The Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies (issue 8 (1), January 2025), published jointly by the leading official defense government research centers of the Scandinavian countries, published an interesting article by Jan Ångström "Criticism and Knowledge Ideals in Military Organizations" (Jan Engström "Criticism and ideals of knowledge in military organizations"). Here is a translation of the first part of this article.
Baran Harald VI, mascot of the Gotland Regiment (P18) of the Swedish army. Visby, 03/25/2022 (c) Mikael Sjoberg / Bloomberg
It is widely believed that Western military organizations are weak innovators - they are procedure-oriented, resistant to change, and slow to learn; these traits are common to other large bureaucratic organizations. The article argues that the special "ideal of knowledge" that has developed in military organizations and is based on four interrelated inclinations - to action, to expediency, to conflict, and to hierarchy (action, relevance, conflict, hierarchy - ARCH) - suppresses criticism and thus hinders innovation. ARCH collectively demotivates criticism at the individual level; at the organizational level, it does not allow criticism to perform the function of self-correction. Using a thematic analysis, these tendencies are identified as part of the consideration of the "most different cases" by comparing the military doctrines of the United States and Sweden. ARCH reflects and reinforces the dominant Western view of warfare. Increasing the organizational capacity to innovate may require a revision of institutional beliefs about military effectiveness and the nature of war.
Introduction
Military organizations that manage to innovate can gain decisive advantages in war. Arguably, resistance in Ukraine to the Russian invasion would be difficult to sustain without such innovations. Given the high cost of the issue, it is not surprising that military organizations in peacetime spend billions on organizational and educational reforms, the creation of military educational institutions and research funding. Nevertheless, Western military organizations are often criticized for their inability to innovate, learn quickly, and adapt to changing circumstances. Why do military organizations have difficulty innovating despite the potentially huge benefits?
Scientific explanations for military organizations' failures in innovation range from bureaucratic inertia, a mismatch between ideas about military prowess and the nature of a particular innovation, a lack of training processes, the influence of military culture and the identity of a particular type of armed forces, to organizational problems, including competition between the armed forces. Although these explanations provide useful insights, they have limitations.
First and foremost, recognizing that criticism can cost an individual officer a promotion, these works do not take into account the influence of a specific military "ideal of knowledge." Secondly, methodologically, research is almost entirely based on single cases of innovation in the armies of great powers. The lack of cross‑national comparisons makes it difficult to identify the causal factors of innovation.
This article offers a cost-effective and complementary explanation for the failures of innovation. In short, the specific ideal of knowledge, anchored in Western military organizations and further referred to as ARCH, restrains criticism and thus becomes a serious obstacle to innovation. ARCH is an acronym for four interrelated tendencies (action, relevance, conflict, hierarchy - to action, expediency, conflict, and hierarchy) that work together as a semantic mechanism that defines the roles and relationships between different concepts and categories of knowledge in the military sphere. As a result, ARCH demotivates criticism from below, making it difficult to put forward alternative ideas about a future war and develop criticism as a mechanism of self-correction within military organizations. It should be emphasized that military organizations did not consciously create this ideal to stifle criticism and innovation. ARCH reflects a certain way of understanding war that is deeply rooted in modern Western military organizations. Accordingly, criticism and innovation can be considered as "collateral damage" of attempts to optimize military organizations for a specific version of war.
To empirically verify the attitude of military organizations to knowledge, a thematic analysis of the military doctrines of the United States and Sweden is used in a comparative study with consideration of the "most different cases." If such different armies have common features, there is reason to believe that they are characteristic of other Western military organizations. The article contributes to military innovation research by offering a cost-effective basic explanation of military organizations' difficulties with innovation. The focus on understanding knowledge makes it possible to detect the influence of non-material factors on organizational criticism and identify structural obstacles to innovation. This does not replace the existing "material" explanations based on power relations and career opportunities in the bureaucracy, but complements them by showing how the ideals of knowledge can influence the internal mechanisms of military organizations.
