095abs/d6pap104.htm. 22. CIA, The World Factbook. 23. media.maps.com/magellan/images/BAGHDA-W1.gif. 24. For examples, see the discussion under “Testing the Theory” later, and in Biddle, Military Power, Chapters 5–7. 25. Ian Hogg and John Weeks, Military Small Arms (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1981), 205, 210, 220. 26. W. J. Schultis et al., Comparison of Military Potential: NATO and Warsaw Pact (Alexandria, Va.: Weapon System Evaluation Group, June 1974), WSEG Report 238, declassified December 31, 1982, 65. 27. Deliberate, successful, fi repower-saturating “human wave” tactics are rare historically; most alleged examples reflect defenders’ flawed perception rather than attackers’ actual behavior. Even the Chinese in Korea relied heavily on infi ltration and flank attacks rather than merely throwing exposed forces at dug-in defenses frontally. Clay Blair, The Forgotten War (New York: Doubleday, 1988), 382; Max Hastings, The Korean War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), 335. 28. For a more systematic program of empirical and experimental testing, see Biddle, Military Power, Chapters 5–9. 29. Later I use German and Middle Eastern cases to test observable implications of a theory developed externally to the cases, rather than induced from them as in the literature described earlier. I also provide other case-method tests later (in Military Power, a different set of cases is complemented with large-n statistical analysis and experimental tests using a Defense Department simulation system). This reduces the risk of external invalidity in the results, relative to that created by taking the literature described earlier as a general theory of combat. Note also that German skills did not equally extend to the strategic level of war or to the politico-economic management of a war economy: see Russell F. Weigley, “The Political and Strategic Dimensions of Military Effectiveness,” in Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, eds., Military Effectiveness, vol. 3 (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1988), 341–64. As the theory described earlier is specified primarily in terms of battlefield outcomes rather than grand strategic or political outcomes, it is thus the Germans’ tactical abilities that are most germane for purposes of theory testing here. The larger question of the ability of military force to satisfy national political objectives may follow a similar pattern, however: that is, it may be that the political, economic, and strategic complexity of war has also grown over time, thus distinguishing the politically and strategically skilled from their contemporaries as well. This latter question, however, is beyond the scope of the current inquiry. For assessments of German battlefield skills, see, e.g., Weigley,

Explaining Military Outcomes

225

“The Political and Strategic Dimensions of Military Effectiveness”; Van Creveld, Fighting Power; DuPuy, A Genius for War. 30. By contrast, Russian casualty rates rose from 32.0 battle deaths per 1,000 soldiers per month in World War I to 38.2 in World War II (French and British rates are noncomparable because their land armies were idle for much of the nominal duration of their participation in World War II, yielding inconsistent denominators for the two wars): J. David Singer and Melvin Small, Correlates of War Project: International and Civil War Data, 1816–1992 (Computer File) (Ann Arbor: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, 1994) [henceforth, COW database]. Although the preceding argument is specified in terms of casualty rates per se, similar results obtain for rates of advance: the rates of advance yielded by German defenders fell by almost 60 percent between 1914 and 1945, even as the average rated speed of their opponents’ primary combat arms increased by over a factor of 10 (given an average road speed of 2.5 mph for a walking infantryman in 1914 and an average road speed for tanks of about 30 mph in 1945). Advance rates were taken from the U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency CDB90 database; for documentation, see Robert Helmbold, A Compilation of Data on Rates of Advance in Land Combat Operations, CAA-RP-90-04 (Bethesda, Md.: U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990). On advance rate trends generally, see Robert Helmbold, Rates of Advance in Historical Land Combat Operations, CAA-RP-90-1 (Bethesda, Md.: U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990), 4-5–4-18; also Leonard Wainstein, Major Front Movements and the Role of Armored Forces, IDA P-1784 (Alexandria, Va.: Institute for Defense Analyses, 1984). 31. See, e.g., Cordesman and Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, vol. 1; Luttwak and Horowitz, The Israeli Army, 1948–1973. 32. Casualty rates are derived from the COW database; for Israel, the derivation used mobilized strength as given in Larry H. Addington, The Patterns of War Since the Eighteenth Century (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994 [1984]), 303, rather than prewar active-duty military personnel, as given in COW. 33. Stephen Biddle, “The Past as Prologue: Assessing Theories of Future Warfare,” Security Studies 8, no. 1 (Fall 1998): Figure 5. 34. See, e.g., Cordesman and Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, vol. 1, 351–55; Herzog, The Arab-Israeli Wars (e.g., 152, 157, 159, 161). Prior to the 1973 war, Anwar Sadat undertook a military reform program aimed at professionalizing the Egyptian officer corps. Although this did not produce an army trained to Israeli standards, it did provide a major improvement over their skills prior to the 1970s. George W. Gawrych, “The Egyptian High Command in the 1973 War,” Armed Forces and Society 13, no. 4 (Summer 1987): 535–59. Also see Chapter 5 in this volume. 35. Casualty rates are derived from COW database. Data on rates of advance are less plentiful for the Mideast cases than for World War II (only 49 data points over four Mideast wars; there are 180 for German defenses in two wars) and display mixed results. The army’s CDB90 database provides no data for the 1948 war. In 1956, the Egyptian army yielded ground at an average rate of 27.2 km per day, which increased to 59.02 in 1967 but declined to 22.71 in 1973 following Sadat’s reforms. Data for Israeli advances against Syrian defenses are available for 1967 and 1973 (with a single data point for 1982). In 1967, the Syrians

226 Stephen Biddle yielded the Golan Heights in a single day’s fighting, producing an average rate of advance of 18.3 km per day for the participating units; this fell to 2.3 km per day for the Israeli counterattack in the Golan in 1973. The single data point for 1982 provides a rate of 12 km per day. (All advance-rate data are derived from the army CDB90 database.) The advance rate results for Egyptian opponents are thus broadly consistent with the theory’s predictions, although the 1973 case warrants careful attention, as argued in more detail later. The data for Israeli advance rates against Syrian defenses are inconsistent with the theoretical predictions stated in the text, although variations in the tactical circumstances of the two campaigns may account for some of the difference (i.e., in 1973, the Israeli advance took the form of a frontal counterattack following an extended and desperate defensive struggle over the same ground; in 1967, by contrast, the Israelis attacked what had been a mostly quiet front). Pending closer examination, however, it is unclear how much of the difference in results is attributable to this extraneous variation in tactical context. 36. On Egyptian operations in the 1973 war, see, e.g., Cordesman and Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, vol. 1, 14–116; Chaim Herzog, The War of Atonement, October 1973 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975). On Egyptian skills, see Gawrych, “The Egyptian High Command in the 1973 War.” 37. See Order of Battle, United States Army, World War II: European Theater of Operations, Divisions (Paris: Office of the Theater Historian, European Theater, 1945), 257–62, 278–88, 331–43. 38. Data on the 79th, 82nd, and 90th Divisions were drawn from unit records in the National Archives and Records Administration (hereinafter NARA). See NARA RG 338, Boxes 1148–53; RG 338, Boxes 16–20, 24; and RG 338, Boxes 1171–72 and RG 407, Box 427. The 82nd was originally formed as an infantry division but was converted to an airborne division soon after and then completed its full training syllabus without interruption. See Kent Roberts Greenfield, Robert R. Palmer, and Bill I. Wiley, United States Army in World War II, The Army Ground Forces: The Organization of Ground Combat Troops (Washington, D.C.: Historical Division, Department of the Army, 1947), 341. 39. See, e.g., “Additional Comments on 90th DIVISION D-1 MANEUVERS,” December 20–31, 1942. NARA RG 407, Box 427, Entry 13300. 40. Martin Blumenson, United States Army in World War II, The European Theater of Operations: Breakout and Pursuit (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1961), 60–77. 41. For a similar controlled cross-sectional case comparison drawn from the First World War, see Fischerkeller, Hinkle, and Biddle, “The Interaction of Skill and Technology in Combat,” 45–47. 42. Some models allow users to input discount factors that reduce combat performance in accordance with the user’s perception of a combatant’s skill, but this merely translates the user’s subjective judgment into an arbitrary reduction of effectiveness. It does not provide any endogenous deductive logic or empirical analysis of skill’s effects. For descriptions and assessments of official combat models, see, e.g., Biddle, Military Power, 16–17; Jerome Bracken, Moshe Kress, and Richard E. Rosenthal, eds., Warfare Modeling (Alexandria, Va.: Military Op-

Explaining Military Outcomes

227

erations Research Society, 1995); U. Candan, L. S. Dewald, and L. R. Speight, Present NATO Practice in Land Wargaming (The Hague: SHAPE Technical Center, 1987), STC-PP-252; Wayne Hughes, ed., Military Modeling (Alexandria, Va.: Military Operations Research Society, 1984); John Battilega and Judith Grange, eds., The Military Applications of Modeling (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio: Air Force Institute of Technology Press, 1984); James Taylor, Lanchester Models of Warfare, 2 vols. (Arlington, Va.: Operations Research Society of America, 1983); Alan F. Karr, “Lanchester Attrition Processes and Theater-Level Combat Models,” in Martin Shubik, ed., Mathematics of Conflict (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1983), 89–126; Francis P. Hoeber, Military Applications of Modeling: Selected Case Studies (New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1981), 132–53. 43. See, e.g., Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense Hearing on FY2004 Appropriations, FDCH Transcripts, May 14, 2003, 3; Paul Wolfowitz, Testimony on Iraq Reconstruction, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Thursday May 22, 2003, 2, 7; idem., Testimony on U.S. Military Presence in Iraq: Implications for Global Defense Posture, House Armed Services Committee, Wednesday June 18, 2003, 4–6; Tom Bowman, “Rumsfeld Taunting But Naysayers Persist,” Baltimore Sun, May 18, 2003; Sonni Efron, “Pentagon Officials Defend Iraq Battle Strategy,” Los Angeles Times, May 23, 2003; Esther Schrader, “Official Ties Iraq’s Troubles to U.S. Success,” Los Angeles Times, July 9, 2003; Jim Mannion, “Rumsfeld Rejects Case for Boosting Size of Army,” Washington Times, August 6, 2003; Rowan Scarborough, “Decisive Force Now Measured by Speed,” Washington Times, May 7, 2003; Usha Lee McFarling, “The Eyes and Ears of War,” Los Angeles Times, April 24, 2003; Terry McCarthy, “Whatever Happened to the Republican Guard?” Time, May 12, 2003; Max Boot, “The New American Way of War,” Foreign Affairs 82, no. 4 ( July/August 2003): 41–58. 44. For a more detailed discussion, see Stephen Biddle, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare (Carlisle, Pa.: U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute, 2002).

chapter

Conclusion

10

risa a. brooks

how do states create military power? This is the central question that motivates this study. We argue that the sources of military power are likely to be far more diverse, and embedded in broader social, institutional, and international forces, than conventional analyses of military capabilities often suggest. Military power emerges from political and social processes. Its creation is not simply a technical issue; nor is it solely a question of raw resources. The forces that allow states to generate military power from their resources are complex and originate in intangible features of state and society.

