‘The Skills. . . had to be Used Simply Because They Were There’: Instrumental Rationality in the Military Domain

Abstract

This article is conceptually motivated to show how instrumental rationality is reflected in the military domain. Instrumental rationality refers to the adoption of suitable means to achieve particular ends. However, this conception was criticised by the Frankfurt School for focusing on means rather than on ends. Based on this critique, I present specific categories of instrumental rationality in the military domain. I will argue that instrumental rationality, or at least its faulty application, is reflected in means-centred thinking whereby the means justify the ends. This approach may create specific categories in the military domain: means justify the ends just because they are available, and they can also expand the ends. The means-centred approach may be expanded from subordinating ends to means to focusing on the objects to be attacked, thus developing an objects-centred approach that may also develop into a focus on the direct outcome of the operation of means, thus becoming a tool of legitimation. A similar legitimising impact is produced by the process of moralisation implicit in the focus on means. Finally, a means-centred approach may be translated into overconfidence in the omnipotence of means, and can thereby be elevated to the belief that weapons can obviate the need for political settlement.

« Ces compétences. . . devaient être utilisées simplement parce qu’elles étaient là »: La rationalité instrumentale dans le domaine militaire

Introduction

In May 2023, Israel killed three senior commanders of the Islamic Jihad group in their residential apartments in Gaza in overnight targeted airstrikes, and collaterally killed 10 civilians, including children. In the attack that lasted less than one minute, a total of 40 jets participated in attacking three sites in what Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared to be a ‘precise’ operation. ¹ This series of strikes triggered a new round of five days’ fighting between Israel and Islamic Jihad, during which Israel bombed Gaza and the Jihad fired hundreds of rockets into Israel. Amos Harel, the military correspondent and defense analyst for Haaretz newspaper, summarised the political effectiveness of these kinds of recurrent operations against Gaza: ‘If the operations were really all that successful, we wouldn’t need them once a year on average, with the time between them becoming shorter in the past few years’. ²

Harel’s wonder testifies to the inadequate role played by ends in shaping policies. So, let us consider the role of means. Arguably, Israel assassinated the three Jihad leaders simply because it could, owing to the combination of precision weaponry and effective intelligence that facilitated a surgical, multi-target operation. From Israel’s perspective, 10 civilian casualties was a reasonable collateral cost. To further demonstrate Israel’s capabilities, it was reported that at one site, Israel’s military engineers ‘carefully studied the inside walls of an apartment to assess exactly how the rubble will fall when a missile flies through the house. Their assessment was that children sleeping in a nearby room would be okay. They were’. ³

Alternatively, if Israel had not been able to carry out a relatively surgical operation and had risked a higher level of collateral killing, it would have avoided the assignations out of concerns over international condemnation. Then again, sending troops to surgically kill or capture the three leaders could have proved too risky for the soldiers and would have clashed with local sensitivity to casualties. In both cases, Israel would have probably been inclined to pursue alternative options to weaken the Jihad and even expand diplomatic efforts. After all, Israel could have refrained from attacking the Jihad and limited its response to Jihad’s ineffective rocket strikes that came a few days earlier (in response to the death of a Jihad activist following his long hunger strike in an Israeli jail) without reverting to an unnecessary strike. What we can infer from this case is that availability of means determines policies. In other words, instrumental rationality is in action, and it is the focus of what follows.

This article is conceptually motivated to show how instrumental rationality is reflected in the military domain. While the literature has presented the general application of this concept in the military domain, it has not translated this general conception to the same extent into an analysis of specific categories that this article aims to present. I will proceed by presenting the theoretical background first and then the argument. The following six sections will present each of the categories of instrumental rationality in the military domain.

Theoretical Background

In general terms, instrumental rationality (or reason) is about adopting suitable means to achieve particular ends. For Max Weber, instrumental rationality ‘is determined by expectations as to the behavior of objects in the environment and of other human beings; these expectations are used as “conditions” or “means” for the attainment of the actor’s own rationally pursued and calculated ends’. Instrumental rationality stands in contrast to value-rational action, which is ‘determined by a conscious belief in the value for its own sake of some ethical, aesthetic, religious, or other form of behavior, independently of its prospects of success’. ⁴ For Rogers Brubaker, these two forms of rational action reflect two types of reasons for acting in a particular case: reasons that invoke value postulates, such as telling the truth to a patient even if this may worsen her health, and instrumental reasons that invoke anticipated consequences, in this case deceiving the patient to protect her. ⁵

Against this background, instrumental rationality was criticised by the Frankfurt School as part of its censure of the traditional stream of social theory. This critique underpins my arguments outlined in this article.

A note of warning: I do not need to enter into the debate about whether instrumental rationality should be criticised because of its fundamental character, as implied by its critics, or that critical theorists should attack the faulty applications of this concept, particularly when means become their own ends and then instrumental rationality goes wrong. ⁶ The following paragraphs sketch the well-established critique of instrumental rationality and the subsequent sections focus on the reflection of this idea in the military domain. I will not delve into the question of whether to discuss intrinsic fallacies of instrumental rationality or its faulty applications.

Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno linked instrumentality with the drive to control nature for human purposes by developing technology, making ‘nature calculable, and calculability is assimilated to usefulness’. ⁷ For Horkheimer, this kind of instrumentality was guided by ‘subjective reason’, as a thought ‘essentially concerned with means and ends, with the adequacy of procedures for purposes more or less taken for granted and supposedly self-explanatory. It attaches little importance to the question whether the purposes as such are reasonable’. In contrast, with ‘objective reason’ the emphasis is on ends rather than means, and the focus is on ‘the idea of the greatest good, on the problem of human destiny, and on the way of realisation of ultimate goals’. ⁸

According to this logic, instrumental rationality provides justification and organising principles for bureaucracy, to the point that the individual’s autonomy is colonised by administrative functions. ⁹ Instrumental rationality leads the bureaucracy to carry out policy by identifying effective means of implementation that are not only possible but also reasonable. ¹⁰ However, as Zygmunt Bauman warned, once the means are set in motion, they develop their own impetus. Then, the bureaucracy tends ‘to lose sight of the original goal and to concentrate on the means instead – the means which turn into the ends’. ¹¹ Ends are then subordinated to means. This is a possible consequence of an instrumental-rationality-guided action that is ‘measured by effective planning of the application of means for given ends’. ¹²

Furthermore, as critical policy scholars David Howarth and Steven Griggs indicated, the diagnosis of a public issue, and the derived framing of the public problem that the policy seeks to address, can be adapted to the solution that is within the reach of government, and not the other way around. This is how the solution – often the means at the state’s disposal – establishes the definition of the problem and its framing in the policy discourse. ¹³

Small wonder that military thought has become suffused with instrumental rationality insofar as it is associated with the aim of controlling nature and optimising the use of force, in both cases by developing military technology. Bauman identified that the ‘use of violence is most efficient and cost-effective when the means are subjected to solely instrumental–rational criteria, and thus dissociated from moral evaluation of the ends’. ¹⁴ Once instrumental rationality governs, efficiency becomes paramount. As Patricia Owens identified, the political ‘has come to embody the values of “technique”: efficiency, speed, and know-how; the methods and devices of the practical sciences would be applied to government, economy and military at virtually all levels’. ¹⁵ This is especially so in the military domain where efficiency has supplanted other values such as tradition as a basic justification of professional technique. ¹⁶

Violence, then, is used ‘simply because [the means] were there’. ¹⁷ Furthermore, as Ken Booth warned, managers of violence become so ‘task-focused that they ignored the wider ethical contexts of what they were doing’. ¹⁸ To this we can also add the political context. Therefore, when instrumental rationality governs, the means may become ‘an instrumental tyranny that threatens to destroy the “end” sought’. ¹⁹ Alternatively, Booth suggested that means/ends should be true to each other. ²⁰

Against this background, it is often argued that military technology has its own logic, divorced from politics. After all, military thought is dominated by science with a close association to the paradigmatic technology which dominates each historical period. ²¹ Still, there is a distinction between instrumental rationality and technological determinism in that ‘technology is just the materialised form of instrumental reason and thus cannot possess a logic of its own’. ²² According to the critical approach in security studies, technology not only opens up wide options or choices for society, but also constrains the path taken. Nonetheless, the options chosen largely stem from power relations within that society, and in turn affect them. ²³ Instrumental rationality, therefore, is not a decree of fate, but rather it results from a cultural–social process. However, a militaristic political culture reinforces the belief in instrumental rationality in the sense of improving the efficiency of force deployment. ²⁴

The Argument

This article adopts the critical approach to instrumental rationality in line with the assertions presented in the preceding section, moving away from traditional thinking in which neorealism is prominent.

According to the neorealist approach, states prepare for war as efficiently as possible by generating maximum material resources. Technological innovation is viewed in an instrumental manner as a means to the end, central to which is preservation of national security. ²⁵

Alternatively, constructivists put forward the concept of strategic culture, that is ‘a set of shared formal and informal beliefs, assumptions, and modes of behavior, derived from common experiences and accepted narratives’ that shapes the state’s military doctrine. ²⁶ The cultural approach does not reject neorealist claims about the state’s rationality, but asserts that rationality is neither objective nor universal but rather culturally dependent. Therefore, the same technologies may be utilised by different states in different ways as derived from domestic sociocultural patterns. ²⁷ For example, reliance on advanced technology reflected the American preference for waging war for unlimited political objectives – a reliance that inspired the country’s policies in a way that no other state placed on technology. ²⁸ In this spirit, instrumental rationality can be perceived as a cultural pattern – similar to other patterns embedded in cultural strategy – that affects military doctrine, especially the use of military means.

Several insights emerge from the critical assertions presented thus far to help conceptualise instrumental rationality in the military domain: (1) the availability of means rather than the ends may determine the way force is used. (2) Such thinking can lead to instrumental tyranny that may lose sight of the original goal, and even threaten to destroy the original end sought by policymakers. Thus, (3) although using force should always be directed at the attainment of political goals, instrumental rationality may be exercised in isolation from the goal, and even thwart it. I will draw on these insights and reinforce them with claims made by other writers.

However, the research as mapped thus far presents the general conception of rational instrumentality in the military domain, although we are less informed about the specific applications of this concept. This article aims at filling a scholarly gap by presenting specific categories of instrumental rationality in the military domain. The contribution of this study inheres in this alternative approach.

Accordingly, I will argue that instrumental rationality, or at least its faulty application, is reflected in means-centred thinking whereby the means justify the ends. But the means-centred approach may create specific categories in the military domain: (1) the means justify the ends just because they are available and (2) they can also expand the ends by expanding the categorisation of the enemy and the geographical borders within which force is used. (3) The means-centred approach may be expanded from subordinating ends to means to focus on the objects to be attacked, thus developing an objects-centred approach that further affects the ends. (4) The objects-centred approach is developed into a focus on the direct outcome of the operation of means and thus it becomes a tool of legitimation. (5) Legitimation is also developed when the means-centred approach leads to a process of moralisation, and thereby legitimation, that reinforces the value of the means and presents their use as a moral act. (6) A means-centred approach may be translated into overconfidence in the omnipotence of means, and can thus be elevated to the belief that weapons can obviate the need for political settlement. In the following sections, I present each of these categories separately.

Methodologically, the categories are illustrated by cases from the United States and Israel. However, this is not an analysis based on case studies; the cases are used to help develop the military-related conception of instrumental rationality. These countries were selected because they both use force on a large scale, and therefore face dilemmas regarding how to do so not only effectively but also legitimately. Furthermore, both militaries engage in irregular warfare as opposed to traditional conventional wars typified by the United States’ deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that of Israel in the Palestinian arena. Irregular warfare challenges civil–military relations because it is of long duration and more significant, progress cannot be measured clearly, and therefore it is not winnable in the traditional manner. Consequently, issues of legitimation are critical, ²⁹ and instrumental rationality may be utilised either to offer legitimation or to spare the need for it.

