Alienation, Anomie, and Combat Effectiveness

While alienation has always been a part of man's psyche in that individuals commonly withdraw separate themselves or their affection from objects or positions of former attachment, anomie or the state of normlessness or lawlessness is a less pervasive characteristic of man, the social animal. Alienation alludes to movement from one set previously attractive references to more appeal' ones. Except in the most extreme cases it represents a series of internal adjustment order to try to maintain personal equilibrium in a lifetime of changing relationships with one’s environment. On the other hand, anomie reflects a culturally induced phenomenon in which there evolves an acceptance or even advocacy of the abandonment of societal norms and laws without replacement.

Just as surely as early man band together to survive in a hostile environment so did he break into groups hostile to one another because of various forms of alienation. Even so, laws and norms common to all have generally endured despite periods of extreme isolation and hostility. Thus, anomie was rare. However, in recent times the explosion of change in developed countries has caused anomie to burgeon. Affluence, egalitarianism, mobility, anonymity, erosion the influence of traditional institutions, an popularity of dissent and counterauthority activities have served as fertile ground for growth of anomie.

It also may be said that for most of man's history his everyday environment has paralleled contemporary conditions of warfare. Until recently man's primary concern, whether at peace or war, was immediate survival. Although death might come more quickly from the use of a pike than a hoe, there was little divergence between the cultural values and military ethos of the times. The rules of one were not unfamiliar to the other. What we now refer to as traditional values looked on as equally important across all aspects of society. Today national mores have lost their consistency. They are sometimes fragmented and softened to the point of extinction. Yet the military ethos has remained relatively consistent in its adherence to the principle of which Major Jacobowitz speaks, "the connection between unit cohesion and combat effectiveness." This, of course, can only be achieved by mutual trust and the interdependence of individuals. Put another way, it requires a dampening of alienation and the displacement of anomie. Members must race the organization's laws and standards accept its norms and stated purpose.

What were once the relatively compatible and mutually supportive values of society and its military segment have obviously grown apart. It is this increasing divergence between changing cultural values and military ethos that must be understood and overcome by military trainers in dealing with increasing numbers of anomic as well as alienated recruits. While we have long-term experience in dealing with the alienation brought to us by the deprived, underprivileged, and draftees, we are less well prepared to deal with anomie. For a normless person the socialization process often has to begin with a total refurbishment normally required of one who is simply alienated. Eight weeks is hardly enough time to overcome alienation and absolutely not enough to make a serious long-term impact on an anomic person. Yet miraculous things can happen when even anomic youngsters are exposed to selfless but demanding leaders who know how to build group interdependence, pride, and cohesion. The real test of such an effort today goes beyond whether such socialization can withstand the rigors of war but whether it can withstand the erosion caused by a growing divergence between what is considered acceptable behavior or and off military posts or in and out of cohesive units.

Although I disagree with his assertion that "enlightened leaders can get effective levels of cohesion whatever the quality of incoming recruits," I think Major Jacobowitz has made a major contribution to a vital subject. This is particularly true of his discussion of recruit training, the means to enhance unit stability, and the training of leaders.

ANY systematic approach to the problem of recruiting and retaining manpower necessary to sustain the military power of the United States rests on three assumptions. The first and most basic assumption is that the historical connection between unit cohesion and combat effectiveness will continue to prevail. That is, cohesive units will almost certainly be effective in combat unless they face conditions totally beyond their capabilities. And it follows that units lacking in cohesion will likely be ineffective. The second assumption is that unit cohesion rests somewhat on the degree to which the unit members are socialized to unit norms and values. Simply stated, combat effectiveness depends directly on the mutual trust and dependence shared by individuals in combat units.² These two assumptions apply to armed conflict throughout recorded history; few experienced military professionals dispute them.

