The Iraq War: The Officials vs. The Soldiers - Essay Example

Like any other war fought by foot soldiers on one end and the coordinating or commanding officials on the other, the Iraqi war was characterized by the bourgeoisie and proletariat relationship. This paper will thus discuss and analyze the Iraqi war from both Weber’s bureaucracy and Karl max’s wage labor capital approach that existed between the officials and the people. In doing this, the paper will seek to bring to fore the division of labor that existed within the united states military camp during this war in relations to Weber and Karl Max theories.

The relationships of soldiers at different ranks with different military roles and how they interacted during the Iraqi war can be best illustrated using Weber’s six major principles of bureaucracy and the legitimate domination principle. According to Weber, bureaucracy is way of administratively organizing a large number of people like soldiers who need to work together in a coordinated manner. Weber made critical elements of his bureaucratic principles that can be applied to the organization of people including the soldiers in a battle field.

During the Iraqi war, there existed clearly defined levels of labor and authority meaning that there existed lower cadres who were under the control and supervision of a higher administrative level (Wasim 108). In this kind of organization, authority resided in the positions of hierarchy and there existed clear vertical division of labor. Before any decision was made within a battalion, communication had to move vertically from officials higher in the pecking order. Under this principle, labor was also critically divided among the soldiers depending on their position in the power hierarchy.

The officials higher in the administrative pecking were tasked with communicating with the defense headquarter back in Washington. Such information was passed to the commanders of each battalion who would make the communications and decisions to the soldiers who are the ultimate implementers of the decisions. Just like evident in any army, rules guide the behaviors of each personnel and failure to follow instructions precisely leads to disciplinary action. Weber described this under his third principle in which he described how rules made at higher levels are executed by officials at the lower level.

The Iraqi war was no different if compared to this principle as advanced by Weber due to the fact that rules of engagement while in the country were either made in Washington or by the coordination office in Iraq and implemented by the soldiers at the lower level. Organization within the fighting and coordination units of the United States army was also done based on functional specialties where each assignment was done by specialists (Boyer 151). As a result, the United States army in Iraq had different units at different levels that were tasked with different roles depending on their specialization.

Responsibilities within the battle field were also assigned to positions and units but not to a specific individual according to the sixth principle of Weber’s bureaucracy. The Iraqi war terrain was quite foreign and unfamiliar to most United States army generals making it important to consider experience and qualification when assigning specific tasks that affected field operations to the army commanders (Eden, 213). The