Toward a Richer Understanding of the Origins of Military Power Each of the prior chapters in this volume investigates a different cultural, social, institutional, or international “cause” of military effectiveness. The authors’ fi ndings offer a number of important insights into how states create military power. One set of insights has to do with how global pressures affect military effectiveness. There are good reasons, in fact, to expect that international forces might have a major influence on how states create military power. The realist tradition in international relations theory, for example, suggests states should be especially attuned to international stimuli in organizing their militaries. States have powerful incentives to ensure their militaries are competitive in their internal activities and are capable of making good use of their resources. Despite the appeal of realist logic, however, empirically, we have little insight into whether it accords with reality: do states’ militaries actually

Conclusion

229

respond to external stimuli as realists might expect? Emily Goldman, in her analysis of naval air power in Britain and the United States, seeks to fi nd out.1 She examines the way in which international pressures shaped military activity and effectiveness in the two states in the interwar period. She fi nds that when threat was low, it indeed undermined military effectiveness, as realists might expect. However, paradoxically, a high-threat environment did not necessarily translate into a more effective military. More important than the intensity of threat a state faces, she concludes, is the clarity of the challenge. Clearly defi ned threats mitigate uncertainty and help focus militaries’ organizational processes. Responsiveness to the external environment and internal constraints improves. Hence states that face a clear and present danger are the most capable of producing effective militaries. Theo Farrell suggests that the effects of international stimuli on effectiveness may be even more complex. States that face clearly defined threats can still get sidetracked as a result of global norms about the “appropriate” ways of organizing and structuring military activity. As Farrell demonstrates in his study of the early twentieth-century Irish Army, these norms may obscure objective realities about the best way for a particular military to organize against a specific adversary. They may reduce a military’s responsiveness to its own internal strengths and weaknesses and to the nature of its external challenger. This is especially likely in cases where the global norm contradicts the most functional way of tailoring military activity to a specific threat. Nora Bensahel suggests yet another set of obstacles to modifying military activity in response to an external threat. For her, the problem is less an inability to envision the best way to organize military activity but the political constraints that states face in doing so. These political challenges stem from needing to maintain unity within an alliance or coalition of states during a military operation. Many times states opt to join with others during military campaigns or wars. They may do so for a variety of reasons: to enhance resources, share the burden of defense, gain access to particular geographic areas, or because failing to do so would undermine the legitimacy of the action and jeopardize international and domestic support for it. Despite these benefits, allying with others can engender constraints on military activity. For example, Bensahel shows how during NATO’s intervention in the Bosnian civil war, efforts to maintain political unity within the alliance required a dual key system whereby both the NATO commander and UN officials had to approve air strikes. This trade-off in tactical efficiency was necessary to maintain overall military effectiveness: that is, to ensure the integration of tactical activity with political

230 Risa A. Brooks and strategic objectives (i.e., which involved working with allies), NATO had to accept some significant inefficiencies in how it provided close air support to the safe havens in Bosnia. A second set of insights concerns how internal features of states influence their military effectiveness. For example, in Chapter 5, I argue that a major cause of variation in autocratic states’ military effectiveness is their civil-military relations. Essential to my argument is the balance of power observed between the political leader and the officers that run the military on a daily basis. Where political and military leaders “share” power, such that both are competing for control of the armed forces, it exacerbates organizational pathologies within these autocratic militaries, as was evident in Egypt prior to its 1967 war with Israel: it increases incentives to rely on political criteria in promotions and appointments, thereby undermining the quality of leadership; it politicizes advisory forums and impairs strategic assessment; and it introduces convolutions into command and control as leaders compete over the right to authorize military activity. In contrast, when political leaders dominate, autocracies may not be altogether free of these pathologies, but the military enjoys important structural advantages in how it organizes and prepares for war. Accordingly, in my case study of Egypt in the 1973 war, I show how civil-military relations contributed to improvements in the country’s military effectiveness. Looking beyond civil-military relations, Tim Hoyt suggests that social structure also affects states’ military effectiveness. States whose societies are divided along ethnic or religious lines face special obstacles in organizing their militaries, especially when their regimes discriminate against particular groups. Specifically, Hoyt explores how efforts by Iraq’s former president, Saddam Hussein, to protect his regime from threats by the Kurds and majority Shia population predisposed him toward particular tactics in managing his military. He chose military leaders primarily from trusted groups, centralized command and control, and rationed training and weapons and equipment. In turn, by using these tactics he greatly limited the regime’s resource pool and introduced organizational pathologies into the Iraqi military. These weaknesses in military activity inhibited the military’s skill, integration, and responsiveness. Hoyt thus suggests that social structure can significantly constrain states’ abilities to maximize military effectiveness. Social and cultural forces, however, may also provide opportunities to political leaders in organizing for war. Dan Reiter, in his chapter on nationalism and the military in post-Meiji Japan, explores how prevailing cultural ideas and the state’s ability to capitalize on them enhanced mili-

Conclusion

231

tary effectiveness. Japan’s military leaders mobilized nationalist symbols and beliefs, infusing training and doctrine with these sentiments. Consequently, they were able to enhance their soldiers’ motivation “to fight and die,” as evident in their relatively high death tolls and low surrender rates in battles. Japan was also able to employ suicide tactics, enhancing the destructiveness of its military operations. In these ways, the country was able to bolster the skill of its military, by affecting motivation, and responsiveness, by tailoring its tactics to its own and adversaries’ strengths and weaknesses. However, Reiter also observes that using nationalism to increase motivation had a downside. It may have reduced Japan’s adversaries’ willingness to surrender their forces. His analysis suggests that cultural constructs, like nationalism, have mixed implications for military effectiveness. States’ political institutions can also have mixed effects on military effectiveness. Deborah Avant, for example, shows how constitutional arrangements in democracies affect military effectiveness, through their influence on civilian oversight and military accommodation to civilian authority. She argues that the United States with its constitutional separation of the legislature and executive allows the military the autonomy to develop and refi ne internal regimens that enhance the skill of its personnel; at the same time its autonomy allows it to resist civilian initiatives and responsiveness to external threats. In contrast, the parliamentary system in Britain, and the unity between the executive and legislature it engenders, tends to facilitate responsiveness and integration as the military anticipates civilian preferences; at the same time, the skill of its personnel suffers. Like Bensahel’s and Reiter’s chapters, Avant’s study raises important issues about trade-offs and tensions in military effectiveness. A third set of insights comes from Stephen Biddle’s chapter. Each of the preceding chapters explores a different cause of military effectiveness. Biddle, in turn, moves down the causal chain and shows how military effectiveness affects outcomes in war. Focusing primarily on one particular attribute—skill—he analyzes whether differences in states’ military effectiveness have a significant impact on their propensity to succeed in major wartime battles. Analyzing differences in the effectiveness of German and Allied forces in key battles during the First World War, he fi nds that, independent of basic resources, variation in a state’s effectiveness does affect its propensity for victory. Biddle thus demonstrates the importance of effectiveness in anticipating victory and defeat in battles. He shows why studying military effectiveness is vital if we are truly to understand the devastating phenomenon of war.

232 Risa A. Brooks

The Future Study of Military Effectiveness As rich as we hope readers will fi nd this book, we also hope it will not be fully satisfying: we hope it answers some questions but also raises many more. In the text, we analyze a variety of social, political, and other sources of military effectiveness. Yet a wealth of potential causes and research questions remain to be investigated. A great deal remains to be known, for example, about how institutions not explored in this book affect military effectiveness, such as the economic structures involved in supplying weapons and services to military organizations. How, for example, does the degree of state versus private sector ownership and control of military procurement affect military effectiveness? Are militaries that rely heavily on private companies for logistical and other support systems better or worse at ensuring the responsiveness and integration of their military activities relative to those that foreswear privatization? 2 We might also benefit from further study of the effects of political institutions on military effectiveness. In this volume Deborah Avant explores the effects of variation in the constitutional arrangements of democracies on effectiveness. Yet how do differences in authoritarian states’ institutions, such as the presence of strong single-party systems that might counterbalance military influence, affect how states organize military activity? What other differences among authoritarian regimes might matter for their military effectiveness? More also remains to be known about the other categories of “causes” explored in this book, such as culture. What influence, for example, do the unique organizational cultures of some armed forces or military services have on military effectiveness? More broadly, we might probe into other aspects of states’ cultural heritages. How, for example, do societal beliefs and values about military service and citizenship affect states’ abilities to mobilize and motivate soldiers and therefore the skill of their militaries? Other norms might also be fruitfully explored. How, for example, do normative conceptions of “appropriate” civil-military relations affect states’ military effectiveness? Take Samuel Huntington’s concept of military professionalism and the widely held belief that there should be a division of labor between political and military leaders in strategic and operational/tactical decision making during wartime. Does such a division of labor promote effectiveness, as Huntington contends, or does it undermine it as Eliot Cohen implies? 3 Finally, there is an array of unanswered questions related to social structure and military effectiveness. What obstacles do societies that are

Conclusion

233

highly stratified along class lines face in maximizing skill and integration? 4 How does prejudice within larger societies affect military effectiveness? For example, how did the historical reluctance of the United States to integrate African Americans into the armed forces affect the capacity to realize the potential of its human resources and maximize the skill of its military—measured in terms of technical ability and motivation? How does its wariness to allow women to serve in frontline combat roles affect the contemporary army’s skill? Does it promote it by protecting unit cohesion, as some analysts contend, or does it limit it by reducing the service’s resource pool? These are complex and controversial questions no doubt, but they serve to illustrate the benefits of thinking more expansively about how social, cultural, and other factors influence military effectiveness. In addition to expanding research into additional sources of effectiveness, we should engage in more sophisticated analysis of those we have begun to study. For example, some causes of effectiveness may interact or affect one another. We need a better understanding of those relationships. Other causes may prove especially powerful in explaining military effectiveness. For example, the presence or absence of a clearly defi ned threat could prove the single most important determinant of military effectiveness, as Emily Goldman’s chapter in this volume potentially suggests. Or, consistent with Theo Farrell’s argument, global norms about the appropriate way to organize an army may regularly override functional imperatives, inducing states to undertake military activity in ways poorly suited to their own resources and external environments. As these examples suggest, we need to develop more advanced theories and tests that adjudicate among different causes of military effectiveness.

