Pages

3 October 2017

Military Culture

"An Army without culture is dull witted army, and a dull witted army cannot defeat the enemy"
-- Moa Tse Tung

We have lot of discussions on strategic culture of a nation. How about Military Culture? Does military culture matters? Military culture includes four factors, which are: discipline; professional ethos; ceremony and etiquette and cohesion and esprit de corps. 

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) defines military culture as “an amalgam of values, customs, traditions and their philosophical underpinnings that, over time, has created a shared institutional ethos.” Don M. Snider and his associates give another definition: “Military culture is the deep structure of organization drawn from the Army’s past successes and from its current interactions with the environment. It is rooted in the prevailing assumptions, values, and traditions which collectively, over time, have created shared individual expectations among the members of the Army profession.” 

Historians have done little work on the subject of military culture, focusing for the most part on more immediate factors such as leadership, doctrine, or training to explain victory or defeat. Military culture represents the ethos and professional attributes, both in terms of experience and intellectual study, that contribute to a common core understanding of the nature of war within military organizations. Military culture is the linchpin that helps determine the ability to transform because it influences how innovation and change are dealt with. The ability to harness and integrate technological advances with complementary developments in doctrine, organization and tactics is dependent on the propensity of military culture to accept and experiment with new ideas. Military culture comprises the attitudes, values, goals, beliefs, and behaviors characteristic of the institution that are rooted in traditions, customs, and practices and influenced by leadership. As Michael Howard has suggested, no other profession is as demanding in physical or mental terms as the profession of arms. 

Military culture changes over time in response to changes in a society’s culture, the advance of technology and the impact of leadership. As one senior service officer has noted, military cultures are like great ocean liners or aircraft carriers: they require an enormous effort to change direction.
In interwar period where militaries across Europe, Japan, and the United States faced budgetary constraints, rapid technological advances and unknown and ambiguous requirements. The ability of some militaries to transform while others were less successful was due to different cultures. Those that were receptive to honest self-assessment and intellectual rigor within open debate were able to overcome the inertia.

The German military possessed a devotion to duty, a seriousness about tactics and a breathtaking contempt for logistics and intelligence in the two world wars. The reason why German military culture paid so little attention to logistics has much to do with geography. The Germans have always been at the center of military operations throughout the history of European warfare, and Prussia’s catastrophe at Jena/Auerstadt in October 1806—whereby a single day’s defeat resulted in the collapse of the state—exercised a baleful influence as late as May 1945. 

The military capabilities that enabled the Germans to win in 1940 resulted not from revolutionary changes occurring in the 1930s, but rather from fundamental changes in the German military’s organizational culture that had occurred during the early 1920s, when Hans von Seeckt, the first chief of staff and in 1920 commander in chief of the Reichswehr, altered the cultural patterns of the German officer corps as a whole. Faced with the task of reducing the German army’s officer corps from more than 20,000 officers to the limit set by the Treaty of Versailles, Seeckt turned the officer corps over to the control of the great general staff.17 By so doing he deselected important constituencies, namely the Junker aristocracy and Frontsoldaten. The effect was to infuse the whole army with the cultural attributes of the general staff: the hallmarks of the new German army were systematic, thorough analysis; a willingness to grapple with what was really happening on the battlefield; and a rigorous selection process that emphasized officers’ intellectual attainments—in a professional sense—as well as their performance in leadership positions. 

Along with this emphasis, Seeckt appointed no fewer than fifty-seven different committees to study the lessons of World War I. This thorough, complete study of the last war stands in stark contrast to the experience of the British army, which failed to establish a single committee to study the lessons of that war until 1932, more than a decade after the Germans. Even then, the chief of the British imperial general staff had the report rewritten to cast a more favorable light on the army’s wartime performance. The Germans built on the work of Seeckt’s committees to fashion a coherent, combined arms doctrine; by 1923 the German army was well on the way to inventing the Blitzkrieg.18 

In 1932 two of the Reichswehr’s most respected generals, Werner von Fritsch and Ludwig Beck, rewrote the German army’s basic doctrinal manual, Die Truppenführung (Troop Leadership), which served as the basis for the combined-arms battle doctrine with which the Germans fought the Second World War. The opening paragraphs of that manual encompassed the fundamental cultural assumptions of the German army: 

1. The conduct of war is an art, depending upon free, creative activity, scientifically grounded. It makes the highest demands on individuals. 

