1. Whack-a-Mole or Coup de Grace? Institutionalization and Leadership Targeting in Iraq and Afghanistan
- Author:
- Austin Long
- Publication Date:
- 10-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies
- Abstract:
- War is fundamentally a clash of organizations. Organizations provide the vital mechanisms that mobilize and convert resources into combat power as well as applying that combat power against the enemy. This is true not only of conventional militaries, but also of insurgent and terrorist groups. Organizational capacity is thus a crucial determinant of success in conflict. Stephen Biddle, for example, attributes heavy causal weight for success in modern conventional military conflict to the relative capacity of military organizations to employ a set of techniques he terms “the modern system.” Philip Selznick argues that organization is equally crucial for success in political combat, where subversion of other organizations is as important as brute force.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Islam, Terrorism, Armed Struggle, and Counterinsurgency
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, Iraq, Middle East, and Arabia