"There was a man of genius, who might have well become a man of destiny..."
Winston Churchill
Security Studies Questions
My dissertation, One Way to Live: Orde Wingate and the adoption of 'special operations' strategies and tactics (1903-1944), draws on my interests in oral history, archival research, human psychology, and the age-old challenges of military experience. I use these tools to answer two novel questions:
1. Why do leaders choose to adopt special operations tactics and strategies?
2. And why do soldiers choose to join such units?
1. Why do leaders choose to adopt special operations tactics and strategies?
2. And why do soldiers choose to join such units?
Who was orde wingate?
Orde Wingate was a British officer who became famous for his extravagant risk-taking, his unorthodox methods of organizing and deploying his forces, his use of Judeo-Christian imagery to inspire his troops, and (eventually) his high casualty rates. His methods had a pervasive influence on future generations of soldiers, and shaped how Britain and the United States fought wars in British Malaysia, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
In 1938, in British Palestine, Wingate founded Jewish-British units called Special Night Squads; these units are now considered the forerunners of the modern Israeli Defense Forces. Many Israeli leaders, like Moshe Dayan, credited Wingate for inspiring Zionism's turn towards aggressive militarism.
In 1941, Wingate founded a Sudanese-Ethiopian-British unit called 'Gideon Force,' and led it against the Italian occupiers of Abyssinia.
In 1943 and 1944 Wingate organized and led yet another new formation, the 'Chindits;' these troops fought against the Japanese in the colonial province of Burma.
In 1938, in British Palestine, Wingate founded Jewish-British units called Special Night Squads; these units are now considered the forerunners of the modern Israeli Defense Forces. Many Israeli leaders, like Moshe Dayan, credited Wingate for inspiring Zionism's turn towards aggressive militarism.
In 1941, Wingate founded a Sudanese-Ethiopian-British unit called 'Gideon Force,' and led it against the Italian occupiers of Abyssinia.
In 1943 and 1944 Wingate organized and led yet another new formation, the 'Chindits;' these troops fought against the Japanese in the colonial province of Burma.
what is unique about my approach?
Wingate liked to call his units 'special operations,' and his style, methods, and training set precedents that Western militaries continue to follow; this is an interesting development, because many of Wingate's more successful peers (including Bernard Montgomery and William Slim) considered him an unsuccessful fraud who threw away the lives of the soldiers who followed him into battle.
Building off of previous studies by the likes of Christopher Sykes (1959), Shelford Bidwell (1979), and Simon Anglim (2015), my dissertation offers a biographical sketch of British general Orde Wingate while focusing on two key questions that help us understand broader trends in modern warfare: Why do leaders choose to adopt special operations tactics and strategies? And why do soldiers choose to join such units?
The dissertation's key conceit is that answering these two questions requires an understanding of human developmental tendencies; to state the problem more broadly, in what ways do human psychology and human development inform the study of military operations? My interest in broader concerns of human development simply led me to uncover new archival sources (including audio interviews and unpublished manuscripts) that affected the study in unexpected ways; human sexuality, status, and inter-group competition, for example, play a surprisingly critical role in shaping the choices of individual soldiers; even when facing intense competition from foreign enemies, soldiers spend far more time competing with each other than fighting their mutual opponent, even when that opponent is Imperial Japan during the Second World War. The study concludes by placing Wingate in comparative perspective; I first compare him to a handful of other 'maverick' soldiers throughout human history; then I contrast him with other individuals that created special operations units during Wingate's own lifetime.
My work has fundamental implications for how we understand military strategists and military leaders, and the ways in which human beings organize for violence. I plan to pursue publication of my dissertation in the immediate future.
Building off of previous studies by the likes of Christopher Sykes (1959), Shelford Bidwell (1979), and Simon Anglim (2015), my dissertation offers a biographical sketch of British general Orde Wingate while focusing on two key questions that help us understand broader trends in modern warfare: Why do leaders choose to adopt special operations tactics and strategies? And why do soldiers choose to join such units?
The dissertation's key conceit is that answering these two questions requires an understanding of human developmental tendencies; to state the problem more broadly, in what ways do human psychology and human development inform the study of military operations? My interest in broader concerns of human development simply led me to uncover new archival sources (including audio interviews and unpublished manuscripts) that affected the study in unexpected ways; human sexuality, status, and inter-group competition, for example, play a surprisingly critical role in shaping the choices of individual soldiers; even when facing intense competition from foreign enemies, soldiers spend far more time competing with each other than fighting their mutual opponent, even when that opponent is Imperial Japan during the Second World War. The study concludes by placing Wingate in comparative perspective; I first compare him to a handful of other 'maverick' soldiers throughout human history; then I contrast him with other individuals that created special operations units during Wingate's own lifetime.
My work has fundamental implications for how we understand military strategists and military leaders, and the ways in which human beings organize for violence. I plan to pursue publication of my dissertation in the immediate future.
funding and resources
Research for this dissertation required extensive archival work, exhaustive use of secondary sources, and field work in Britain and Israel. Such research is only possible with the help of many people and many institutions.
Robert Moser and the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin provided me with my first opportunity to study at the graduate level, and also gave me the leeway to follow the evidence, rather than rigidly conforming to the narrow customs of orthodox political science. Through their encouragement and support, I won the right to pursue an interdisciplinary PhD through the Graduate School at UT-Austin.
Ami Pedahzur and the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies helped fund my research and teaching while I worked on the dissertation. Ami also first directed my attention towards Orde Wingate, and suggested that the use of a biographical and historical perspective could help shape the often confusing array of theoretical perspectives that attempt to explain human behavior.
William Roger Louis and the British Studies Program at the University of Texas at Austin helped send me on numerous research trips, and introduced me to countless primary and secondary historical sources.
The National Science Foundation and Graduate Research Fellowship program encouraged me to conduct interdisciplinary research, and investigate ways cognitive, social, and evolutionary psychology might shape organized violence. The process was difficult (and never complete) but my studies in psychology and anthropology have fundamentally altered the way I perceive how and why human beings organize. Zoltan Barany, David Buss, Rose McDermott, R. Harrison Wagner and Kurt Weyland all provided advice and guidance along the way. Simon Anglim was gracious enough to meet with me in London, and extensively discuss his perspective on Wingate while he finished his most recent book project, Orde Wingate and the British Army (2015). Todd K. Shackelford provided me with an advance draft of the outstanding volume he edited alongside Viviana A Weekes-Shackelford, The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Violence, Homicide and War (2012).