Institutional Analysis and Irregular Warfare: A Case Study of the French Army in Algeria 1954–1960

Abstract

This article proposes a case study to illustrate the usefulness of sociological institutional analysis as a method to uncover ‘blue force’ challenges to deal with irregular warfare. The French Army's adaptation to revolutionary warfare in Algeria, starting in 1954, is used to illustrate both the application of the methodology and how institutional forces can hinder as well as overwhelm transformation for irregular warfare. The analysis emphasizes three key dimensions of the French Army's institutional adaptation: the regulative, normative and cognitive. These empirical elements are used to show how they interacted and influenced the institutional implementation of the French COIN structures.

Key Words:

• Irregular Warfare
• Institutional Analysis
• France
• Algeria
• Military Adaptation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Defence Research and Development Canada Centre for Operational Research and Analysis (DRDC CORA) for financially supporting this research project; Dr Paul Chouinard of the DRDC Centre for Security Science for his ongoing support; as well as Ms Camille Risler for her dedicated archival research work.

Notes

¹See Michael Hechter and Christine Horne, ‘The Problem of Social Order’, in Michael Hechter and Christine Horne (eds), Theories of Social Order (Palo Alto: Stanford UP 2003); and Dennis H. Wrong, The Problem of Order (New York: Free Press 1995).

²The genesis of the Western state as a military state has been extensively analyzed by Charles Tilly in Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1992 (Oxford: Blackwell 1993).

³See Richard Scott, Institutions and Organizations: Ideas and Interest (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage 2008).

⁴Marc Schneiberg and Elisabeth Clemens, ‘The Typical Tools for the Job: Research Strategies in Institutional Analysis’, Sociological Theory 24/3 (2006), 209.

⁵ Instruction du 22 mai 1898, quoted in Edward Mead Earle (ed.), Les Maîtres de la Stratégie, Vol. I (Paris: Champs Flammarion 1985), 277–8.

⁶Jean Némo (Colonel), ‘La guerre dans le milieu social’, Revue de Défense nationale (May 1956), 605–53.

⁷Jean Némo (Colonel), ‘La guerre dans la foule’, Revue de Défense nationale (June 1956), 721–34.

⁸Quoted in Raoul Girardet, La crise militaire française 1945–1962: Aspects sociologiques et idéologiques (Paris: Armand Colin 1964), 90.

⁹Paul Villatoux, ‘L'institutionnalisation de l'arme psychologique pendant la guerre d'Algérie au miroir de la guerre froide’, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains 4 (2002), 40.

¹⁰Quoted by Guy Weber (Captain), ‘La thèse de Boulganine’, Revue de Défense nationale (April 1956), 475.

¹¹Villatoux, ‘L'institutionnalisation de l'arme psychologique’, 40.

¹²Villatoux, La république et son armée, 312.

¹³Girardet, La crise militaire,174.

¹⁴Maurice Mégret, L'action psychologique (Paris: Fayard 1959), 117.

¹⁵L.M. Chassin (General), ‘Du rôle idéologique de l'Armée’, Revue militaire d'information 240 (1954), 13.

¹⁶Paul Villatoux and Marie-Catherine, La république et son armée face au péril subversif: guerre et action psychologiques en France 1945–1960 (Paris: Indes Savantes 2005).

¹⁷Jacques Hogard (Commandant), ‘Guerre révolutionnaire ou révolution dans l'art de la guerre’, Revue de Défense Nationale (Sept. 1956), 1505.

¹⁸This notion is known in France as the ‘lien Armée-Nation’ [the Army-nation link], which was at the centre of many debates. For a more recent version of this debate, please see Claude Weber, ‘Armed Forces, Nation, and Military Officers: France at the Crossroads’, in Eric Ouellet (ed.), New Directions in Military Sociology (Toronto: de Sitter 2005), 209–29.

¹⁹Vincennes, France, French Army's History Section (SHAT), carton stratégie II, La guerre psychologique en Indochine. Ses opérations et ses résultats, 22, quoted in Villatoux, La république et son armée, 318.

²⁰In Villatoux, La république et son armée, 370.

²¹(General) André Beaufre, La guerre révolutionnaire: Les formes nouvelles de la guerre (Paris: Fayard 1972), 50.

²²Joseph Field and Thomas C. Hudnut, L'Algérie, de Gaulle et l'Armée (Paris: Arthaud 1975), 43.

²³Beaufre, La guerre révolutionnaire, 63.

²⁴Field and Hudnut, L'Algérie, 42.

²⁵Schneiberg and Clemens, ‘The Typical Tools for the Job’, 211.

²⁶Villatoux, La république et son armée, 320.

²⁷Mégret, L'action psychologique, 22.

²⁸Villatoux, La république et son armée, 376.

