‘Innovate or die’: Organizational culture and the origins of maneuver warfare in the United States Marine Corps

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, this article contributes to the understanding of the origins of maneuver warfare as the capstone doctrine of the Marine Corps. It does so by identifying a second source that fostered change in the Marine Corps – one in addition to disquiet about the conduct of the war in Vietnam – which stemmed from the challenges posed by the United States' post-Vietnam strategic and military reorientation. And second, this article examines the influence of organizational culture, or identity, on innovation in the Marine Corps. A critical strand in the growing literature on military innovation focuses on organizational culture and how it influences the behavior and responses of particular military organizations. This article contributes to this literature by analyzing the influence of the organizational culture of the Marine Corps in shaping what was deemed an appropriate response to the challenges it confronted in the 1970s.     

Rose-tinted lenses: how American functionalist strategy inhibits our appreciation of complex conflicts

Strategists and military professionals have previously questioned many of the methodological (theoretical underpinnings, the principles, and rules applied by the discipline) decisions associated with American military strategy, but the direction this essay takes is above and beyond the common methodological rivalries in how we pursue strategic desired future states. To get beyond methodological disputes entirely, we must consider thinking about our thinking as an organization on American strategy. Thus, this article hovers between philosophies, organizational theory, as well as our usually unquestioned belief in something called “strategy”. Questioning things about our basic understanding of the world tends to trigger strong organizational defense mechanisms, for good reason. Critical reflection at deep levels puts our worldview, and our role within it at stake. Nonetheless, as strategic disappointment emerges over multiple complex conflict developments, even the most cherished and guarded choices on how the world ought to work are ripe for critical inquiry. This essay examines the limited single strategic paradigm of the US defense industry and how the latest American National Security Strategy and Army Future Operating Concept (Win in a Complex World through 2030) presents a flawed strategic position. This essay presents valid alternative strategies that operate within different paradigmatic constructs.     

信息时代战场兵力组织的运作分析与设计

信息化战场空间、扁平化和网络化的兵力组织形式是未来网络中心战中作战部队编成的主要样式。为建立这一编成样式的设计方法和思路,以战场环境中兵力组织为例,分析了PCANS模型对信息时代组织测度的缺陷,在PCANS模型中引入信息因素描述组织的运作,并提出信息时代战场空间兵力组织设计的实质和目标以及设计方法。     

熵理论在装备保障指挥组织结构优化中的应用

把熵理论应用于装备保障指挥组织结构的优化设计,并以某军区装备部机关组织结构为例,从量化的角度比较改革前后组织结构的时效熵和质量熵,得出结论:改革后的军区装备部机关组织结构有序度优于改革前机关组织结构有序度。     

Urban gangs evolving as criminal Netwar actors

The nature of conflict and crime is changing. Technology allows groups to spread their influence without regard to geographic limitations. A shift from hierarchies to network organizational forms is also occurring. As a consequence non‐state actors can extend their influence to gain social, political or economic power and challenge state institutions. This article examines the potential for gangs, transnational criminals and terrorists to embrace network forms and utilize technology to wage netwar. Factors which influence ‘third generation’ gang organization (politicization, internationalization and sophistication) are described to illustrate how a net‐based threat can mature. A move toward network organization within transnational criminal organizations and terrorist groups demonstrating the potential for these classic criminal entities to emerge as netwar actors is also reviewed. Finally, the need for state institutions such as the police and military to develop networked responses to combat networked threats is stated.     

New sources of military change – armed forces as normal organizations

The literature on how European states have adapted to the post-cold war security environment ffocuses invariably on different understandings of military transformation, a process which is seen as inherently different from other forms of organizational change. However, as this paper argues, new management practices, going back to the introduction of so-called New Public Management (NPM) reforms throughout Europe in the 1980s, have eventually penetrated also the last bastion of the old state – the defense sector. Taking a critical approach to the idea of military transformation and existing theories of military change, the paper demonstrates how other international developments have pushed towards what may be seen as a “normalization” of Europe’s defense sectors. This has important implications for how we approach and understand change in contemporary defense organizations.     