The third assumption is that U.S. society has, over the past several decades, become increasingly alienated and anomic. Consequently, socialization to unit norms and values essential to combat effectiveness should no longer be taken for granted. Recent studies show that at several stages in the Vietnam conflict some unit combat effectiveness deteriorated badly under the stress of alienated, anomic individual perceptions and behavior.³

Many of the recruits now available to the U.S. military derive their mores and values from a society very different from that one which produced past American military victories. Because of alienation and anomie within the United States, many individuals serving in the U.S. Armed Forces are overly concerned with individuality. If this is a trend and it continues, it may cause complete disintegration of the U.S. Armed Forces as effective instruments of battle. To accept this condition as totally a problem of society rather than a military one is to ignore professional responsibility. To function as an effective instrument of national policy, the military must continue to train toward combat effectiveness, and to do so it must help overcome the effects of alienation and anomie within the whole society. Furthermore, the military can itself counter these effects if it fully understands that alienation and anomie promote values directly opposite to classic military norms and values.

Alienation and Anomie

Alienation and anomie are similar psychological states. Alienation is a "withdrawing or separation of a person or his affections from an object or position of former attachment";⁴ while anomie is a "state of normlessness or lawlessness. . . characterized by individual disorientation, anxiety, and social isolation."⁵ Alienated individuals do suffer from the same anxiety and social isolation experienced by anomic individuals.

Karl Marx, writing in the 1840s, described social alienation while developing the philosophy of communism, and in so doing developed the concept of alienation as we know it today. He believed that the evils of wage labor separated men from other men and eventually from themselves. Cash exchange causes this dehumanization, he argued, because it reduces men to the level of interchangeable objects. Ultimately, this transformation leads to viewing man and nature as nothing more than things to manipulate. The result of this outlook is the psychological pain of total isolation from others and the natural self.⁶ Although Marx's explanation of the root causes of alienation may be questionable, the overall concept has analytical validity and appears to fit observable fact.

Similarly, Émile Durkheim postulated the concept of anomie in his study Suicide, published in 1897. Durkheim argued that sudden changes in society make formerly satisfactory norms obsolete. Under the strain of rapid change, social rules fail to keep pace with attitudes and expectations. Inappropriate rules result in contempt for all rules. Intense frustration and equally intense anxiety develop as men seek fulfillment. Dissatisfaction spreads through society and produces a general state of anomie: lack of clarity, rootlessness, and personal disorientation.⁷ Robert K. Merton extended Durkheim's ideas by showing that individuals intensify their anomie when they abandon their norms to satisfy their unleashed desires. For example, a formerly law-abiding businessman who resorts to arson to eliminate a more efficient competitor has begun to sever his connections with other members of society, thus increasing his anxiety and isolation.⁸ Sebastian de Grazia suggested that this anxiety is inherent in humans and that anomic individuals would ultimately be rendered powerless by their anxiety.⁹

Without power, faith, and commitment, alienated and anomic individuals become intensely self-centered. They distrust all commitments to the community, to any institution, or even to themselves and feel only anger and anxiety. This dangerous combination can cause catastrophic social problems, including collapse of a society. Revolution may result when the extremely alienated rush to accept any regime which or demagogue who promises to relieve the unbearable anxiety of their isolation. Even at a level below active rebellion, anomic individuals will actively resist healthy and normal community social relations.

So many commentators have described American society as alienated that the term has become a cliché. Although most Americans continue to maintain traditional values, ever larger numbers seem to fit categories of classic descriptions of alienation. In fact, a Harris poll in 1975 showed that 50 percent of all Americans considered themselves alienated from the government.¹⁰ The social traumas of the sixties revealed a large, albeit temporarily, alienated subculture in the United States, and by the seventies many elements of this subculture had been absorbed into the American mainstream. On the other hand and against this trend, the military is one societal institution that strives to achieve the opposite of alienation and anomie.

The Essence of the Military

As an institution, the military organizes itself to provide sufficient psychological support for individuals to guarantee cohesion of mass forces under the massive stresses of combat. Disintegration of individuals almost invariably means defeat for an army. Therefore, all mass military forces have designed and implemented modes of organization and operation to resist disintegration. In peacetime, armies use these modes to protect against anomic and alienated disintegration. Armies, then, are usually last to succumb to alienation because the military institution has achieved the furthest psychological antipode from alienation. Even when a society does disintegrate into alienation, the military can and often does remain unaffected.