²⁹Frédéric Guelton, ‘The French Army “Centre for Training and Preparation in Counter-Guerrilla Warfare” (CIPCG) at Arzew’, Journal of Strategic Studies 25/2 (June 2002), 39. It is important to note that the Centre eventually modified its curriculum in a way that was much more effective in preparing French military personnel for the Algerian conflict.

³⁰Gil Merom, ‘The Social Origins of the French Capitulation in Algeria’, Armed Forces & Society 30/4 (2004), 605–8.

³¹SHAT, 1H 2533, Synthèse des idées émises à la réunion des OI les 17 et 18 décembre 1956.

³²Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (New York: Anchor Books 1966), 92–3.

³³Quoted in Girardet, La crise militaire, 191.

³⁴SHAT, 1S 1, Note pour le chef de l'état-major, organisation de l'action et de la guerre psychologique dans les forces armées.

³⁵SHAT, 1H 2408 – Directive sur la guerre psychologique, Ministry of National Defence and the Armed Forces, Armed Forces Headquarters, Psychology Office, 4 Oct. 1955. Signed by Gen. Koenig, Minister of National Defence and the Armed Forces.

³⁶SHAT, 1R 31, Décision ministérielle numéro 186, DN-CAB-EMP-TS, 23 Jan. 1956.

³⁷An example is provided in Alexander Zervoudakis, ‘A Case of Successful Pacification’, in Martin Alexander and J.F.V. Keiger (eds), France and the Algerian War. Strategy, Operations and Diplomacy (London: Frank Cass 2002), 54–64.

³⁸SHAT, 1H 2409, Instruction provisoire sur l'emploi de l'arme psychologique, Le général d'armée Ely, chef d'état-major général des Forces armées, 29 July 1957.

³⁹On the surface, the new instruction was making the role of the 7th branch official. In fact, it was also limiting its increasing autonomy through the ‘unity of action’ principle. As such TTA117 can be considered as one of the first attempts to regain the upper hand by a regulative power fearing that the 7th branch was running out of control. SHAT, 1H 2409, Instruction provisoire sur l'emploi de l'arme psychologique, 15.

⁴⁰SHAT, 6T 521, Décision ministérielle numéro 1557-DN-CAB-SAPI, 6 June 1957.

⁴¹SHAT, 1S3, Note de service numéro 977-EMFA-5D, 27 August 1957.

⁴²Villatoux, La république et son armée, 451.

⁴³Villatoux, La république et son armée, 432–3.

⁴⁴François Géré, La Guerre Psychologique (Paris: Economica 1997), 275.

⁴⁵Géré, La Guerre Psychologique, 275.

⁴⁶Viviana Zelizer, Morals and Markets: The Development of Life Insurance in the United States (New York: Columbia UP 1979).

⁴⁷Schneiberg and Clemens, ‘The Typical Tools for the Job’, 212.

⁴⁸Simplet (pseudonym for Gen. Langlois), ‘Guerre révolutionnaire, guerre psychologique ou guerre tout court?’ Revue Militaire d'information 309 (Oct. 1959), 97–102.

⁴⁹Schneiberg and Clemens, ‘The Typical Tools for the Job’, 218.

⁵⁰K. Koonings and D. Kruijt, Political Armies: The Military and Nation Building in the Age of Democracy (London and New York: Z Books 2002).

⁵¹Field and Hudnut, L'Algérie, 36.

⁵²Pierre C. Pahlavi, ‘The French Counterinsurgency Strategy: 1954–1961’, Canadian Military Journal 8/4 (2007), 53–62.

⁵³Jean Planchais, Une histoire politique de l'Armée (Paris: Éditions du Seuil 1967), 321.

⁵⁴See Pierre C. Pahlavi, Entre conquête des esprits et esprit de conquête: la guerre révolutionnaire de l'armée française en Algérie (Paris: l'Harmattan 2004).

⁵⁵Jean Doise and Maurice Vaisse, Diplomatie et outil militaire 1871–1969 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale 1987), 462.

⁵⁶Anthony Clayton, Histoire de l'Armée française en Afrique 1830–1962 (Paris: Albin Michel 1994), 508.

⁵⁷SHAT, 1H 2410, Instruction – Objet: Fondements, buts et limites de l'action psychologique, signed by P. Guillaumat, 28 July 1959.

⁵⁸Doise and Vaisse, Diplomatie et outil militaire, 464.

⁵⁹Quoted in Doise and Vaisse, Diplomatie et outil militaire, 466.

⁶⁰Clayton, Histoire de l'Armée, 228.

⁶¹Scott, Institutions and Organizations, 61.

⁶²For instance, Rémy Ourdan, ‘Les soldats américains frustrés par les tactiques de la contre-insurrection’, Le Figaro, 16 May 2009.