Risk communication within military decision-making: pedagogic considerations

Risk management is a decision-support process and a vital tool for military planning and decision-making. Today, several nations utilize risk-based approaches to analyze the level of security in military operations. There are both strengths and challenges in applying risk-based approaches to support military decisions. In this article, the challenges related to risk communication are investigated with the aim of describing how a military organization should train to create a good environment for effective risk communication. The analysis finds that it is important for the organization to define and consistently use a shared risk understanding. Such a shared risk understanding will need a systematic development process that focuses on the future decision makers’ and analysts’ education and training. To reach understanding, all involved parties must have the chance to identify the problem, reflect on its implications, test different solutions and develop a solution.     

How might Democratisation Affect Military Professionalism in Africa? Reviewing the Literature

The search continues for methods to improve security for development in Sub-Saharan Africa. One of the important actors in this security arena is Sub-Saharan African governments’ armies. Much of their capability to meet security challenge depends on how militarily professional they are. The wave of democratic evolution in Africa since 1990 also affected military professionalism. This article reviews three models for assessing how democratisation might affect military professionalism in Sub-Saharan Africa, with special attention to post-conflict states. This should make it possible to decide which analytical methods are most appropriate to measure military professionalism in the particular circumstances of Sub-Saharan African post-conflict democratisation. Depending upon the particular nation-state in question, this decision on analytical methods may be useful for other Sub-Saharan states as well.     

组织设计方法研究：组织协作与效能

介绍了A2C2系列实验,并通过对A2C2实验1到实验5所采用组织结构、结构设计算法以及实验所获取的数据分析,重点研究了组织协作与组织效能的关系,在其实验结论(组织协作与效能关系的不确定性结论)的基础上对组织结构设计优化算法提出了改进思想。     

C2组织探索性分析框架设计研究

以验证组织优化设计方法为目的,将探索性分析思想引入组织优化设计研究,根据探索性分析的特点与组织优化设计方法验证的具体需要,对C2组织探索性分析的过程进行了研究,初步设计了面向C2组织的探索性分析框架并对其中的关键技术进行了分析。     

Themes in defence manpower economics and challenges for the future

Raising and maintaining military forces have posed enormous challenges for the United States and its allies. Economists have made significant contributions to understanding of how to recruit and manage such forces. This paper highlights key past contributions and discusses challenges for future research. Rapid changes in the roles and missions of military personnel, technology, and the civilian labor market pose serious challenges for future military manpower policy and will challenge economists to develop new approaches to military recruiting and personnel management. Yet the body of past research can continue to provide insight and guidance in making decisions about defense manpower.     

The Rise of Special Operations Forces: Generalized Specialization,Boundary Spanning and Military Autonomy

The special operations forces (SOF) of the industrial democracies have suddenly and rapidly grown in numbers and resources during the past decades. Most explanations for this growth focus on factors external to the armed forces. We argue that the enlargement of SOF is also the result of internal organizational dynamics. First, we compare SOF to other units and military appendages that have grown over the past 30 years in order to delineate what is unique to their development and the special adaptive potential they bring to the armed forces: generalized specialization, boundary spanning roles, and enlargement of military autonomy. Second, we analyze the actions of internal military entrepreneurs and their organizational mentors to show how they use this adaptive potential to “sell” the use of SOF to key policy-makers and decision-makers.     

C2组织效能测度的设计与应用

采用自底向上逐层递进的方法对C 2组织的测度指标加以归纳总结,建立了物理层,状态层和效能层3层测度指标框架,把C 2组织的效能测度抽象为组织代价测度和组织收益测度两个评价性的指标,并给出具体的计算方法。再结合探索性分析方法,实现了C 2组织效能测度在不确定使命环境下对关键性任务判断的应用,验证了C 2组织效能测度的有效性。     

Capturing Contemporary Innovation: Studying IDF Innovation against Hamas and Hizballah

The question of what enables some militaries to innovate effectively is of great interest to both scholars and commanders. However, the traditional models of military innovation fail to capture the complex innovation process. This study develops a new analytical framework that examines the pressures on and incentives for military innovation in the international, civil/military, organizational, and cultural planes and uses it to evaluate Israel Defense Forces (IDF) innovation between 2000 and 2009. Based on interviews with Israeli commanders and extensive research in Israel, this work finds that the IDF struggled to innovate before the 2006 war against Hizballah, but innovated effectively after the conflict once military and civilian leaders understood threats similarly. New models are needed to analyze the contemporary multi-dimensional innovative process.     

