The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

Chapter 2
Bounding the Possible
The Impact of US National and Military Cultures
on Counterinsurgency Practice
The cultural traits examined across this chapter represent aspects of identity,
norms, values, and perceptual lens within American public and military cultures
that surfaced across research as critical cultural factors in understanding
US Marine activity in irregular war. Given the time frame covered in
this study—a century- long stretch—these may also qualify within the “semipermanent”
standard that Colin Gray insists on for strategic culture traits.
This is not to say that each factor mentioned has weighed in equally across
all time and spaces, but rather that each has existed with some consistency,
perhaps surging and receding, within the way of life we know as “American.”
Contextualizing these factors across the three specific counterinsurgency
eras, the task undertaken in part II of this book, provides insight into
which critical cultural factors have been drawn together to create remarkably
consistent operational cultural narratives for American counterinsurgency
practice across time.
The interplay of cultural layers in influencing security policy can be
observed in the behavior of the most granular units of security policy: those
wearing boots on the ground. Before crossing the threshold into service
ranks, each military recruit has been molded by national, regional, ethnic,
religious, and various organizational cultures and carries many of these preexisting
norms and values with him or her throughout a military career.
Commenting on our small- wars subject matter in particular, Sam Sarkesian
makes what is perhaps an obvious, but nonetheless critical, point: Counterinsurgency
strategy and practice are constrained by American national
norms. This is not only an unconscious, natural process—it is also an overt
expectation: “The American people expect their military men to behave in