Military culture, organizational inertia and contemporary operations

This article focuses on how inertial to change are military organizations. I argue that different military cultures lead to variations in force employment by military actors in peace operations and that these military culture are long-lasting and have become deeply ingrained within these respective military organizations for a long time. I test this hypothesis focusing on French and Italian units in two “most different” peace operations: the UN mission in Lebanon and the NATO mission in Afghanistan. The data were collected through ethnographic work conducted between 2007 and 2014. The evidence shows that units of the same nationality behave in similar ways to each other, even under different missions, and in very different ways from units of other nationalities, despite similar troop numbers, resources, and mission. While the two French units under study prioritize operational activities, the two Italian units emphasize humanitarian actions. Military culture plausibly explains why this is so. The French units’ cultures revolve around assertiveness and professionalism, while those of the Italian units focus on the quest for legitimacy.