Implications of the Analysis This book has a number of implications for scholars and for practitioners. I discuss these next. schola r ly i m plications Especially important for scholars, this project illuminates the nature of military power, which is arguably the most important explanatory variable in international relations theory.5 States’ capabilities and their calculations of military power are the major cause of state strategy in a range of analytical traditions, from power-transition theories to realist conceptions of confl ict. Even for those reluctant to concede the centrality of military power in shaping state behavior, states’ material, military-based capabilities remain the reference point—the default explanatory variable—against

234 Risa A. Brooks which these theories nevertheless often measure themselves. For this reason, understanding the basis of that power and how to measure it is critical. In the past we have relied on relatively unsophisticated conceptions of military power in developing and evaluating theories. Assessments of military power have often been based on untested intuitions rather than a solid understanding of how states actually create power on the battlefield; measures of military power are often limited to rough data on raw resources such as gross national product (GNP), personnel, and technological and industrial resources. As such, analysts often rely on measures of potential power and ignore the military organization’s ability to realize the promise of those resources. The actual ability to translate resources into fighting power—military effectiveness—is neglected, conceptually and empirically. In emphasizing effectiveness, as well as resources, this book provides the starting point for developing more comprehensive, and potentially accurate, methods for measuring military power. This can potentially improve the evaluation of theories and estimation of models in which “power” is a key variable. A second implication of this book for scholars lies in its insights for strategic assessment. Studying military effectiveness can help explain why leaders sometimes misjudge their own or their opponents’ military capabilities. If effectiveness—in addition to resources—is crucial to estimates of capabilities, then failures to incorporate measures of effectiveness could lead to fundamental miscalculations of military power. In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, as I note in Chapter 1, many observers vastly overestimated the capability of Iraqi forces and therefore the anticipated coalition costs of fighting the war, in part because the intangible factors that inhibited the Iraqi military’s effectiveness were ignored. Similarly, when leaders neglect these weaknesses in their own militaries, they risk overestimating their states’ capabilities, as for example, Egypt did prior to the June 1967 ArabIsraeli war.6 Hence highlighting effectiveness may explain the reasons why leaders sometimes miscalculate their own military strengths and adopt destabilizing strategies in interstate confl icts.7 Beyond promoting more complete assessments of capabilities, analyzing military effectiveness may also shed light on another key subject of strategic assessment. It may reveal information about leaders’ preferences (i.e., their intentions, goals, and interests) in interstate relations. Knowing about how a state structures and invests in different organizational activities can reveal a great deal about how and against whom it intends to use those resources. For example, coalition estimates of Iraqi capabilities prior to the 1991 Gulf War that highlighted the number of personnel and the size of Iraq’s arsenal might have suggested that Saddam Hussein sought to maxi-

Conclusion

235

mize Iraq’s military power in regional affairs. But the fact that he refused to train his military personnel in urban warfare and suppressed initiative among junior officers suggests rather that he aimed to protect his regime primarily from internal adversaries and only secondarily from external enemies. By providing tools with which to analyze military effectiveness and the investments states make in different military activities, we gain capacity not only to assess capabilities but to evaluate interests or resolve. policy i m plications Finally the analysis has several practical insights for the defense community. First, it has vital implications for how we measure military power and anticipate outcomes in war. As I detail in Chapter 1, most models in military-related operations research emphasize material resources in estimating relative power and battlefield outcomes. These models can be very sophisticated in how they incorporate the technical characteristics of weapons systems and estimate how those weapons will perform and affect outcomes when engaged on the battlefield. However, they treat in a much less sophisticated and more idiosyncratic manner certain factors—such as the training and education of personnel, the quality of military leaders, integrity of command and control, and nature of doctrine—that determine the way in which a tactical unit actually employs those weapons and whether it can realize the potential of the technology.8 Ultimately, this places inordinate weight on one determinate of military power— material resources—while neglecting another, effectiveness, or how those resources are used. This book suggests effectiveness and the factors that determine it demand greater attention in estimates of capabilities and battlefield outcomes. This book also has important implications for current policy debates about U.S. defense priorities and budgets. Analyses of defense transformation, in particular, are increasingly focused on technology and other material factors in prioritizing investment, often neglecting intangibles such as enhancing training and military education. Policy decisions informed by such approaches are consequently likely to overspend on modernization and force structure and to underspend on readiness and factors that affect force employment. By systematically examining the sources of states’ military effectiveness, this book sheds light on a more appropriate mix of spending that includes, along with research and development and modernization, such elements as training and education that are essential for creating an effective military force. More specifically, among the vital lessons of this book is that investment in people is critical to military effectiveness. Maximizing effectiveness depends on a military’s capacity to produce well-trained, educated, and

236 Risa A. Brooks experienced officers and enlisted personnel. It also means that keeping those individuals is vital. For the United States, this means we should continue to think creatively about how to retain trained and experienced personnel in the military services. To enhance personnel retention we might, for example, continue to rethink the military career system. Currently the rank structure limits how many people can be promoted. In turn, the up-or-out system means that if individuals are not promoted they are lost to civilian life. For the U.S. Army, for example, this means the service must regularly recruit large numbers of new soldiers to replace those who are not promoted. Lengthening the up-or-out system would allow the army to keep trained personnel longer and, overall, add years to the average age of personnel in the service. We can also encourage retention by make military life more comfortable for families. Mundane considerations like the quality of housing and on-post amenities can be important considerations in reenlistment decisions. Related to this, we can try and reduce change of station turbulence by lengthening tours of duty or making it easier for personnel to stay at the same base or geographic location when they change jobs. Although these proposals are expensive and administratively complex, they are worthy of consideration in any conversation about how to promote military effectiveness. In sum, this book raises an array of issues for both scholars and policy analysts. Accordingly, we hope it spurs further interest in studying military effectiveness and that it provides a useful starting point—rather than a final statement—in this effort.

Notes 1. Also see João Resende-Santos, “Anarchy and Emulation of Military Systems: Military Organizations and Technology in South America, 1870–1930,” Security Studies 5, no. 3 (Spring 1996): 190–204. 2. On precisely these issues, see Eugene Gholz, “The Military-Industrial Complex and Military Effectiveness,” unpublished paper, March 2004. 3. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957). Eliot Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (New York: Free Press, 2002). 4. On class issues in India’s colonial armies, see Stephen Peter Rosen, Societies and Military Power: India and Its Armies (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996).

Conclusion

237

5. On this point, see Biddle, Military Power, 191. 6. On Egypt’s overestimating its capabilities, see Risa Brooks, Shaping Strategy: The Civil-Military Politics of Strategic Assessment, unpublished manuscript, 2006; Janice Gross Stein, “Intelligence and Stupidity,” Journal of Strategic Studies 3 (1980): 147–77. 7. Contemporary scholarship in international relations highlights the dangers of such miscalculations. Bargaining models of warfare, in particular, highlight the effects of expectations about a state’s military power on the strategies it adopts in interstate disputes. Where states misread their own or others’ actual ability to generate military power—their military effectiveness—they may be more prone to overestimate their military strengths. Hence an accurate understanding of what factors affect a state’s capacity to generate power in war is critical for states to avoid such miscalculations. For example, see Harrison R. Wagner, “Bargaining and War,” American Journal of Political Science 44, no. 3 ( July 2000): 469–84; James D. Fearon, “Rationalist Explanations for War,” International Organization 49 (Summer 1995): 379–414; Dan Reiter, “Exploring the Bargaining Model of War,” Perspectives on Politics 1, no. 1 (2003): 27–43. On miscalculation of military capabilities, see also Geoff rey Blainey, The Causes of War (London: Macmillan, 1973). 8. See, e.g., the discussion in Biddle, Military Power, 17–18.

Index

Page numbers in italics refer to figures and tables. Adams, Sam, 94 Afghanistan, 169, 198, 201, 219 Aideed, Mohammed, 193 Air Tasking Orders, in Kosovo War, 198 al-Bu Nassar tribe, 68 alliances: capability aggregation model for, 187– 90, 196– 97, 204n17; culture and, 200; defi nition of, 187, 203nn4–5; doctrines for, 199–200; effectiveness and, 229–30; factors affecting, 189, 199–200; integration and, 187, 190– 92, 194– 99; intelligence and, 197– 99; management of, 189; polarity and, 161, 181n25; politics and, 190, 200–201; resource availability for, 195; responsiveness and, 187, 192– 93, 198– 99; skill and, 187, 194, 196– 97, 199; state power and, 188–89, 203n7; strategic command and control and, 190– 93; tactical command and control and, 194– 99, 205n34; technology and, 195– 96, 200; training for, 199–200; weapons systems and, 200 Allison, Graham, 101n2 Amer, Abdel Hakim, 117–23, 132–33n26 antitank weapon, range of, 215 An t-Óglách, 147–48 Appointments/assignments: in autocratic states, 109; civil-military relations and, 88, 93, 107, 109, 111, 113–14; doctrine and, 93; effectiveness and, 9, 21; in Egyptian military, 118, 121, 127; ethnicity and, 56–57; integration and, 21; in Iraqi military, 66, 68, 131n16; leadership and, 21; to liaison teams, 195; political

cost of, 88, 93; promotions and, 93; responsiveness and, 21; shared power and, 107; skill and, 21; state power and, 107; in U.S. military, 236 Arab Cold War, 132n20 Arab-Israeli war (1948), 215, 216, 225–26n35 Arab-Israeli war (1956), 121, 128, 215, 216 Arab-Israeli war (1967): advance rates in, 225–26n35; casualty rates in, 215, 216; civil-military relations and, 107– 9, 116–23, 132n20; command and control in, 120–21; integration in, 119, 121; intelligence in, 122, 133–34n46; leadership in, 121–22; Soviet Union and, 116, 119; strategic assessment in, 118–19, 122; UN peacekeeping forces and, 116, 119 Arab-Israeli war (1973): advance rates in, 225–26n35; casualty rates in, 215, 216; civil-military relations and, 107– 9, 117, 122–28; command and control in, 126–27; integration in, 125–26, 129; intelligence on, 125, 135n66; leadership in, 127–28; responsiveness in, 125, 127–29; skill in, 14, 128, 216; strategic assessment in, 124–25, 128; studies prior to, 128, 135n76; technology and, 211 Arab militaries: effectiveness of, 33, 109; expenditures on, 77n11; skill of, 210. See also specifi c countries Archer, Liam, 157n81 Argentina, equipment for, 152 Army Research Institute, U.S., 220n4 atomic bombs, 42