The Means Justify the Ends

As Bauman argued, the way force is used is determined by the availability of means rather than the ends; thus, the means turn into the ends. ³⁰ This argument can be clearly demonstrated by the case of targeted killing conducted in Israel’s warfare against the Palestinians.

With the eruption of the second Intifada – the renewed round of hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip – in September 2000, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responded to lethal Palestinian attacks by, inter alia, carrying out a policy of targeted killing (or targeted assassination) against alleged Palestinian terrorists. Israel benefitted from its technological superiority by means of both the weapons (helicopter gunships, F-16 fighter planes and gradually drones) and good intelligence with rapid-response capabilities. ³¹ Using this method, during the years 2000–05, Israel killed not only about 300 supposed Palestinian terrorists but also 150 civilians who were close to the targets. ³²

Targeted killings demonstrated the disassociation of military tactics from political thinking, as the case of the operation in Gaza that opened this article has already attested. Israeli policymakers argued that the policy was a necessary means to thwart terrorist attacks in a way that minimised collateral killing as much as the risk to Israeli troops. Nevertheless, the efficacy of this policy was questioned. It is true that it impeded the effectiveness of Palestinian military organisations. ³³ However, quantitatively analysing the impact of this policy in the years 2000–04, a research found that targeted killings had no significant impact on the rate of Palestinian attacks. ³⁴ Alternatively, it may even actually increase the number of Israelis killed by provoking retaliation. A case in point is the assassination of Fatah leader Ra’id Carmi in January 2002. This operation ended a period of relative de-escalation of Palestinian attacks, motivated the Fatah organisation to engage in terrorist activity which it had hitherto avoided ³⁵ and resulted in the intensification of terror attacks. ³⁶ Terror attacks declined only after three processes had occurred, which were unrelated to the policy of targeted killing: the construction of the security fence along the Israel–West Bank border, beginning in 2002; the improved synergy between security and operational effectiveness owing largely to Operation Defensive Shield (March–April 2002) whereby Israel reoccupied some of the Palestinian cities in the West Bank and the renewal of the security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. ³⁷

Small wonder that the policy failed to attain short-term military impacts; it was shaped and implemented without considering the political impacts of the assassinations. Central to which was the goals of renewing political talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority aimed at pursuing peace (going back to the Camp David peace talks that had failed on the eve of the Intifada), or at least achieving a stable cease-fire. As a senior intelligence officer attested: ‘In practice, the operational-operative context was what shaped the reality on the ground, without the ramifications and strategic results bearing much weight’. ³⁸ In other words, it was a mode of action–reaction detached from the political goals. In this spirit, the media reported the killings as a response to Palestinian terrorism, but did not provide an alternative interpretation showing how the Palestinians responded to what they perceived as Israeli aggression. ³⁹

Absent from Israeli thought was the understanding that every military move affects the balance of power among the Palestinians and, as such, influences the motivation and ability to return to the political track, or at least, to reduce acts of terrorism and guerrilla warfare against Israel. A good illustration of the marginality of political logic was offered in July 2004 by Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser, head of the Research Division in the Military Intelligence Directorate. In response to a question about how to strengthen the Palestinian elements who believe that terrorism does not benefit them, he replied:

The answer is that it is a heavy task that falls primarily on these people themselves. This is exactly the component of responsibility that is missing in the Arab political culture . . . they should be helped in this, but first and foremost the responsibility is theirs . . . We predict how the [moderate] middle generation in Palestinian society is getting lost. ⁴⁰

In other words, a senior Israeli intelligence officer disclaimed Israel’s responsibility for shaping Palestinian politics while also acknowledging the weakening of the moderate wing, and thus reflecting how military operations are disconnected from political thought.

One impact has nevertheless been achieved. In the words of security scholar Steven David: ‘Targeted killing . . . serves Israel’s interests because it affords the Israeli public a sense of revenge’, and thus it was performed as a form of state-sanctioned revenge that can mitigate political despair. ⁴¹ Instrumental rationality is thus politically supported to the extent that, rather than achieving ends, the immediate impact produced by the mere deployment of combat means is praised.

As the means (technology and intelligence) justified the ends, and in this case actually blurred them, the political discourse was limited to discussing the means. To the extent that this policy was debated, the debate was mostly confined to the legality of this method of killing. For example, in the intensive discussion held by the Israeli Democracy Institute in 2003–05, the political rationale of the policy was hardly mentioned, but the legal aspects were addressed extensively. ⁴² A means-centred debate reinforces instrumental rationality and helps lose sight of the goal.

In practice, legality was the main tool used by the policy’s opponents, primarily by petitioning the High Court of Justice. Ultimately, in 2006, the court legalised the policy – that is, the operation of targeted killing – but subjected it to some limitations. ⁴³ In other words, the legal system further enhanced instrumental rationality, the means-centred policy; and as the possible became legal it also, indirectly, became legitimate. Indicatively, Colonel (res.) Daniel Reisner, who led the International Law Division in the Military Advocate General’s Office, and as such played a major role in legalising targeted killings, clearly evaluated the advantage of this method from the legal perspective: ‘The targeted assassination, the magic of it is that you kill who you really want, if you succeed, and the question is only how careful you are not to kill others’. ⁴⁴ In other words, it is a magical means evaluated in terms of the target it is aimed at, rather than the policy it should serve.

Furthermore, the legal discourse also strengthened the military logic. According to the principle of proportionality, ‘the calculation of military advantage likely to result from an operation will be greater, for the issue is not the objective value of a target, but rather the target’s subjective value to the attacker’. ⁴⁵ This works to prioritise military necessity, and hence also the discretion of the military command that focuses on an episodic logic of threat and response while also contributing to losing sight of the political goal. Then, the means are used simply because they are available and deemed necessary, rather than because they are effective in achieving policy ends. This is a self-propelling mechanism that can be reversed only when huge failures occur.

