Transforming Limited Battlefield Success into Bureaucratic Victory

• In Event: U.S. Military Post-War Analysis

Abstract

As the war in Iraq ended and attention towards Afghanistan faded, U.S. special operations leaders launched a series of initiatives to expand its bureaucratic power. Using an extensive collection of primary source documents, a newly developed data set, and the theoretical literature on civil-military relations and organizational culture, I argue that the these efforts undermined long-standing norms in American military professionalism and civilian oversight, which contributed to the failed war in Afghanistan and numerous ethical scandals.

Author

• Stephen Michael Grenier, Johns Hopkins University