Deviance and Innovation: Change in a 'Society of Saints'

U.S. Marine Corps Corporal Joshua Henneberg, rifleman assigned to Alpha Company, Battalion Landing Team 1/5, 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, prepares to launch Skydio X2D small unmanned aerial system during integrated training alongside Philippine marines during exercise Balikatan 24 on Balabac Island, Philippines, April 26, 2024 (U.S. Marine Corps/Peyton Kahle) Deviance and Innovation Change in a “Society of Saints” By Thaddeus V. Drake and Derrick L. McClain Take the mavericks in your service, the ones that wear rumpled uniforms and look like a bag of mud but whose ideas are so offsetting that they actually upset the people in the bureaucracy. One of your primary jobs is to take the risk and protect these people, because if they are not nurtured in your service, the enemy will bring their contrary ideas to you. —JAMES MATTIS ilitary innovation and adaptation studies are a growth industry.1 Since the publication of Barry Posen’s seminal study The M Sources of Military Doctrine in the early 1980s, the field has grown extensively.2 Despite well-known military thinkers’ recent book-length treatments of the Lieutenant Colonel Thaddeus V. Drake, USMC, is Director of Operations, Joint Task Force– Civil Support, U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). Lieutenant Colonel Derrick L. McClain, USAF, is Deputy Command Center Director and Chief, Cheyenne Mountain Complex Support Branch–Joint Operations Center, North American Aerospace Defense Command/ USNORTHCOM. 24 Forum / Deviance and Innovation topic, most studies of change in the military retain two key commonalities. First, nearly all assume that innovation or adaptation is inherently good and worth pursuing.3 Second, they agree that militaries are famously resistant to change and accept this as part of the fundamental nature of the military system. This article acknowledges the first point; indeed, modern military JFQ 114, 3rd Quarter 2024 leaders continually claim the need for change.4 The second, on the other hand, is correct but flawed. Innovation and adaptation studies should not accept resistance to change as a fundamental characteristic of the military system but instead must recognize cultural openness as a necessary precondition for any existing concept of innovation or adaptation to succeed to its full potential.5 Examples abound of organizational intransigence in the face of military change efforts—everything from the institutional resistance regarding unmanned aircraft,6 to the Army’s controversies on headwear,7 to criticisms of the Marine Corps’ Force Design 2030.8 Indeed, a recent report from the Atlantic Council noted: “[T]he United States does not have an innovation problem, but rather an innovation adoption problem.”9 Although many security practitioners and scholars have not deeply considered it, sociology provides a framework for understanding this phenomenon. Many sociologists would identify a unifying thread in examples of military adaptation, creativity, or innovation: deviance. Consider that many of the most celebrated “innovation” stories in U.S. military history involve aspects where Servicemembers explicitly violated doctrine, orders, directives, or policy. In most of the rest, the act of adaptation or innovation was at least culturally deviant. Innovation, adaptation, or just change in general is inherently deviant—at least as it appears to an existing culture that has established norms of conduct. In 1938, sociologist Robert Merton suggested that institutional or cultural pressures might inadvertently force members of a society to adjust their behavior: “Some social structures exert a definite pressure upon certain persons in the society to engage in nonconformist rather than conformist conduct.”10 He identified several ways in which deviance of this sort might manifest, one of which was “innovation.”11 Innovation and adaptation change, improve, or supersede specified procedures or standards by their very nature. The modern military environment is an example of the one Merton described.12 As Theo Farrell notes, “Military JFQ 114, 3rd Quarter 2024 organizations are especially disinclined to change, as closed and socially conservative communities” where “operating routines, bureaucratic interests, and cultural preferences” define nearly every activity.13 Consequently, those who believe in the existing doctrine, technologies, and rules are likely to interpret innovation or adaptation as negative deviance. After all, what does the common term used to describe innovators—“mavericks”—imply? Although the fundamental nature of military cultures is difficult to change, the general perception of creativity and adaptive behavior as negative deviance is malleable. The modern military must seek to reframe such activities as constructive deviance, thereby limiting reflexive institutional resistance.14 Culture, Regulation, and Deviation Military cultures and their associated hierarchies seek to limit uncertainty and standardize behavior as much as possible. They tend to share these goals almost regardless of nationality or organizational type.15 In general, militaries adhere to specific, restrictive behavioral norms—what Michele Gelfand has described as a “tight culture.”16 This cultural tightness manifests in many ways, but one of the most pernicious is the oft-described institutional resistance to change or creativity. As Stephen Rosen writes, “Almost everything we know in theory about large bureaucracies suggests not only that they are hard to change, but that they are designed not to change. . . . Military bureaucracies, moreover, are especially resistant to change.”17 As Carl Builder famously noted, however, the joint force is not a monolithic entity.18 We recognize that each Service has a unique subculture or subcultures; however, this article does not seek to critique individual Services or branches. Instead, it contends that despite these differences, there is a recognizable set of cultural norms that apply across the U.S. military (and most Western militaries). It is difficult to imagine a standing military functioning without the structure of a chain of command and well-established routines. In fact, a significant body of research suggests that without a hierarchical division of labor in which smaller units report to more central and higher authorities, inefficiency reigns supreme.19 Hierarchical structure allows organizations to create a division of labor that facilitates specialization in diverse capabilities. However, structure also begets rules and regulations that seek to “routinize” day-to-day activities as much as possible. These norms, rules, and procedures establish a framework for “normal operations” that allows the organization to generate options on compressed timelines. Although this is generally efficient, the effectiveness of solutions and ideas put forth is “more likely to be defined simply as compliance