The structure of the article is as follows. First, a review of the literature on military innovations is given to assess the current state of knowledge. Although the field of research is extensive, gaps remain in the theorization of bottom-up mechanisms and especially the role of criticism. The second part shows how criticism can influence military innovations. The following is a research scheme with a focus on how the ideals of knowledge are "embedded" in the doctrines. The main analytical part identifies the ideals of knowledge inherent in Western military organizations. In conclusion, it discusses how criticism can gain a place within military organizations without compromising military effectiveness.
Why is this important
As noted by Grissom (2006), research on military innovation forms a fairly coherent field that tries to explain why military organizations regularly fail to innovate, despite their obvious need. Instead of preparing for a future war, they become "callous" and rigid, as if they were preparing for the last one. Thus, the field concerns a key strategic issue that has received serious academic attention and is based on theoretical elaboration and empirical data.
According to Grissom, most researchers explicitly or implicitly understand innovations as significant changes in the conduct of military operations that increase combat effectiveness. Therefore, a distinction is made between everyday problem solving and "genuine" innovation, where the latter means a deeper transformation (Murray, 2011; Jensen, 2016). Accordingly, the literature focuses on cases where innovation has proven to increase efficiency. For example, the focus was on the introduction of a tank and a machine gun, while the adoption of probably counterproductive ideas (French operational thought of 1940) does not fall under the definition of "innovation". A distinction is also made between the difficulties of innovation in peacetime and wartime (Murray & Millett, 1996; Murray, 2011). Innovations are often divided into doctrinal and technological ones. Empirically, the field is dominated by analyses of great powers, especially the United States; small states are rarely considered (for example, Raska, 2016).
The vast majority of military innovation research uses structural approaches; the central debate is which structural factors best explain innovation variations. External threats (Posen, 1984), interagency rivalry (Avant, 1994), bureaucratic inertia (Rosen, 1991), intra-organizational competition (Jensen, 2016), and military culture (Kier, 1997; Farrell & Terriff, 2002; Hill, 2015) are suggested as explanations. However, as Grissom points out, there are many cases of bottom-up innovation that structural theories do not explain. Fauley (2014) even suggests that the German tactical adaptation in the winter of 1917 before the 1918 spring offensive occurred contrary to German military culture. The theory of bottom-up pressure in favor of military innovation remains incomplete.
The standard argument about organizational inertia is simple. Because organizations are created to solve a specific problem and their creators do not want it to happen again, organizations are usually "designed not to change," as Rosen writes (1991). Jensen explains: "Large structures form stable habits. This standardization suggests that modern military bureaucracies should resist change. ... The modern armed forces, like any bureaucracy, are an "iron cage" that tends to crowd out innovation under the pretext of increasing efficiency and maintaining existing processes." (Jensen, 2016).
Hamel also points to interest groups as an obstacle to innovation: "Reverently following precedent is a great boon for those at the top: precedent protects their prerogatives. It rewards the skills honed by them and the knowledge gained while driving an "old car." (Hamel, quoted by Price, 2014).
Innovation and criticism
When Hirshman (1970) proposed his classic idea that an individual, faced with oppression, injustice, or inefficiency, chooses between "self-exclusion" or "raising his voice," he was not necessarily referring to the military sphere. Nevertheless, his argument is relevant for military organizations as well. "Self-removal" in the form of the resignation of senior officers in response to, in their opinion, erroneous political decisions has been the subject of serious discussion (e.g., Snider, 2017; Faever, 2017; Kohn, 2017). Cases of punishment by the civilian leadership for apparent disobedience were also discussed (Bessner & Lorber, 2012; Levy, 2016), as well as insubordination short of rebellion (Levy, 2017). The "elevation of the voice" has been studied less. In the literature, it is often identified with the political agenda of the military (for example, Urben, 2014), but here "raising the voice" refers to criticism from below within the armed forces.
