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Embedding And Conflict - The Process And Logic Of American Military Institutional Change

Posted on:2014-09-26Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:X Y ZuoFull Text:PDF
GTID:1106330434471246Subject:International politics
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
In the International system which is filled with rivalry of great powers, building strong armed forces is the most effective approach to keep secure for all the states. In this case, the fundamental measure is to build a high efficient and flexible military institution which can extract strategic resources to the largest extent and transfer them to powerful military strength.As the hegemony in the world, the United States and its complicated military institution provide a good paradigm for our research on the changes of military institution. Throughout the processes of military institution reforms after World War â…¡, we can find an interesting phenomenon. On the one hand, every reform movement was dedicated to promote the power of Joint Chiefs of Staff while advanced the power of the United States Secretary of Defense. On the other hand, every reform movement devoted to change the organizational forms of army, navy, air force and morine corps in order to push forward the integration of institutions and joint operations.The key questions of the article are, why are all the U.S. military institution reforms devoted to promote the powers of both civilian and military? Why are all the reforms devoted to promote the cooperation among the services? What are the dynamics and mechanisms of U.S. military institution changes?The author clarifies the dimensions and forms of U.S. military institution and then develops an "Embeddedness-Conflict Theory" to explain the changes of U.S. military institution. This theory argues that the change of U.S. military institution is a process of different institutions embedded slowly together. On the horizontal dimension, the institutions of army, navy, air forces and morine corps embed and integrate together. On the vertical dimension, the institutions of civilian and military embed and integrate together. In this process, the institutional embeddedness and institutional conflict mixed together.According to "Embeddedness-Conflict Theory", the change of U.S. military institution is a process from peripheral embeddedness to central embeddedness. This institutional embeddedness process includes two core socialization mechanisms which are the mechanism of reembeddedness and mechanism of the institutionalization of power transformation. This theory also argues that the linkage of institutional embeddedness that the elites are absolutely necessary. The elites play a crucial role in the process of institutional embeddedness and institutional conflict. Moreover, the author advances the international pressure, military doctrine and inter-service rivalry as the independent variable. The core thesis of the article is that the embeddedness degree of U.S. military institution depends on the extent of international pressure, military doctrine and inter-service rivalry. Then the author does five case studies chronologically which are the reforms caused by National Security Act of1947, Department of Defense Reorganization Act of1958, Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of1986, the reforms of Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates, and a negative case which is the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) in Clinton administration.The new theory can help us reveal the logic of U.S. military institution changes after World War â…¡ from a totally new angle. Meanwhile, the new theory also explains how the inter-service rivalry and civil-military relations exert influence on the changes of U.S. military institution and the security policy decision-making process. This can help us better understand the behavior patterns of the US military and trends of institutional change.
Keywords/Search Tags:U.S. Military Institution, Institutional Embeddedness, MilitaryDoctrine, Inter-Services Rivalry, Path Dependence
PDF Full Text Request
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