The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

Introduction 11
explanation and project future trends. Operational cultural narratives that
persisted across counterinsurgency eras are captured in the book’s conclusion.
These combine elements of national culture, US military culture, and
the distinctive culture of the US Marine Corps. The result is a cautionary
tale for even the best suited of the American services in its counterinsurgency
adventures abroad.
Notes
1. Twomey, “Lacunae in the Study of Culture,” 352.
2. Gray, Modern Strategy.
3. Gray, “British and American Strategic Cultures,” 47.
4. Kincade, “American National Style,” 12.
5. Cassidy, Peacekeeping in the Abyss, 84.
6. For examples of scholarship treating strategic culture at the national level, see
Johnston, Cultural Realism; Heuser, Nuclear Mentalities?; Mead, Special Providence;
Longhurst, “Why Aren’t the Germans?”; Glenn, Howlett, and Poore,
Neorealism versus Strategic Culture; Gray, “British and American Strategic
Cultures,” 47; Johnson, Kartchner, and Larsen, Strategic Culture and Weapons.
For examples of strategic culture scholarship focusing on military culture, see
Builder, Masks of War; Klein, “Theory of Strategic Culture”; Kier, “Culture and
Military Doctrine”; Legro, “Which Norms Matter?”; Nagl, Learning to Eat
Soup; Terriff, “Innovate or Die”; and Barnett, Navy Strategic Culture.
7. Throughout this work, references to “Marine” will be capitalized in deference
to Marine culture, as documented by the late Brig. Gen. Edwin H. Simmons,
USMC (Ret.), director emeritus of Marine Corps History and Museums:
“Marines believe in their Corps. They also believe that they are the best. They
insist that the ‘M’ in ‘Marine’ be capitalized. The highest accolade they can
bestow on a member of another service is ‘He would make a good Marine.’”
Simmons, foreword to Alexander, Fellowship of Valor, xi.
8. Perhaps the most excellent work on this is Gray’s “Irregular Enemies.”
9. Sun Tzu Wu, Art of War, 51.
10. The Cultural Topography Framework approach, including the Cultural Mapping
method, was designed by the author with Matthew T. Berrett during his
tenure as the Near East and South Asia Office director at the Central Intelligence
Agency. See Johnson and Berrett, “Cultural Topography.”
11. Highlights from this field include Haycock, Regular Armies and Insurgency;
Beckett, Roots of Counterinsurgency; Marston and Malkasian, Counterinsurgency
in Modern Warfare; Collins, America’s Small Wars; Boot, Savage Wars of
Peace; and Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup.
12. Krulak, First to Fight; Price, Devil Dog Diary; Sturkey, Warrior Culture of the
U.S. Marines.
13. Freedman, Corps Business; Dye, Backbone.