Furthermore, if alienation is total self-centeredness and anomie is the lack of norms, what then are their opposites? The opposite of societal alienation is a grid showing a complex integration of shared values and personal interconnections that produces a spirit of community within an otherwise random group of people. The opposite of societal anomie is another grid displaying the sharing of norms and values by and within the community. Nonalienated individuals share mutual webs of connecting relationships with other mature individuals whom they trust and respect. They are interdependent and thus maintain healthy relationships based on voluntary sharing and caring, Mason Drukman states the essential idea in these terms:

The military in a democratic society exemplifies this "furthest reach" of the community attitude. The interpersonal relationships inherent in a successful rifle squad, tank or aircraft crew, or a well-run ship illustrate this sense of cohesive community. Each member of these units relies on the presence and performance of another member to ensure personal survival and mission accomplishment. Almost by definition, therefore, a modern mass military system must consist of a community of shared values among mature, interdependent people. To prevent disintegration under stress, then, the military depends on a highly complex value system designed to guarantee internalization of unique norms, values, and traditions. Internal acceptance of these values by the troops is a far better guarantee of cohesion and effectiveness under stress than hordes of battle police. Without this emphasis, basic military training would consist of instructing mobs in effective methods of committing mass murder. Thus, the true function of basic training is to indoctrinate and initiate new recruits as full-fledged members of the military community, not to teach specific battle skills. As a result of the internalization of military norms and values, the young soldier returns home from basic training as a new, mature adult appearing before his parents as living evidence of his new commitment.

When they complete basic training, the "good soldiers" are the individuals who demonstrate that they have absorbed the entire grid of military values. They have attacked alienation through the sense of community which is both the most important and opposite norm. Samuel Huntington alluded to this value when he wrote that ". . . the military man emphasizes the importance of the group as against the individual. Success in any activity requires the subordination of the will of the individual to the will of the group. Tradition, esprit, unity, community--these rate high in the military value system. "¹²

Although a complete list of all the values and traditions that comprise the military system is impossibly large, a comparison of representative military values with alienated/anomic values indicates the wide difference between military and alienated behaviors. The author adapted the alienated/anomic list from a similar table developed by Keniston¹³ and the military list from janowitz,¹⁴ Huntington,¹⁵ Marshall,¹⁶ and the author's own personal experience.

Alienated/Anomic Characteristics	Military Values/ Characteristics
1. estranged from others	1. community oriented
2.anxious	2. confident
3. anticommitment	3. committed to service
4. self-indulgent	4. self-controlled
5. self-contempt	5. self-confidence
6. dependent (emotionally)	6. interdependent
7. rebellious	7. obedient
8. desperate	8. pessimistic
9. not loyal, even to self	9. loyalty greatest virtue
10. powerless (paralyzed)	10. powerful, decisive
11. rejection of norms	11. clearly defined norms
12. license	12. discipline

Thus, for every alienated/anomic characteristic, the military reveres an opposite characteristic based on shared norms and values and the concept of community. Throughout history, this panoply of values and norms has been an effective means of maintaining group cohesion in the face of almost every level of stress. It in part explains why individuals accept a military career despite the dangers and inherent denial of personal freedom.

The Psychological Basis
of Combat Effectiveness

One of the most important reasons individuals join the armed services is the need for belonging, which Professor A. H. Maslow postulated.¹⁷ A study of the nineteenth-century British colonial army by Lieutenant Colonel Gerald Tonnell has shown that belonging needs were the major motivator for career retention in that force. Security needs appeared to cause many original enlistments. Tonnell also found that many of the soldiers reenlisted because the organization satisfied their belonging needs. The British colonial army then was organized in a regimental system which provided precisely that belonging effect.¹⁸ The regimental system satisfied the psychological needs of its members and thus achieved and maintained its own goal--combat effectiveness through group cohesion. Thus, the British .Empire used the soldiers' belonging needs to develop strong group identity and cohesiveness, the foundation of combat power.

In our own time General S. L. A. Marshall, in his book Men against Fire, concluded that primary group cohesion is the mainspring of combat effectiveness and that a sense of community among five or six men in the same situation enables individual soldiers to fight as a coordinated group despite the terrors of the modern battlefield.