In short, criticism increases the likelihood of innovation because it allows critical thinkers to articulate an alternative to the current order. Such alternatives are impossible without reflexive thinking - the ability to see and understand the grounds of current cognitive claims. By creating conditions for critical thinking and giving voice to alternatives, criticism empowers an organization with a mechanism for self-improvement. Consequently, criticism simultaneously designs alternative futures and serves as a tool for their systematic separation and evaluation: bad options are discarded, good ones - those that increase efficiency - are implemented. Before describing the limits of the applicability of this theory, it is necessary to define more precisely what is meant by "criticism".
"Criticism" comes from the Greek. κρῑνω (krīnō) - to distinguish, select, judge, decide. To this day, criticism "means the art of judgment" (Koselleck, 1988). If we understand criticism as a practice of making judgments, it is easy to see why it creates disagreements and can contradict the hierarchy in organizations. In modern speech, criticism often boils down to stating the wrong - negative remarks, spontaneous, normative, emotional. More developed forms of criticism not only point out the wrongness / badness, but also explain the reasons - the rudiments of analysis. In the literary sense, "criticism" often means a comment (review, assessment) in the field of professional competence - from food and wine to art; the critic relies on a set of rules/schemes. In this perspective, "criticism" and "critique" are facets of the same phenomenon: both are based on polemical actions directed at an object (behavior or actors) with judgment (Koselleck, 1988), correlated with an alternative to the existing situation.
In this article, criticism is understood as the art/practice of consideration, research, and evaluation. Functionally, it is a form of judgment about the current order/situation, designed to show how to change the current state in order to eliminate the observed flaw. A judgment can be expressed in different ways: verbally or non‑verbally; constructively or not; explicitly or implicitly; formally or informally. This definition does not contrast spontaneous and deliberate criticism and does not fix the subject - concrete or abstract. Criticism is not equal to whining or grumbling and is not limited to rudeness.: It is a proposal of alternatives with arguments based on evidence or logic.
Criticism, like finding flaws and judging current practice/doctrine, is usually based on understanding what works (to a greater or lesser extent) and what doesn't. As Adamsky (2010) notes, "The ability to diagnose and understand the discontinuity of the nature of war - the rapid changes in ways and means of fighting - is probably a key aspect of defense management." Therefore, critical thinking and criticism are not just an added value, but a necessity for innovation. Identifying failures is just as important as recording successes: failure often points the way to improvement. Criticism is an exercise in judgment that allows you to articulate alternatives.
Critical thinking is a necessary prerequisite for criticism. But only criticism itself can change organizations. How exactly does criticism "work" within a military organization and how does it serve innovation?
First of all, the degree to which criticism is acceptable in an organization is an important indicator of the time and place of innovation. Criticism, by definition, is a bottom-up mechanism, but both incentives for criticism and institutional conditions supporting it are necessary.
First, criticism should be encouraged, for example, by highlighting separate but equally (or more so) rewarding and prestigious career paths. Critics act as "entrepreneurs of norms" (Bloomfield, 2016) or "programmatic actors" (Jensen, 2018), often becoming the main agents of innovative change in professional communities. They interpret events, formalize discourse, and construct new consensuses. Minimum - critics should not be punished for criticism. Bureaucracy requires standardization; in the absence of an established process of change, there is automatically no room for criticism of the existing order. In other words, in extreme cases, an "individually tailored" process for criticism is needed. Jensen (2016) captures this condition by explaining doctrinal reforms through "incubators" and "advocacy networks."
In the so-called incubators, officers are specifically instructed to think about a future war and develop a new adequate "theory of victory." By being ordered to think freely, they circumvent organizational pressure, "interest" groups, and the risks of punishment for ideas that do not align with the interests of individual units. British General Sir Rupert Smith (Smith, 2007) recognized that the officer corps should also change.:
"This will require selecting people with intelligence and the ability to innovate in an unfavorable environment - instead of the 'performers' that institutional selection systems so often target, especially in armies for industrial warfare… Now we need innovators who are smart, practical, resourceful and courageous, able to successfully operate in new circumstances."
Cohen and Gooch (1991) issued a harsh verdict on the British efforts in World War I due to the lack of criticism of the actions of the command: "The submissive obedience of Haig's subordinates ... led to the fact that mid-level officers launched an offensive without tactical or strategic sense - whether they believed in what they were doing or not: following orders, they They could have counted on a promotion; if they did otherwise, they would probably get suspended and disgraced."