with relevant rules.”20 Over time, U.S. military culture has become increasingly characterized by its adherence to rules and norms, as they have come to shape and define what Colin Jackson calls the “basic operational code.”21 Despite militaries’ desire to limit freedom in favor of predictability, and their resultant cultural proclivity to see change as deviant, they do recognize the need to enable change. As Williamson Murray wrote, “One of the foremost attributes of military effectiveness must lie in the ability of armies, navies, or air forces to recognize and adapt to the actual conditions of combat, as well as to the new tactical, operational, and strategic, not to mention political, challenges that war inevitably throws up.”22 Military leaders, thinkers, and planners alike remember the axiom that “no plan survives contact with the enemy” and realize that organizational adaptability is a necessity. Unfortunately, organizational change—whether labeled innovation or adaptation—is far from simple. One team of experts described the leadership field as “knowing surprisingly little about this topic,” despite voluminous research.23 Many have attempted to theorize best methods and processes for innovation and adaption—both in a military context and within the broader civilian business and policy arena. Yet, as Rosen describes, a problem with social scientific innovation studies is that “as one study found a Drake and McClain 25 Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 Steven Staley, assigned to 202nd Military Intelligence Battalion, presents his troop to task invention during ARCENT ideas for innovation 23 at Patton Hall, Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, October 2, 2023 (U.S. Army/Amber Cobena) factor that seemed to be associated with innovation, another would find evidence of innovation when that factor was absent, or even when the opposite of that factor was present.”24 Indeed, there are myriad ideas about how an organization might drive change; nonetheless, there is a crucial environmental difficulty underlying all of them, and it is a relatively straightforward problem. Innovation and adaptation are inherently deviant.25 When these behaviors collide with an institutional culture of strict social control such as the U.S. military, most members of the organization will treat them as such. This is exactly the environment Merton described nearly a century ago. Readers can likely think of many examples of military change efforts that have been discussed and debated in the adaptation and innovation literature. What is less debated is the broader “establishment reaction” to these changes. In fact, one innovation expert, Terry Pierce, has suggested that successful innovation rests on the ability of “champions” within an organization to disguise disruptive change.26 “Pushback” against innovation and adaptation is not just 26 Forum / Deviance and Innovation likely in a “tight” society like the military; it is inevitable. The cultural tendency is to respond to change like an antibody responds to infection. Innovation and Adaptation Innovation, adaptation, and organizational change are recognized as critical topics across a wide range of disciplines.27 The U.S. military is no exception. To wit, three successive Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have emphasized the point, each one directly calling for fundamental changes to the military as imperative for success in future conflict.28 Yet many Servicemembers still view change efforts with skepticism. Despite repeated calls for innovation from the most senior levels of U.S. military leadership, societal pressures within the “tight” culture of the military Services nonetheless constrain it.29 Many thinkers have proposed models for innovation, adaptation, or general change within organizations. However, because of the factors described in the preceding paragraphs, none of them can be optimally effective. In this scenario, leaders have two options. First, they can try to apply an existing model (or attempt to develop a new one), understanding that success might be limited. Second, they can instead seek to remove (or mitigate) the upstream constraints that will prevent full success. This article does not claim that any one existing model or concept for creating change is more effective than others, although it does recognize that some may offer greater explanatory power. Rather, it draws attention to the factors that lie outside each model. We seek to identify possible options to close the gap between what any particular change model proposes and what is possible given military organizations’ inherent cultural and structural constraints. The Concept Debate There is an extensive literature on organizational change. According to two leading experts, “the need for organizational adaptability is a core premise of organization studies.”30 Military adaptation has been studied less, although several works in recent years have added to an already strong base. In a wellknown 2006 paper, Adam Grissom described four basic ideas of military JFQ 114, 3rd Quarter 2024 change. These four “schools of military innovation research” are the civil military model, the interservice model, the intraservice model, and the cultural model. 31 All four are useful to modern leaders when applied in their proper context. However, if they are applied as “recipes” to drive change, each will face the same tight culture that limits their effectiveness. The first of Grissom’s models is civil military. The most famous explanation of this model comes from Barry Posen’s The Sources of Military Doctrine, in which he argues that military organizations are resistant to change and favor doctrines aligned with their specific organizational interests. Thus, Posen suggests military innovation is most successful when driven from the top down by senior civil leaders outside the organization. He notes that this approach is most effective when supported by leaders within the organization, whom he terms “military mavericks.”32 Although there is much merit to the civil military model, particularly that it circumvents the intrinsic difficulty of attempting to innovate or adapt from within the organization, there are also problems. First, one of the most agreed-on findings in organizational research is that bureaucracies resist pressure to change. Second, although military organizations are subordinate to civilian control in Western militaries, they still retain their own preferences and goals and often use specialized knowledge and information asymmetry to subvert outside influence— after all, “What do they know about our business?”33 Although reformers do often succeed in achieving nominal change, making it permanent is more difficult. Then–Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s efforts with the mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicle during the late 2000s provide an example.34 In his own telling, an outsider—Gates—successfully