Even armies with a strong ideological basis depend on the primary group relationship. Shils and Janowitz found that Wehrmacht soldiers of World War II were as dependent on cohesion in the primary group as the U.S. soldiers described in Marshall's study. Even for the Wehrmacht, integration into a primary military group was absolutely necessary for any individual to become an effective fighter.²⁰ The Wehrmacht deliberately fostered this relationship with policies of unit development and movement. Thus, the traditional military organization, with its emphasis on group stability, needs for belonging, and shared values tends to increase the commitment of individuals to the group. Built without the help of modern social scientists, the traditional military instrument with its system of demands and rewards is admirably suited to developing and maintaining combat effectiveness.

The effectiveness of these values appears to hold constant throughout history. A particularly striking and well-known example illustrating the contrast between a cohesive army and soldiers who fought as individuals is the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Conventional wisdom holds that the outnumbered English army defeated the French knights basically because of the technical superiority of the English longbow over armor. The contrast between the cohesion of the English and the individualism of the French knights may be the real key to understanding this battle. According to both Lynn White²¹ and Barbara Tuchman,²² these knights were motivated by wealth, glory, the sheer joy of fighting, and chivalric social pressures. By contrast, the speech that Shakespeare put into King Henry's mouth some 180 years after the famous battle is clearly a plea for unity between the nobility and the common archer.

ON THE other side of the coin, the disunity and arrogance of French society at that time would have made such a plea by a French noble inconceivable. King Henry offers to be a brother to vassals, archers, and the vilest armed trash and even suggests that the worst of them will be raised in virtue merely by being one of the group. He further suggests that gentlemen who missed the battle will envy to the very depths of their souls the poorest clod who fought at his royal side. If 'the speech Shakespeare wrote for Henry has foundation in fact, then the English had rediscovered the cohesive army. Indeed, the technical characteristics of the longbow and the decisive English stand behind the stakes would probably not have been effective if the archers had not been a cohesive force. But this battle is also significant in the historical period in which it was fought. The fourteenth century closely resembles the twentieth century in that both were periods of widespread change and alienation.²⁴ This draws me to examine the term used often today in describing airmen as "knights of the air."

The reference to airmen as knights of the air has become such a cliché since World War I that people have apparently forgotten the relationships suggested by the phrase. Of major importance is allousion to that quality which defeated the French at Agincourt: emphasis on the individual fighter. Another aspect is the inherent relationship of the knight to his vassals. The knight who pilots a modern jet aircraft depends on a vast support system just as feudal knights depended on the efforts of thousands of underlings; horsebreeders, armorers, squires, plowmen, and villeins of every type were necessary to bring the knight to battle. These medieval support personnel are analogous to the thousands of people necessary to bring even a single modern aircraft into combat. Medieval knights disappeared when the individuals necessary to support them became alienated by outdated knightly customs and incessant demands. The present low retention rate among military pilots would seem to portend their disappearance in much the way the medieval knights vanished. Retention problems among support personnel abound. If the attitudes of individualism shown by the French knights erupt among the fighting troops and the knights of the air, the analogy to the fourteenth century would be frighteningly complete. There are some new survey data from U.S. Army units that may confirm this possibility.

Recent data from typical Army combat units, analyzed by Major Stephen D. Wesbrook, have shown a clearly alienated orientation among junior enlisted men, and their attitudes in turn extend to their perceptions of the units in which they serve. Additionally, alienated attitudes among soldiers generally correspond with low efficiency, just as historical data indicate. Diffuse alienation toward society was higher than specific alienation to the Army, but it appeared more closely correlated to poor efficiency than alienation from the Army alone. Wesbrook found the greatest correlation between meaninglessness and low military efficiency.²⁵

Throughout history, the potential results of relying on an alienated army have been shown in the grave likelihood of defeat. Some commentators have suggested that a return to the draft would ease the problem by bringing less alienated recruits into the services. But strong political resistance to draft registration suggests that critical years may pass before the domestic climate will allow a return to conscription. Additionally, more nonalienated soldiers would help but not solve the problem of the inefficiency of the remaining alienated troops. Other than the impossible goal of restructuring an alienated society, what are the most logical solutions for this critical problem? The conclusions of Wesbrook and Tonnell and the traditional integrating mechanisms available to the military do suggest an internal solution to this dilemma.