240 Index Attu Island, 40, 41 Australian military, 186, 198, 202n3 autocracy: appointments in, 109; civilmilitary relations in, 107–15, 129, 131n10; effectiveness and, 130n5, 230; integrated strategies in, 131n12; promotions in, 109 Avant, Deborah, Political Institutions, 80–101, 231 Ayoob, Mohammed, 77n11 Ba’athist Party, 58, 60– 76 balance-of-threat theory, 161– 62, 180n10 bandwagoning, 203n6 Bantu tribes, 98 bargaining models, 237n7 Barnett, Michael, 139 Bartov, Omer, 5 Bataan, 52n77 battle line, naval, 168, 182n41 Belgium: Schlieffen Plan and, 10–11; U-boat bases in, 168 Bensahel, Nora, International Alliances, 186–202, 229–30 Biddle, Stephen: on civil-military relations, 6; Explaining Military Outcomes, 207–20, 231; on Iraqi military skills, 12; on military power studies, 3; on technology, 26n26 bipolar systems, 160– 61, 163, 180n5, 181n22 Boer War, 98–100 Book of Five Rings, 36 Bosnia, 192– 95, 201, 204n28, 212 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros, 192 Brazil, equipment for, 152 British military: alliance interoperability in, 186, 202n3; in Boer War, 98–100; budgets for, 166– 69, 183n49; Cardwell reforms and, 96, 104n42; civilian relations with, 96–101, 104n40, 108– 9, 166– 69, 179; after Civil War, 104n40; doctrines of, 91, 97–100, 167– 68, 182n44; education programs, 97, 104n40; “eight-eight” plan and, 175; equipment for, 97–100, 159, 166– 72, 179, 182n36, 183n51, 183n55, 183n57, 183n60; functions of, 96– 97, 170; German military and, 168, 170, 182n41; “gunnery” bias in, 167; integration in, 80, 101, 169, 179; in interwar period, 158–59, 166– 69,

171– 72, 175, 182n44; Irish military and, 137, 142–45, 148–50, 155n36; in Malaya, 91; professionalism in, 96; promotions in, 97; Prussian military and, 100; quality in, 166– 68, 170– 71, 179; responsiveness of, 80, 97– 98, 100, 101, 166– 68, 170, 179; Shi’a Muslims in Iraq and, 61; SIPRNET access by, 198; skill of, 97– 98, 101; strategic assessment by, 168– 69; tactics of, 98–100, 168; on technology, 136; “10-year rule” for, 169, 183n49; threat and, 166– 72, 179; uniforms for, 99, 105n51; weapons systems for, 97–100; in World War I, 100, 108– 9, 166– 68; in World War II, 41, 159, 166, 167, 170, 172, 225n30 Brooks, Risa A.: Civil-Military Relations, 106–29, 230; on future studies, 232–33; The Impact of Culture, Society, Institutions, and International Forces, 1–22; on implications of analysis, 233–36; on origins of military power, 228–31 Brooks, Vince, 25n24 budgets: for British military, 166– 69, 183n49; civil-military relations and, 83, 85; for Irish military, 144, 146, 150; quality and, 164, 165; responsiveness and, 164; “10-year rule” for, 169, 183n49; threat and, 164, 164; for U.S. military, 87–89 Buller, Redvers, 99 Bundeswehr, 31, 32 Burma, 42 bushido code, 36, 38, 39, 42, 45 Byman, Dan, 157n81 Canadian UN peacekeepers, 192, 193 capability aggregation model, 187– 90, 196– 97 Cardwell reforms, 96, 104n42 “carrier battle groups,” 183n51 casualty rates: in Arab-Israeli wars, 215, 216; in Persian Gulf War, 47, 211; skill and, 208– 9, 214–18; in World War I, 215, 225n30; in World War II, 215, 217, 225n30 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 90, 92– 93, 94 Chile, equipment for, 152 China: British interests in, 169; Korea, tactics in, 224n27; Sino-Japanese War

Index (1894– 95), 37, 38, 44; Sino-Japanese War (1931–45), 38–39, 41, 45; terrain of, 212; unification of, 176; U.S. interests in, 175 Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDG), 92– 93 civil-military relations: appointments and, 88, 93, 107, 109, 111, 113–14; ArabIsraeli wars and, 107– 9, 116–28, 132n20; in autocratic states, 107–15, 129, 131n10; budgets and, 83, 85; in Cold War, 88–89; command and control and, 20, 81–86, 111, 112–13; in democratic states, 81–86, 108; in divided institutional settings, 81–84; doctrines and, 84; education and, 85; effectiveness and, 9, 80, 85, 106– 7, 110–15, 230–31; in Egypt, 107– 9, 115–29; in Germany, 106; in Indonesia, 108; institutional model of, 81–86, 101n1, 102n10; integration and, 84–86, 85, 164, 181n28, 231; intelligence and, 84–85, 85; in Iraq, 6, 55– 76, 131n10; in Ireland, 146; morale and, 84; NVA and, 6; in parliamentary systems, 81–82, 85; planning and, 84, 110; players in, 131n11; polarity of systems and, 160– 61; in presidential systems, 81–84; professionalism and, 84, 85; professional military organizations and, 84; promotions and, 83, 85, 87, 97, 111, 113–14; quality and, 85; 85–86, recruitment and, 85; regime type and, 6, 130n5, 131n10; responsiveness and, 84–86, 85, 231; skill and, 85, 85–86, 231; state power and, 86, 106– 7, 110–15; strategic assessment and, 19, 85, 107, 110–14; technology and, 131n10; threat and, 158– 60, 163– 65, 164, 165, 231; training and, 83, 85; in U.K., 96–101, 104n40, 108– 9, 166– 69, 179; in unified institutional settings, 81–82, 85; in U.S., 86– 95, 100–101, 173; in Vietnam, 6, 131n10; weapons systems and, 84, 85 Civil War, American, 31, 50n24, 140–41 Civil War, English, 104n40 Civil War, Irish, 142, 148 class/caste, 6, 104n40, 140 Clausewitz, Carl von, 27 coalition, 203n5. See also alliances cognitive standards, 16 Cohen, Eliot, 106, 232 cohesion, 5, 48n2, 141. See also primary group dynamics

241

Cold War: civil-military relations in, 88–89; doctrines in, 88– 90; German military in, 31, 32; military related Operations Research in, 5– 6; NATO and, 194, 205n35; planning in, 89; U.S. military in, 88– 90, 92 colonialism: ethnic confl icts and, 56, 77n6; military organization and, 140; quality and, 171 command and control: alliances and, 190– 99, 205n34; in Arab-Israeli wars, 120–21, 126–27; civil-military relations and, 20, 81–86, 111, 112–13; effectiveness and, 9; ethnicity and, 58; integration and, 20, 21, 114, 190– 92, 194– 96; in Iraqi military, 66– 68, 71– 74; responsiveness and, 20, 21, 192– 93; rigidity in, 83; shared power and, 107, 112; skill and, 21, 194, 196– 97; strategic, 20, 112–13, 190– 93; tactical, 21, 194– 99, 205n34 commissions, purchase of, 96, 104n40, 140 Committee on Imperial Defense (CID), 100, 169 competition, interstate, 9, 17 compromise, 81–82 concentration, 72 Concepts Analysis Agency, 24n14 confl ict, spectrum of, 220n2 conscription: vs. career military, 30; into Iraqi military, 60– 65, 69– 70; nationalism and, 49n13; warfare norms and, 139. See also recruitment containment doctrine, 88, 98 conventional warfare norms: applicability of, 141; capital expenditures and, 139–40, 152; in Civil War, 140–41; codification of, 140–41; conscription and, 139; doctrines and, 138, 141; education and, 141; effectiveness and, 143, 229; identity and, 141; integration and, 138; international law and, 140–41, 154n23; operational-level activity and, 138; organizations based on, 139–41, 151–52; origins of, 138, 140; planning and, 138; in politics, 146; procurement and, 138; quality and, 138; responsiveness and, 137–38; skill and, 138; threat and, 162, 229; training and, 138, 141, 147; weapons systems and, 139, 141 Corregidor, 41 Costello, Michael, 149

