The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

Know Thyself 35
34. Hall, Beyond Culture, 99–100; Eriksen, Small Places, Large Issues, 51.
35. A thank you to David Newcomb for contributing to the “operational cultural
narrative” label.
36. Writing in a constructivist vein, Theo Farrell makes the same argument: Norms
of War, 1. For an interpretivist explanation, see Moon, “Logic of Political
Inquiry,” 180.
37. Farrell, “Culture and Military Power,” 416 (italics added).
38. Mahnken, “U.S. Strategic and Organizational Subcultures,” 76.
39. Builder, Masks of War, 39.
40. For an example of successful organizational change via savvy manipulation of
organizational identity, see Terriff, “Warriors and Innovators.”
41. Smith, USAF Culture and Cohesion, 8.
42. Farrell, “Constructivist Security Studies,” 49.
43. Katzenstein, Culture of National Security, 5.
44. Burk, “Military Culture,” 448.
45. Heuser, Evolution of Strategy, 494.
46. Snyder, “Concept of Strategic Culture,” 4.
47. Longhurst, “Why Aren’t the Germans,” 147–65.
48. Eriksen, Small Places, Large Issues, 91; Swidler, “Culture in Action”; Hudson,
“Cultural Expectations.”
49. Hudson, “Cultural Expectations,” 768.
50. Alastair Iain Johnston approaches the subject of historical inertia from a slightly
different angle. His explanation focuses on the durability of heuristics. Early,
formative experiences craft interpretive lenses that are slow to change, “lagging
behind changes in ‘objective’ conditions.” Johnston, Cultural Realism, 1.
51. Nagl, Learning to Eat, 217.
52. Giles, “Continuity and Change,” 109.
53. Avruch, Culture and Conflict Resolution, 19.
54. Grondona, “Cultural Typology,” 45.
55. Legro offers up additional mechanisms for measuring norm strength. See
Cooperation under Fire; Legro, “Which Norms Matter?”; Kowert and Legro,
“Norms, Identity and Their Limits,” 451–97.
56. Gray, Perspectives on Strategy, 104–5.
57. Heuser, Evolution of Strategy, 72.
58. For interesting looks at nuclear choices, see Heuser, NATO, Britain, France and
the FRG, and Heuser, Nuclear Mentalities?
59. Lynn, Battle, 5–7.
60. Legro, “Which Norms Matter?,” 36.
61. Johnston, Cultural Realism, 1.
62. Kier, “Culture and Military Doctrine,” 69. See also Fisher, Mindsets.
63. Kier, “Culture and Military Doctrine,” 82.
64. Ibid., 68.
65. Keesing and Strathern, Cultural Anthropology, 505.
66. Fisher, Mindsets, 4.