Chapter 7 Second Seminar Series: Technology and Military Institutions

This seminar series examines the relationship between American military institutions and developments in military technology since 1945. The series is based upon Thomas G. Mahnken’s Technology and the American Way of War Since 1945, which provides a good overview of some of the procurement battles and strategic debates. The seminar series covers the reaction of American services to the advent of nuclear weapons, a couple of key case studies in military procurement/retention that highlight inter-service dynamics, and then examine the relevance of this study for the present day.

7.1 Military Institutions in Context

What is an institution, and what differentiates military institutions from other kinds of institution? In this seminar we will look at three papers, two of which give overviews of the study of military institutions, and then use these to consider a key paper in the field of military innovation.

  • Discussion Questions:
    • What is your opinion of Hacker’s contention that “Historians consistently fail to distinguish war from military institutions as the object of analysis”? How important is this distinction, and why?
    • What role does technology and the nature of military institutions play in Rosen’s theory of military innovation?
  • Reading:
    • Siebold, Guy L. “Core Issues and Theory in Military Sociology.” Journal of Political and Military Sociology 29, no. 1 (Summer, 2001): 140-159.
    • Hacker, Barton C. “Military Institutions, Weapons, and Social Change: Toward a New History of Military Technology.” Technology and Culture 35, no. 4 (1994): 768-834. Accessed January 8, 2020. doi:10.2307/3106506.
    • Rosen, Stephen Peter. “New Ways of War: Understanding Military Innovation.” International Security 13, no. 1 (1988): 134-68. Accessed January 8, 2020. doi:10.2307/2538898.

7.2 Military Ideals

How can we theorise the role that cultural ideals play in defining and constituting military institutions? In this seminar, we will compare the field of military innovation studies to specific arguments about the role that cultural ideas, models, and paradigms play in constituting military institutions. Notably (in our context) Dunivin’s article does not focus upon technology, so what can we learn from it, and are there aspects we can criticise drawing upon our prior reading over this course?

  • Discussion question:
    • How convincing is Dunivin’s argument about the relationship between ideal types, models, and paradigms?
    • How might technology change challenge, or re-enforce, dominant paradigms or models within a military institution?
  • Reading:
    • Farrell, Theo, and Terry Terriff. “The Sources of Military Change.” In The Sources of Military Change: Culture, Politics, Technology, edited by Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff. Lynne Rienner Publishers, (2002).
    • Dunivin, Karen O. “Military Culture: Change and Continuity.” Armed Forces & Society 20, no. 4 Dunivin (1994): 531–47.

7.3 Military Institutions After WW2

In this seminar we will begin going through the key text for the course, Mahnken’s Technology and the American Way of War Since 1945. In this seminar we’ll draw upon our prior discussions about what makes a military institution and address one of Mahnken’s key arguments - that service culture fundamentally shaped the development and adoption of military technology in the US. We’ll also introduce one of the key issues that we’ll discuss over the next couple of weeks - the impact of nuclear weapons on military institutions - by analysing the relevance of Schelling’s work for military institutions themselves.

  • Discussion Questions:
    • How important was service culture in determining the responses of the US services to the development of cruise missiles and ballistic missiles?
    • If, per Rosen, victory in war is central to the legitimacy of military institutions, what should we make of Schelling’s idea that “Military strategy can no longer be thought of… as the science of military victory.”?
  • Reading:
    • Schelling, Thomas C. Arms and Influence. Yale University Press, 2008. Chapter 1. Available here.
    • Mahnken, Thomas G. Technology and the American Way of War. Columbia University Press, (2010). Introduction, and chapter 1

7.4 Responding to Nuclear Weapons 1: Doctrine

In this seminar we’ll be discussing the relationship between technology and military doctrine. In particular, we’ll look at the way in which a weapons technology (nuclear weapons) perhaps challenges Posen’s ideas about the sources of military doctrine. Furthermore, we’ll be using these ideas to evaluate a key (failed) innovation in response to nuclear weapons - the US army’s adoption of pentomic divisions.

  • Discussion Questions:
    • How might nuclear weapons challenge Posen’s findings about the relationship between doctrine and technology?
    • How well do the texts we have read during this term explain the US army’s adoption of the pentomic division? Does Sepp’s conclusion challenge any of their theories?
  • Reading:
    • Sepp, Kalev I. “The Pentomic Puzzle: The Influence of Personality and Nuclear Weapons on U.S. Army Organization 1952–1958.” Army History, no. 51 (2001): 1-13. www.jstor.org/stable/26304920.
    • Posen, Barry R. The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars. Cornell University Press, 2014. Chapter 1, conclusion

7.5 Responding to Nuclear Weapons 2: Procurement Battles

In this second seminar dedicated to responses to the advent of nuclear weapons, we will discuss the role that military institutions played in procurement decisions during the flexible response era. The readings for this week provide two views of how/why military systems might be procured, and we will discuss how inter-service rivalry fits into the picture.

