Military Review

A Practical Approach to Cultural Insight

Construction programs that cost hundreds of millions of dollars ended up not satisfying local needs (and in some instances creating further resentment).2 Programs developed state institutions that seemed normal to Americans but were ill-suited to the local society.3 The need is plain enough, but practical methods for achieving cultural understanding seem to be lacking. Doctrine has incorporated various aspects of culture, from adding the "C" (civil considerations) to the acronym METT-TC (mis...

A Tactical Ethic: Moral Conduct in the Insurgent Battlespace

Couch, who has written several popular works of history and fiction, clearly would not have written this book if he were not troubled by the current ethical state of our military. [...] like the captain who told him the story of the murdered detainee, Couch has related a tale of which he, too, must unburden himself - the sad story of the inadequate state of ethics training today for most U.S. military service members.

At What Cost, Intelligence? A Case Study of the Consequences of Ethical (and Unethical) Leadership

The units of all three of these officers operated in the Sunni Triangle, the most dangerous part of Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) I. In his reply to the CJ2X captain's email, Welshofer wrote that a baseline interrogation technique should include open handed facial slaps from a distance of no more than about two feet and back handed blows to the midsection from a distance of about 18 inches. Seldom does such training employ practical exercises to help troops reason through complex...

Automatic Ethics: What We Take for Granted Matters

[...] they found that managers held a stronger association between the concepts of "business" and "ethics" than did business students, and that business students in turn held stronger associations than other lay persons did. FM 6-22 espouses 1 1 principles of leadership, the first of which is "know yourself and seek self-improvement." Because automatic assumptions frequently operate outside conscious awareness, it's often the case that we can't know our own minds.

Base Politics: Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas

Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas, Alexander Cooley, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2008, 328 pages, $29.00. Since the end of the Cold War, changes in the world order have strained America's traditional resource assumptions.

Black Hearts: A Study in Leadership

[...] commanders must still choose the course of action they believe to be best in terms of mission and personnel. [...] the means permitted to achieve political outcomes through the use of force come with serious mandates and prohibitions, which must be enforced even when Soldiers, and the leaders themselves, are tired, dirty, angry, and scared.

Competency Vs. Character? It Must Be Both!

[...] the Army has recently started eliminating chaplain slots from schoolhouses through a plan to shift these ethics classes to distance learning. To execute this training, the Army typically issues commanders or instructors "canned" PowerPoint slide decks and orders them to train all members of their unit on that particular topic by a given date. Anchor new approaches in the culture by challenging others in the organization to talk about the change.18 There will be a steep learning curve ...

Disarming the Key Leader Engagement

An engagement framework only succeeds to the extent that it is able to influence others. [...] to realize an influence, the key leader engagement cell must provide information not only on the key leader but also on the complexities of the information environment, and make strategic recommendations for expanding the key leader engagement network.

Discipline, Punishment, and Counterinsurgency

[...] several ARs and FMs need to be revised to clarify the difference between corrective training and punishment. 10 Although FM 7-22-7 discourages humiliating treatment by reference to the unofficial 1909 manual, this more recent and fully official Army publication does not explicitly state that NCOs lack the authority to punish Soldiers.\n In essence, we were instructed to punish civilians, against whom we had no evidence of wrongdoing, for having lived in a neighborhood in which insurgen...

Foreword

Being able to recite rules of engagement or the law of land warfare is not good enough for Army professionals who must apply discretionary judgments in complex situations. [...] our professional military ethic derives from a second paradox: the obligation to win wars through the use of proportional force while at the same time minimizing the suffering and destruction associated with warfare.

Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War Ii

Initially denied the right to fight alongside their white counterparts, these aviation pioneers broke new ground, proving their mettle in combat, leading to the eventual desegregation of the Armed Forces, silencing many of their critics in the process.

George Washington's America: A Biography Through His Maps

Inspired by these remarkable maps, historian Bamet Schecter has crafted a unique portrait of our first Founding Father, placing the reader at the scenes of his early career as a surveyor, his dramatic exploits in the French and Indian War (his altercation with the French is credited as the war's spark), his struggles through the American Revolution as he outmaneuvered the far more powerful British army, his diplomacy as president, and his shaping of the new republic.

Heuristics and Biases in Military Decision Making

Dissatisfied with the discrepancies of classical economics in explaining human decision making, Kahneman and Tversky developed the initial tenets of a discipline now widely known as behavioral economics.12 In contrast to preexisting classical models (such as expected utility theory) which sought to describe human behavior as a rational maximization of cost-benefit decisions, Kahneman and Tversky provided a simple framework of observed human behavior based upon choices under uncertainty, risk,...

Ied

In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan

Today we ask, "Will 30,000 additional U.S. troops be enough to salvage a war many now see as unwinnable?" Seth Jones, a political scientist and adjunct faculty member at Georgetown and the Naval Postgraduate School, believes that between 2002 and 2005, the United States had an opportunity to achieve a better outcome than those who invaded Afghanistan in the past.

Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat

[...] the recent past, both of these terms have been viewed by the West as anachronistic. While much of the world has long focused on the primacy of states as the key actors on the international stage, large numbers of the world's population identify far more with their clan and tribe than they do with the state they live in.