Colombian Military Support for ‘Democratic Security’

Building upon a far-reaching reform movement carried out during the administration of Andres Pastrana (1998–2002), the Colombian military emerged in the Alvaro Uribe first term (2002–06) as a powerful, flexible organization capable of implementing a national strategy for successful counterinsurgency. Sweeping organizational change was accompanied by advances in operational art and tactics, as well as the promotion of new leadership tested in combat. A growing maturity in civil–military relations enabled national advances in democratic politics, economic progress and state integration, the latter to a degree unprecedented in Colombian history.     

Mimetic and normative isomorphism in the establishment and maintenance of independent air forces

Why do countries have air forces? Organizational alternatives, such as maintaining separate air arms for the army and navy, have become quite rare. The conventional narrative advanced by advocates of independent air forces stress that the primacy of airpower in modern warfare mandates centralized control of most military aviation. In this view, political–military uncertainty has driven mimetic isomorphism – pressure on national governments to organize as others organize so as to fight or deter war just as effectively. However, working from a set of 56 countries that were politically independent within a few years of the establishment of the first ever independent air force (the Royal Air Force) in 1918, and continuing through nearly the present, there is no clear pattern of external military pressure prompting this particular reorganization. Rather, from anecdotal evidence, the cause has more likely been normative isomorphism – a professional craving to look as others look to foster political or personal legitimacy. For whatever reason, though, choices of structures tend to lead to specific choices of policies. Thus, the result suggests that defense ministries looking for more effective or less costly organizational schemas may reasonably consider alternatives to the tripartite army–navy–air force structure.     

DEFENCE SECTOR TRANSFORMATION

Sub-Saharan Africa is a region facing many problems and challenges. Many of the countries in the region are experiencing internal conflicts and others are involved in processes of peace negotiations and post-conflict peace building. All these countries face the challenge of defence sector transformation in order to align their post-conflict defence departments and military forces with the demands of democratic societies. This is more than a demand for a reduction in defence spending and requires a fundamental change in defence policies, management and practises. There are, however, lessons to be learnt from other similar experiences in the region. This article examines some of those lessons and presents a generic model for defence sector transformation in sub-Saharan Africa.     

美军装备试验鉴定发展历程分析及启示

美军装备试验经历近百年的发展,已形成较为成熟的试验鉴定模式和管理评价体制,试验鉴定能力也处于世界领先水平。美军在装备发展历程中的经验做法十分值得学习和借鉴。本文分析了美军装备试验鉴定发展历程和特点,研究了其试验组织结构的科学构成和运行机制,归纳总结了美军装备试验发展的客观规律和科学经验。在此基础上,得到了顺应装备发展趋势、赋予作战试验鉴定权威、重视体系试验能力建设三点启示,希翼这些启示可为军队装备试验鉴定工作的发展提供参考。     

Reserve forces and the transformation of British military organisation: soldiers,citizens and society

In recent years, there has been a sharp growth in political and sociological interest in the British military. Set against the backdrop of the armed forces’ increasing presence in everyday life, alongside the organizations’ ongoing restructuring, the current paper focuses on the MoD’s problematic attempts to recruit 30,000 reservists by 2020; what has become known as the Future Reserves 2020 programme (FR2020). We argue that these changes are driven in part by the need to cut costs in defence. However, we also suggest that they are a reflection of the changing nature of modern military organisation, and the manner in which armed forces engage with the societies of which they are a part, and with the citizens that make up that society. We locate FR2020 programme in the context of a wider narrative about the changing nature of military organisation in contemporary western democracies, identifying structural, circumstantial and normative reasons for change. We also examine the specific challenges of implementing FR2020 in practice, including issues of recruitment and retention, integration and support, and relations with families and employers, drawing on the experience of comparator countries to do so. We conclude by considering the implications of these changes, both for the future of UK armed forces, and for the evolving nature of military-society relations in Britain.