Description
My study investigates what survival means for the French land army and how it impacts its transformation. Guided by the idea that ‘culture influences action’ I offer a reading of military transformation framed by Ontological Security Theory (OST ). Originating from psychology and sociology, OST refines and broadens the survival assumption by offering ‘a two-layered conception of security’. The IR scholarship adopted the concept and scaled it to from the individual to the national level: to survive nation states look to be both physically and ontologically secure. In this study, I suggest the theory can also be applied to the institutional level (i.e. militaries also seek to survive in an ontological and physical sense). I use this original approach to investigate the transformation of the French land army. I claim the quest for survival results in co-dependant and sometimes conflicting needs: the need to transform to remain physically secure and the need to stay the same – to remain ontologically secure. Following this argument, my investigation (1) highlights at the role of identity and culture in shaping French army transformation; (2) looks at dynamics of continuity and change to better understand French army transformation.