Iraq, the Moral Reckoning: Applying Just War Theory to the 2003 War Decision

[...] he believes the administration did not carefully weigh the question of proportionality in debating the merits of a stable dictatorship against the problems of a nascent democracy torn by internal and regional power struggles. Military and civilian leaders, clergy, political theorists, and concerned citizens will all gain a deeper moral understanding of conflict by engaging the questions that White raises and refining their own ethical framework for determining justified force.

Landmine

A ponderous, bloated contraption Lumbers up the road, Troopies peer over its sides, rifles at the ready, Casually chatting But with their eyes In the bush; searching, seeking For ambush. [...] they cannot see, nor can the driver see What sits beneath the road Laid in the silent hours To wait out its short, appointed time Until A massive wheel seeks, depresses A switch Then a deafening roar as the debris-cloud rises.

Legitimacy and Military Operations

German sociologist Max Weber posited three sources for legitimacy: the legal-rational source, which most Western governments enjoy, based on a framework of legal rules (e.g. the government elected in accordance with a legal framework and constitution); traditional authority, based on custom, upbringing, and birth (e.g. the governing family or clan); and charismatic authority, based on the power of personality of an individual or group.12 The importance of Weber's observation on charismatic le...

Letters

The Revolution in Military Affairs Charles Trudell, Miamisburg, Ohio - Lieutenant Colonel Scott Stephenson's article, "The Revolution in Military Affairs: 1 2 Observations on an Out-of-Fashion Idea" (May- June 2010, Military Review) is an excellent and informative piece of writing in reference to our present military situation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Liberators: The Allies and Belgian Society, 1944-1945

Pictures slapped across the pages of newspapers worldwide captured the breathtaking Allied rush across France and the push into Belgium - crowds surrounded vehicles and piled on, soldiers swigged wine from the bottle and were kissed by adoring women, gaggles of children tugged at G.I. fatigues in hope of a reward of candy or gum. Resentment bubbled to the surface in the spring of 1945 over the large number of Belgian women who seemed so easily seduced by Allied soldiers and by the resultant ...

Livy, the War with Hannibal: Books Xxi-Xxx of the History of Rome Since Its Foundation

The answer is in understanding the timeless elements of the history of warfare, and of professional study of its master practitioners, such as Hannibal and Scipio Africanus. Hannibal learns, too, and reveals the lessons of life and desire for peace, as he said on the eve of his final loss to Scipio at Zama: "As for myself, an old man returning to the homeland I left in boyhood, the years with their burden of success and failure have so taught me that I would rather now follow the dictates of...

Moral Disengagements: When Will Good Soldiers Do Bad Things?

Leaders, trainers, and educators aid Soldiers in inculcating institutional values. [...] the Army provides Soldiers explicit codes, such as the Geneva Convention, the Law of Land Warfare (Field Manual 27-10), and the U.S. Soldiers Creed. Forcing themselves to see the harm in their actions, however ugly and painful that may be, will leave them less likely to morally disengage. [...] we shouldn't compare the harms of a course of action to prototypical extreme harms, such as Nazi internment c...

National Will From a Threat Perspective

From "Homage to a Government," Philip Larkin, 1969' THE ARMY TRAINING and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) intelligence office's Operational Environment document asserts that U.S. adversaries have identified national will as a historically critical vulnerability in U.S. national security posture.2 Philip Larkin's poem quoted above speaks to the challenge military operations face when domestic support gives over to fatigue and impatience. By 2002, Russian citizens were largely ambivalent toward the ...

Now That We're Leaving Iraq, What Did We Learn?

Ever since the release of Field Manual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency, in 2006, official and unofficial military publications have been filled with articles extolling the virtues of nonlethal operations - the "lines of effort" of governance, economic development, essential services, reconciliation, and so forth. A field commander's competence became a perception of his mastery of the nonlethal aspects of COIN, not his effectiveness in reducing violence in his area of operations. [...] we elim...

On the Road to Articulating Our Professional Ethic

[...] many associated with the profession of arms have openly questioned whether it is prudent or even possible to attempt to give expression to a "professional military ethic" (PME). [...] we must generate a longer, more in-depth exploration of this ethic that provides the rationale for the principles included in the shorter version. [...] we must reinforce the professional military ethic in all aspects of military service, including garrison operations, field training, and deployments.

Outnumbered: Incredible Stories of History's Most Suprising Battlefield Upsets

Owning Our Army Ethic

[...] conflict defies simplistic solutions and the framework of the Army Ethic must acknowledge a Soldier's complex and uncertain environment and still give clear, principled guidance. [...] leader's responsibilities to the Army Ethic are paramount and are three-fold: * To develop all Soldiers with military competence and moral character. * To police the Army's Ethic within each level of command. * To constantly conform Army culture and climate to its own ethical core to reinforce the tenets...

Reconnecting with Our Roots Reflections On the Army's Ethic

Doing so ensures we will remain a professional military force striving for unmatched capability, character, and values in the future.2 The Army enjoys a strong ethical tradition, but as General Casey recently noted, "if you walked around the Army [today] and asked people what the Professional Military Ethic is, you would likely get a number of different answers" because a singular guiding professional ethic does not exist.3 While the lack of an articulated ethic has not prevented us from livi...

Shared Situational Understanding

In the absence of reliable technical connections, perceptual connectivity can help bridge inevitable gaps in communications through logical assumptions based on shared perspectives. [...] perceptual connectivity is superior; in its absence, technical connectivity conveys only empty symbols, not meaning.