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Innovation in Military Organizations

Graduate · Historical course

Fall 2005

This seminar has three purposes. One, it inquires into the causes of military innovation by examining a number of the most outstanding historical cases. Two, it views military innovations through the lens of organization theory to develop generalizations about the innovation process within militaries. Three, it uses the empirical study of military innovations as a way to examine the strength and credibility of hypotheses that organization theorists have generated about innovation in non-military organizations.

Readings

  • Wilson, James Q. Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It . New York, NY: Basic Books, 1991. ISBN: 9780465007851.
    Listed reading
  • Christensen, Clayton M. The Innovator’s Dilemma . New York, NY: HarperBusiness Essentials, 2003. ISBN: 9780060521998.
    Listed reading
  • Krepinevich, Andrew. The Army and Vietnam . Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988. ISBN: 9780801836572.
    Listed reading
  • Wilson, James Q. Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It . New York, NY: Basic Books, 1991, chapters 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, and 12. ISBN: 9780465007851.
    Listed reading
  • Wilson, James Q., and Peter Clark. “Incentive Systems: A Theory of Organization.” Administrative Science Quarterly 6 (1961): 129-166.
    Listed reading
  • Guillen, Mauro F. “The Age of Eclecticism: Current Organizational Trends and the Evolution of Managerial Models.” Sloan Management Review (Fall 1994): 75-86.
    Listed reading
  • Huntington, Samuel P. “Officership as a Profession,” and “The Military Mind: Conservative Realism of the Professional Military Ethic.” Chapters 1 and 3 in The Soldier and the State . Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1981, pp. 7-18 and 59-79. ISBN: 9780674817364.
    Listed reading
  • Janowitz, Morris. “Technology and Decision-Making,” “Discipline and Combat Goals,” and “The Military Hierarchy.” Chapters 2, 3, and 4 in The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait . New York, NY: Free Press, 1964, pp. 21-37, 38-53, and 54-75.
    Listed reading
  • Moore, Lt. Gen. Harold, and Joseph L. Galloway. “Into the Valley,” and “The Storm of Battle.” Chapters 5 and 8 in We Were Soldiers Once…and Young . New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1993, pp. 55-64, and 92-105. ISBN: 9780060975760.
    Listed reading
  • Wilson, James Q. “Innovation in Organization: Notes Towards a Theory.” In Approaches to Organizational Design . Edited by James D. Thompson. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1966, pp. 195-218. LCCN: 65-26336.
    Listed reading
  • Posen, Barry R. “The Importance of Military Doctrine,” and “Explaining Military Doctrine.” Chapters 1 and 2 in The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984, pp. 13-33, and 34-80. ISBN: 9780801416330.
    Listed reading
  • Rosen, Stephen P. Winning the Next War . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, chapters 1 and 9, pp. 1-55 and 251-262. ISBN: 9780801481963.
    Listed reading
  • Christensen, Clayton M. The Innovator’s Dilemma . New York, NY: HarperCollins Business Essentials, 2003, pp. 1-96, and 187-212. ISBN: 9780060521998.
    Listed reading
  • Sapolsky, Harvey M. “On the Theory of Military Innovation.” Breakthroughs 9, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 35-39.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • MacIsaac, David. “Voices from the Central Blue: The Air Power Theorists.” In Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 624-647. ISBN: 9780691027647.
    Listed reading
  • Werrell, Kenneth P. “The Strategic Bombing of Germany in World War II: Costs and Accomplishments.” Journal of American History (December 1986): 702-713.
    Listed reading
  • Quester, George H. “The Impact of Strategic Air Warfare.” Armed Forces and Society 4, no. 2 (February 1978): 179-205.
    Listed reading
  • Cohen, Eliot A. “The Mystique of U.S. Air Power.” Foreign Affairs 73, no. 1 (1994): 109-124.
    Listed reading
  • Meilinger, Phillip S. “Air Targeting Strategies: An Overview.” In Air Power Confronts an Unstable World . Edited by Richard Hallion. London, UK: Brasseys, 1997, pp. 51-80. ISBN: 9781857532388.
    Listed reading
  • Sapolsky, Harvey, and Jeremy Shapiro. “Casualties, Technology and America’s Future Wars.” Parameters 26, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 119-127.
    Listed reading
  • Smith, Thomas. “The New Law of War: Legitimizing Hi-Tech and Infrastructural Violence.” International Studies Quarterly 46 (2002): 355-374.
    Listed reading
  • Beier, J. Marshall. “Discriminating Tastes: ‘Smart’ Bombs, Non-Combatants, and Notions of Legitimacy in Warfare.” Security Dialogue 34, no. 4 (2003): 411-425.
    Listed reading
  • House, Captain Jonathan M. “The Interwar Period.” Chapter 3 in Toward Combined Arms Warfare: A Survey of 20th-Century Tactics, Doctrine, and Organization . Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1984, pp. 43-78.
    Listed reading
  • Bond, Brian. “Mechanization: The Second Phase, 1933-39.” Chapter 6 in British Military Policy between the Two World Wars . Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1980, pp. 161-190. ISBN: 9780198224648.
    Listed reading
  • Larson, Robert H. “The Years of Experiment: 1927-34.” Chapter 5 in The British Army and the Theory of Armored Warfare, 1918-1940 . Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 1984, pp. 132-170. ISBN: 9780874132199.
    Listed reading
  • Cooper, Mathew. “The Battle for Ideas.” Part II in The German Army: 1933-1945 . New York, NY: Stein and Day, 1978, pp. 113-166. ISBN: 9780812824681.