242 Index counterinsurgency, 90– 95, 99–100 Craig, Gordon, 30 culture: alliances and, 200; constructivism and, 136–37; defi nition of, 16, 26n28, 31; effectiveness and, 9, 16; global norms and, 136, 138; institutional structure and, 102n10; military, 32; nationalism and, 28–29; new institutionalism theories on, 101n1; roles of, 28–29; social structure and, 26n30; standards of, 16 Dayan, Moshe, 116 Defence Plans Division, 148–49 Defense Intelligence Agency, 94 defensive realist theory, 160– 62, 180n9 delegation, 81, 84, 101n1 democracy: civil-military relations in, 81–86, 108; delegation in, 81, 84; initiative and, 32; in Japan, 45; morale and, 32; nationalism and, 30; suicide tactics and, 34 discipline, 5, 32; initiative and, 32 doctrines: for alliances, 199–200; appointments and, 93; of British military, 91, 97–100, 167– 68, 182n44; civil-military relations and, 84; in Cold War, 88– 90; containment, 88, 98; on counterinsurgency, 91– 92; defi nition of, 141; effectiveness and, 5, 143; of Egyptian military, 14; ethnic confl icts and, 57; flexible response, 89; human resources and, 14; integration and, 143; of Irish military, 138, 143, 148–51, 157n79; of Japanese military, 182n44; Massive Retaliation, 89– 90; modification of, 11; in MOR models, 6; procurement and, 10; responsiveness and, 143, 164; threat and, 84, 163, 164; training and, 14; of U.S. military, 87– 95, 176– 78, 182n44; warfare norms and, 138, 141 Dulles, John Foster, 90 economics: capability and, 219; effectiveness and, 17; institutional, 17; preparedness vs. prosperity, 161, 162; state power and, 22n4 education: in British military, 97, 104n40; civil-military relations and, 85; defi nition of, 22; discrimination and, 75– 76; effectiveness and, 5, 9; ethnicity and, 58; global norms and, 139; integration and,

22; of Iraqi military, 69– 71; in Japan, 37, 39; motivation and, 12; nationalism and, 31, 37, 39; responsiveness and, 22; skill and, 22; standards for, 84; symbolism in, 31–32; threat and, 165; in U.S. military, 87– 90; warfare norms and, 141. See also training effectiveness: attributes of, 10–15; causes of, 9, 15–22; criteria for, 6–8, 24– 25nn19–21, 25n24; defi nition of, 3, 8, 9; framework for studying, 9; in historical narratives, 7–8; measurement of, 9–10, 219; in political science studies, 7 efficiency, 229–30 Egypt: in “Arab Cold War,” 132n20; civilmilitary relations in, 107– 9, 115–29; Egyptian-Israeli War of Attrition (1969– 70), 124; military (see Egyptian military); Nasser’s leadership of, 116–23, 132n19; Sadat’s leadership of, 117, 123– 27, 132n19, 134n51, 225n34 Egyptian-Israeli War of Attrition (1969– 70), 124 Egyptian military: age of officers in, 132n20; appointments in, 118, 121, 127; in Arab-Israeli war (1948), 215, 216; in Arab-Israeli war (1956), 121, 215, 216, 225n35; in Arab-Israeli war (1967), 107– 9, 116–23, 132n20, 133–34n46, 215, 216, 225n35; in Arab-Israeli war (1973), 14, 107– 9, 117, 124–29, 215–16, 216, 225n35; assignments in, 127; civilian relations with, 107– 9, 115–29; doctrines of, 14; in Egyptian-Israeli War of Attrition (1969– 70), 124; promotions in, 118, 121, 127; skill of, 14, 128, 216, 225n34; training of, 14, 120 82nd Airborne Division, U.S. Army, 216–18, 226n38 Elman, Colin, 180n10 escort carriers, 183n51 Eshkol, Levi, 116 ethnic confl icts: colonialism and, 56, 77n6; cost/benefit analysis of, 31; doctrines and, 57; nationalism and, 28, 31, 56; symbols and, 31; training and, 57 executive-legislative systems, 81–84 Eyre, Dana, 141 Farrell, Theo, Global Norms, 136–52, 229, 233

Index fast fleet carriers, 183n51 Fawzi, Mohammed, 120–21 Fedayeen, 61, 68, 70, 72, 74 Field Army Command, 120–21 Finer, Samuel, 110, 131n13 fl ags, 30, 31, 50n24 flexible response doctrine, 89 force development activities, 10 force structures, 137 Foreign Area Officer, 205n40 France: in interwar period, 169; military (see French military); nationalism in, 30; Schlieffen Plan and, 10–11 French military: in Napoleonic Wars, 30; NATO intelligence and, 206n47; in Operation Allied Force, 193; in Persian Gulf War, 194; UN peacekeeping forces from, 192; in World War II, 210, 225n30 Gamasy, Mohamed el-, 121, 135n82 Geertz, Clifford, 31 Gellner, Ernest, 28 George, Lloyd, 108– 9 German military: British military and, 168, 170, 182n41; civilian relations with, 106; in Cold War, 31, 32; equipment for, 170, 172; planning by, 10–11, 19; skill of, 210, 224n29, 231; in World War I, 168, 215, 225n30; in World War II, 34, 47, 170, 210, 215, 225n30 Germany: civil-military relations in, 106; Great Depression in, 38; Holocaust in, 49n13; in interwar period, 169; militarism in, 30; military (see German military); nationalism in, 32, 49n13; terrain of, 212 Gilbert Islands, 178 Glaser, Charles, 160 Golan Heights battle (1982), 226n35 Goldman, Emily O., International Competition, 158– 79, 229, 233 Gray, Colin, 136 Great Depression, 38 Guadalcanal, 41, 42 guerrilla warfare, 154n23 Gulf War. See Persian Gulf War (1991) gyokusai, 40 Hague Convention, 140–41, 154n23 Haiti, 195, 197 Hamdani, Raad Al-, 78n51

243

Handrin, Mount, 62 Harkins, Paul, 93 Hashemite monarchy, 59, 62, 66, 70 Hawker Hart, 171 Henderson, William Darryl, 48n2 HERO data set, 24n14 Hitler, Adolf, 32 Holsti, Ole, 188–89 Hone, Thomas, 174 Hopmann, Terrence, 188–89 Howze Board Report, 92 Hoyt, Timothy D., Social Structure, Ethnicity, 55– 76, 230 Hughes, Charles Evans, 173 “human wave” tactic, 128, 224n27 Huntington, Samuel, 84, 89– 90, 106, 232 Hussein, Qusay, 70, 72 Hussein, Saddam: bodyguards for, 63; family of, 61, 68, 71– 72; hometown of, 68; on Iran-Iraq War, 63; management practices of, 58, 66– 68, 71, 131n16, 230; objectives of, 234–35; strategic assessment by, 130n5; Tikrit tribes and, 61, 66, 68 Hussein, Uday, 70, 72 identity: formation of, 100–101; of irregular combatants, 154n23; nationalism and, 56; warfare norms and, 141 India: British interests in, 169; military, 6, 152 Indian military, 6, 152 Indonesia, civil-military relations in, 108 initiative, 5, 32–33. See also motivation institutional model, 81–86, 101n1, 102n10 integration: alliances and, 187, 190– 92, 194– 99; in Arab-Israeli wars, 119, 121, 125–26, 129; assignments and, 21; in British military, 80, 101, 169, 179; civilmilitary relations and, 84–86, 85, 164, 181n28, 231; command and control and, 20, 21, 114, 190– 92, 194– 96; defensive capabilities and, 163; defi nition of, 2, 10, 190; discrimination and, 76; doctrines and, 143; education and, 22; in an effective military, 10–11, 15; ethnicity and, 56, 58; intelligence and, 20–21, 197– 99; internal monitoring and, 20; in Iraqi military, 66– 69, 71– 74; in Irish military, 138, 143, 151; leadership and, 114–15; offensive capabilities and, 180n9; polarity

244 Index of systems and, 160; procurement and, 20, 143; promotions and, 21; recruitment and, 21; shared power and, 107; strategic assessment and, 19, 114, 165; strategic command and control and, 20, 190– 92; tactical command and control and, 21, 194– 96; threat and, 159– 60, 163– 65, 164, 165; training and, 22; in U.S. military, 89– 90, 101, 173, 179; warfare norms and, 138 intelligence: alliances and, 197– 99; on Arab-Israeli wars, 122, 125, 133–34n46, 135n66; civil-military relations and, 84–85, 85; costly signaling theory and, 180n7; defi nition of, 20; effectiveness and, 9; integration and, 20–21, 197– 99; in Iraq War, 198; Irish military, 144–46, 150–51; in Kosovo War, 197; in Persian Gulf War, 197; in realist theory, 161, 162; responsiveness and, 20, 198; threat assessment by, 84, 85, 162; U.S. military, 90, 135n66, 197– 98; in Vietnam War, 90 international law, warfare norms and, 140–41, 154n23 international organizations, 9, 18 Iran, 60, 63. See also Persia Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), 12, 57–58, 60, 62– 76, 131n16 Iraq: Ba’athist Party, 58, 60– 76; Baghdad, area of, 212; British rule of, 61, 62; civilmilitary relations in, 6, 55– 76, 131n10; Hashemite monarchy, 59, 62, 66, 70; Kurds in, 55, 58– 65, 70; military (see Iraqi military); military rule of, 59– 60, 62; in Ottoman Empire, 61; Shi’a Muslims in, 55, 58, 60– 71, 73; Sunni Muslims in, 55, 57– 76 Iraqi military: assignments in, 66, 68, 131n16; Ba’athist Party and, 62; command and control in, 66– 68, 71– 74; command of, 61, 68, 70, 72– 73, 78n51, 79n67; composition of, 58, 60– 76, 74; conscription into, 60– 65, 69– 70; defections/desertion from, 62, 64, 65, 70; education of, 69– 71; equipment for, 60– 61, 63, 65, 69– 71; establishment of, 74; ethnicity and, 55– 76; Fedayeen, 61, 68, 70, 72, 74; functions of, 63, 65, 74; integration in, 66– 69, 71– 74; in IranIraq War, 12, 57–58, 60, 62– 76, 131n16; in Iraq War, 25n24, 65, 70, 73, 219;