Indeed, in August 2002, the IDF assassinated Salah Shahada, the leader of the Hamas military wing in Gaza, by dropping a bomb from a fighter plane on a residential neighbourhood in Gaza, killing not only Shahada but also 13 civilians including children. The controversy this accident generated increased Israel’s cautiousness, at least temporarily. ⁴⁶ More importantly, this together with other events gradually ruptured the domestic legitimation of Israel’s policies and generated a de-escalation that culminated in the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. ⁴⁷

Targeted killing demonstrates an action guided by instrumental rationality. Weapons were used because they were available, or ‘simply because they were there’, to cite Bauman. ⁴⁸ In a similar vein, philosopher Grégoire Chamayou, who studied drone warfare, argued that ‘in a situation of moral hazard, military action is very likely to be deemed “necessary” simply because it is possible, and possible at a lower cost’. ⁴⁹

In sum, instrumental rationality is evident when the means justify the ends just because they are available, as the case of targeted killing shows, while the political logic and even strategic considerations are lost, and thereby sight of the goal, or what it should be, is also lost. When means prevail, the discourse also becomes means-centred – that is, self-propelled by reinforcing military logic and discretion. Success is measured by means-produced short-term impacts, in the case of Israel, state-sanctioned revenge.

The Means Expand the Ends

Once the availability of means determines the (often ill-defined) ends, and their deployment is at low risk, the means can also expand the ends in two ways: by expanding the categorisation of the enemy and the geographical borders within which force is used.

Means can expand the categorisation of the enemy. Targeted killing is exemplified again: Israel expanded its targeting from terrorists who had participated directly in terror attacks, to political leaders and those who, information suggested, had planned a suicide bombing. ⁵⁰

A similar pattern is found in the case of US drone warfare in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other theatres since 2002. Insofar as drones could be used without risking American troops, decision-makers were tempted to use lethal force more easily. The United States targeted militants who were increasingly lower on the ‘terrorist food chain’. ⁵¹ As Michael Walzer explained:

Drones not only make it possible for us to get at our enemies, they may also lead us to broaden the list of enemies, to include presumptively hostile individuals and militant organizations simply because we can get at them – even if they aren’t actually involved in attacks against us [such as drug dealers in Afghanistan]. ⁵²

Means can also expand the geographical borders within which force is used. Rosa Brooks mentioned that drone strikes have spread farther from active battlefields like Pakistan to distant theatres such as Yemen and Somalia. ⁵³

Israel expanded the borders in another way. Mainly since the mid-2010s, Israel has conducted what it calls the ‘campaigns between wars’. This aims at preventing Iran from entrenching itself in Syria and equipping Hezbollah with Iranian weaponry. To this end, Israel attacks targets in Syria and Lebanon using precision-guided means. Furthermore, in August 2019, Israel attacked weapon depots in Iraq belonging to an Iran-backed Shiite-Iraqi militia to thwart weapons smuggling into Syria and Lebanon. ⁵⁴ Reportedly, Israel used drones. ⁵⁵ Pushing the boundaries further: allegedly since 2022 Israel has expanded its attacks to Iranian soil, for example, attacking an Iranian drone facility in February 2022. In practice, Israel expanded its war aims by countering Iranian armament. ⁵⁶

In Booth’s words, this is a case of an instrumental tyranny that threatens to destroy the desired end, either by expanding the circle of enemies and increasing hatred or by escalating clashes. Indeed, as indicated by Israeli Major General Nitzan Alon, who was in charge of the ‘campaigns between wars’, the operations may also generate rather than delay war as much as they can encourage the enemy to learn and hence improve its fighting capacity. ⁵⁷ Nevertheless, the focus on the available means encourages the use of force while limitations on using the means, or their inaccessibility, could encourage policymakers to use less lethal or more diplomatic means to remove security threats (in this case, encouraging rather than impeding the United States to return to a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers). ⁵⁸ Again, the detachment of military means from politics is evident. Furthermore, the rhetoric of the Israeli general illustrates the opposite of Clausewitzian logic: using force is not the way to attain political goals, but it is the role of diplomacy to provide the military freedom of operation. Therefore, situations in which conditions change – for example, with the stabilisation of the Assad regime in Syria – are seen by General Alon as a challenge to Israel’s freedom of military operation, but not as an opportunity for a political settlement that may distance Iran from Syria.

To summarise, the availability of means not only determines the end but also expands it by expanding the categorisation of enemies and the geographical boundaries of deployment, thus exacerbating the risks of losing sight of the original goal, and even threatening to destroy it.

Means-Centred Expands to Objects-Centred Approach

The means-centred approach may be expanded from subordinating ends to means, on which the preceding sections focus, to focusing on the objects to be attacked. Means not only determine the ends, but the objects are also adjusted to the means, and, in turn, an objects-centred approach further affects the ends.

A key concept is the ‘bank of targets’. In the case of Israel’s warfare in Gaza and Lebanon, this bank comprises a list of targets, routinely identified by a military team, that should be attacked when hostilities are renewed. By nature, the targets are tailored to the capacity of the means of weaponry.

This method, however, produces several fallacies. First, as Dmitry Adamsky, scholar of strategic culture, analysed, creating the bank is ‘a mechanical approach [that] prevents tailoring of the employment of force to the strategic nature of the enemy’. ⁵⁹ To deal with this bank, the operational design is focused less on how to exploit the enemy’s strategic values and more on effectively using the available arsenal of weaponry, the most sophisticated technological means. Consequently, the desired end of establishing effective deterrence is often missed. This is especially so as the bank is a kind of contingency plan. Its existence runs the risk of discrepancy between the strategic situation for which the plan was initially developed and that in which the plans are implemented. Adherence to the bank may then produce undesired outcomes. ⁶⁰

Second, the creation of the bank comes with errors typical of the objects-centred approach. As a detailed study by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed, there is constant pressure to provide new targets while the military rewards those identifying them. Another error may result from a cursory examination of old targets that need to be validated before they can be attacked, thereby leading to accidents in which civilians are killed, ⁶¹ and thus risking the legitimation of the operation and the likelihood of achieving its goals. This fallacy, moreover, may be more critical given the dominant trend among militaries of reacting more rapidly. In this spirit, one can see the rise of autonomous weapon systems (such as drones and killer robots) equipped with artificial intelligence that helps humans make decisions. However, as authority can also be delegated to these systems to make decisions autonomously, they may unintentionally make errors that increase the risk of escalating conflicts. ⁶² Once again, the danger of thwarting the original goal is apparent.

