Coin

A study of strategic illusion

Bibliographic Data

ID5724677
AuthorsAmitai Etzioni (0000-0002-2324-5890, George Washington University, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume26
Issue3
Pages345-376
Publication date2015-05-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSmall Wars and Insurgencies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0959-2318 • E-ISSN: 1743-9558
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09592318.2014.982882
OpenAlexW2001547101
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited30

Has the US military become a learning institution, one able to transition from relying on a conventional war model to fighting against irregular adversaries such as insurgents and terrorists? This article examines the United States' interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan in an effort to respond to this question. It shows that there are two major ways for a military to fail to be a ‘learning’ institution: It may stick to its old dogma or – adopt a flawed new one. Those who saw counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine as the best way to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan made the US military into a learning organization – but taught it the wrong lesson. They failed to take into account the absence of the sociological conditions that make a post-conflict environment amenable to nation-building, which is an integral part of the main variants of counterinsurgency. The article closes by outlining the foremost reasons the US military continues to be a poorly adaptive organization

Business · Cognitive psychology · Illusion · Political science · Competitive and Knowledge Intelligence · Psychology

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