morale in, 64– 65; mutinies, 61; pay/ privileges of, 69; Persian Gulf War and, 4, 33, 60– 61, 63– 65, 73, 234–35; political officers in, 72; Popular Army, 60, 62, 70, 72– 73, 74, 77n19, 79n67; promotions in, 58, 60, 66– 69, 131n16; quality in, 65, 70; recruitment in, 67; Republican Guard, 25n24, 60– 73, 74, 78n51, 219; reservist obligation to, 62; responsiveness of, 61– 64, 71– 75; roles of, 61; Rumsfeld on, 25n24; security oversight of, 66; size of, 62, 63, 74, 77n19; skill of, 12, 64– 65, 69– 71, 209; Special Republican Guard, 61, 65, 68, 70, 72, 74; Special Security Organization, 72, 74; structure of, 63, 65, 68, 71– 73; training of, 12, 60– 61, 63, 67, 69– 72 Iraq War (2003): intelligence in, 198; Iraqi military in, 25n24, 65, 70, 73, 219; legitimacy of, 206n54; U.S. military in, 198, 201, 219. See also Operation Iraqi Freedom Ireland: civil-military relations in, 146; government of, 145–46, 148; IRA, 142–43, 147; military (see Irish military); War of Independence, 142 Irish military: British military and, 137, 142–45, 148–50, 155n36; budgets for, 144, 146, 150; civilian relations with, 146; development of, 137, 142–51; doctrines, 138, 143, 148–51, 157n79; equipment for, 138, 143–51; functions of, 149, 156n61; integration in, 138, 143, 151; intelligence, 144–46, 150–51; responsiveness of, 137–38, 150–51; size of, 142, 144, 148; training of, 138, 143, 145, 147–51 Irish Republican Army (IRA), 142–43, 147 Ismail Ali, Ahmed, 124–28 isomorphism, 139–41, 152 Israel: military (see Israeli Defense Forces); Tiran Straits access, 116 Israeli Defense Forces: in Arab-Israeli war (1948), 215, 216; in Arab-Israeli war (1956), 215, 216, 225n35; in Arab-Israeli war (1967), 116, 122, 215, 216, 225–26n35; in Arab-Israeli war (1973), 117, 126, 210– 11, 215–16, 225–26n35; Druse troops in, 56; in Egyptian-Israeli War of Attrition (1969– 70), 124; in Golan Heights battles

Index (1982), 226n35; in Lebanon (1982), 56; skill of, 210; strengths of, 128 Italian military: equipment for, 170; POW treatment by, 44; in Somalia, 193, 205n32; in World War II, 44, 159, 170 Italy: military (see Italian military); nationalism in, 32 Iwo Jima, 41, 42 Janowitz, Morris, 5, 34, 46 Japan: bombing of, 42; bushido code of, 36, 38, 39, 42, 45; democracy in, 45; education system in, 37, 39; “eight-eight” plan of, 175; German Pacific islands and, 175; Great Depression in, 38; Imperial Rescript in, 37, 38; in interwar period, 169, 175; junshi in, 36; kodo in, 38; kokutai in, 38–39; military (see Japanese military); nationalism in, 35–46, 54n107, 230–31; Nihon shugi in, 38; in Shogun period, 36–37; suicide rates in, 54n109; symbolism in, 39, 42–43 Japanese military: doctrines, 182n44; “eight-eight” plan for, 175; equipment for, 42–44, 159, 167, 170, 183n51, 183n57; gyokusai tactics of, 39–42, 45, 54n107; in interwar period, 175, 182n44; kaiten in, 44; kamikaze tactics of, 42–44, 46, 53n96; Menjii restoration and, 37; in Nomonhan War, 41; in postwar period, 45; in Russo-Japanese War, 36, 37–38, 44, 51n54; in Sino-Japanese War (1894– 95), 37, 44; in Sino-Japanese War (1931–45), 38–39, 41, 45; in World War I, 175; in World War II, 11–12, 32, 36, 39–45, 54n107, 159, 167, 170 Jellicoe, John, 168 Johnson, Harold, 93 Johnston, Ian, 16 Joint Chiefs of Staff , on South Vietnamese military, 90 Jubburi tribe, 68 junshi, 36 Jutland, Battle of, 168 Kahlid bin Sultan, 191 kaiten, 44 Kamel, Hussein, 72 kamikazes, 42–44, 46, 53n96 Kaufman, Stuart, 29, 31 Kennedy, John F. ( JFK), 91– 93, 103n33

245

Khairallah, Adnan, 72 Kier, Elizabeth, 16, 136 Kinnard, Harry W., 94 Kitchener, Horatio, 99 kodo, 38 kokutai, 38–39 Korea: Chinese tactics in, 224n27; Korean War (1950–53), 34; Sino-Japanese War (1894– 95), 37, 38, 44; terrain of, 212 Korean War (1950–53), 34 Kosovo War (1999): Air Tasking Orders in, 198; intelligence in, 197; NATO in, 193, 197– 98, 201; sector model for, 194; Serbian strategy in, 47; strategic command and control in, 193; U.S. military in, 193, 195, 197– 98, 201. See also Operation Allied Force Krebs, Ronald, 189 Kurds in Iraq, 55, 58– 65, 70 Kuwait, Iraqi invasion of, 63. See also Persian Gulf War (1991) La Haye du Puits, Battle of, 216–18 Laitin, David, 28–29 leadership: in Arab-Israeli war (1967), 121– 22; in Arab-Israeli war (1973), 127–28; assignments and, 21; effectiveness and, 8; in HERO data set, 24n14; integration and, 114–15; in MOR models, 6; promotions and, 21; recruitment and, 21; responsiveness and, 114; shared power and, 110; state power and, 22n4; strategic assessment and, 130n5 Lebanon, Israeli Defense Forces in, 56 Legro, Jeff rey, 16 Lieber Code, 140–41 Liska, George, 188 London Treaty, 175 Luzon, 41 M2 Bradley fighting vehicle, 10 MAAG, 91, 93 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 55 MacNeill, Hugo, 148–49 MACV, 93 Malaysian UN peacekeepers, 191– 92 Manyoshu poem, 40 Mariana Islands, 177 Marlborough (Duke of ), 104n40 Marshall Islands, 177 Massive Retaliation doctrine, 89– 90

246 Index Matloff, Maurice, 173 Mearsheimer, John, 22n2, 160– 62 media, nationalism and, 31 Meir, Golda, 135n66 Melhorn, C. M., 177 mercantilist model, 218–219 Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), 91, 93 Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), 93 military-related operations research (MOR), 5– 6, 24n13 Military Reserve Association, 38 Miller, Steven, 189 Millett, Alan, 7–8 Milner, Alfred, 100 MiloŠeviç, Slobodan, 31, 193 MOR, 5– 6, 24n13 morale: civil-military relations and, 84; democracy and, 32; effectiveness and, 5; ethnicity and, 55, 58; in HERO data set, 24n14; initiative and, 32–33; in Iraqi military, 64– 65; in MOR models, 6; politics and, 32 Morgenthau, Hans, 203n7 Morillon, Philippe, 204n28 Morrow, James, 188 Morton, Louis, 173 motivation: concealment, cover, and, 213; education and, 12; effectiveness and, 5; skill and, 211; training and, 12 Mukhabarat, 70, 72 multipolar systems: in interwar period, 163; stability of, 160, 179–80n5, 181n22; state power and, 161, 181n25 Murray, Williamson, 7–8 Musashi, Miyamoto, 36 Mustafa, Kamal, 72 Napoleonic Wars, 30, 186 nationalism: in Civil War, 31, 50n24; conscription and, 49n13; culture and, 28–29; defi nition of, 28; democracy and, 30; development of, 28–29; education and, 31, 37, 39; effectiveness and, 5, 30–35, 46–47, 230–31; ethnic confl icts and, 28, 31, 56; in France, 30; in Germany, 32, 49n13; identity and, 56; in Italy, 32; in Japan, 35–46, 54n107, 230–31; media and, 31; politics and,

28–30; POWs and, 34, 36, 44; primary group dynamics and, 34, 46; race and, 38; regime type and, 30; religion and, 31, 32, 40; resource availability and, 49n13; responsiveness and, 27–28, 33–34, 36, 44–45, 47; skill and, 27, 33–34, 44, 46–47; state power and, 29–30; strategic assessment and, 30; symbols of, 30, 31–32, 39, 46; tactics and, 27, 37, 39–45; training and, 27, 31, 37–40; in World War II, 31, 39–45 National Security Act (1947), 88 National Training Center (NTC) studies, 209 NATO: in Bosnia, 192, 229–30; Cold War strategies of, 194, 205n35; in Kosovo War, 193, 197– 98, 201; in Operation Allied Force, 193, 197– 98, 201; support for, 205n31; technical interoperability in, 195 neorealist theory, 143–44, 146, 160– 63 Netherlands, 204–5n30 new institutionalism theories, 101n1, 137–41 Nihon shugi, 38 90th Infantry Division, U.S. Army, 216–18 Nomonhan War, 41 norms, global: codification of, 140; constructivism on, 136–38; of conventional warfare (see conventional warfare norms); culture and, 136, 138; defi nition of, 18, 136, 138; diplomacy and, 138; education and, 139; effectiveness and, 9, 18, 143; new institutionalism theories on, 101n1, 137–39; professionalism and, 139; social structure and, 138–39; transnational industries and, 139 North Atlantic Council, 193 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). See NATO North Vietnamese Army (NVA): civilmilitary relations and, 6; nationalism and, 31; primary group dynamics in, 34; skill of, 12, 209; strategy of, 47 nuclear weapons, 42, 136 O’Daniel, John W., 91 offensive capabilities, 161– 62, 180n9 offensive realist theory, 160– 62, 180n9

Index Okinawa, 41, 42, 44, 166 operational-level activity, 10, 138 Operation Allied Force, 193, 197– 98, 204– 5n30. See also Kosovo War (1999) Operation Desert Storm, 65, 70, 197. See also Persian Gulf War (1991) Operation Iraqi Freedom, 61, 65, 68, 78n51. See also Iraq War (2003) Operations Northern/Southern Watch, 60 organizational theory, 146, 180n9 organizations, professional military, 84, 100 Pacific Command, on South Vietnamese military, 90 Pakistan: civil-military relations in, 108; UN peacekeepers, 191– 92 Panama Canal, 178 Papua, New Guinea, 40–41 Parker, Christopher, 25n19 parliamentary systems, 81–82, 85, 96 Persia, 169. See also Iran Persian Gulf War (1991): casualty rates in, 47, 211; intelligence in, 197; Iraqi military and, 4, 33, 60– 61, 63– 65, 73, 234–35; Iraq’s strategy for, 47; Kurds in Iraq and, 60, 64, 70; liaison teams in, 194; “no-fly zones,” 60; Saudi Arabian military in, 191; sector model for, 194; Shi’a Muslims in Iraq and, 60, 64, 65; strategic command and control in, 191; tank fi ring rates in, 223n19; UN in, 201; U.S. military in, 191, 194. See also Operation Desert Storm Philippines, 41, 173, 175, 176 planning: civil-military relations and, 84, 110; in Cold War, 89; effectiveness and, 5, 7; by German military, 10–11, 19; in Iran-Iraq War, 67; MOR and, 6; on SIPRNET, 198; strategic assessment and, 114; threat and, 84, 162; warfare norms and, 138 Poland, terrain of, 212 polarity of systems: alliances and, 161, 181n25; civil-military relations and, 160– 61; effectiveness and, 160– 61; integration and, 160; in interwar period, 163; politics and, 160– 61; responsiveness and, 160; stability and, 160, 179–80n5, 180n5, 181n22; state power and, 160– 61,