forced the Services to adopt the MRAP. Today, however, these vehicles are no longer a major part of Service discussions of military equipment. Instead, acquisition priorities have reverted to those that existed before Gates forced change. While this realignment may have occurred for a good reason, observers of military culture might suggest that the “system” dealt with the change that was forced on it before reverting to its original state as quickly as it could. This reversion was based on the preexisting assumption that the “next war” will not resemble the last ones. As Mara Karlin described this thinking: “Many current and former senior military leaders argued that the post9/11 wars have been anomalous. They viewed them as an aside from the ‘proper wars they trained for and expected.’”35 However, one need look no further than Ukraine to find the MRAP used in a modern high-intensity war.36 Grissom’s second model is interservice, where the military Services are competing for resources and thus seeking to innovate to earn a larger share of the budgetary pie. This resembles the environment found in management literature where firms must “innovate or die.”37 Although this describes a phenomenon that does result in change, it has problems in application. First, it removes agency MARTAC T38 Devil Ray unmanned surface vessel attached to 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59 sails in Arabian Gulf, October 26, 2023 (U.S. Navy/Jacob Vernier) JFQ 114, 3rd Quarter 2024 Drake and McClain 27 U.S. Army Specialist Mitchell McNeil, assigned to 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, trains with Integrated Visual Augmentation System as part of Project Convergence 2022 at Camp Talega, California, October 11, 2022 (U.S. Army/Thiem Huynh) from the Services and their leaders by suggesting that they lack impetus for change without external budgetary pressures. The most cited example of this sort of environment is the inter-Service budget battle after World War II. Second, the interservice model reduces the act of military change to little more than a messaging strategy that seeks to sell a product to those who control the budget. While budget competition among Services exists and surely incentivizes change, taking the proposition to its cynical extreme suggests a world in which both military and congressional leaders manipulate the system, seeking larger budgets without regard to national security. This world resembles the one described by Edward Luttwak in 198538 and more recently christened the “military-industrial-congressional complex” by Christian Brose.39 Each Service continues to invent novel ways to “sell” 28 Forum / Deviance and Innovation itself to Congress to increase its budget; the requirements of national security are ancillary. Some have argued that the Army’s development of the so-called Pentomic Division—a set of sweeping changes to the structure of the Army, driven by General Maxwell Taylor in the late 1950s—is an example of this sort of cynical messaging strategy.40 Indeed, Taylor himself alludes to this in his memoir, describing how he “conjure[d] up the Madison Avenue adjective, ‘pentomic,’ to describe the new Army division.”41 Although the interservice model may describe aspects of military change, its utility is dubious. Grissom’s third model is the intraservice model, first articulated by Stephen Rosen. It generally suggests that militaries are effective at adapting when reacting to significantly changed environments. His “champions of change” are senior military leaders with vision and reason to change who are supported by civilians outside the organization. Unlike Barry Posen’s mavericks, these individuals influence the long-term outlook of their respective Services by changing measures of performance for their overall tasks and simultaneously redefining success for individual leaders—they change who gets promoted and thus shape the organization over time. This model is often intuitively attractive to members of the military who have been socialized to believe in the value and abilities of strong leaders and “working within the system.” They instinctively lean toward this “great man theory” of military leadership.42 The problem with the intraservice model is that despite its inherent attractiveness to military personnel, it may not work well in practice. Senior leaders with power and drive are certainly able to force change. What is far less clear is their ability to force change on their JFQ 114, 3rd Quarter 2024 organizations with the far-reaching effects Rosen suggests. Service cultures are unsettlingly “sticky,” in political scientist Amy Zegart’s phrasing, and they often remain constant, even through major changes to huge parts of a military organization.43 In some instances, cultural resistance within the ranks can lead to rejection and collapse of concepts or doctrines. Some argue the failure of the Pentomic Division was at least partly due to this dynamic.44 A second example might be what John Nisser called the “doctrinal rejection” of the Army’s Active Defense doctrine in the late 1970s.45 More commonly, however, the organization assumes the general lexicon of change and applies the outward trappings of a new doctrine or concept—but continues to execute as usual. An example is the Marine Corps’ non-adoption of its doctrine Warfighting, first published in 1989. There is ample evidence and widespread agreement that this doctrine remains largely aspirational after more than 30 years. Although Marines speak in the language found in Warfighting, their general approach to military operations remains in many ways far from it.46 Grissom’s final model is the cultural model. Since Grissom’s article was published, the cultural model has arguably become predominant in military change studies, yet “the vast majority of cultural scholarship accepts that culture lacks independent causal power.”47 Proponents agree that culture is a critical factor behind innovation and adaptation while failing to assign it the upstream role that this article discusses. This school also generally provides fewer concrete methods or recommendations than the others. In addition, many of them also bear more than a superficial resemblance to Stephen Rosen’s “great man theory” of military leadership and its associated problems.48 Others have recently described concepts, models, or process mechanisms for thinking about and implementing change, such as Robert Foley’s “horizontal innovation”;49 David Barno and Nora Bensahel’s framework of doctrine, technology, and leadership;50 and Frank Hoffman’s use of organizational theory and single- and double-loop JFQ 114, 3rd Quarter 2024 learning. This last concept aligns well with Grissom’s suggestion that military innovation studies are shifting from a paradigm of top-down models for change to examining bottom-up methods.51 Each of these has merit and utility; however, the fundamental limiting factor is the nature of the