The Collaborative Fight: Pursuing Jointness in the US Military

In , Paul R. Birch and Lina M. Svedin examine cases of institutional jointness among US military services from the late nineteenth century into the twenty-first century. They draw actionable conclusions for practitioners in the defense establishment while giving examples of successful joint cooperation that overcame the difficulties inherent in pursuing it. Even the successful cases that Birch and Svedin discuss show that the US military services face bureaucratic incentives and organizational leadership issues that make battlefield cooperation less than ideal. Birch and Svedin adeptly translate theory and history into approaches useful to practitioners in the field while examining the theoretical framework outlining the drivers in joint military cooperation.