247

181n25; threat and, 160– 61; training and, 160; weapons systems and, 160 political science studies, effectiveness in, 7 politics: alliances and, 190, 200–201; appointment cost, 88, 93; effectiveness and, 6, 9, 17; ethnicity and, 56–57; initiative and, 32; institutional model of, 81–86, 101n1, 102n10; military involvement in, 87–88, 106–15, 131n13; morale and, 32; nationalism and, 28–30; organizational structure and, 83; polarity of systems and, 160– 61; threat and, 162; warfare norms for, 146 Pollack, Kenneth, 16, 24–25n20, 33, 109 Posen, Barry, 16, 30, 162– 65, 180n9 Powell, Robert, 189 power-transition theories, 233 Pratt, William, 178 presidential systems, 81–84, 86–88 primary group dynamics, 34, 46, 48n2, 54n107 prisoners of war (POWs): in Bataan death march, 52n77; Chinese treatment of, 37; from Doolittle mission, 52n77; German treatment of, 44; from Germany, 35; Italian treatment of, 44; from Japan, 54n107; Japanese treatment of, 36–39, 41, 44, 52n77; nationalism and, 34, 36, 44; Russian treatment of, 37 procurement: defi nition of, 19; doctrines and, 10; effectiveness and, 9, 143; integration and, 20, 143; by Irish military, 138, 143, 149–50; of quality materiel, 13, 20; responsiveness and, 19–20; training and, 10, 218; warfare norms and, 138 professionalism: attributes of, 84; in British military, 96; civil-military relations and, 84, 85; of enlisted vs. officer corps, 140; global norms and, 139–41; organization and, 140; in U.S. military, 87 promotions: assignments and, 93; in autocratic states, 109; in British military, 97; civil-military relations and, 83, 85, 87, 97, 111, 113–14; criteria for, 113–14; effectiveness and, 9, 21; in Egyptian military, 118, 121, 127; ethnicity and, 56–57; integration and, 21; in Iraqi military, 58, 60, 66– 69, 131n16; leadership and, 21; merit-based, 84, 113–14; recruitment and, 236; responsiveness and, 21; skill

248 Index and, 21, 84; threat and, 165; up-or-out system, 236; in U.S. military, 87, 90, 93, 103n29, 236 Prussia, nationalism in, 30 Prussian military, 87, 100 quality: in British military, 166– 68, 170– 71, 179; budgets and, 164, 165; civil-military relations and, 85; 85–86, colonialism and, 171; defensive capabilities and, 163; defi nition of, 2; in an effective military, 10, 13, 15; in Iraqi military, 65, 70; in procurement, 13, 20; threat and, 158–59, 163– 66, 164, 165; in U.S. military, 80, 89, 177– 79; warfare norms and, 138 Quick Reaction Force, 191– 92 Quinlivan, James T., 109 race, nationalism and, 38 realist theories: on alliances, 161, 188–89; classical, 81; on effectiveness, 228–29; intelligence in, 161, 162; neorealist, 143– 44, 146, 160– 63; on state power, 188, 203n7, 203n9; on state strategies, 233; on threat, 160– 63, 229 recruitment: civil-military relations and, 85; class/caste and, 104n40, 140; effectiveness and, 9, 21; ethnicity and, 56–57, 58; integration and, 21; in Iraqi military, 67; leadership and, 21; merit-based, 140; promotions and, 236; responsiveness and, 21; skill and, 21; threat and, 165. See also commissions, purchase of; conscription Reiter, Dan: criteria for effectiveness, 24n19; on initiative in army, 32; Nationalism, 27–47, 230–31; on regime type, 6 religion: demonization of enemies, 51n45; of Iraqi military, 55– 76; nationalism and, 31, 32, 40 Resende-Santos, João, 162 resource availability, 49n13, 160– 62, 195 responsiveness: alliances and, 187, 192– 93, 198– 99; in Arab-Israeli wars, 125, 127–29; assignments and, 21; of British military, 80, 97– 98, 100, 101, 166– 68, 170, 179; budgets and, 164; civil-military relations and, 84–86, 85, 231; command and control and, 20, 21, 192– 93; defensive capabilities and, 163;

defi nition of, 2, 11, 192; discrimination and, 75; doctrines and, 143, 164; education and, 22; in an effective military, 10, 11–12, 15; ethnicity and, 58; imitative nature of, 180n13; intelligence and, 20, 198; internal monitoring and, 20; of Iraqi military, 61– 64, 71– 75; of Irish military, 137–38, 150–51; leadership and, 114; nationalism and, 27–28, 33–34, 36, 44–45, 47; offensive capabilities and, 180n9; polarity of systems and, 160; POW treatment and, 36; procurement and, 19–20; promotions and, 21; recruitment and, 21; shared power and, 107; strategic assessment and, 19, 114; strategic command and control and, 20, 192– 93; tactical command and control and, 21; threat and, 158–59, 162– 65, 164, 165, 229; training and, 22, 143; of U.S. military, 89– 90, 101, 174, 176– 77, 179; warfare norms and, 137–38 Revolutionary Command Council, 132n19 Ribbat, ‘Abd al-Wahid Shinan Al, 67 Roberts, Frederick, 99 Roman Catholic Church, nationalism and, 32 Rosen, Stephen: on class/caste, 6; on doctrine development, 164, 177; on social structure, 55, 57; on threat, 57 Rosson, William B., 93 Rostow, Walter, 103n33 Rumsfeld, Donald, 25n24 Russia: in Bosnia, 195; in interwar period, 169; Russo-Japanese War, 36, 37–38, 44, 51n54; Schlieffen Plan and, 10–11; in World War I, 10–11, 225n30. See also Soviet Union Russian Orthodox Christian Church, nationalism and, 31 Russo-Japanese War, 36, 37–38, 44, 51n54 Sadat, Anwar, 116, 117, 122–27, 132n19, 134n51, 225n34 Sadiq, Mohammed, 125, 127, 134n51 Saipan, 41, 42, 45–46 samurai, 36–40 Saudi Arabia, 64, 132n20, 191 Schlieffen Plan, 10–11 Schwarzkopf, Norman, 191 Schweller, Randall, 160

Index scorched-earth strategy, 99–100 search-and-destroy missions, 94, 95, 99 SEATO, 90 79th Infantry Division, U.S. Army, 216–18 Shazli, Saad, 126 Shi’a Muslims in Iran, 60 Shi’a Muslims in Iraq, 55, 58, 60– 71, 73 Shils, Edward, 5, 34, 46 Shoguns, 36–37 Sidqi Mahmoud, Mohammed, 121–22 Singapore, 41 Sino-Japanese War (1894– 95), 37, 38, 44 Sino-Japanese War (1931–45), 38–39, 41, 45 SIPRNET, 198 Six-day war. See Arab-Israeli war (1967) skill: alliances and, 187, 194, 196– 97, 199; in Arab-Israeli wars, 14, 128, 216; assignments and, 21; of British military, 97– 98, 101; casualty rates and, 208– 9, 214–18; civil-military relations and, 85, 85–86, 231; command and control and, 21, 194, 196– 97; concealment, cover, and, 211–16; defi nition of, 2, 196; determinants of, 209; discrimination and, 75– 76; education and, 22; in an effective military, 10, 12, 15; effectiveness and, 226n42; of Egyptian military, 14, 128, 216, 225n34; ethnicity and, 56, 58; of German military, 210, 224n29, 231; indicators of, 196; of Iraqi military, 12, 64– 65, 69– 71, 209; of Israeli Defense Forces, 210; motivation and, 211; nationalism and, 27, 33–34, 44, 46–47; of North Vietnamese Army, 12, 209; promotions and, 21, 84; recruitment and, 21; tactical command and control and, 21, 194, 196– 97; technology and, 12, 208, 211–19; training and, 22, 84, 143, 209–10; in U.S. military, 80, 88–89, 100–101, 209–10; warfare norms and, 138 Slim, William, 42 Snyder, Glenn, 189 Snyder, Jack, 131n12 social structure: culture and, 26n30; development of, 101n1; divisiveness of, 55, 57; effectiveness and, 9, 16–17, 230; global norms and, 138–39; military and, 25n21, 55; new institutionalism theories on, 101n1; threat and, 57. See also class/caste “soft” power, 22n4

249

Somalia, 191– 92, 193 South Africa, Boer War, 98–100 South-East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), 90 South Vietnamese Army, 90– 91, 95, 103n27 Soviet military: on Nomonhan War, 41; in World War II, 35, 41, 47, 225n30 Soviet Union: Arab-Israeli war (1967) and, 116, 119; military (see Soviet military); nuclear strategy of, 136; in World War II, 31. See also Russia Spanish-American War, 202n2 Special Forces: in Afghanistan, 198; in Bosnia, 195; chain of command, 206n42; intelligence handling by, 198; JFK and, 92; in liaison teams, 195; in Somalia, 191– 92; in Vietnam, 92– 93, 95 Special Republican Guard, 61, 65, 68, 70, 72, 74 Special Security Organization, 72, 74 Stalin, Joseph, 31 Stam, Allan, 6, 24n19, 32, 189 state power: alliances and, 188–89, 203n7; appointments and, 107; civil-military relations and, 86, 106– 7, 110–15; conceptualization of, 23n4; economics and, 22n4; effectiveness and, 86, 106– 7, 110–15; factors affecting, 22n4; imbalances, response to, 188; leadership and, 22n4; nationalism and, 29–30; origins of, 3; polarity of systems and, 160– 61, 181n25; realist theories on, 188, 203n7, 203n9; technology and, 26n31; threat of, 160– 62; weapons systems and, 235 states: characteristics of, 3; types of, 160– 62 state strength, 86 status quo states, 160– 62 “steamrolling” tactic, 128, 224n27 Stimson, Henry L., 173 strategic assessment: in Arab-Israeli wars, 118–19, 122, 124–25, 128; by British military, 168– 69; civil-military relations and, 19, 85, 107, 110–14; defi nition of, 19, 111; effectiveness and, 9, 234; integration and, 19, 114, 165; leadership and, 130n5; nationalism and, 30; planning and, 114; responsiveness and, 19, 114; shared power and, 107, 111; threat and, 158–59, 165, 165