Third, the very existence of the bank can prolong the warfare. To cite one Israeli military correspondent, ‘As long as there is a bank of targets, we have to continue hitting them with all our might’. ⁶³ This pattern was revealed in the Second Lebanon War in July 2006. At its outbreak (when Israel responded to the kidnapping of two soldiers by Hezbollah on the Israeli–Lebanese border), the Israeli Foreign Ministry prepared an exit strategy – the encounter between the political and the military – which in this case was a political result that would allow Israel to argue that it had achieved the goals for which it went to war. ⁶⁴ However, when Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni proposed this plan to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on the second day of the war, he replied that the army had targets to attack for at least 10 more days. ⁶⁵ Finally, Israel ended the war without achieving its belatedly designated goals and, no less importantly, it prolonged the warfare for nothing. ⁶⁶ This was a typical case of an objects-centred approach.

To summarise, when the means are privileged over the ends, they may be connected to the objects to be attacked. This may exacerbate the risk of losing sight of the original goal by increasing the detachment of tactics from the strategic logic of using force, increasing the odds of errors and rigidifying the use of force to the point of missing goals. Apparently, as political theorist Adrian Blau suggested, ‘instrumental rationality can help us reflect on and maybe pick different ends, by showing how a means or an end might affect other things we value’. ⁶⁷ Nevertheless, as the case of the bank of targets shows, sticking to means because they are available and deemed effective may produce the opposite result.

It is worth noting that the means-centred approach is not inevitably expanded to an objects-centred approach. As targeted killing has demonstrated, the means determined the ends but the objects didn’t affect warfare management – neither Israel nor the United States established at the outset a bank of targets, namely the quantity of (alleged) enemies to be assassinated. They just used this method to eliminate enemies, whether proactively or reactively. Therefore, targeted killing did not prolong the warfare. Mistakes (such as the Shahada accident) resulted from real-time erroneous planning rather than gaps between original planning and actual implementation.

‘War Managerialism’ – The Means Legitimise the Use of Force

Instrumental rationality can be a tool of legitimation. As the means-centred approach is expanded from focusing on the means to the linkage between means and objects, this can develop into a focus on the direct outcome of the operation of means against targets in terms of bodies and other losses. The focus shifts from targets to results. Thus, the product of the operation of means can also become a goal in itself and thereby a tool of legitimation. A key concept in this regard is ‘war managerialism’.

The concept of war managerialism was developed by the management scholar Leo McCann as referring to the ‘application of “rational” management discourses and technologies to rhetorically promote, control and normalise war while shrouding its brutal, irrational and uncontrollable nature’. ⁶⁸

Methods of war managerialism were cultivated during the Vietnam War by former US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. Those methods were reshaped in the counterinsurgency campaigns of the 2000s. The main expression of war managerialism is found in the quantitative measurement of progress, using statistical analysis, and most famously in the body count of enemy losses. Therefore, in contrast to the objects-centred approach, the focus here is not on the objects to be attacked but on the outcomes of attack.

Israel adopted the method of body count in its campaigns against the Palestinians from the mid-2010s; prior to that it had not been used. For example, in 2018, IDF Chief of General Staff Gadi Eisenkot declared: ‘In the last two years, 171 terrorists were killed in the West Bank alone. This is an immeasurably high number compared to previous years. There are [political] elements who want to present the military . . . as a cowardly military . . . The opposite is true’. ⁶⁹

War managerialism can remedy a legitimation deficit inherent in military policies. In the case of Vietnam, body count was invoked to address the challenge to justify the war, especially by quantifying results when the war does not focus exclusively on geographic but rather on cultural objectives, such as ‘winning hearts and minds’, which are difficult to quantify. ⁷⁰ New criteria were thus created. In the case of Israel, the challenge, as reflected in Eisenkot’s rhetoric, was to demonstrate the determination of the military, which was facing criticism from rightist groups, to fight the Palestinians. In both cases, body count replaced legitimacy based on the ends achieved, as the achievements were poor.

Drawing on the concepts offered by sociologist Andrew Abbott, military work is legitimised by its results – that is, the promotion of values such as nationalism and freedom – whereas the means, death, and destruction are not normally legitimised in themselves. ⁷¹ However, insofar as results come into question, and the legitimation of results therefore declines – a deficit inherent in the nature of irregular warfare, as mentioned above – there is more room for legitimising means, that is, the way results are produced, by highlighting their direct impact. Products of means become a way of measuring success by demonstrating efficiency. A means-centred approach may almost naturally slide into measuring the results of the operation of means.

Viewed from a different angle, functioning in a competitive climate, especially in light of the global trend of cutting military spending, politicians and generals are constrained to justify the investment in the procurement of weapons systems. This further fuels a means-centred debate that can be spelled out in terms of efficient results. Drones, for example, appeal to the economic logic but at the same time stifle deliberation on the problematic consequences of their use. ⁷²

An alternative to instrumental rationality is the restricted use of available means. A good example is the policy designed by Major General Stanley McChrystal, commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan in 2009–10. In line with the ‘hearts and minds’ approach, McChrystal tried to reshape the military mind-set by setting new criteria for success: ‘It’s not the number of people you kill; it’s the number of people you convince’. ⁷³ Therefore, he even called for limiting the killing of insurgents, not only civilians. ⁷⁴ McChrystal’s viewpoint thus stood in opposition to instrumental rationality, especially with regard to the body count that the flawed application of this thinking brought about. Available means were not used and the ends were independently set in a manner that ignored their availability. McChrystal adhered to legitimation of results by shaping new ends – alas less quantifiable than body count – ends that were partly disconnected from the means.

