Abstract
This chapter addresses the remarkable disconnect between resilience literature and military theory. War puts high demands on the resilience of military organizations. Western militaries have adopted organizational and operational concepts to cope with the myriad challenges of violence, turbulence, uncertainty and an adaptive opponent that, when studied against the background of resilience literature, are quite sound. The maneuvrist approach and the idea of strategic paralysis both target the multiple nodes across various layers of an opponent’s organization that allow it to display coherent and purposeful behaviour. Both aim to disrupt the resilience of the opponent. In turn, the concept of mission command and recent operational concepts such as network centric warfare and swarming are fully congruent with the literature about complex systems, adaptability and current insights on what produces organizational resilience in highly threatening and fluid environments: decentralization, formal and informal networks, solid feedback mechanisms, self-organization, mutual trust, and semi-autonomous units. This chapter suggests that, where resilience studies are still in the exploratory stage, without clear definition and coherent theory, there is benefit in studying military theory and military organizations, which are increasingly informed by the same literatures as resilience studies.
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Notes
- 1.
The exception here is perhaps the literature on Recognition Primed Decision making developed by Gary Klein, which is based on cases of first responders, which has found resonance in literature on military command and control.
- 2.
Cohen and Gooch 2006.
- 3.
- 4.
Military command at all levels is the art of decision-making, motivating and directing to accomplish given missions.
- 5.
- 6.
Walklate et al. 2014.
- 7.
Martin-Breen and Anderies 2011, p. 5.
- 8.
Hillman 2013.
- 9.
Carle and Chassin 2004.
- 10.
Richardson et al. 1990, p. 34.
- 11.
Wolin and Wolin 1993, p. 5.
- 12.
- 13.
Folke et al. 2010.
- 14.
Hillman 2013, p. 9.
- 15.
- 16.
Perrow 1999, p. 90.
- 17.
For an in-depth account of the working of tightly coupled and non-linear effects see, Jervis 1997.
- 18.
- 19.
- 20.
- 21.
- 22.
Lissack 1999.
- 23.
Marion and Bacon 1999, p. 76.
- 24.
Marion and Bacon 1999, p. 76.
- 25.
Kelly and Allison 1999, p. 5.
- 26.
Coleman 1999, p. 37.
- 27.
Coleman 1999, p. 40.
- 28.
- 29.
Mintzberg et al. 1998, p. 229.
- 30.
Garwin 2000, p. 9.
- 31.
Argyris and Schon 1978, pp. 38–39, 143, 145.
- 32.
Garwin 2000, pp. 28–43.
- 33.
In recent popular management studies these same factors of resilience come to the fore, McKeown 2012 suggests that adaptability requires a modular structure, interoperability, swarming/clustering, tight feedback loops, de-coupling/de-intensify, Informal networks, strong communities bonded by values, beliefs, habits of mind, cooperation and trust, cognitive diversity and translational leaders; Similarly, Zolli and Healy 2012 suggest that resilience depends on innovation, learning, decentralization, critical thought, cooperation, swarming, and fostering change.
- 34.
- 35.
On purpose the following description is directly and almost verbatim derived from United States Marine Corps 1997, Chapter 1.
- 36.
- 37.
- 38.
The EBO concept was developed by David Deptula, an assistant of John Warden, and key planner of the strategic part of the Desert Storm air campaign, see Deptula 1996.
- 39.
- 40.
- 41.
For a good historical study of the emergence of modern day maneuver warfare, Naveh 1997, Chapters 7 and 8.
- 42.
- 43.
John Boyd, slide 137 of unpublished briefing Patterns of Conflict, p. 137, these slides can be found in Osinga 2006.
- 44.
John Boyd, slide 134 of unpublished briefing Patterns of Conflict, p. 134, these slides can be found in Osinga 2006.
- 45.
For the influence of Boyd on USMC doctrine, see Osinga 2006, Chapter 2.
- 46.
NATO 2010.
- 47.
Alberts and Hayes 2003, pp. 18–27.
- 48.
van Creveld 1988, Chapters 1 and 8.
- 49.
Boyd 1987; see Osinga 2006, pp. 189–200 for a full-length treatment of this presentation.
- 50.
Boyd 1992, see Osinga 2006, pp. 219–222 for a full-length treatment of this presentation.
- 51.
- 52.
Toffler and Toffler 1993, p. 81.
- 53.
- 54.
Libicki 1997.
- 55.
- 56.
- 57.
Cited in Coker 2004, p. 41.
- 58.
With the agreement by NATO in 2002 to create the NATO Response Force and embark on “military transformation”, it has also entered the debates among European militaries, see Osinga 2010.
- 59.
Alberts 2002, p. 18.
- 60.
Gompert et al. 1997, p. 4.
- 61.
Alberts et al. 1999, p. 90.
- 62.
United States Department of Defense 2001, pp. 3-5 and 3-1.
- 63.
Ibid, pp. 3-9 en 3-10.
- 64.
These tenets appear in several NCW publications, United States Department of Defense 2001, pp. i, v, 3-10.
- 65.
- 66.
For a concise yet broad and balanced treatment of the debate concerning NCW and similar concepts under the rubric of the Revolution in Military Affairs, Shimko 2010.
- 67.
Stewart 2010.
- 68.
- 69.
Shamir 2011.
- 70.
Guthrie 2012.
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Osinga, F. (2016). Organizing for Insecurity and Chaos: Resilience and Modern Military Theory. In: Beeres, R., Bakx, G., de Waard, E., Rietjens, S. (eds) NL ARMS Netherlands Annual Review of Military Studies 2016. NL ARMS. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-135-7_3
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