system in which they operate. Hoffman’s recognition that change meets defeat in the “frozen middle”—the nexus of operational and institutional leadership—closely reflects reality. It is precisely because innovation is perceived as deviance within hierarchical organizations that military culture lies outside any specific process for change; it is instead the critical environmental condition that enables (or prevents) effective change. In a cultural environment that perceives innovation or adaptation as negative deviance, any effort to change will likely fail to fully achieve its goals, but not all deviance is negative. Closing the ConceptReality Gap The question for practitioners is how to best close the gap between concepts or models and reality. How might a military better enable constructive change, given the cultural and systemic constraints that clearly exist? Each of the concepts and models noted above anchors a theory to examples of successful change. However, they all also suffer from the cultural constraints inherent to military organizations. The most important way to mitigate this tension is to reframe the cultural response to innovation. The normal response of members of a tight culture like the military is to regard change efforts as negative deviance. This article argues that specific methods for seeking change matter far less than this reflexive cultural response. To paraphrase a platitude, “Change is downstream from culture.” The most effective thing leaders can do to unravel systemic constraints to change is to devote resources to changing culture itself. Instead of trying to force specific changes, leaders should devote themselves to creating adaptive space within the overall system.52 The critical point is that without deliberate intervention, organizations will continue to see activity beyond the bounds of their preferred routines as deviant. The most effective means for addressing this problem is to accept this tendency instead of fighting it—leaders should seek to encourage the right type of deviance as constructive.53 A promising lens through which to view such organizational change is that of organizational behavior scholar Mary Uhl-Bien. Uhl-Bien and Michael Arena claim that leaders should focus on structuring their organizations to be adaptive rather than seeking to implement change themselves. The tension that leaders must surmount is that between the need to explore different solutions to problems in their organization and then to exploit opportunities that emerge through this exploration, all while continuing to execute normal routines. The bottom-up solutions developed in the organization require leaders to set conditions for constructive deviance to occur—the concept of enabling adaptive space. Although in many ways this concept resembles Hoffman’s double-loop learning, the critical point Uhl-Bien and Arena make is that the role of leaders is to set the parameters of the system. Their role is twofold. First, leaders need to enable the adaptive space for change by removing “structural, behavioral, cognitive, and political barriers”—in short, by creating an environment that fosters cultural acceptance of organizational adaptation. Second, leaders must create a system that connects champions of change to sponsors and adopts best practices to deliberately spread useful adaptations throughout the entirety of the organization.54 Uhl-Bien and Arena contend that organizations are complex adaptive systems that require adaptive space to change. But given the implications of a tight culture, is it reasonable to expect this adaptive space to expand (or emerge at all)? We suggest there are myriad innovators among us, yet the need for efficiency and routine creates cultural tension as new ideas appear as deviance from established norms. For change to occur, the culture—the organization itself—must reframe creative behavior as constructive rather than Drake and McClain 29 as negative deviance from the existing order and thereby expand space for adoption to occur. Can military culture become one of constant, effective, sometimes disruptive change? Would (or should) the military system ever resemble a “flat” Silicon Valley tech innovator or even General Stanley McChrystal’s “team of teams”?55 Probably not. Although this sounds enticing to many who have felt constrained by military bureaucracies, it would be difficult to implement and potentially counterproductive. However, it is possible to reframe the cultural reaction to adaptive behavior. Instead of an immediate “antibody response,” the system might instead encourage some of this behavior as constructive deviance. Although a military explicitly designed for adaptability and change receptiveness would surely not look like our existing architecture and there are obvious limitations to changing existing hierarchies, this article proposes four changes that could facilitate this reframing. Each is executable and would foster a greater cultural acceptance of constructive deviance. The first activity to support this reframing is to seek aggressively and deliberately to eliminate excessive rules and restrictions. The topic has been the subject of much debate within economics, management, and business literature for over 70 years, but there is nonetheless general agreement that overregulation discourages innovation. In the military, where every Servicemember is subject to invasive and restrictive requirements, it would be difficult to argue that there is not some room for reducing this burden. Indeed, it appears clear that senior leaders periodically recognize this, although efforts at loosening restrictions have been uneven at best.56 Excessive, outdated, and confusing requirements create what a recent Atlantic article described as “permission slip culture.”57 They create a culture where people feel the need to ask permission, whereas fewer, clearer, more easily understood requirements empower adaptation and creativity. While this may sound populist in nature, the simplest fix is to change the focus of audit agencies. Instead of assessing strict compliance 30 Forum / Deviance and Innovation to a multitude of explicit requirements (checklists), they might instead provide broad latitude for interpretation and enforce strict compliance regarding only documented safety or security concerns. It is obvious that there are many rulebooks that are critically important; these range from network security to flight safety. It is equally obvious that restrictions that seek to control things such as—for example—the color and cut of undergarments provide little in this regard. A deliberate reduction of excessive rules and restrictions would have two effects. The first, somewhat obvious, effect is to reduce constraints on the possible. Explicit requirements that limit experimentation or trying new ideas are common. Reducing these would facilitate adaptation. Specific examples might include loosening limitations on vehicle modifications, contracting, or