At the deeper level, war managerialism may also partly resolve the ideological deficit inherent in instrumental rationality. As said, instrumental rationality is criticised for its dissociation from moral evaluation of the ends. But what we see here is that values are taken into consideration in two ways. First, as McCann underscored, war managerialism is not about practices of management but rather about ideology. War managerialism in the broader sense (not only body count but also, for example, metrics of progress in the counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan), is a version of general management ideology. In general, ‘managerialism is a broad and pervasive ideology’ that promotes the application of the narrow conception of management as a technology of control to many spheres. ⁷⁵ War managerialism applies this ideology to the business of war by using managerial language to assert the righteousness and progress of using force. ⁷⁶ But rather than being a practical method to assess military performance, war managerialism has become an ideological tool that helps normalise the war. War managerialism ‘obscures killing work by framing it as an objective, value-free science, much like engineering, accounting or statistics’. ⁷⁷

Second, drawing on the work of sociologist Siniša Malešević, body count as an indication of efficiency and productivity is not only a reflection of instrumental rationality, but this rationality

is wedded with value rationality, that is, ideology, as a society that finds itself in the condition of total war has an overarching goal and values associated with this goal – a commonly shared telos of wining [sic] the war. ⁷⁸

‘Winning’ means killing the enemy as a tool to justify both this military goal and the social sacrifices involved.

This manifestation of rational instrumentality may help destroy the desired end through an erroneous judgement of productivity. Back to the Vietnam-era body count, this managerialism drew attention to what could be visibly counted and thus directed policymaking to the goals attained by those methods. Means shaped ends and, in turn, further entrenched the means (such as killing). However, this rendered

the qualitative aspects (e.g., social relations, emotions, ingenuity, etc.) invisible. This led the US war managers to take actions in Vietnam based on a lens which failed to capture the most important and relevant information. ⁷⁹

In summary, war managerialism partly transforms rational instrumentality into a mechanism of legitimation by shifting from the legitimation of results to legitimation of means, and by providing the ideological envelope for a means-centred exercise of violence. Rational instrumentality thus becomes in part a value-rational action.

The Means Legitimise the Use of Force – The Moralisation Process

Instrumental rationality legitimises the use of force not only by adopting managerialism but also by using another tool – the moralisation process of approving killing. This can be clearly demonstrated by the US-developed targeting computer program (Bugsplat) that assesses the probability of collateral damage. Based on complex algorithms, this programme allows the military to specify the type of munition used and other variables to reduce the anticipated damage. Notwithstanding this casualty-mitigation mechanism, the military still kills civilians. Although it is an undesired result, casualties can be foreseen yet still not prevented as the military adopts the principle of proportionality prescribed by international humanitarian law. According to this principle, harming civilians is tolerated if it is not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. The computer program perfects the calculation of proportionality and hence legitimises the deadly results. As international relations scholar Brian Smith asserted,

A procedural approach to moral legitimacy is inclined to accept unfortunate outcomes if all the steps along the way are predetermined to be valid. On this view, the means justify the ends. Civilian casualties that occur through these targeting procedures, while tragic, become ipso facto justified. Advanced targeting procedures virtually guarantee that when civilian casualties do occur, they are brought under a proportionality/double effect framework, where civilian death is foreseen and, through the various processes of estimation, assessment, and rationalization, deemed worth it. ⁸⁰

It follows, Smith continues, that this procedure makes certain kinds of civilian casualties increasingly perceived as inevitable, ⁸¹ as collateral killing occurs despite the effort to avoid it. To some extent, this process reinforces the creation of soldiers as ethical subjects, ⁸² enhancing their confidence in the morality of their actions. However, this is not only a moralisation of the process, but of the weapon itself. Precision is entwined with the process that enhances its advantages, as in the case of Bugsplat. But precision can be valued for itself. In this spirit, drones are presented ‘to be the most ethical weapon ever known to humankind’ ⁸³ because they not only save ‘our lives’ but also reduce the harm to enemy noncombatants. A calculated targeting enhances this notion of humanity.

To some extent, this means-centred moralisation recalls the introduction of the guillotine during the French Revolution. ‘[The] guillotine was the prize that the Philosophes won in their struggle against the inhumanity of torture’, wrote historian Enzo Traverso. ⁸⁴ Its relative humanity (in reducing the victim’s suffering) legitimised the use of the guillotine for mass executions.

This practice of casualty mitigation is inherent in instrumental rationality in three ways. First, it reinforces the linkage between the means-centred approach – leading to the privileging of the use of sophisticated weaponry – and the performance of this technology that not only provides precision but also computes the risks involved in its use. It is not only the selection of means to justify the ends, as addressed in the former categories, but also the legitimation of this selection of means. It is one thing to adjust the ends to available means and another to justify the means and legitimise them when they are used wrongly.

Second, as said, the proponents of instrumental rationality endeavour to fill the moral deficit embedded in rational instrumentality (even if unintentionally), in this case the procedure becomes a moral act. Third, we see here another display of the attempt to control human nature. Subjective reason, argued Horkheimer, ‘proves to be the ability to calculate probabilities and thereby to coordinate the right means with a given end’. ⁸⁵ In this regard, being able to calculate the probability of collateral killing amounts to nothing less than claiming the authority to calculate life and death, and to decide whose life can be considered less worthy. ⁸⁶

Like other categories of instrumental rationality, the risk of not achieving the desired ends is relevant in this case too. First of all, there is the usual risk of overuse of power since the means are moralised and thereby legitimised. This risk is especially crucial in situations where restraint rather than aggressive firepower is key to success, and mostly relevant in counterinsurgency campaigns in which ‘winning hearts and minds’ is paramount, as mentioned above. Another aspect, the desire to claim moral responsibility, leads to a new, and more specific, version of means determining the ends. Military scholar Sarah Sewell identified the weaknesses of this casualty-mitigation mechanism in situations when political and military decision-makers feel constrained to attack particular targets, even if their military value is minimal, simply because it is predicted to cause fewer civilian casualties. ⁸⁷

To sum up, the means-centred approach leads to a process of moralisation that reinforces the worth of the means and presents its use as a moral act. Thus, it is another way in which instrumental rationality ostensibly resolves its value deficit.

