Browsing by Subject "U.S. Army"

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Demystifying counterinsurgency : U.S. Army internal security training and South American responses in the 1960s
(2016-12) Lyles, Ian Bradley; Brown, Jonathan C. (Jonathan Charles), 1942-; Twinam, Ann; Garfield, Seth W.; Madrid, Raul L.; Deans-Smith, Susan
United States’ counterinsurgency activities in the Western Hemisphere provide a new lens with which to investigate Latin America’s Cold War experience. This dissertation contributes to the debate over the impact of American foreign policy in the region by reconstructing a key component of Washington’s strategy: the U. S. Army’s counterinsurgency training of South American military forces during the 1960s and 1970s. Counterinsurgency casts a long shadow over U. S. foreign relations with Latin America but few authors explain what that doctrine entailed and how Washington sought to disseminate it among its regional allies. This dissertation contributes to the new Cold War literature on Latin America by using previously unpublished and declassified materials to demystify the term “counterinsurgency.” It examines American training of South American militaries and explains the doctrine and tactics the U.S. Army sought to transmit to its counterparts under the rubric of counterinsurgency. After reconstructing the U.S. Army’s institutional apparatus for teaching internal security, this dissertation investigates the impact of American counterinsurgency efforts. In doing so it seeks to solve an enduring enigma. If the regional hegemon, the United States, exported one consistent counterinsurgency doctrine throughout the Western Hemisphere, why did South American countries experience such widely divergent internal security outcomes during the Cold War? A comparative analysis of six South American nations’ responses to American counterinsurgency yields new insights into Latin America’s Cold War experience. This dissertation argues that U.S. Army counterinsurgency training was more complex, nuanced and perishable than previously understood. Numerous obstacles impeded the U.S. Army’s ability to disseminate its training. Moreover, South American political and military leaders chose whether to accept or reject U.S. counterinsurgency. Washington did not dictate or decree its internal security training. Venezuela, Colombia and Bolivia embraced American counterinsurgency and sought U.S. Army assistance in confronting internal insecurity. Brazil, Argentina, and Chile shunned the American “model.” Military regimes in those nations developed their own internal security doctrine and tactics and conducted “dirty wars” against their populations a result of their own choices, not because of their slight exposure to American counterinsurgency concepts.
Female veterans face complex transition, high unemployment
(2015-05) Kulshrestha, Kritika Pramod; Todd, Russell; Rivas-Rodriguez, Maggie
Julie Puzan left Falls City, Texas, to join the Air Force in September 2003 as soon as she completed high school. Over the next six years, she was deployed to Guam twice as a weapons loader. In 2009 she left the service. That’s when things got tough. When she mustered out, she knew she needed help getting back in civilian life. She just didn’t know where to get it. Eventually she navigated the maze of assistance programs for vets and began putting her life together. Help was out there, but it was hard to find. She also realized that a flood of female vets was coming home to assistance that had been designed for men. Lots of programs dealt with problems like combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder, but few were out there to treat the aftermath of sexual assaults and other challenges faced by females. Puzan is among 2.3 million female veterans in or entering the American work force after America's recent series of wars. The economy hasn't been good at absorbing these veterans. The V.A. and other veterans organizations are beginning to reach out to female vets, but find themselves behind the curve given the fast growth of the population they serve. As long as that's true, female vets will have to look hard to find the help they need in a system designed for males.
Forgetting how to win : the U.S. Army, U.S. Department of State, and U.S. Agency for International Development in post-combat operations (1983-2008)
(2021-05-10) Kasper, Jeremy Ray; Inboden, William, 1972-; Hutchings, Robert; Kettl, Donald; O'Connell, Aaron; Suri, Jeremi
This dissertation explores how bureaucracies adapt to – and learn from – unexpected crises that lay outside their core mission. Few modern crises have challenged bureaucratic practitioners more than unexpected post-combat operations, which is today a trillion-dollar policy problem with many lives at risk. The central research question for this study is how do bureaucracies adapt to conduct unexpected post-combat operations? This study examines three national security institutions – the U.S. Army, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) – and how these organizations adapted to unexpected post-combat operations across four cases: Grenada (1983-1985), Panama (1989-1994), Kosovo (1999-2008), and Afghanistan (2001-2008). The study is organized as a comparative case study that draws from three overlapping bodies of literature: bureaucracy theory, the theory and practice of modern post-combat operations, and the available literature on the four cases and three bureaucracies in question. This dissertation makes two main arguments. The central argument is that these bureaucracies adapted to individual post-combat operations in similar ways. These comprise four adaptive pathways: relying on existing offices or capabilities; hand-selecting the best of its available leaders, resources, and capabilities; responding favorably to practitioners’ calls for more resources or autonomy; and investing in long-term organizational learning and institutional change. This dissertation’s secondary argument is that personal relationships and trust shaped how each bureaucracy adapted to each crisis. The study concludes that these lessons provide a framework for bureaucratic executives and practitioners guiding organizations through future crises. This work also examines interagency unity of effort in each case, the comparative advantages of each bureaucracy, and the merits and limitations of top-down and bottom-up adaptations.
The Organizational Determinants of Military Doctrine: A History of Army Information Operations (Winter 2022/2023)
(Texas National Security Review, 2023) White, Sarah P.
For the past four decades, the U.S. Army has made repeated attempts to create an enduring doctrinal framework that describes the role of information in conflict, yet these attempts have been largely unsuccessful. What accounts for this struggle? More broadly, why do militaries choose one doctrinal concept over others, and what determines whether a new doctrine will succeed or fail? Building upon classic scholarship in military innovation, this paper traces the evolution of Army information doctrine to highlight the unique role of military sub-communities in determining whether changes to doctrine endure or are ultimately rejected. The structural reforms that were necessary to modify and elevate the role of information within Army doctrine ultimately came to handicap the Army’s ability to transform that role when the strategic environment demanded it. While strategic and technological conditions can create the necessary pretext for doctrinal change, there are important organizational determinants of doctrine that may operate independently of the demands of the overarching strategic environment and that can force difficult and suboptimal compromises with respect to the final product.