In her study of Soviet innovations, Kimberly Zisk (1993) also points out the importance of protecting the career path for innovators. Adamsky (2010) notes that in the USSR, "the atmosphere did not allow for open criticism of senior commanders... It was only in the late 1980s that prominent military theorists began publishing reflective articles criticizing Soviet tactics for their conservatism...".
Secondly, the organization must be receptive to innovation. According to Jensen (2016), even if it generates a new "theory of victory," criticism will lead to reform only if there is sufficient support in the "advocacy networks."
In other words, military organizations need to be open to criticism. They should not be, according to Alvesson and Spicer (2012), "functionally stupid." A "functionally stupid" organization exhibits "an inability and/or unwillingness to use cognitive and reflective abilities." On the contrary, "an attitude open to criticism encourages critical thinking, discussion, and open-ended questions." Accordingly, the research aims to identify the basic ideals of knowledge in military organizations in order to clarify the structural obstacles to top-down criticism and critical thinking.
The purpose of the study
To obtain generalizations about the ideal understanding of knowledge by Western military organizations and their attitude towards it, a comparative study was conducted with the design of the "most different cases" (George & Bennett, 2005). The armed forces of Sweden and the United States were selected as cases.
The Swedish armed forces can deploy almost 50,000 troops, the United States - over 2.1 million (International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2024). Sweden's military spending is 11.8 billion dollars, the United States - about 900 billion dollars. However, if there are similarities, conclusions can be generalized.
It is also obvious that the armed forces of the United States and Sweden, like other Western armies, have historically been forced to balance the needs of the hierarchy from above and criticism and innovation from below. Examples: Billy Mitchell, the "revolt of the colonels" in Sweden in 2002, the French army of the mid‑1930s.
To assess the understanding of knowledge, a thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021) of the combined (interspecific) doctrine, as well as the doctrines of land, sea and air, was conducted. The choice fell on doctrines, as they represent "institutionalized knowledge of how, for what, and why military force is used."
When reading the doctrines, attention was paid to both the content (substantive knowledge) and the missing elements. In order to identify the ideals of knowledge, provisions were sought on which types of knowledge are preferred and how the decision on the correctness of knowledge is made.
Of course, one can question the suitability of doctrines for measuring the ideals of knowledge, pointing out that the doctrine is not always implemented. However, there is considerable variability. Therefore, the analysis focuses on the points consistently present in the doctrines.
ARCH and how it suppresses criticism
This section presents the results. Despite the fact that no direct and unambiguous prohibitions on criticism and critical thinking have been identified, it is obvious that the armed forces of the United States and Sweden seriously demotivate criticism by consolidating the understanding of knowledge, consisting of four ARCH inclinations.
In both cases, the doctrinal provisions nominally encourage creativity and critical thinking. This is most clearly expressed in the FM 3-0 charter of the US Army. It is the same in Swedish doctrine. However, by limiting critical thinking to the level of commanders, the doctrine reinforces hierarchy.
As you move up the career ladder, there is a gradual narrowing of the mental framework, the degree of uniformity increases, and ARCH's four inclinations individually and collectively hinder critical thinking and criticism.
Action is preferable to being right
The first inclination is the inclination to act. Military organizations view knowledge of war as something that requires action. The officers are seen as "managers of organized violence." Priority is given to operational and combat training over education, briefings instead of seminars, while personal experience prevails.
Indecision is recognized as one of the main problems. The US Army states that "orderly initiative requires a propensity for action" (FM 3-0). The doctrine of the Swedish Land Forces proclaims that "indecision is worse than a mistaken action." All principles of war emphasize determination.
The tendency to take action prevents critical thinking and legitimizes a mistake, provided the action is performed. Speed in the OODA cycle (the so-called Boyd loop or management cycle) is considered more important than error-free. Western armies are passionate about the idea of "speed wins."