use of offthe-shelf technologies or equipment in individual units.58 The second effect of loosening restrictions on Servicemembers would be to reduce the overall perception of deviance within the military culture and thus potentially make change more acceptable. A simple example is grooming and uniform standards. Allowing more room for personal expression is unlikely to have significantly negative effects on discipline and might inculcate a cultural environment more accepting of creative ideas and behaviors.59 A second opportunity to create a cultural shift is the promotion system. Although much of the military promotion system is codified in law, the Services nonetheless have much latitude to shape the sort of officers and enlisted members they select for promotion.60 Any organization that promotes exclusively from an in-house population will naturally develop selection effects. In a phenomenon often colloquially described as “ducks pick ducks,” the leaders who select populations for promotion tend to prize qualifications and traits that resemble their own.61 In the case of the U.S. military, there is at least some evidence to suggest that the system currently selects for traits that do not align well with the sort of culture that this article argues is needed for change. As Stephen Gerras and Leonard Wong described it: “The most successful officers score lower in openness than the general U.S. population.”62 Additionally, deviant innovation is inherently risky—to one’s career, social standing, and general reputation. RAND scholars have found that U.S. military personnel systems “discourage risk taking in career management choices and professional performance.”63 It does not have to be this way. Despite restrictions in the different versions of Service promotion systems, it is possible to change existing evaluation systems to prioritize innovative behavior or to select for particular personality traits such as openness.64 Personality testing is already found in many places within the force, and adding adaptability or similar categories as specific performance assessment criteria could help to increase the visibility and promotability of adaptive or culturally open Servicemembers.65 The Prussian reaction to crushing defeat in 1806 provides an example from a different time—despite many institutional pressures against change, the Prussian army drastically revised its promotion mechanisms and began deliberately favoring innovative behavior.66 The third recommendation is to formalize crowdsourcing. Although there are many such efforts under way, they are often command-, and thus commander-, dependent. Like many initiatives, crowdsourced adaptation efforts depend on whether a commander or leader is willing to devote resources to them. They often have notable results and have previously resulted in cost savings, better ways of doing business, or just general good ideas.67 Without formal codification, however, they will continue to be subject to the whims of commanders who enter and exit their units in the normal revolving door of military personnel. The rapidity of military leadership rotations is probably beyond the scope of possible changes; it has been a known problem for at least 40 years.68 Thus, we instead recommend instantiating formal innovation-crowdsourcing methods in such a way that they are further incentivized. JFQ 114, 3rd Quarter 2024 For instance, professional journals have long been viewed as a place to share and debate new ideas.69 Might institutional efforts to incentivize contributions to these forums—such as the Marine Corps Gazette’s Chase Prize essay contest or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Fast Adaptable Next-Generation Ground Vehicle Challenge—catalyze more contributions?70 More important, using the ideas found in these professional journals to drive innovation efforts would represent a major change. As these efforts become increasingly successful, they will gain credibility as a form of constructive deviance, both as an outlet and a breeding ground for new ideas. The Services and the Department of Defense (DOD) could most effectively implement this effort by developing direct incentives to individuals of any rank who successfully provide useful innovations and adaptations.71 Fourth, Services should formally develop organizations that are specifically targeted at innovation and adaptation. As with the development of direct incentives for individuals, this has been happening in many places in DOD with varying degrees of buy-in and interest. The clearest example of this sort of effort is former Secretary of Defense James Mattis’s Close Combat Lethality Task Force, which was hugely influential while the Secretary was directly involved in it. However, it has continued to fade in importance (and funding) since his departure. There are many similar efforts that have been established with a leader’s direct involvement, but they fade over time as new leaders have less interest in or resources to support them. Several recent efforts in this regard show promise: U.S. Central Command’s U.S. Army paratrooper with 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, shielded by Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, fires his M4 carbine at insurgents during firefight, June 30, 2012, in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan (U.S. Army/Michael J. MacLeod) JFQ 114, 3rd Quarter 2024 Drake and McClain 31 creation of specific task forces to test and integrate emerging technologies is one example of leaders creating adaptive space to facilitate change. Task Force 59 in the 5th Fleet area of responsibility is integrating unmanned air and artificial intelligence capabilities with manned platforms. Lessons learned in this environment would inform operational concepts that could be scaled to other areas in DOD.72 This is an example of an ideal environment where constructive deviance is encouraged, and feedback from testing new concepts can inform the design of future capabilities.73 A second example is the newly designated Marine Innovation Unit, which seeks to leverage the broad talent pool found in the Marine Reserve force.74 The critical point for these efforts is not purely lessons learned, but rather the cultural reframing that occurs when the reins are loosened and creativity is encouraged. However, without buy-in and deliberate actions to fully ingrain these efforts, they will fade as soon as a new commander does not have the same priorities. Conclusion Two eminent military historians wrote: The importance of culture on military organizations is as vital today as it has been at any other time in history. Everything that military organizations must perform in the pursuit of national security objectives ultimately rests on their cultural foundations. Organizational culture will shape how military organizations respond to the challenges confronting them today and that they will face in the years ahead. The accelerated