Julia Macdonald

Innovation Inhibitors in War: Overcoming Obstacles in the Pursuit of Military Effectiveness

Abstract What explains the pace at which militaries adopt new technology? We argue that the hierarchical structure and unique expertise requirements of military organizations combine to empower select individuals as ‘gatekeepers’ of innovation. These individuals acquire beliefs throughout their military careers regarding the nature and means of warfare that act to shape their attitudes towards new military innovations. By filtering, sidelining, and ignoring competing sources of advice and information, these officers actively inhibit the adoption of new, often advantageous, innovations. We develop this argument through the analysis of two cases: the delayed acquisition of breech-loading and repeating rifles by the Union Army during the American Civil War, and the failure of the US Army to adopt an adequate heavy-type tank in World War II.

Explaining the Variation in Gender Composition of Personnel Contributions to UN Peacekeeping Operations

How do we account for the dearth of female contributions to UN peace operations (UNPOs)? For answers, this study examines conditions that led the United Nations to move to reduce the gender imbalance in UNPO personnel and provides descriptive evidence that points to the continuing underrepresentation of women in these operations. To interpret this evidence, the study presents theoretical explanations for the varying contributions of personnel to UNPOs—including the political and socioeconomic character of the contributing states, international reputations and norms, and various demand-side influences exerted by missions—and then tests these explanations with a cross-sectional time-series model that accounts for female personnel contributions to each mission in the 2010–2011 period. Although offering significant support for domestic political explanations, the findings indicate that gender diversity is not a primary goal of most contributors and is largely a by-product of force sizes.

Small footprint, small payoff: The military effectiveness of security force assistance

ABSTRACT After 15 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, many now see ‘small-footprint’ security force assistance (SFA) – training, advising and equipping allied militaries – as an alternative to large US ground-force commitments. Yet, its actual military efficacy has been little studied. This paper seeks to fill this gap. We find important limitations on SFA’s military utility, stemming from agency problems arising from systematic interest misalignment between the US and its typical partners. SFA’s achievable upper bound is modest and attainable only if US policy is intrusive and conditional, which it rarely is. For SFA, small footprints will usually mean small payoffs.

Presidential Risk Orientation and Force Employment Decisions

In this article, we explore how presidential risk orientations affect force employment decisions through an analysis of the use of unmanned weaponry during the Bush and Obama administrations. We hypothesize that the conception of risk plays an integral part in this choice of weaponry. In order to examine our hypothesis, we utilize the verbs-in-context system of operational code analysis to quantify the risk propensities of President Bush and President Obama during the Afghanistan War from 2001 to 2013. At the aggregate level, we find that the two presidents exhibit unique interpretations of risk with respect to manned versus unmanned weaponry. We further disaggregate our data to examine whether these preferences are fixed or fluctuate with situational changes. We find that President Bush’s risk calculations are influenced by a number of situational variables, highlighting the importance of changing decision contexts in explaining risk behaviors. President Obama’s risk calculations, on the other hand, remain constant over time lending credence to the importance of overall risk propensity in determining risk-taking behaviors. Our findings indicate that risk is an important variable in explaining the means of force employed during conflict, and that the source of this behavior can vary by leader.