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Determinants of Success and Failure in US Advising of Foreign Militaries, 1945-present The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:40046562 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Determinants of Success and Failure in US Advising of Foreign Militaries, 1945-present A dissertation presented by Gabrielle Ramaiah to The Department of Government in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Government Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts May 2017 © 2017 Gabrielle Ramaiah All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Author: Professor Stephen Rosen Gabrielle Ramaiah Determinants of Success and Failure in US Advising of Foreign Militaries, 1945- Present Abstract Military advising is frequently touted as a high-impact, low-cost strategy that allows the United States to achieve its security goals without deploying combat troops. The US military now considers foreign military advising to be a core competency, and it has become increasingly involved in military advising missions since 2001, a trend most expect to continue well into the future. Remarkably, neither academic scholars nor the policy community has investigated how effective advising actually is or what factors determine success. Both the United States and others have pursued major foreign policy strategies based on this unproven assumption. No wisdom, scholarly or even within the military itself, currently exists about the overall utility of military advisory missions or how to effectively run one. This dissertation answers both questions and offers insight on how to determine the likelihood of mission success even before the United States becomes involved in a conflict. This dissertation argues that institutional structures and processes in the host military and advisory group drive advisory mission outcomes. Changes in host military effectiveness are driven by an interaction between two independent variables: advisory group and host military institutional structures and processes that promote organizational learning. Advisory missions are more likely to succeed the more both sides adhere to best practices on a set of specific institutional structures and processes that are required for the effective development of a host military. Drawing on archival documents, Army and joint publications, oral histories, memoirs and 43 interviews with former American military advisors, I investigate how effective US military advising has iii been since 1945 and the factors that separate the successful missions from the ones for which the United States expended blood and treasure without substantially increasing the host military’s combat performance. I illustrate how the institutional structures and processes in both the host military and the advisory group that promote organizational learning result in substantial improvements in the host military’s combat effectiveness at the unit cohesion, tactical, and operational levels. This dissertation focuses on four case studies: the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq War from 2003-present, and the War in Afghanistan. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………..……1 Figure 1.1 Overview of Advisory Missions………...…………………………………………...……4 Figure 1.2 The Learning Cycle…………………………………………………………...………....22 Chapter 2: Explaining Outcomes of Military Advisory Missions …………………………………………....32 Figure 2.1 Measuring Institutional Structures and Processes in the Advisory Group……………….37 Figure 2.2 Measuring Institutional Structures and Processes in the Host Military…………………..40 Figure 2.3 Best, Average, and Worst Practices in Institutional Structures and Processes……...…….41 Figure 2.4 Measurement of Unit Cohesion………………………………………………………....44 Figure 2.5 Measurement of Basic Tactical Proficiency……………………………………………...44 Figure 2.6 Measurement of Proficiency in Complex Operations………………………………....…45 Figure 2.7 Measuring Military Effectiveness………………………………………………………..45 Figure 2.8 Measuring Change in Military Effectiveness…………………………………………….46 Figure 2.9 Dependent Variable Outcomes…………………………………………………………46 Figure 2.10 Requirements for Fully Successful Advisory Missions……………………………….47-8 Figure 2.11 Institutional Structures and Processes and Advising Outcomes…………………….......50 Figure 2.12 Summary of Hypotheses………………………………………………………………50 Figure 2.13 List of Potential Cases…………………………………………………………………54 Chapter 3: Korea Case Study……………………………………………………………………....................59 Figure 3.1 Advisory Group Institutional Structures and Processes over Time……………………...79 Figure 3.2 Host Military Institutional Structures and Processes over Time…………………………86 Figure 3.3 Constabulary Unit Cohesion in Phase I…………………………………………………89 Figure 3.4 Korean Military Effectiveness in Phase II………………………………………………93 Figure 3.5 Progress of the Korean War, 1950-1953………………………………………………...95 Figure 3.6 Korean Military Effectiveness in Phase III……………………………………………...97 Figure 3.7 Korean Military Effectiveness in Phase IV…………………………………………….101 Figure 3.8 Summary of Korean and US Institutional Structures and Processes, Part 1.