rate of technological change alone requires military organizations to adapt in order to survive, but as the experience of militaries during the industrial era has shown, their ability to do so is highly dependent on organizational cultures that are willing to accept a certain amount of risk.75 U.S. military culture requires calibration. The authors of this article suggest there is an imbalance between an existing culture that prefers conformity and standardization over creativity and adaptation, despite many leaders articulating 32 Forum / Deviance and Innovation a desire for the opposite. In an organizational environment where deviance is strictly defined and policed, change is inherently suspect. To be competitive in a world marked by rapid technological change, the proliferation of advanced weapons, increasing lethality on the battlefield, and disintermediation in nearly every sphere of human social organization, the existing culture must change to facilitate flexibility and acceptance of the perception of deviance that comes with it. We are generally pessimistic regarding sweeping structural change. We are instead optimistic that simple changes might have outsized effects on existing culture and spur the sort of relationship with change that senior leaders demand. The four changes described above should have just that effect. Spurring innovation in the U.S. military requires reframing, not reformation. Seeing innovative behavior as constructive deviance mitigates the reflexive organizational response. Instead of perceiving this sort of behavior as negative, it instead encourages a greater adaptive space where innovative behavior appears constructive. In the words of an esteemed sergeant major with whom one of the authors served, “We’re going to have to get a whole lot cooler, real fast.”76 JFQ Notes 1 The title of this article refers to legendary sociologist Emile Durkheim’s 1895 description of deviance in society. Durkheim argued that even in a “society of saints,” deviance would exist. See Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method, trans. W.D. Halls (New York: The Free Press, 2013), 62. 2 Stuart Griffin, “Military Innovation Studies: Multidisciplinary or Lacking Discipline?” Journal of Strategic Studies 40, nos. 1–2 (2017), 196–224. 3 For an interesting and useful counterargument, see Kendrick Kuo, “Dangerous Changes: When Military Innovation Harms Combat Effectiveness,” International Security 47, no. 2 (Fall 2022), 48–87, https://doi.org/10.1162/ isec_a_00446. 4 For example, see Charles Pope, “Brown Presses Case for Speed, Innovation, Culture Change Across the Air Force,” U.S. Air Force, September 20, 2021, https://www.af.mil/ News/Article-Display/Article/2782222/ brown-presses-case-for-speed-innovationculture-change-across-the-air-force/. 5 The authors spent many hours debating distinctions between adaptation and innovation, an important academic topic. However, like Theo Farrell, James Osinga, and James Russell, we “do not consider it feasible or fruitful to draw too fine a distinction between adaptation and innovation. Indeed, it may be more helpful to think of the two as points on a sliding scale”—a viewpoint akin to the “military change continuum” that Frank Hoffman adopts. When pressed, we respect the eloquent views and definitional subtleties Williamson Murray provides. See Theo Farrell, “Introduction,” in Military Adaptation in Afghanistan, ed. Theo Farrell, James Osinga, and James A. Russell (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013), 7; Frank G. Hoffman, Mars Adapting: Military Change During War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2021); and Williamson Murray, Military Adaptation in War: With Fear of Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 6 See Robert Kinney and David Rayman, “The Drone Elegy,” War Room, June 13, 2017, https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/ articles/the-drone-elegy/; Paul Scharre, “Do Drones Have a Future?” War on the Rocks, October 7, 2014, https://warontherocks. com/2014/10/do-drones-have-a-future/; Sarah Clark, “Unmanned Future Threatens Pilot Identity,” Proceedings 148, no. 9 (September 2022), https://www.usni.org/ magazines/proceedings/2022/september/ unmanned-future-threatens-pilot-identity-0. 7 For example, see Rick Montcalm, “Tabs and Badges and Berets, Oh My! The Big Distraction the Army’s New Advisory Unit Really Didn’t Need,” Modern War Institute, November 1, 2017, https://mwi.usma.edu/ tabs-badges-berets-oh-big-distraction-armysnew-advisory-unit-really-didnt-need/. 8 See John Vandiver, “Marines Unveil Force Structure Update Amid Opposition From Retired Generals About Service’s Direction,” Stars and Stripes, May 10, 2022, https://www.stripes.com/branches/marine_ corps/2022-05-10/marines-force-design2030-berger-pentagon-5954648.html. 9 Eric Lofgren, Whitney M. McNamara, and Peter Modigliani, Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption: Interim Report (Washington, DC: Atlantic Council, April 2023), https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/ in-depth-research-reports/report/atlanticcouncil-commission-on-defense-innovationadoption-interim-report/. Italics in original. 10 Robert K. Merton, “Social Structure and Anomie,” American Sociological Review 3, no. 5 (1938), 671. 11 Although Merton was generally referring to criminal behavior in this theory, it has applicability in a military context, as the organization considers operations outside normal standards to be deviant behavior. JFQ 114, 3rd Quarter 2024 12 David Barno and Nora Bensahel, Adaptation Under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 9–11. 13 Theo Farrell, “Introduction,” in Military Adaptation in Afghanistan, 5. 14 For a discussion, see Bora Yildiz et al., “Drivers of Innovative Constructive Deviance: A Moderated Mediation Analysis,” Procedia, Social and Behavioral Sciences 195 (2015), 1407–1416, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. sbspro.2015.06.436. 15 Theo Farrell, The Norms of War: Cultural Beliefs and Modern Conflict (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005), 25. 16 Michele Gelfand, Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: Tight and Loose Cultures and the Secret Signals That Direct Our Lives (New York: Scribner, 2019), 150. 17 Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 2. 18 Carl H. Builder, The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). 19 Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, rev. ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1968), 248–253. 20 Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1971), 152. 21 Colin F. Jackson, “Defeat in Victory: Organizational Learning Dysfunction in Counterinsurgency” (Ph.D. diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 2008), http:// dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/53077. For a discussion of different levels of culture, see Leonard Wong and Stephen J. Gerras, “Culture and Military Organizations,” in The Culture of Military Organizations, ed. Peter R. Mansoor and Williamson Murray (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 19. 