2. The conduct of war is based on continuous development. New means of warfare call forth ever changing employment. . . . 

3. Situations in war are of unlimited variety. They change often and suddenly and are rarely discernible at an early point. Incalculable elements are often of great influence. The independent will of the enemy is pitted against ours. Frictions and mistakes are an every day occurrence.

Fritsch and Beck would assume control of the German army soon after Hitler came to power, and held responsibility for devel-oping the qualities that made that army such a formidable fighting instrument in the coming war.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, German army culture demanded not only high standards in terms of troop leadership but also serious study of the profession of arms. The case of Erwin Rommel suggests how widespread was this culture of serious intellectual preparation of the officer corps. If ever there was a “muddy boots combat soldier,” it was Rommel, yet he not only avidly devoured books, he wrote them. His Infantrie Greift An (Infantry Attacks) is one of the great classics in the literature of war.20

The German army tested its doctrine and new technologies throughout the interwar period to ensure continued realistic assessments. After the invasion of Poland in 1939, the army continued its critical self-assessments, which later helped in its invasion of France. As S.J. Lewis observes, “The senior and mid-level officers who so critically observed the army’s performance were the product of a particular military culture.” Paramount was a military culture that actively incorporated the products of open discussion and honest self-reflection into new tactics and organizations, including the reorganization of motorized divisions. The German navy, however, proved in two world wars that there was nothing innately competent about German military organizations; as a result, one should hesitate before ascribing undue influence to national culture in how service cultures develop.

There are few military organizations that possess a culture that encourages the study of even the recent past with any thoroughness. Most military organizations quickly develop myths that allow escape from unpleasant truths; such was the case with the French army in the immediate aftermath of World War I. And in some cases military cultures reject the past as having no relevance to the future of war. 

Military cultures that remain enmeshed in the day-to-day tasks of administration, that ignore history and serious study and allow themselves to believe that the enemy will possess no asymmetric responses are military organizations headed for defeat. 

What is India's military culture? How does it affect India's feeble effort on Transformation? 

Watch this space.




Quantum Networks and Cyber Security Challenges

By Lt Gen Prakash Katoch

It has always been maintained that there is nothing like total cyber security. However, in August 2017 the Chinese satellite ‘Micius’ beamed “hack proof” messages to earth, that were received by two Chinese receiver stations atop mountains – one 645km and the other 1200 km away.

The Quantum Experiments at Space Scales (QUESS) ‘Micius’ is the first quantum satellite in the world that China launched on August 15, 2017.

How Would Reagan’s Defense Secretary View the New Afghanistan Strategy?

BY J. DAVID PATTERSON

How shall we evaluate President Trump’s new Afghanistan strategy? One useful way is to measure it against Caspar Weinberger’s succinct framework for sending U.S. troops to fight abroad. In a 1984 speech at the National Press Club, the then-defense secretary laid out six principles: 

WHY THE CHINA-PAKISTAN ECONOMIC CORRIDOR WILL WORSEN TENSIONS IN SOUTHERN ASIA

DANIEL MARKEY

Last May, Chinese President Xi Jinping described the Belt and Road Initiative as the “project of the century.” Premier Li Keqiang has identified the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as the initiative’s “flagship project.” Marked by the fanfare of high-flying rhetoric and backed by billions of dollars in new investments, China has undeniably taken on a new and more active role in Southern Asia.


Instability in the MENA Region, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Key Conflict states: A Comparative Score Card

By Anthony Cordesman

If the U.S. is to fight extremism and instability in the Middle East, North Africa, and other key conflict countries in the developing world, it must address the civil dimension of war as well as the military one. "Hearts and minds" may seem to be a cliché, but battle for security and stability does involve religion, politics, governance, and economics as well as counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. Half of the war and half of a successful strategy must focus on the ability of "failed" government to win the trust and support of their peoples.