  • Discussion Questions:
    • Does the procurement of military systems in the flexible response era seem rational to you? Why/why not?
    • To what extent is inter-service rivalry a problem for defence planning?
  • Reading:
    • Mahnken, Thomas G. Technology and the American Way of War. Columbia University Press, (2010). Chapter 2
    • Gray, Colin S. Strategy and Defence Planning: Meeting the Challenge of Uncertainty. Oxford University Press, USA, 2014. Chapter 2
    • Grissom, Adam. “The Future of Military Innovation Studies.” Journal of Strategic Studies 29, no. 5 Grissom (2006): 905–34.

7.6 Maintaining Military Power: the B-52

In this seminar we will focus specifically on a single platform - the B-52 Stratofortress bomber. This aircraft was developed as a strategic bomber at the height of the cold war, yet it is likely to still be in use in 2050. As such, it is a good candidate for discussing how military institutions shape and re-shape technologies and capabilities over time. In particular, this poses a key question for those seeking to measure and judge military institutions - is it possible to measure the “power” of an institution over time, when systems, doctrine, and opponents are constantly in flux?

7.7 Technologies of COIN

In the last third of the seminar series, we will be discussing a perennial problem for most major militaries - whether to optimise for potential conventional wars, or to adapt to fight low intensity conflicts. Here we’ll discuss an example of this, Vietnam, where the US was torn between waging a conventional war and a pacification campaign, while simultaneously preparing and organising for potential conventional wars in Europe.

  • Discussion Questions:
    • Is the difference between the types of technologies discussed by Mahnken and Gibson important?
    • What was more important as a barrier to US military innovation in Vietnam: institutional culture, or the prospect of conventional war in Europe?
  • Reading:
    • Mahnken, Thomas G. Technology and the American Way of War. Columbia University Press, (2010). Chapter 3
    • Gibson, James William. The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam. Atlantic Monthly Press, (2000). Chapter 8

7.8 Technology and Defence Reform

This seminar focuses upon the problem of preparing for future war, and a perennial trade-off for military institutions: between a large military utilising low cost platforms, or a military reliant upon a smaller number of high tech military systems. Here we’ll be particularly focused upon the role of evidence, particularly evidence drawn from success in battle and victory in war - does success in war automatically refute those who argued against a given set of systems?

  • Discussion Questions:
    • Was the result of the Gulf War enough to prove the military reform movement completely wrong?
    • To what extent are the debates of the 1970s and 1980s relevant today?
  • Reading:
    • Mahnken, Thomas G. Technology and the American Way of War. Columbia University Press, (2010). Chapters 4 & 5

7.9 Procuring for Great Power competition

One of the big problems with studying military change in peacetime versus during war is that some states fight an awful lot of wars. This can create all sorts of problems, notably how preparing for the next war, or a “big” war, can conflict with adapting to the war a state is currently engaged in. It also creates complications when analysing processes of change, because the kinds of political battles, turf wars, and inter-service rivalry that accompanies innovation and adaptation tends to overlap in such circumstances. In the American case, this is a persistent and long-running problem. Should a state prepare for the wars it is fighting, or for looming conflicts that might pose an existential threat?

  • Discussion questions:
    • What best explains the failure of the US military to adapt to insurgency in Iraq in the initial post-invasion period?
    • Is it possible to optimise a military institution for fighting both high-intensity conventional wars and low intensity conflicts?
  • Reading:
    • Cameron, Craig M. “The U.S. Military's”Two-Front War," 1963-1988." In The Sources of Military Change: Culture, Politics, Technology, edited by Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff. Lynne Rienner Publishers, (2002).
    • Shimko, Keith L. The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution. Cambridge University Press, (2010). Chapter 6

References

Cameron, Craig M. 2002. “The U.s. Military’s "Two-Front War," 1963-1988.” In The Sources of Military Change: Culture, Politics, Technology, edited by Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff. Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Dunivin, Karen O. 1994. “Military Culture: Change and Continuity.” Armed Forces & Society 20 (4):531–47. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X9402000403.

Farrell, Theo, and Terry Terriff. 2002. “The Sources of Military Change.” In The Sources of Military Change: Culture, Politics, Technology, edited by Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff. Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Gibson, James William. 2000. The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.

Grissom, Adam. 2006. “The Future of Military Innovation Studies.” Journal of Strategic Studies 29 (5). Routledge:905–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390600901067.

Mahnken, Thomas G. 2010. Technology and the American Way of War. Columbia University Press.

Shimko, Keith L. 2010. The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution. Cambridge University Press.