    Listed reading
  • Johnson, David E. “Alternatives for Armor.” Chapter 10 in Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army 1917-1945 . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998, pp. 116-152. ISBN: 9780801434587.
    Listed reading
  • Horowitz, Dan. “Flexible Responsiveness and Military Strategy: The Case of the Israeli Army.” Policy Sciences 1 (1970): 191-205.
    Listed reading
  • Griffith, Paddy. “Conclusions.” Chapter 11 in Battle Tactics of the Western Front . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 192-200. ISBN: 9780300066630.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • Hallion, Richard P. “The Genesis of Anglo-American Air Support: The British Experience in the Western Desert,” and “The Necessary Interlude: Doctrine and the American Experience in the Pacific, Tunisian, and Italian Campaigns.” Chapters 12 and 13 in Strike from the Sky: The History of Battlefield Air Attack, 1911-1945 . Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989, pp. 149-162 and 163-187. ISBN: 9780874744521.
    Listed reading
  • Muller, Richard. “Close Air Support: The German, British, and American Experiences.” In Military Innovation in the Interwar Period . Edited by Williamson Murray, et al. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 144-190. ISBN: 9780521637602.
    Listed reading
  • “Smart Bombs.” Chapter 8 in Report of the Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy . Washington, DC: The Commission: Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1975, pp. 191-198.
    Listed reading
  • Watts, Barry D. “Unreported History and Unit Effectiveness.” The Journal of Strategic Studies 12, no. 1 (1989): 88-98.
    Listed reading
  • Burns, Richard D. “Regulating Submarine Warfare, 1921-41: A Case Study in Arms Control and Limited War.” Military Affairs (April 1971): 56-63.
    Listed reading
  • Cohen, Eliot A., and John Gooch. “Failure to Learn: American Antisubmarine Warfare in 1942.” In Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War . New York, NY: Free Press, 2005, pp. 59-94. ISBN: 9780743280822.
    Listed reading
  • Beesly, Patrick. “The First Twelve Months: A Lean Time,” “Triton to the Rescue,” and “January-May 1942: Climax of the Battle of the Atlantic.” Chapters 2, 10, and 11 in Very Special Intelligence: the Story of the Admiralty’s Operational Intelligence Centre, 1939-1945 . London, UK: Greenhill Books; Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2006, pp. ix-xvii, 24-41, 154-171, and 173-185. ISBN: 9781591149248.
    Listed reading
  • Sapolsky, Harvey M. Science and the Navy . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990, chapter 2, pp. 9-36. ISBN: 9780691078472.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • Sapolsky, Harvey M. The Polaris System Development: Bureaucratic and Programmatic Success in Government . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972, chapters 1, 2, 4, and 8. ISBN: 9780674682252.
    Listed reading
  • Sapolsky, Harvey M., Eugene Gholz, and Allen Kaufman. “Security Lessons from the Cold War.” Foreign Affairs 78, no. 4 (July/August 1999): 77-89.
    Listed reading
  • Liebowitz, S. J., and Stephen E. Margolis. “The Fable of the Keys.” Journal of Law and Economics 33, no. 1 (April 1990): 1-25.
    Listed reading
  • Friedman, Norman. Seapower and Space: From the Dawn of the Missile Age to Net-Centric Warfare . Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000, chapters 8 and 9, pp. 173-229. ISBN: 9781557508973.
    Listed reading
  • Levine, Henry D. “Some Things to All Men: The Politics of Cruise Missile Development.” Public Policy 25, no. 1 (Winter 1977): 117-168.
    Listed reading
  • Art, Robert J., and Stephen E. Ockden. “The Domestic Politics of Cruise Missile Development 1970-1980.” In Cruise Missiles: Technology, Strategy and Politics . Edited by Richard Betts. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute, 1981, pp. 359-413. ISBN: 9780815709312.
    Listed reading
  • Shafer, D. Michael. “The Unlearned Lessons of Counterinsurgency.” Political Science Quarterly 103, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 57-80.
    Listed reading
  • Marquis, Jefferson P. “The Other Warriors: American Social Science and Nation Building in Vietnam.” Diplomatic History 24, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 79-105.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • SES #: 9 · Topics: Post-Vietnam innovation: The “transformation” of the U.S. Army · READINGS: Posen, Barry R. “Introduction,” “Land Power in Modern Times,” and “The New Model Army.” Unpublished manuscript.
    Reading assignment
  • Listed reading
  • Anderegg, C. R. “Mud Beaters.” Chapter 12 in Sierra Hotel: Flying Air Force Fighters in the Decade After Vietnam . Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2001, pp. 119-142. ISBN: 9781931839044.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • Cohen, Eliot. “Change and Transformation in Military Affairs.” Journal of Strategic Studies 27, no. 3 (September 2004): 395-407.
    Listed reading
  • Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr. “Competing for the Future: Searching for Major Ellis.” Marine Corps Gazette 80, no. 11 (November 1996): 28-37.
    Listed reading
  • Shapiro, Jeremy. “Information and War: Is it a Revolution?” In The Changing Role of Information in Warfare . Edited by Z. M. Khalizad and J. P. White. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1999, pp. 113-154. ISBN: 9780833026637.
    Listed reading
  • Sapolsky, Harvey, Benjamin Friedman, and Brendan Green, eds. US Military Innovation Since the Cold War: Creation Without Destruction . New York, NY: Routledge, 2009. ISBN: 9780415777919.
    Listed reading
Sources