All That Could Go Wrong When Jihadists Return Home — to China

BY COLIN P. CLARKE, PAUL REXTON KAN

Most of the foreign fighters that flooded into in Syria during the past few years came from the West, but some jihadists also arrived from the Far East, including as many as 300 of Western China’s Uighurs, the Sunni Muslim indigenous ethnic minority. Now that the Islamic State’s caliphate is collapsing, it seems inevitable that some will return to China, bringing with them more of the jihadist ideology and influence that has leaders in Beijing worried.

Pork Chop Hill: When America and China Went to War in Korea


The tennis-shoed soldiers emerged from the darkness on July 6, 1953, like a “moving carpet of yelling, howling men [with] whistles and bugles blowing, their officers screaming, driving their men” against the Americans as they swept up Hill 255, recalled Private Angelo Palermo.


In drones, ISIS has its own tactical air force

By: Mark Pomerleau

Commercial drones, such as the $1,500 Chinese-made DJI Phantom widely used by the Islamic State group, are providing nonstate actors with their own mini-air force, according to an expert in irregular warfare, who spoke on a panel Wednesday at the Modern Day Marine expo in Quantico, Virginia.

While many observers have awed over ISIS’ use of these platforms to drop munitions — a significant change in operations and a threat to U.S. and allied forces unseen in the last 16 years — the totality of the group’s use of drones should be taken into account, said David Knoll, a research analyst at the Center for Naval Analysis.

War reporting 101: Check your sources


Earlier this year I wrote about the willingness of the news media to highlight claims of civilian casualties caused by coalition forces operating in Iraq and Syria, but their apparent unwillingness to critically examine their sources or to follow up when their claims have been denied, dismissed or proven wrong by the coalition. Of course, errors happen in war and civilians are killed. But some groups and individuals also claim civilians have been killed when they don't know the facts. And in other cases they use the media to promote claims they know to be false.

For Caliph and Country: Exploring How British Jihadis Join a Global Movement

Rachel Bryson

For half of that time, the streets of the UK have been seen as a legitimate target, as witnessed most recently in both London and Manchester. Ideologues made their home in Britain, having been rejected from Muslim-majority countries because the ideas they expounded were considered dangerous. From the UK, they influenced many. In the last five years, the conflict in Syria alone has attracted over 800 British fighters.

Download the full report, For Caliph and Country, here.

Divisions Within the Global Jihad: A Primer

By Daniel Byman

Every unhappy terrorist movement is unhappy in its own way, and the global jihadist movement is no exception. Disagreements over targeting, tactics, organization and the fundamental question of what it means to be a good Muslim have plagued the movement since its inception and remain a source of weakness.

North Korea: The Inevitability of War

By Crispin Rovere

This July I outlined the case for war against North Korea, contingent on the failure of diplomacy and Kim Jong-Un’s continued march towards a long-range nuclear ICBM capability.

Six weeks on North Korea has tested an ICBM, fired two missiles over Japan, and detonated a hydrogen bomb.

Can a cyber attack justify a military response?

BY AMADO S. TOLENTINO, JR

AS guaranteed by the UN Charter, a state always has the natural right to defend itself in case of an armed attack. Meaning, if the scale and consequences of the use of force against a state reaches the level of an armed attack, then the victim state may use force to defend itself.

Fighting the cyber war in the digital age

Nick Ismail

'With loss of customer data, fines and reputational risk, embedding security into the heart of your IT and correctly educating your employees will put you in a strong position to protect your organisation from an attack'

The global proliferation of cyber attacks on financial organisations has thrust the issue of cyber security – and its seemingly routine failings – into national conversation. The most recent major data breach on Equifax, the credit report company, highlights the problems facing organisations and their investors today.


Great Powers Are Defined by Their Great Wars

BY STEPHEN M. WALT

How to explain — and, if possible, predict — a great power’s foreign policy is a perennial question for scholars of international politics. Although a lot of scholarly writing in international relations focuses on the broader system of states (bipolar, multipolar, open, closed, norm-driven, ideologically divided, etc.), we are also interested in why Country X tends to act in one way while Country Y acts differently.