Protecting the Mission
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© COPYRIGHT by Joshua S. Jones 2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Dedicated to my family. PROTECTING THE MISSION: THE CASE OF THE U.S. ARMY BY Joshua S. Jones ABSTRACT In the literature of organizational change, scholars generally agree that organizations resist change, a phenomenon usually described as organizational inertia. Most of this literature, however, ignores the question of how such resistance to change is manifest. I seek to fill this gap by explaining the tactics that organizations use to resist change. Most of the literature on organizational change also treats resistance as a byproduct of organizational nature. In contrast, I start from the presumption that resistance can be an intentional act and not solely a passive characteristic or byproduct of organizations. In seeking to understand resistance as an intentional act, I explore the following questions: How does an organization resist the external and internal forces for change that act upon it? Are there similarities and differences to this resistance depending on whether the force is internal or external? Are organizations more or less successful in resisting internal or external forces for change? Over time, do organizations become more skilled at resisting? To answer these questions, I use the case study approach to look at the U.S. Army and its response to challenges to its sense of mission, something the literature predicts the Army should resist. More specifically, I test these hypotheses: 1) organizations employ different types of tactics of resistance depending on whether the force for change is internal or external; 2) organizations are more successful at resisting internal than external forces for change; and 3) organizations become more effective at resisting over time. In testing these hypotheses, I seek to ii expand our knowledge of organizational change by addressing the “how” question regarding an organization’s intentional resistance. In order to test these hypotheses, I examine the U.S. Army’s resistance to change during the 20th and 21st centuries using the cases of personnel, operations, and technology. In each case, I analyze and demonstrate how internal and external forces acted upon the Army in a way that threatened the organization’s sense of mission and that the Army intentionally resisted these forces for change through the employment of tactics of resistance. From this analysis, I find that there are similarities in the Army’s resistance to change depending on whether the force for change is internal or external, that the Army is more successful at resisting internal than external forces for change, but that the Army does not become more effective at resistance over time. This project has implications for both theory and practice. This research will expand our theoretical understanding of how organizations actively resist change by moving beyond the notion that resistance is solely a passive characteristic of organizations. Broadly, such insight has important implications for scholarly research in the areas of organizational change, civil- military relations, and military innovation theory. In terms of practice, this research can help policymakers understand how and when their policy directives will meet resistance; additionally, this research informs constituencies of resistance how and when such resistance will be effective. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project would not have even begun without the support of my family. I am also thankful to my fellow PhD candidates at the School of International Service who provided feedback, review, and insight. I offer my deepest gratitude to my dissertation committee for their guidance, support, and intellect. Especially, I thank Dr. Sharon Weiner for her mentorship, as this project would not have been possible without it. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. iv LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ....................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND METHODS ............................................ 19 CHAPTER 3 PERSONNEL ............................................................................................ 55 CHAPTER 4 OPERATIONS ........................................................................................ 149 CHAPTER 5 TECHNOLOGY ...................................................................................... 240 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION........................................................................................ 326 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 379 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Strategic Resistance to African Americans ................................................................... 73 Table 2: Resistance to African Americans – Forces for Change, Tactics of Resistance, and Outcomes .......................................................................................................................... 92 Table 3: Strategic Resistance to Women ................................................................................... 108 Table 4: Strategic Resistance to Women -- Forces for Change, Tactics of Resistance, and Outcomes ........................................................................................................................ 122 Table 5: Strategic Resistance to Homosexuals -- Forces for Change, Tactics of Resistance, and Outcomes.................................................................................................................. 140 Table 6: Strategic Resistance to Counterinsurgency – Philippine-American War .................... 164 Table 7: Strategic Resistance to Change – Philippine-American War – Forces for Change, Tactics of Resistance, and Outcomes.............................................................................. 174 Table 8: Strategic Resistance to Counterinsurgency – Vietnam War ........................................ 189 Table 9: Strategic Resistance to Change – Vietnam War – Forces for Change, Tactics of Resistance, and Outcomes .............................................................................................. 203 Table 10: Strategic Resistance to Couterinsurgency – Iraq and Afghanistan Wars .................. 213 Table 11: Strategic Resistance to Counterinsurgency – Iraq and Afghanistan Wars – Forces for Change, Tactics of Resistance, and Outcomes .......................................................... 232 Table 12: Strategic Resistance to Airplanes .............................................................................. 260 Table 13: Strategic Resistance to Airplanes – Forces for Change, Tactics of Resistance, and Outcomes.................................................................................................................. 275 Table 14: Strategic Resistance to Nuclear Weapons ................................................................. 282 Table 15: Strategic Resistance to Nuclear Weapons – Forces for Change, Tactics of Resistance, and Outcomes .............................................................................................. 293 Table 16: Institutionalization of Helicopters ............................................................................. 305 Table 17: Strategic Resistance to Opponents of U.S. Army Helicopter Capabilities – Forces for Change, Tactics of Resistance, and Outcomes .............................................. 319 Table 18: Tactics of Resistance and Number of Times Employed Against Internal and External Forces across all Cases ..................................................................................... 330 vi Table 19: Army’s Successful Resistance to Internal and External Forces (Instances of Successful Resistance of Total Number of Instances) .................................................... 337 Table 20: Success of Tactics of Resistance Employed Against Internal and External Forces (Instances of Successful Employment of Total Instances of Employment) ................... 339 Table 21: To what degree does strategic resistance play a role in preventing organizational change? ........................................................................................................................... 370 vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: Organizational Framework of the U.S. Army – Components and Features ................ 53 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The horse cavalry and the 2003 Iraq War may seem like completely unrelated occurrences, but they both tell us something important about the nature of the U.S. Army’s resistance to change. In 1951, the Army finally disbanded the horse cavalry, 6 year after the use of the atomic bomb and over 30 years after motorized vehicles, machine guns, chemical weapons, and tanks demonstrated the changed nature of warfare in two world wars and obsolescence of the horse as a combat-effective tool of war. Given the destructive power of these newer technologies, the horse cavalry demonstrated uncanny endurance. Over fifty