This follows from the notion of a reductionist tendency to reduce "war" solely to operations, combat, or combat, an approach that Echevarria (2014) has shown to have significant influence in the United States.
Expediency is more important than quality
The second component of ARCH's ideal of knowledge is expediency. This is an emphasis on the "here‑and‑now". The emphasis on expediency - usually understood as "everything that the current and future war requires" - partly serves to strengthen the propensity for hierarchy (see below) and action (see above), and partly is an independent key mechanism in the normative understanding of knowledge in military organizations.
The doctrines are based on the criterion of expediency, since no single doctrine can cover the full range of possible ways of waging war. Siege warfare, for example, has long disappeared from Western field regulations. Given that the enemy is rarely "locked in a castle" today, this seems logical, but reducing the range of acceptable operations limits reflexive thinking.
Expediency is also the main justification for military behavior and military thought. If what we are thinking about is recognized as appropriate, additional justification and motivation become unnecessary. Thus, expediency sets the limits of depth and range of thinking.
Thus, the Swedish doctrine explicitly states that it sets out how "one should think" and fixes general definitions of concepts (Swedish Armed Forces, 2020). The US doctrine recognizes the same thing: "The thoughts outlined here are not only a guide to action in combat, but also a way of thinking" (US Marine Corps, 2018). As in the Swedish case, American doctrine specifies concepts because "the meanings of words matter" (US Marine Corps, 2018).
Moreover, if something is deemed appropriate, we tend to unconsciously interpret it as good and important knowledge for the "current war." Thus, the propensity for expediency increases the propensity for action.
Although the propensity for expediency may hinder the development of individual ideas, the main thing is that it influences the choice between competing ideas. A serious attitude to the quality of knowledge would imply reflection and criticism, which contradicts the current ideals of knowledge. As a result, expediency is given priority at the expense of quality.
Since it is primarily the commander's right to decide what is appropriate and what is not, the tendency towards hierarchy is also increasing (see below). The underlying logic is as follows: dominance and submission schemes are useful in deciding on which knowledge to base actions on. It also reinforces the idea that not everyone has the right to make judgments.
The propensity for expediency makes the ideal of knowledge in military organizations conservative by nature. In fact, by proclaiming the military profession as the sole arbiter of "expediency," it closes access to external perspectives.
On the one hand, other professions are subject to similar inclinations: their unique expertise "by definition" makes external ideas less worthwhile. On the other hand, if professional demands are allowed to guide the development of knowledge, the process is likely to become conservative and less susceptible to fundamental criticism.
Appeals to expediency "close down" thinking, making further justification unnecessary.
Opposition is understood as an opposition in the coordinates of "us - them"
The third component of ARCH is conflict, a tendency to bivalent opposition, from which theories and doctrines grow in "us-them" coordinates.
Both the American (US Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2023) and Swedish doctrines (Swedish Armed Forces, 2021) quote Clausewitz's dictum that war "is an act of using force to impose our will on the enemy" (Clausewitz, 1993).
Thus, war is understood not as the interaction of abstract actors, but as a confrontation between "us" and "them." In Western armies, such a default framework places the organization itself inside the opposition.
To think about a war is to think implicitly as a participant in it. The participant's position makes it difficult to objectively and reflexively analyze the war "as such." The stakes of theorizing are increasing: the theorist is no longer an impartial observer. It is much easier to think critically and criticize belligerents when you are not fighting yourself.
Self-identification as a "participant in the war" also "drowns out" critics. The emphasis on unity of command can be clearly seen in both American and Swedish doctrines.
Both systems of doctrines carefully prescribe a hierarchy of documents: strategic documents should guide the content of the operational doctrine, while operational ones should guide the doctrines of the armed forces (Swedish Armed Forces, 2020; US Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2017).
Since such criticism, by definition, suggests a future different from that projected by the organization, it automatically calls into question the vertical of management.
Constant self-displacement "in the middle of the war" tacitly implies the inadmissibility of questioning the decisions of elders. The alternative is to view the war from the perspective of an observer rather than a participant. Being "near the war" but not "in it" makes it easier to see alternative courses of action and hidden assumptions.