…………....102 Figure 3.9 Summary of Korean and US Institutional Structures and Processes, Part 2……………103 Chapter 4: Vietnam Case Study……………………………………………………………….…………...106 v Figure 4.1 Total Advisory Strength in 1965……………………………………………………….127 Figure 4.2 Advisory Group Institutional Structures and Processes Over Time……………………130 Figure 4.3 Host Military Institutional Structures and Processes Over Time……………………….142 Figure 4.4 ARVN Unit Cohesion Over Time……………………………………………………..155 Figure 4.5 ARVN Basic Tactics Proficiency Over Time………………………………………..…155 Figure 4.6 ARVN Proficiency in Complex Operations Over Time………………………………..155 Chapter 5: Afghanistan Case Study…………………………………………………………….....................161 Figure 5.1 US Troop Levels in Afghanistan Over Time…………………………………………..164 Figure 5.2 Guidelines for Reports………………………………………………………………...166 Figure 5.3 A Summary of Training for Afghans…………………………………………………..171 Figure 5.4 Advisory Group Institutional Structures and Processes Over Time……………………176 Figure 5.5 Host Military Institutional Structures and Processes…………………………………...181 Figure 5.6 Unit Cohesion in the ANSF…………………………………………………………...183 Figure 5.7 Basic Tactical Proficiency in the ANSF………………………………………………..185 Figure 5.8 Complex Operational Proficiency in the ANSF………………………………………..186 Figure 5.9 Improvement in Combat Effectiveness and Institutional Structures and Processes 1......187 Figure 5.10 Improvement in Combat Effectiveness and Institutional Structures and Processes 2....187 Chapter 6: Iraq Case Study………………………………………………………………………………...192 Figure 6.1 Advisory Group Structures and Processes……………………………………………..205 Figure 6.2 Host Military Institutional Structures and Processes…………………………………...211 Figure 6.3 ISF Changes in Combat Effectiveness over Time……………………………………...212 Figure 6.4 ISF Unit Cohesion over Time…………………………………………………………215 Figure 6.5 ISF Proficiency in Basic Tactics Over Time…………………………………………....217 Figure 6.6 Iraqi Army Territorial Gains from October 2017 to March 2017………………………219 Figure 6.7 ISF Proficiency in Complex Operations Over Time…………………………………...219 Chapter 7: Conclusion………………………………………………………………………........................223 Figure 7.1 Measuring Military Effectiveness………………………………………………………224 Figure 7.2 Summary of Findings………………………………………………………………….224 Figure 7.3 Institutional Structures and Processes and Advising Outcomes……………………..…224 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………………241 Appendix………………………………………………………………………………………………….247 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have been extraordinarily fortunate to receive practical guidance and moral support from a great many people during the course of this project. I am deeply indebted to my advisors Steve Walt, Steve Rosen, and Beth Simmons, who are responsible for much of what is good about this research. Of course, all remaining errors are my own. For this project I interviewed a number of former US military advisors without whom I could not have completed this project. I am grateful to them both for their service as well as sharing their experiences so enthusiastically and freely with me. My undergraduate advisors at Dartmouth Bridget Coggins, John Carey, and especially Ben Valentino, who probably shaped my intellectual development more than anyone else, piqued my interest in political science research and inspired me to pursue graduate school. I am especially grateful for my earliest mentors Amelia Williams, Peter Perretti, and Darryl Bayer, whose encouragement taught me to strive for things I thought impossible. I carry their lessons with me and reflect on their influence often. Over the past three years, I worked full time for the Department of Defense while also a full-time dissertation writer, giving me a deeper understanding of evaluating military capabilities and foreign military training from a practical perspective as well as how large bureaucratic institutions function, both of which feature prominently in my research. I could not have made this arrangement work without the willingness and flexibility of both my advisors and my supervisors. I’m deeply grateful to all of them for enabling me to forge