The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

Contrasting Nation- Building 189
Nation- building has likely always been a misnomer but for Marines it
was certainly so. Marines built the structure of the state, often, ironically, by
overriding the voices of the nation. By confusing state and nation not just
semantically but conceptually, Marines privileged material achievements
(the infrastructure of state) over intangible achievements (fostering democratic
and positive relations with the peoples of the nation) and therefore
left behind a well- equipped state structure in the hands of a browbeaten and
often resentful national community.
Perhaps the strangest feature of American cultural perception is the
notion that the result of this combination—enormous material outlay
orchestrated with disdainful and often abusive treatment of locals—should
incur gratitude. The resistance of locals was not typically understood as a
response to Marine indignities or heavy- handed methods but rather as a
result of ignorance concerning the true intentions of the American occupation.
The perception was that if only American motives and intentions were
properly understood, locals would be eager to lend support. The Small Wars
Manual recommends using “prominent native civilians” as proxy ambassadors.
Taken on patrols, they could “do much to explain the mission of the
intervening forces in the community, spread the gospel of peace, friendly
relations, and cooperation, and counter the propaganda of the enemy.” This
effort was imperative since “the natives of the community are all potential
enemies and many will become actively hostile if they are not convinced of
the true objective of the occupation.” 17
Marines, even after members of their own Congress had shamed the
Corps for its abuses and had consequently soured on state- building efforts
abroad, continued to believe that their nation’s “interventions or occupations
are usually peaceful or altruistic.” 18 Maj. E. H. Ellis argued that “in
every case where the United States has taken charge of a small state it has
been actuated by purely altruistic motives.” The US is a “good angel” who
attempts to interfere as little as possible in the lives of native peoples. 19 Privileging
material outlay over personal behavior, American Marines referencing
the occupation of the Dominican Republic defined and defended their
nation’s altruistic motives by pointing to dollars:
The object of the United States as explained in the beginning has
never changed. It has been throughout the occupation to this time
of returning the government to the Dominican people an unselfish
object, looking only toward the betterment of the Dominican people
and at great expense to the United States. It might be pointed out
that the laws of nations give to one nation which occupies another’s
land, the right to support the occupation by taxation levied upon
the country occupied. The United States has never even considered
causing the Dominican people to defray the cost of the occupation
in such a manner, but has itself borne the entire cost. 20