Means Obviate Politics

In her criticism of the Pentagon’s policies in Vietnam (exposed in the ‘Pentagon Papers’), Hannah Arendt presented the new generation of official security experts (those also associated with ‘war managerialism’) as ‘problem solvers’. Some of them were ‘equipped with game theories and systems analyses, thus prepared, as they thought, to solve all the “problems” of foreign policy’. ⁸⁸ Among the fallacies that this ambitious belief yielded was the assumption that by bombing North Vietnam – guided by the theory suggesting that revolution could be halted by cutting off external sources of support and supply – it would be possible to break North Vietnam’s will to support the rebels in the South. ⁸⁹

Notwithstanding the failure in Vietnam, this approach persists in American thinking. It is underpinned by the assumption that sophisticated technological weapons can remove threats and thereby solve complicated political problems that trigger military conflicts, a major element in US strategic culture. According to this approach, war is a predictable phenomenon and defeat is a matter of simple cost/benefit analysis, while effectiveness is measured by targets destroyed and casualties inflicted. ⁹⁰ It can be elevated to the belief that weapons can obviate the need for political settlements, reflecting the ‘American faith in science’s ability to engineer simple solutions to complex human problems’, as identified by Major General Robert Scales and Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ⁹¹ and despite the defeat in Vietnam.

A means-centred approach is thus translated into overconfidence in the omnipotence of means, but this form differs from the basic category of ‘means justify the ends’. It is one thing to choose the end, and even expand it because there are means available to overcome a situation that is temporarily perceived as unresolved politically, and another to aim from the outset at solving a political problem through military means. Drones, for example, could be preferred for targeted killing over other means, or even over alternatives to targeted killings, without the generals telling the politicians: we will not overcome terrorism for a limited period of time to pave the way for a political settlement, but we will overcome terrorism to make such a solution unnecessary.

As the debate about this way of thinking intensified after the wars in the 2000s, Scales highlighted the role of psycho-cultural factors as lessons that should be learned from them, contrary to the historical experience of past world wars, whereby the United States allegedly won because of the efficient application of technology. ⁹² Insofar as the new wars are about cultural perceptions of victory and defeat, the technology is only one of the factors influencing the outcomes. ⁹³ In the end, ‘war is a contest of human wills, not machines, in which means must be subordinated to ends if the results are to justify the costs’. ⁹⁴

In Israel, as we learn from the discourse developed in the military command and its dialogue with the public, a strong confidence in the omnipotence of sophisticated technological means to render a political solution unnecessary increased after the outbreak of the second Intifada, but especially since the end of the 2010s. To a large extent, the military command grasped the lesson from its predecessors’ mistakes: presenting the limitations of using force in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict harms the military’s reputation. ⁹⁵

This is well indicated in the writing of Brigadier General Eran Ortal, who (at the time of writing) serves as commander of the IDF’s Dado Center, whose mission is to develop the IDF’s operational art and systemic thinking. Ortal analysed the assumptions guiding the IDF’s ‘Momentum’ Multiyear Plan (drafted in 2020). ⁹⁶ He noted the paradox between the total supremacy of Israel and the ambiguous results of the campaigns Israel had conducted against Hamas and Hezbollah during the 2010s that resulted in frustration. Consequently, and facing Iran’s strengthening holds in the border areas around Israel, a shift occurred in Israel’s approach away from deterrence to decisive victory. Its main ordering idea was to ask how can the technological potential developed over the last decade, part of the so-called fourth industrial revolution, allow us to achieve a new, much-needed breakthrough? The answer is that the technology enables the creation of a tactical reconnaissance complex, based on ‘networked unmanned aerial vehicles and radars receiving and deciphering the signatures emitted by the enemy during combat’, thus allowing rapid and effective strikes aimed at eliminating the enemy’s combat capabilities.

‘Complex problems need complex solutions’, says Ortal, but he refers to weaponry systems. There is not even a single word in his analysis about the option of settling the conflicts by political means, or about the limitations inherent in using force. It follows that the complex political problems inherent in the conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians, and between Israel and the Lebanese, which are leading to an escalating conflict with Iran, can be solved by sophisticated weaponry systems. To paraphrase Scales and Van Riper, war is seen as a contest of machines, not human wills.

Herein lies the main contribution of instrumental rationality to the legitimation of the use of force. Cultivating the belief that threats can be removed through force helps the IDF to reduce the likelihood of political challenges that would undermine the territorial–political status quo inherent in the Arab–Israeli conflict since the collapse of the Oslo Accords in 2000. Such challenges may be based on the assumption that a situation is being created that has no military solution. Thereby, the military also helps to limit deliberative democracy – that is, to limit the discourse on political alternatives to the use of force. To some extent, this kind of military rhetoric even contributes to entrenching the belief that the conflict is unresolvable.

As the two cases of the United States and Israel suggest, instrumental rationality may help to further obfuscate the original goal and destroy the desired end by overuse of force simply because the means are available, while also neglecting the political avenue. Alternatively, as the case of General McChrystal’s policy in Afghanistan exemplified, his approach brought politics back to the military arena. McChrystal largely followed the footsteps of the surge policy in Iraq in 2007, which aimed at enhancing local trust in the United States’ forces, while viewing the situation as a political rather than a military problem, ⁹⁷ and acknowledging the disadvantages of using too much force. ⁹⁸ It was an attempt to alleviate the fallacies of instrumental rationality that Scales and Van Riper had warned against before the war.

