To Reflect or Deflect: Assessing Internal Accountability in the U.S. Military

Summary:
The U.S. military's approach to accountability overemphasizes individual actions and decisions rather than institutional factors. As a result, this often leads to institutional failures of accountability through an insufficient acknowledgment of the military's role in poor outcomes, an inadequate investigation and assessment of institutional problems, and consequently, too little reform to address these issues. This paper offers a novel framework of institutional accountability and uses that to examine two contemporary cases: the U.S. military's failures in the war in Afghanistan and its struggle to meaningfully combat sexual assault and sexual harassment within the ranks.

Bio:
Dr. Heidi A. Urben is Associate Director of the Security Studies Program and Professor of the Practice in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She also serves as a senior associate (non-resident) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to assuming her current position in Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program, she served as its Director of External Education and Outreach. From 2021-2022, she served as a Chamberlain Fellow in the political science department at Howard University.

A retired U.S. Army colonel, highlights from her 23-year career on active duty include: commander of a military intelligence brigade at Fort Meade, Maryland; Vice Deputy Director of Current Analysis and Warning in the Joint Staff Directorate for Intelligence; Deputy Director for Intelligence in the Joint Staff’s National Military Command Center; commander of a military intelligence battalion in Hawaii; assistant professor of American Politics, Policy, and Strategy in the Department of Social Sciences at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; operations officer and executive officer for a counterintelligence battalion; military aide to Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates; and various positions in two light infantry divisions, two deployments to Afghanistan, and a peacekeeping deployment to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Her research interests focus on civil-military relations, military and defense policy, and national security strategy, and her research has been featured in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, NPR, and Politico, as well as in numerous academic journals. Her book entitled, Party, Politics, and the Post-9/11 Army was published with Cambria Press in 2021.

Dr. Urben holds a B.A. in Government and International Studies from the University of Notre Dame, an M.S. in National Security Strategy from the National War College, and an M.P.M., M.A., and Ph.D. in Government from Georgetown University.