Participating in a war requires organization. In the West, this is understood, in particular, as standardization: standard structures of corps, divisions, brigades, battalions, companies, platoons, and departments.
Although standardization is seen as an element of preparation for war, it strengthens the management vertical, in which it is easier to question the opinion of critics and thereby silence them. A typical headquarters includes intelligence, logistics, etc. departments, but not a "criticism department." In other words, critical thinking can be eliminated organizationally.
Further, the doctrines not only place military organization "in the middle of war"; they also equate war with combat.
Images, formulas, and, again, quotations from Clausewitz that "war is essentially a battle, since battle is the only decisive act of a diverse activity understood by the broad concept of warriors" (Clausewitz, 1993), consolidate a specific understanding of war.
This understanding of war is not conducive to criticism and critical thinking: combat is a time deficit and danger that requires obedience and speed, rather than reflection and criticism.
Being "in the thick of the battle", it is difficult to ignore the serious legal consequences for failure to comply with the decisions of superiors - they exist both in the USA and in Sweden (Borell, 2004).
Hierarchies determine the quality of knowledge
The fourth inclination in the ideal knowledge of Western military organizations is a tendency towards hierarchy. In short, the top of the hierarchy determines what is considered knowledge and evaluates its quality.
This can be seen in the doctrines of both Sweden and the United States: in the forewords, the top leadership authoritatively states that the above determines how the organization should act and think (the Swedish military strategic doctrine of 2022 was signed by the then Supreme Commander; the American JP‑1 of 2017 was signed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff).
The generals also urge discussion of doctrine, but discussion is limited in advance: doctrine outlines the boundaries of acceptable thinking.
Instead of recognizing knowledge as a subject of extension, collegial discussion, conditional acceptance, and continuous discussion, Western military organizations link the quality of knowledge to hierarchy.
This again reflects the same understanding of war conveyed by the doctrines. Based on Clausewitz, both Swedish and American doctrines constantly emphasize the uncertainty and "friction" of war. Decisions must be made despite uncertainty, a paradox that a military organization "solves" through the power of authority. Military rank determines what is true.
Jensen (2016) also points out that "advocacy networks" are not about selecting and supporting a "correctly predicted" future theory of victory, but about agreeing on one version. Consequently, the choice of the future reform - the content of the "theory of victory" - does not depend on the truth.
To some extent, the truth is incomprehensible, because the future has not yet arrived. Truth is determined not by empiricism or logic, but by legitimacy and power.
Again, with the high price of the issue, ignorance is uncomfortable in terms of reflection on the understanding of war. But when someone with authority declares "at the top" that this is the truth, it brings ontological security.
Then there is no need for critical thinking and criticism, as well as competing visions of the future and the difficulties of choosing between them. The commander decides what is considered true knowledge. By solving the question of knowledge, it is assumed that knowledge can be final. "Everything is already known, period."
The hierarchical understanding of knowledge also assumes that the measure of progress is the process, not the result. The doctrine of the Swedish Land Forces explicitly emphasizes: "every activity needs a commander (commander)."
The emphasis on command and control of troops and forces (including knowledge control) suppresses discussion - and hence its unintended results. This way of thinking strengthens the hierarchy of dominance and subordination.
He gives the commander the opportunity to put the critic in his place with a simple question.: "Who authorized you to say/ask this?"
It is enough to take a quick look at the planning procedures (also, by the way, a guidance document) to see how a certain way of thinking is prescribed, discouraging the hunt for an alternative way of thinking.
The creation and maintenance of ontological security through the confirmation of the commander's status as the arbiter of truth is clearly seen in the doctrines studied.
Both emphasize the critical importance of commanding qualities for effectiveness and success (US Army, 2022; Swedish Armed Forces, 2021). The stronger the emphasis on commanding qualities, the more critical thinking is suppressed, since commanding qualities automatically reinforce the model of dominance and subordination - that is, the idea that the commander will "solve everything" and determine the truth.
