Query Result Set
Skip Navigation Links
   ActiveUsers:4528Hits:25701744Skip Navigation Links
Show My Basket
Contact Us
IDSA Web Site
Ask Us
Today's News
HelpExpand Help
Advanced search

  Hide Options
Sort Order Items / Page
JUNIOR OFFICERS (1) answer(s).
 
SrlItem
1
ID:   121405


Flipping the switch: combat, state building, and junior officers in Iraq and Afghanistan / Meyer, Thomas   Journal Article
Meyer, Thomas Journal Article
0 Rating(s) & 0 Review(s)
Publication 2013.
Summary/Abstract Contemporary us counterinsurgency doctrine in Iraq and Afghanistan requires junior leaders to engage in both combat and state-building activities. This study aims to explain the fundamental challenge in merging these. I argue that difficulty lies in separating insurgents from civilians, and translating doctrine from senior to junior officers. Junior officers consistently develop a similar ad hoc decision-making tool- role-switching-to simplify complex situations to a binary of "hostile or not." They understand themselves to fill only two roles, the violent "on" role and the non-violent "off" role and develop several tools to minimize the difficulty of role-switching, help their subordinates switch, and signal switching to local populations. Ultimately, however, problems with role-switching-role stickiness, inappropriate switching, and role bias-can in some cases encourage indiscriminate and excessive violence, pointing to the fundamental failures of using military forces as a one-size-fits-all solution to state-building projects abroad.
        Export Export