Institutions, Organizational Culture, and Counterinsurgency Operations: Why Do States Fight Similar Insurgencies Differently?

Abstract

This article expands our understanding of how states respond militarily to threats and challenges by examining how organizational culture and institutional policymaking structures shape states' use of force. To evaluate the explanatory power of culture and institutions, I analyze the effect of each variable on how the United Kingdom and France conduct counterinsurgency operations. To preview the conclusions, although both organizational culture and institutional structures provide insights into how states fight insurgencies, institutional structures are much more decisive in shaping outcomes. In states where policymaking institutions promote maximal political control of the armed forces, the result will be strategic satisficing, whereby restricted force is surgically employed, along with diplomacy, to achieve the state's limited goals while minimizing the risks of casualties and/or escalation. Contrarily, in states where institutions accord operational autonomy to the armed forces, commanders will pursue their preference for decisive military victory by applying overwhelming force and conducting operations that risk escalating conflicts. In contrast to institutions, organizational culture plays a more modest role, limited to shaping how military leaders initially conceptualize the challenges they face and the techniques they employ at the tactical level. Thus, institutional structures, rather than organizational culture, offer a more convincing argument for why similar states, facing comparable challenges, use force in systematically different ways.

The revisionist historiography of Britain’s decolonisation conflicts and political science theses of civilian victimisation in counterinsurgency

“…Some scholars point to military organisational interests as a cause of civilian targeting. 23 They build on the bureaucratic politics assumption that all organisations pursue independence from external oversight, control over their own affairs, and more financial resources. 24 As bureaucratic entities, military organisations would prefer strategies conceived to destroy the enemy and its popular base through preponderant technology and firepower; indeed, that type of strategy, while harming non-combatants, would make for higher military budgets and tighter control over the conduct of military operations.…”

“…24 As bureaucratic entities, military organisations would prefer strategies conceived to destroy the enemy and its popular base through preponderant technology and firepower; indeed, that type of strategy, while harming non-combatants, would make for higher military budgets and tighter control over the conduct of military operations. 25 Consequently, states would be more likely to victimise non-combatants when political leaders are unwilling or unable to restrain military organisations' institutional preference for the indiscriminate use of force. 26 Still other scholars argue that the preferences of military organisations about how to fight would derive from military culture that would set standards of appropriate behaviour.…”

“…Indeed, that scholarship sticks to a dichotomy between political leaders' alleged preference for 'the use of limited force to reassure allies, persuade insurgents to negotiate, or deny insurgents a country's population centres' versus the institutional preference of military organisations for overwhelming force to destroy the insurgent's sanctuaries in the civilian population. 62 As a result, civilian intervention in the planning and conduct of counterinsurgency campaigns is only seen as a source of self-restraint, while the use of indiscriminate violence is mostly attributed to military organisations and their commanders. Yet, political leaders and civil agencies can propel civilian targeting to such an extent that military organisational factors may not be sufficient to explain the use of indiscriminate violence in counterinsurgency.…”