22 Williamson Murray, Military Adaptation in War, 1. 23 Mary Uhl-Bien and Michael Arena, “Leadership for Organizational Adaptability: A Theoretical Synthesis and Integrative Framework,” The Leadership Quarterly 29, no. 1 (February 2018), 89–104. 24 Rosen, Winning the Next War, 3. 25 Stuart Palmer and John A. Humphrey, Deviant Behavior: Patterns, Sources, and Control (New York: Springer Science Business Media LLC, 1990), vi–vii. 26 Terry C. Pierce, Warfighting and Disruptive Technologies: Disguising Innovation (New York: Frank Cass, 2004), 31. Pierce distinguishes between “sustaining innovation” and “disruptive innovation.” In the framing of this article, Pierce’s “sustaining innovation” represents minor change that does not appear deviant to stakeholders within or outside the military bureaucracy. 27 Barno and Bensahel, Adaptation Under Fire, 11–12. JFQ 114, 3rd Quarter 2024 28 Jim Garamone, “Dunford to NDU Grads: Embrace Change and Innovation,” DOD News, June 2016, https://www.jcs.mil/ Media/News/News-Display/Article/796366/ dunford-to-ndu-grads-embrace-change-andinnovation; “From the Chairman: An Interview with Martin E. Dempsey,” Joint Force Quarterly 78 (3rd Quarter 2015), https://ndupress.ndu. edu/Portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-78/jfq78_2-13_Dempsey.pdf. 29 Arita Holmberg and Aida Alvinius, “How Pressure for Change Challenges Military Organizational Characteristics,” Defence Studies 19, no. 2 (2019), 130–148, http://dx.doi.org /10.1080/14702436.2019.1575698. 30 Uhl-Bien and Arena, “Leadership for Organizational Adaptability,” 90. 31 Adam Grissom, “The Future of Military Innovation Studies,” The Journal of Strategic Studies 29, no. 5 (2006), 905–934. 32 Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984). 33 Allison, Essence of Decision, 162; and Dennis C. Mueller, Public Choice III, 3rd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 359–363. 34 Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014). 35 Mara E. Karlin, The Inheritance: America’s Military After Two Decades of War (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2021). 36 Christopher J. Lamb, Matthew J. Schmidt, and Berit G. Fitzsimmons, MRAPs, Irregular Warfare, and Pentagon Reform, INSS Occasional Paper 6 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, June 2009), https://www.files. ethz.ch/isn/102831/2009-06_MRAPSirregular-warfare.pdf. For examples of MRAP use in Ukraine, see Joe Saballa, “Ukrainian Army Spotted Using Israeli-Made Armored Vehicles,” The Defense Post, November 14, 2022, https://www.thedefensepost. com/2022/11/14/ukrainian-army-israelarmored-vehicles/; Tony Bertuca, “U.S. Sending Mine-Resistant Vehicles, More Artillery to Ukraine,” Inside Defense, August 19, 2022, https://insidedefense.com/insider/ us-sending-mine-resistant-vehicles-moreartillery-ukraine; Kris Osborn, “Latest U.S. Aid Package Sends 40 MRAP Vehicles to Ukraine,” The National Interest, August 23, 2022, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ latest-us-aid-package-sends-40-mrap-vehiclesukraine-204391. 37 Uhl-Bien and Arena, “Leadership for Organizational Adaptability,” 97–100. 38 Edward N. Luttwak, The Pentagon and the Art of War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), 27–31. 39 Christian Brose, The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare (New York: Hachette Books, 2020). 40 The authors thank an anonymous reviewer for highlighting this perspective. See John J. Midgley, Jr., Deadly Illusions: Army Policy for the Nuclear Battlefield (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986). 41 Maxwell D. Taylor, Swords and Plowshares (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1972), 171. 42 For “great man theory,” see Fenwick W. English, “Great Man Theory,” in Encyclopedia of Educational Leadership and Administration, ed. Fenwick W. English (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2006), 439. For contrary thought, see Anthony King, Command: The Twenty-First-Century General (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019). 43 See Brian McAllister Linn, The Echo of Battle: The Army’s Way of War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007). 44 Historian Andrew Bacevich refers to this as “reaction and rejection.” Andrew J. Bacevich, The Pentomic Era: The U.S. Army Between Korea and Vietnam (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 1986), https://www.files.ethz.ch/ isn/139661/1986-07_Pentomic_Era.pdf. 45 John Nisser, “Conceptualizing Doctrinal Rejection: A Comparison Between Active Defense and Airland Battle,” Defence Studies 23, no. 2 (October 6, 2022), https://doi. org/10.1080/14702436.2022.2132232. For additional discussion of the Pentomic Division, see Kendrick Kuo, “Military Magic: The Promise and Peril of Military Innovation” (Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, 2021), https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/ downloads/8336h2688?disposition=inline& locale=en; Brian McAllister Linn, Elvis’s Army: Cold War GIs and the Atomic Battlefield (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016). Although there were many factors that led to the collapse of the so-called Pentomic Army, not least of which was the accumulating evidence that it would not work, many treatments of the Pentomic reorganization have also suggested that a cultural component was a factor in this collapse. One might envision a counterfactual where instead of simply jettisoning the change effort, the Army sought to incrementally improve it. 46 Stephen Rosen specifically notes the possibility of this problem; see Winning the Next War, 8; for Marine doctrine, see Andrew Milburn, “Losing Small Wars: Why U.S. Military Culture Leads to Defeat,” Small Wars Journal, September 12, 2021, https:// smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/losing-smallwars-why-us-military-culture-leads-defeat; Thaddeus Drake, Jr., “The Fantasy of MCDP 1: Is Maneuver Warfare Still Useful?” Marine Corps Gazette, October 2020, https:// mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/TheFantasy-of-MCDP-1.pdf. 47 Griffin, “Military Innovation Studies,” 206. Grissom considers Theo Farrell to be the founder and leading scholar of this “school,” a Drake and McClain 33 characterization that Farrell does not entirely embrace. The authors thank an anonymous reviewer for highlighting this point. 48 Grissom, “The Future of Military Innovation Studies,” 916. 49 Robert T. Foley, “A Case Study in Horizontal Military Innovation: The German Army, 1916–1918,” Journal of Strategic Studies 35, no. 6 (May 15, 2012), 799–827. 50 Barno and Bensahel, Adaptation Under Fire. 51 Hoffman, Mars Adapting. 52 Uhl-Bien and Arena, “Leadership for Organizational Adaptability,” 97–100. 