250 Index strategic command and control, 20, 112– 13, 190– 93 strategic-level activity, 10, 205n40 Straus, Ulrich, 54n107, 54n109 Suchman, Mark, 141 Suez Canal: 1956 crisis at, 116, 121, 128; in World War II, 170 suicide tactics: of German military, 47; of Japanese military, 37, 39–46, 53n96; nationalism and, 33–34; of samurai, 36 Sukarno, 108 Suko, 36 Sullivan, John, 188–89 Sunni Muslims in Iraq, 55, 57– 76 Swidler, Ann, 26n28 symbols: in Civil War, 50n24; in education, 31–32; ethnic confl icts and, 31; in Japan, 39, 42–43; of nationalism, 30, 31–32, 39, 46 Syrian military: in Arab-Israeli wars, 125–26, 132n20, 215, 216, 225–26n35; in Golan Heights battles (1982), 226n35 tactical command and control, 21, 194– 99, 205n34 tactical-level activity, 10, 27, 205n40 Taliban, 219 Tarawa, 41 Task Force Ranger, 191– 92 Taylor, Maxwell, 103n33 technology: alliances and, 195– 96, 200; in Arab-Israeli war (1973), 211; battlefield success and, 211, 223n15; British military on, 136; civil-military relations and, 131n10; concealment, cover, and, 211– 16; effectiveness and, 26n31; force structures and, 137; skill and, 12, 208, 211–19; state power and, 26n31; threat and, 162, 165, 218; U.S. military and, 219 threat: assessment of, 84–86, 158–59, 163; balance-of-threat theory on, 161– 62, 180n10; bandwagoning with, 203n6; British military and, 166– 72, 179; budgets and, 164, 164; civil-military relations and, 158– 60, 163– 65, 164, 165, 231; defensive capabilities and, 161– 63; diversity of, 158–59, 163, 165, 165– 66, 181n22; doctrines and, 84, 163, 164; education and, 165; effectiveness and, 86, 158–59, 163– 66, 179, 229; integration and, 159– 60, 163– 64, 164, 165; intel-

ligence assessment of, 84, 85, 162; level of, 163– 65, 164; neorealist theory on, 160– 63; offensive capabilities and, 161– 62; planning and, 84, 162; politics and, 162; promotions and, 165; quality and, 158–59, 163– 66, 164, 165; realist theory on, 160– 63, 229; recruitment and, 165; resource availability and, 160– 62; responsiveness and, 158–59, 162– 65, 164, 165, 229; social structure and, 57; strategic assessment and, 158–59, 165, 165; technology and, 162, 165, 218; training and, 160, 165; U.S. military and, 172– 79; warfare norms and, 162, 229; weapons systems and, 158– 66 Thucydides, 55 Till, Geoff rey: on capabilities, 172; on maritime aircraft, 183n52; on strategic assessment, 169, 177; on threats, 168 Tilly, Charles, 140 Time magazine, on Saipan campaign, 45 Tiran, Straits of, 116 trade-protection carriers, 183n51 training: for alliances, 199–200; civilmilitary relations and, 83, 85; defi nition of, 22; discrimination and, 75– 76; doctrines and, 14; effectiveness and, 5, 8, 9, 143, 235–36; of Egyptian military, 14, 120; ethnic confl icts and, 57; ethnicity and, 57, 58; integration and, 22; of Iraqi military, 12, 60– 61, 63, 67, 69– 72; of Irish military, 138, 143, 145, 147–51; of liaison personnel, 195; in MOR models, 6; motivation and, 12; for multinational warfare, 186; nationalism and, 27, 31, 37–40; polarity of systems and, 160; procurement and, 10, 218; responsiveness and, 22, 143; skill and, 22, 84, 143, 209–10; standards for, 84; threat and, 160, 165; in U.S. military, 87– 92; warfare norms and, 138, 141, 147. See also education treaties, international, 140 Truk, 177 uniforms: for British military, 99, 105n51; Hague Regulations on, 140 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). See Soviet Union unit cohesion, 5, 48n2, 141. See also primary group dynamics

Index United Kingdom (U.K.): China, business interests in, 169; CID, 100; civilmilitary relations in, 96–101, 104n40, 108– 9, 166– 69, 179; military (see British military); Schlieffen Plan and, 10–11; UN peacekeeping forces from, 192 United Nations (UN): Arab-Israeli wars and, 116, 119; in Bosnia, 192, 193, 204n28; in Kosovo, 193; in Operation Allied Force, 193, 204–5n30; in Persian Gulf War, 201; in Somalia, 191– 92, 193, 205n32 United States (U.S.): China, business interests in, 175; civil-military relations in, 86– 95, 173– 76; in interwar period, 172– 74; military (see U.S. military) unity of command, 72, 190, 204n23 unity of effort, 190, 204n23 urban warfare, 61, 72 U.S. military: in Afghanistan, 201; air mobility, 94; assignments in, 236; in Bosnia, 192, 193, 195, 201; budgets for, 87–89; chain of command, 206n42; civilian relations with, 86– 95, 173– 76; in Civil War, 31, 50n24, 140–41; in Cold War, 88– 90, 92; on counterinsurgency, 90– 95; doctrines of, 87– 95, 176– 78, 182n44; education in, 87– 90; equipment for, 44, 89, 159, 166, 167, 174– 78, 183n51, 183n57, 185n90; evaluation standards, 87, 92– 93; executions in, 35; FAO program, 205n40; fleet train, 176; functions of, 87, 92; HERO data set, 24n14; Howze Board Report on, 92; identity, formation of, 100–101; infantry squad size in, 10; integration in, 89– 90, 101, 173, 179; intelligence handling by, 90, 135n66, 197– 98; in interwar period, 158, 159, 173– 78, 182n44; in Iraq War, 198, 201, 219; JFK and, 91– 93; in Kosovo War, 193, 195, 197– 98, 201; liaison teams, 194– 95, 205n40; London Treaty and, 175; nuclear strategy of, 136; in Operation Allied Force, 193, 197– 98; Perry’s Japan visit (1853), 36; in Persian Gulf War, 191, 194; Philippines and, 173, 175– 77; Plan Orange, 177; professionalism in, 87; promotions in, 87, 90, 93, 103n29, 236; Prussian military and, 87; quality in, 80, 89, 177– 79; rank structure, 236; responsiveness of, 89– 90, 101, 174, 176– 77, 179; retirement

251

standards for, 87; skill in, 80, 88–89, 100–101, 209–10; in Somalia, 191– 92, 193; submarines, 176; technology and, 219; threat and, 172– 79; training of, 87– 92; in Vietnam War, 90– 95, 103n33; Washington Treaty and, 174– 76; in World War I, 176; in World War II, 11–12, 35, 39, 41–45, 53n96, 159, 166, 167, 178, 216–18 U.S.S. Lexington, 178 U.S.S. Saratoga, 178 Van Evera, Stephen, 29, 161, 180n9 Vietnam: CIDG in, 92– 93; civil-military relations in, 6, 131n10; containment of communism in, 88; nationalism in, 31 Vietnam War: Boer War and, 99–100; CIA and, 90, 94; goals of U.S. in, 90; intelligence in, 90; JFK and, 91– 93, 103n33; NVA in, 6, 12, 31, 34, 47, 209; U.S. military in, 90– 95, 103n33 Wake Island, 41 Walt, Stephen, 161– 62, 180n10, 188 Waltz, Kenneth, 160– 62, 181n25, 188, 203nn6– 7 Ward, Michael, 188–89 warfare: intensity of, 220n2; land vs. sea, 160; norms of. See conventional warfare norms Warner, Denis and Peggy, 44 Washington Treaty, 174– 76 wealth, military power and, 22n2 weapons systems: alliances and, 200; in Boer War, 99; for British military, 97– 100; characteristics of, 6; civil-military relations and, 84, 85; effectiveness and, 143; of irregular combatants, 154n23; performance requirements for, 6; to personnel ratio, 139; polarity of systems and, 160; state power and, 235; threat and, 158– 66; warfare norms and, 139, 141 Wehrmacht, 34, 47, 210. See also Bundeswehr Weigley, Russell F., 50n24 Weitsman, Patricia, 189 Wendt, Alexander, 139 Westmoreland, William, 94 Wilkes Island, 41 World War I: British military in, 100, 108– 9, 166– 68; casualty rates in, 215,

252 Index 225n30; German military in, 168, 215, 225n30; Germany’s strategic plan in, 19; Japanese military in, 175; Russia in, 10–11, 225n30; Russo-Japanese War and, 51n54; Schlieffen Plan, 10–11; tactics used in, 33, 210; U.S. military in, 176 World War II: British military in, 41, 159, 166, 167, 170, 172, 225n30; casualty rates in, 215, 217, 225n30; Doolittle mission, 52n77; executions in, 35; French military in, 210, 225n30; German military in, 34, 47, 170, 210, 215, 225n30; Germany’s strategic plan in, 19; Italian military in, 44, 159, 170; Japanese mili-

tary in, 11–12, 32, 36, 39–45, 54n107, 159, 167, 170; MOR in, 5; nationalism in, 31, 39–45; primary group dynamics in, 34; Soviet military in, 35, 41, 47, 225n30; Soviet Union in, 31; Suez Canal in, 170; U.S. military in, 11–12, 35, 39, 41–45, 53n96, 159, 166, 167, 178, 216–18 Yemen, 132n20 Yom Kippur war. See Arab-Israeli war (1973) Zirkle, Robert, 6, 12