Narrating Conflict and Violence

This chapter reviews the perspectives of former combatants that raise a number of methodological questions in addition to the general methodological and ethical issues inherent in any field-based study of armed conflict. It looks into the accounts of soldiers involved in fighting in order to bring to light a unique and hard-to-capture perspective. It also explains why the reliance on soldier narratives raises specific methodological and ethical issues that are inherent in any study of war. The chapter discusses the shifting meanings of violence across different contexts, concealment and censorship. It examines the discursive reframing of violence narratives, the data-loyalty transaction, and the role of emotion in combatant accounts.

Participation in Counterinsurgency

This chapter begins with a description of Aviv Kochavi, who served as a commander in a paratrooper unit at the height of the Second Intifada. It talks about Aviv's strict and demanding command style that soldiers often label a “hard head.” The chapter shows how the military first instills and then enforces a set of norms that distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate violence based on the extent to which it serves organizational goals. It analyzes three analytically distinct categories of violence taken from the perspective of deployed combat soldiers: strategic, entrepreneurial, and opportunistic. It also points out how the categories of violence differ on a number of dimensions and highlights the beneficiary of the violence.

Conclusion

This chapter summarizes the reasons why and in what ways participation in counterinsurgent violence vary. It explains the eager participation of some combatants and combat units in violence while others show considerable restraint or resistance on participating. It also reviews the patterns of violence and restraint in the case of counterinsurgency of the Israeli military in the Second Intifada. The chapter analyzes the Second Intifada that provides a unique opportunity to collect typically hard-to-saccess data on the details of military life at the small unit level, as well as on the nature of conducting combat operations among a chiefly civilian population. It also analyzes the Israeli case that challenged conventional wisdom regarding the behaviour of combatants in conflict, which is often assumed to be homogeneous and violence prone.

The Dynamics of Entrepreneurial Violence

This chapter identifies and analyzes the category of violence that is neither strictly strategic nor opportunistic. It builds on the assumption that in large, complex organizations, organizational strategy is a more complex phenomenon than implied by the conventional top-down or bottom-up dichotomy between strategy and opportunism. From the perspective of soldiers, the chapter attempts to recreate violent strategy on the ground in an environment of persistent ambiguity. It argues that, under conditions of uncertainty regarding the limits of permissible behavior, junior and mid-level officers have incentives to develop violent practices, sustained by the ambiguity maintained by the higher ranks. It also seeks to further identify and theorize the middle category of military violence.