53 Aaron Cohen and Sari Ehrlich, “Exchange Variables, Organizational Culture and Their Relationship With Constructive Deviance,” Management Research Review 42, no. 12 (July 17, 2019), 1423–1446, http:// dx.doi.org/10.1108/MRR-09-2018-0354. 54 Uhl-Bien and Arena, “Leadership for Organizational Adaptability,” 89–104; Pierce, Warfighting and Disruptive Technologies, 30. 55 For an in-depth discussion, see Francis Fukuyama and Abram N. Shulsky, The “Virtual Corporation” and Army Organization (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1997), https://www. rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR863. html. Also see Stanley McChrystal with Tantum Collins, David Silverman, and Chris Fussell, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2015). 56 For example, see Mark Esper, “Initial Message to the Force from the 23rd Secretary of the Army,” U.S. Army, November 21, 2017, https://www.army.mil/article/197205/ initial_message_to_the_force_from_the_23rd_ secretary_of_the_army. 57 Jerusalem Demsas, “Permission-Slip Culture Is Hurting America,” The Atlantic, February 24, 2023. 58 Many of the “good ideas” that Servicemembers tried during the last 20 years were technically contrary to existing rules and restrictions. This article contends that employing equipment in nonstandard ways or experimenting with modifications is almost always going to encounter this problem. Examples abound. In one author’s personal experience, this includes the use of commercial metal detectors, the nonstandard use of equipment to jam improvised explosive devices, or modifications to vehicles to allow the use of different types of radios. The authors do not take a position on the effectiveness of many of these adaptations; instead, they simply contend that it is necessary to create the space for “bottom up” solutions that often result in more effective adaptation than “top down” ones. The quintessential example of this sort of modification is the development of “Rhino tanks” with “tusks” to cut the bocage (hedgerows) in Normandy. See Michael D. Doubler, Busting the Bocage: American Combined Arms Operations in France, 6 34 Forum / Deviance and Innovation June–31 July 1944 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Combat Studies Institute, 1955), https://www.armyupress.army.mil/portals/7/ combat-studies-institute/csi-books/doublerbocage.pdf. 59 See, for example, Jacquelyn Schneider, “Blue Hair in the Gray Zone,” War on the Rocks, January 10, 2018, https:// warontherocks.com/2018/01/blue-hairgray-zone/; and Nina Kollars and Emma Moore, “Every Marine a Blue-Haired QuasiRifleperson?” War on the Rocks, August 21, 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/08/ every-marine-a-blue-haired-quasi-rifleperson/. There is ample evidence that relaxing grooming standards would have minimal effects on Service discipline. Indeed, comparison with the British armed forces or even U.S. special forces suggests that it would likely be far more positive than negative. 60 See “DOPMA/ROPMA Policy Reference Tool,” RAND Project Air Force, https://www.rand.org/paf/projects/dopmaropma.html. 61 Kimberly Jackson et al., Raising the Flag: Implications of U.S. Military Approaches to General and Flag Officer Development (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2020), https://www. rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR4347. html. 62 Stephen J. Gerras and Leonard Wong, Changing Minds in the Army: Why It Is So Difficult and What to Do About It (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, Strategic Studies Institute, October 2013), https:// press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=1514&context=monographs. 63 Jackson et al., Raising the Flag. 64 This article recognizes the problematic nature of selecting for specific—and potentially immutable—personality traits. Despite the difficulties in executing this sort of selection mechanism, the current system already selects for personality traits; they just happen to be the ones that discourage innovation and openness to change. 65 For personality testing, see Anthony Bianchi, “Understanding Assessments and Their Relevance to the Future Success of the U.S. Army,” Military Review, May–June 2021, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/ Journals/Military-Review/English-EditionArchives/May-June-2021/Bianchi-FutureArmy-Success/. For recommendations on performance evaluations, see Barno and Bensahel, Adaptation Under Fire, 279. 66 Peter Paret, The Cognitive Challenge of War: Prussia 1806 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009). 67 Michael Arena et al., “How to Catalyze Innovation in Your Organization,” MIT Sloan Management Review 58, no. 4 (Summer 2017), 39–47, https://www.robcross.org/ wp-content/uploads/2020/03/SMR-howto-catalyze-innovation-in-your-organizationconnected-commons.pdf; Ben Cohen, “What Happened When the U.S. Military Played ‘Shark Tank,’” Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2022. 68 Luttwak, The Pentagon and the Art of War; see also Bernard Rostker, “Changing the Officer Personnel System,” in Filling the Ranks: Transforming the U.S. Military Personnel System, ed. Cindy Williams (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), 145–149. 69 There is a contrary view of this, however. Andrew Bacevich has written: “The emphasis on Service journals does not reflect a belief that the written musings of relatively junior officers influence American military policy to any significant degree. They do not.” See Bacevich, The Pentomic Era, 5. 70 See Marine Corps Association Essay Writing Contests, https://www.mca-marines. org/resource/writing-contests/#writing; A.J. Steinlage, “Crowdsourcing the U.S. Military’s Next Combat Vehicle,” Harvard Business School Digital Initiative, March 26, 2018, https://d3.harvard.edu/platform-digit/ submission/crowdsourcing-the-u-s-militarysnext-combat-vehicle/. 71 This article recognizes that there are many different existing versions of this idea. It does not recommend changing the variety of crowdsourcing options, but instead recommends increasing the resources devoted to protecting them. 72 Peter Ong, “U.S. Navy’s New Task Force 59 Teams Manned With Unmanned Systems for CENTCOM’s Middle East,” Naval News, September 9, 2021, https://www.navalnews. com/naval-news/2021/09/u-s-navys-newtask-force-59-teams-manned-with-unmannedsystems-for-centcoms-middle-east/. 73 See also the U.S. Air Force efforts in Southwest Asia with a separate initiative, Task Force 99. Kayshel Trudell, “AFCENT’s Innovation Task Force 99 Establishes OPs, HQ,” U.S. Air Force, December 5, 2022, https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/ Article/3235960/afcents-innovation-taskforce-99-establishes-ops-hq/. 74 “Marine Innovation Unit,” U.S. Marine Corps Forces Reserve, https://www.marforres. marines.mil/MIU/. 75 Peter R. Mansoor and Williamson Murray, “Introduction,” in The Culture of Military Organizations, 19. 76 Sergeant Major Adam Ruiz, USMC (Ret.), in conversation with one of the authors. JFQ 114, 3rd Quarter 2024