Another example is Israel during the first Intifada. It broke out in 1987 as a Palestinian unarmed uprising against Israel’s rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. IDF Chief of General Staff Dan Shomron blocked political pressures to vigorously quell the uprising by using massive firepower. He argued that the Intifada could not be resolved by military means, only by political intervention, and he therefore restrained the troops. ⁹⁹ Shomron thus acknowledged the limitations of using the means at the IDF’s disposal and used them in a way that encouraged a political solution.

Another application of instrumental rationality can be found in the logic of Effects-Based Operations (EBO). Beginning with Operation Desert Storm (1991) and further implemented in the Iraq War, such operations are:

planned, executed, assessed, and adapted to influence or change systems or capabilities in order to achieve desired outcomes . . . EBO is focused upon desired outcomes – objectives and the end state – and all efforts should be directed in a logically consistent manner toward their attainment . . .. EBO is ‘outcomes-based’, not ‘inputs-based’. It does not take available resources and attempt to reason desired outcomes from them. ¹⁰⁰

In other words, this approach explicitly distances itself from instrumental rationality. As military scholar Benjamin Lambeth emphasised, EBO ‘are not about inputs, such as the number of bombs dropped or targets destroyed. Rather, they are about outcomes related to desired enemy behavior’. ¹⁰¹ Therefore, it is about adapting means to ends. Israel partly adopted a similar approach in the Second Lebanon War (partly, as it also adhered to the bank of targets in opposition to the logic of EBO).

However, as can be inferred from the critics of this approach, EBO implicitly reflects instrumental rationality. It is aimed at influencing the will of the enemy’s political leadership or operational commander and its population. However, the enemy is not a machine, and does not necessarily behave as expected. Therefore, predictions of potential effects may fail, particularly at the strategic level. ¹⁰² In other words, strong confidence in the omnipotence of technology is translated into confidence in the ability to engineer the enemy’s mind. Implicit in this approach is the assumption that means, albeit tailored to ends, can replace political solutions. Furthermore, as military scholar Milan Vego indicated, planners use various metrics to assess progress and hence miss psychological and cultural aspects, learning ‘little from the pitiful experiences of the United States in using various mathematical methods to assess the progress of the war in Vietnam’. ¹⁰³ Vego identifies managerialism in EBO.

In summary, a means-centred approach is translated into overconfidence in the omnipotence of means and can be elevated to the belief that weapons can obviate the need for political settlement. Reinstating politics signifies an attempt to address the fallacies of instrumental rationality.

Conclusion

This article aimed at elaborating on the military context of instrumental rationality based on insights drawn from the general critical assertions of the Frankfurt School about this concept. Six categories of instrumental rationality, or its faulty application, were presented.

The means of weaponry justify the ends mainly because they are available and detach these ends from political logic. From this moment, the means-centred approach is developed and may take new forms. The political discourse becomes means-centred, thus also propelling the military logic. Possibly, the availability of means not only determines but also expands the ends. Often, with the means being privileged over the ends, they may be expanded in a way that attaches the means to the objects to be attacked, thus yielding an objects-centred approach that further affects the management of using force. The means may not only justify the ends but also become a mechanism of legitimation by managerialising their immediate impact, and by developing a moralisation process focused on the operation of means. Lastly, the means-centred approach is translated into overconfidence in the omnipotence of means that can be elevated to the belief that weapons can obviate the need for political settlement.

This article offered several contributions to the study of instrumental rationality in the military domain. First, it specified six categories in which this kind of instrumentality is revealed. By doing so, it moved from the abstract insights of Bauman, Booth and others to more concrete demonstrations of instrumental rationality. In each category, moreover, it was shown how this approach may risk the desired ends. This specificity allows us to expand our understanding of the effect of instrumental rationality beyond the direct impact of the subordination of ends to means. It is worth noting that the different categories are not exclusive, and an action can reflect more than one category. For example, a military can adhere to the bank of targets (objects-centred approach) and simultaneously measure success in the form of war managerialism.

Second, this study showed how instrumental rationality can take the form of value rationality, or promote ideology that justifies the exercise of means, or perform a moralisation process, hence demonstrating how these applications may partly fill the value deficit inherent in instrumental rationality.

Third, this study shows another facet of instrumental rationality – that is, its performance as a tool of legitimation. Significant here is the contribution this makes to limit deliberative democracy. There is nothing new in the argument that instrumental rationality undermines democracy for a variety of reasons. Relevant to the military domain is the situation in which ‘the adequacy of procedures for purposes [is] more or less taken for granted and supposedly self-explanatory. It attaches little importance to the question whether the purposes as such are reasonable’. ¹⁰⁴ For good reason, Jurgen Habermas criticised instrumental rationality as encouraging a technical discourse that ‘organizes means that are appropriate or inappropriate according to criteria of an effective control of reality’. ¹⁰⁵ Then, cultural limitations are imposed on deliberation.

This general argument holds true in particular in the military domain, because in no other domain of policy can technology be perceived as providing such great advantages that render non-military alternatives unnecessary. As the cases of the United States and Israel attest, the focus on the omnipotence of technology reduces the debate about how to deal with complicated political conflicts. This limits deliberation to the effectiveness of means, and even sometimes to their morality, and hence obscures their linkage to the realisation of ultimate political goals. Consequently, the legitimacy of using force arises not from active deliberation, but from its stagnation, from the exclusion of policy dilemmas from public discussion. This is a kind of passive legitimation.

Instrumental rationality deserves more scholarly attention. Future research should expand the selection of cases and the comparative outlook, identify more categories of instrumental rationality and elaborate on attempts made to alleviate the fallacies this thinking produces. It is no less important to encourage dialogue between the writing on strategic culture and instrumental rationality that can be perceived as a cultural pattern affecting military doctrine.