Service Culture Effects on Joint Operations

Knowing oneself is critical to efficient and effective operations in any sphere of human endeavor. This is particularly important in the endeavor of warfare where human life is the medium of exchange and the fate of nations lies in the balance. Currently, U.S. military forces are involved in the largest and most important operations since the Vietnam era while simultaneously attempting to affect the most radical transformation perhaps in American military history. Within the U.S. military services a thorough and clear self awareness is absolutely essential to the success in both these efforts. A key aspect of self awareness, successful joint operations, and effective transformation requires a thorough understanding of the component service cultures and their potential to effect operations. This paper proposes that unique U.S. military service cultures exist, that they have effects on operations, and that understanding the unique service cultures is an important component in planning operations as well as planning transformation. RAND corporation analyst Carl Builder's central thesis in his 1989 work The Masks of War is that each service is influenced in its actions by an inherent service culture. This culture is a product of the service's history and the personality types of its key leaders. Service culture manifests itself in a variety of ways including the service's budget priorities, doctrine, officer training, evaluation and assignment. The cultural phenomenon described by Builder eighteen years ago is inherently at odds with the U.S. military's developing vision to operate in an integrated, inter-service way. Joint operations yield benefits by capitalizing on service strengths in an efficient and synergistic manner. The emphasis on service integration has increased greatly since Builder first explained his thesis. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to evaluate the current validity of Builder's arguments given the ever increasing emphasis on jointness sinc