This paper combines constructivist and administrative approaches to explain the strategic preferences of the military as an institution. From the administrative approach, we borrow the simple notion that every social organization tries to maximize its economic resources, its autonomy, and its prestige. From the constructivist approach, we mainly borrow the idea that degree of identification to a group varies. Even if the will to obtain new resources is constant, nothing intrinsically determines if this search for gains is accomplished with reference to the individual, a clan, a professional group, or a wider entity such as the nation, or even humanity. The constructivist approach has the advantage of problematizing the corporatist identity the administrative analysis considers a given. Yet this identity is not evident because some military institutions could exist with a weak awareness of their particularity and therefore with little inclination to defend their specific interests.