The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

Norms and Perceptual Lens 121
for counterinsurgency. “We prize above all else, innovation at the point of
friction.” He points out that this is what the Corps selects for in its officer
candidates and rewards in its noncommissioned officers (NCOs). The Corps
looks for individuals who can “think on their feet” and then trains them to
become even better at it. 28
Deborah Avant reinforces this concept in her work on military doctrine.
Her scholarship leans heavily on Charles Krulak’s testimonial of Marine
innovation, contending along with him that flexibility has become “a part of
the professional ethos of the marines.” 29 She takes Krulak at his word—that
the Marines have historically been rewarded for innovation and not usually
punished if innovations fell flat. Ricks observed as much during his stint
with Marines and claims that the Corps, consequently, is most adept among
the American services at addressing its own faults. 30 He cites a culture of
open and candid criticism, even from the bottom up. It is due to this ethos,
in part, that USMC intelligence officer Ben Connable claims that the Marine
Corps of the 1930s makes the grade in John Nagl’s “learning organization”
test: “it promoted suggestions from the field, encouraged subordinates to
question policies, institutionally questioned its basic assumptions, generated
local SOPs [standard operating procedures], and had a senior officer corps
in close touch with men in the field.” 31
Connable builds on this claim to assert that the modern Corps is more
skilled than sister services at “operating in culturally complex environments.”
32 Marine doctrine assumes contextual complexity, and training follows
in the same spirit by imposing swift switches of both task and location
on recruits, a regimen designed to force would- be Marines to deal with
situations of flux and rapid change. 33 Writing of the mind- set that shaped
Marine training standards in the 1990s, James Woulfe explains, “One day
they could find themselves reacting to confusing changes of environment
in a short period of time. They might feed the hungry one minute and be
engaging a deadly enemy with rifle fire the next.” Tomorrow’s Marines must
be trained against getting comfortable because “their lives depend on their
ability to adapt quickly to the changing situation.” 34 Individual lives depend
on it and, according to Victor Krulak in First to Fight, so does the outcome
of the battle: “Try as hard as you can to be ready . . . but be willing to adapt
and improvise when it turns out to be a different battle than the one you
expected, because adaptability is where victory will be found.” 35
Marines are primed to contend with fast- paced, chaotic environments.
Connable’s claim of deftness in “culturally complex” environments is a bit
of a different matter. In this the Marine Corps presents a strange dichotomy.
It has been the most forward- leaning of the services in emphasizing cultural
competence and investments in research and training. 36 As the men at the
tip of the spear, many Marines grasp that culture impacts the way humans
behave and may play a significant role in battlefront terrain. Connable’s claim
that Marines also possess “an innate ability to adapt to foreign cultures,”