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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until May 08, 2025

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The Airborne Mafia: Organizational Culture and Institutional Change in the US Army, 1940–1965

Williams, Robert F.
http://orcid.org/0009-0003-8216-9589
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1677221379038615

Abstract Details

2023, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, History.
The Airborne Mafia analyzes the creation and transmission of values, beliefs, and norms from one subculture to the larger US Army bureaucracy and its impacts on Cold War institutional development. This project demonstrates the capacity for a military subculture to have an enormous effect on the behavior of its parent service and national strategic policy. I explore the impact of small groups within the military establishment on shaping military and national strategy—particularly during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations through such general officers as Matthew B. Ridgway, Maxwell D. Taylor, and James M. Gavin. As this group ascended to control the US Army, they brought three key cultural tenets: operational flexibility, decentralization, and the efficacy of the aerial delivery of combat power. Most scholars have focused on the wartime exploits of parachute units while eschewing their impact on the post-war army. Others have posited that the atomic army, the Strategic Army Corps, and helicopter warfare are indicative of institutionalization and a fight for relevancy without developing the cultural origins of these ideas. Exploring the development of a distinctive airborne mindset through the lenses of organizational culture, psychology, and sociology, this dissertation argues that this tactical-level subculture thrust its leaders to prominence and undergirded significant policy and doctrinal changes during the Cold War.
Peter Mansoor (Advisor)
Lydia Walker (Committee Member)
Geoffrey Parker (Committee Member)
407 p.
History; Military History; Military Studies
Military History; airborne; US Army; Cold War; organizational culture; helicopters; atomic weapons; expeditionary forces; civ-mil relations; military culture; culture; paratroopers; airmobile; air-mindedness; Matthew Ridgway; Maxwell Taylor; James Gavin

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Williams, R. F. (2023). The Airborne Mafia: Organizational Culture and Institutional Change in the US Army, 1940–1965 [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1677221379038615

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Williams, Robert. The Airborne Mafia: Organizational Culture and Institutional Change in the US Army, 1940–1965. 2023. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1677221379038615.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Williams, Robert. "The Airborne Mafia: Organizational Culture and Institutional Change in the US Army, 1940–1965." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2023. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1677221379038615

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2023, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.