Myth Creation, Organisational Dysfunction and that Nauseating Phrase: Hearts and Minds - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Myth Creation, Organisational Dysfunction and that Nauseating Phrase: Hearts and Minds

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Title: Myth Creation, Organisational Dysfunction and that Nauseating Phrase: Hearts and Minds


1
Myth Creation, Organisational Dysfunction and
that Nauseating Phrase Hearts and Minds
  • Stuart Gordon
  • Defence and International Affairs
  • Royal Military Academy
  • Sandhurst

2
Scope
  • Hearts and minds and myths
  • Lessons of Malaya Not hearts and minds but
    campaign authority and force posture
  • Explaining Organisational dysfunction?

3
Hearts and minds and myths
4
Hearts and Minds from Malaya to Afghanistan
that nauseating phrase
  • The fusion of military, political, social and
    economic strategies into one overarching and
    coherent response to an insurgency. It seeks to
    deny the enemy physical access to, as well as
    both the active and passive support of, the
    civilian population. It seeks to enmesh
    functionally the population in the economic,
    political and social fabric of the nation.
  • This has become
  • A sense that a population can be bought, and
    force protection achieved, by gifts and so called
    kindnesses in the face of enormous individual
    physical as well as political, economic and
    social threats.

5
Contemporary Myths
  • Force protection can be achieved through
    humanitarian and reconstruction projects
  • A separate Civil Affairs organisation equates to
    a genuine (necessary and sufficient) capacity to
    manage the civil-military interface

6
Lessons of Malaya Not hearts and minds but
campaign authority and force posture
7
Malayas COIN Strategy
  • Political Strategy - the Grand Bargain
  • Unity of effort Civil dominance
  • Campaign Authority and Force Posture not
    Hearts and Minds

8
Explaining Organisational Dysfunction?
9
Explaining Organisational Dysfunction longevity
of PRTs/resistance to better ideas
  • Mimetic Behaviour
  • Divergent Relevance
  • The Perpetuating Impulse
  • The Consequences of Value Affirmation

10
US Army Military Culture
  • Focuses upon a high intensity war fighting
    culture an emphasis upon a formed Army, the
    application of fire and manoeuvre, limited
    political control and defining victory in terms
    of the destruction of the enemys capacity to
    prosecute conventional military operations as
    formed bodies.
  • The American view of war emphasizes combat,
    set-piece battles between organized units as the
    centrality of conflict. Americans also put a
    high priority upon the use of firepower and high
    mobility...The desirable aim of combat has been
    seen as the destruction of the enemys army in
    the field, with the inevitable consequence being
    that the enemy must submit.
  • Larry Cable, Conflict of Myths

11
Conclusions
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