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ideas, and promote the dissemination of new knowledge. Changes made
by Army leadership in the decades following the Vietnam War to the U.S.
Army s structures and processes for collecting and disseminating new
knowledge through experience are presented in this study as an exam-
ple of such a leader-directed transformation.
On the other hand, leaders can also stymie organizational learning by
intervening in existing learning processes or by creating processes that
hinder bottom-up communication or fail to capture and disseminate
new knowledge. Thus, leaders can fundamentally alter the learning cul-
ture of an organization through the good or bad design of processes and
systems; and they can also stymie existing processes through targeted ac-
tions at critical points in the system that block learning processes.
In sum, organizational learning is a complex cycle involving a num-
ber of interconnected processes. Organizations that fail to learn are of-
ten stymied by factors such as cognitive beliefs by powerful leaders, or-
ganizational incentive structures that discourage creativity, or structural
processes that block the transmission of knowledge. These factors re: ect
similar themes in organization theory and bureaucratic politics, on
which much of the military innovation literature is based. While individ-
ual learning is necessary, it is not suf9 cient for organizational learning to
occur. As one author claimed, organizations must possess  the right cul-
ture, the knowledge itself, and access to the knowledge in order to
learn.51 The ways in which organizational culture, formal structures, and
organizational processes in: uence military learning and are iteratively
in: uenced by that learning are examined in the chapters that follow.
51. Sullivan and Harper, Hope Is Not a Method, 36.
chapter 2
Two Centuries of Small Wars
and Nation Building
This obviously wasn t peace yet it didn t quite seem war.
This was neither Kenya nor Indo-China. The system, as
usual, told us nothing.1
 second lieutenant oliver crawford,
the door marked malaya
Writing of his experiences in Somalia in 1992, Pentagon re-
porter Tom Ricks observed,  This was the 9 rst U.S. brush with  peace-
making  a new form of post Cold War, low intensity chaos that is nei-
ther war nor peace, but produces enough exhaustion, anxiety, boredom,
and confusion to feel much like combat. 2 Indeed, many observers of the
U.S. military s ill-fated mission to Somalia thought that a new type of low-
level con: ict had emerged and they were not so sure that U.S. forces
were an appropriate remedy. History indicates, however, that such mis-
sions are far from new for U.S. troops. Messy and confusing operations
in Somalia and Haiti in the 1990s were not unlike frontier army duty in
the 1800s, occupation in the American South after the Civil War, mis-
sions to the Philippines and Cuba after the Spanish-American War, or
the so-called Banana Wars of the early 20th century. In fact, all of these
experiences have far more in common with 21st-century operations in
Iraq and Afghanistan than do the  major combat operations for which
the military has been organized, trained, and equipped throughout the
majority of the 20th century. As this chapter reveals, the U.S. Army and
1. Oliver Crawford, The Door Marked Malaya (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1958);
reprinted in 1989 as FMFRP 12-28 USMC.
2. Tom Ricks, Making the Corps (New York: Scribner, 1998), 17.
27
28 " lifting the fog of peace
Marine Corps have a long history of conducting such missions and a
mixed record of learning from their experiences.
The purpose of this chapter is not to detail every military operation
the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have experienced in the past two cen-
turies but, rather, to provide a general overview of the extent to which
the military has been involved in nontraditional military missions, to
highlight the common characteristics and controversies associated with
such operations, and to detail how the two institutions have or have not
captured lessons from these episodes to better prepare troops for future
similar duties. The organizational and political narratives that evolved
from this rich history have informed the modern military s mind-set and
its understanding of its  proper role. While the actual operational ex-
perience provided substantive lessons for current and future operations,
the narratives that evolved, both within the military and throughout
American society, presented cultural and political obstacles to organiza-
tional change.
This chapter presents a mixed record of success and failure over two
centuries as the American military learned, relearned, and institution-
ally forgot again and again the types of complex stability operations and
counterinsurgency tasks it 9 nds itself conducting again today. The chap-
ter outlines the informal mechanisms by which troops coped with unfa-
miliar missions and how they shared information and adapted contem-
poraneously when their institutions failed to prepare them adequately.
More formal attempts to convert this adaptation into longer-term orga-
nizational learning, such as the Marine Corps experience in crafting the
Small Wars Manual in the 1930s and the War Department s development
of systematic planning processes and schools for military government
and civil affairs during the interwar years, demonstrate the way in which
lessons learned in the 9 eld can be captured and recorded into doctrine,
education, and training. Yet in each case, powerful political and cultural
forces averse to small wars and occupation managed to sideline the ef-
forts to institutionalize lessons for future generations. Thus, although
this period yields clear evidence of learning from experience and clear
examples of how organizations can create processes for learning from
experience, the Army and Marine Corps seemed to cope and adapt
more than they actually learned institutionally.
Coping and Adapting in the Early Years
Contrary to current conventional wisdom, the initial purpose of the
standing American Army was not simply to  9 ght and win the nation s
Two Centuries of Small Wars and Nation Building " 29
wars but, rather, to promote the development of the nation by  intimi-
dating and 9 ghting the Native Americans and guarding against Euro-
pean colonial powers. These requirements were spelled out in Sentiments
on a Peace Establishment, written by General George Washington in 1783.
In the document, Washington outlined the way the new nation s military
should be constructed and the purpose it would serve.
A regular and standing force, for Garrisoning West Point and such
other Posts upon our Northern, Western, and Southern Frontiers, as
shall be deemed necessary to awe the Indians, protect our Trade, pre-
vent the encroachment of our Neighbours of Canada and the Flori-
das, and guard us at least from surprizes.3
Accordingly, graduates of the United States Military Academy simul-
taneously comprised the Corps of Engineers and the regular Army. Ac-
cording to military historian Russell Weigley, President Jefferson, who
founded the Academy, believed that  if a standing army must be toler-
ated . . . it should be as useful as possible, and not merely in military [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]