Combating Alienation
in the Military

Faced with alienated recruits, an ideal military organization must design every element of its personnel cycle from recruitment to retirement as a counter to alienation. If possible, it devotes its efforts to recruiting the least alienated, retaining them, and psychologically rewarding those who integrate themselves into the group. A short survey of possible methods to achieve these goals follows.

Current advertisements for recruits consistently feature a litany of individual benefits--pay, privilege, specialized training, job experience saleable in the civilian market, and attractive assignments. However, an appeal based solely on economic need tends to recruit many of the most alienated members of society as well as the most self-centered segment. In his seminal study, Professor Charles Moskos confirmed that pay incentives tend to motivate enlistment of the least desirable recruits.²⁶

Recruitment advertising can focus on three types of individuals: the nonalienated, the mildly anomie, and the very anomic, or fully alienated.²⁷ Nonalienated individuals claim traditional values. The mildly anomie group includes one class of people who search at an unconscious level for a group with compatible values but despair of finding it. The other anomie class does not actively search for values and integration, but it would accept both if the emotional rewards were clearly presented. The very alienated types tend to seek extreme cures for their overwhelming separation anxiety and may end up in tragedies such as Jonestown.

Nonalienated individuals readily integrate themselves into groups with similar norms, such as the military. Both the nonalienated and the mildly anomie respond to appeals that offer satisfaction of their needs to belong presented in a traditional framework. Furthermore, mildly anomie individuals express strong needs for reinforcement of their connections to "real things." These two strains were expressed in various "back to nature" movements of the sixties. Thus, commercial advertisements aimed at these two groups should generally take the approach suggested by the two television commercials in scenarios A and B. Although these scenarios happen to be tailored for an air service, other branches can use the details to develop similar commercials.

Although triteness is a possible criticism of these commercials, one should compare them with some of the more popular TV programs before concluding that they are indeed too trite for television. More important, a number of similar commercials could be tailored for each service to show primary group relationships that lead to personal satisfaction through team effort on "real tasks." Commercial appeals could show that the military is not merely a challenging job, financial reward, or a tour of duty in Europe but a job that depends on group responsibilities, relationships, and a higher commitment. The effort focuses' on group needs of nonalienated and mildly anomic individuals. Appeals to be successful must alternate between emphasis on group needs and a taste of the economic inducements available. For the printed media, advertisements appealing to group needs should be placed in magazines published by those traditionally oriented organizations, such as the Explorer Scouts, whose members tend to pursue values similar to military values. Simultaneously, advertisements based on economic appeals should then be published in magazines purchased by less traditionally oriented youth.

After promising satisfaction of group needs for a large segment of recruits, the military would then be obligated to deliver on the subrosa contract. Moskos noted that a major source of dissatisfaction among recruits is that they do not receive the occupational training promised during their recruitment.²⁸ Delivery must be assured, but the payoff should be well worth the effort. People attracted by the implied promise to satisfy their needs for belonging are precisely the people most likely to remain in the service. If they bear the slightest resemblance to their cousins in the British colonial army, this will hold true. Thus, the services, if they hold true to their word, will begin to reap the benefits of longer retention, both in fiscal terms and increased combat effectiveness. The U.S. military currently loses three quarters of a billion dollars per year because approximately one of every three recruits fails to complete the first enlistment.²⁹

Obviously, basic training is the time and place to begin integrating recruits into primary groups and emphasizing the psychological rewards that derive from group membership. The current six-week basic training period probably does not permit complete socialization to military values, particularly when dealing with large numbers of people who have less appreciation for these values than did the recruits of the past. Nevertheless, several studies have shown a dealienating effect of basic training on Army recruits, especially when an eight-week training period was the standard.³⁰

An eight-week basic training period should feature group activities in which recruits receive psychological rewards and public recognition for successfully performing tasks requiring teamwork and cooperation. Additions to basic training ought to feature activities deliberately designed to foster integrated attitudes by automatically rewarding group efforts and punishing attempts at destructive individual stardom or withdrawal. Problem-solving tasks based on the Air Force Squadron Officer School's Project X and Introduction to Group Development could easily be modified to fit the more coercive atmosphere of basic training. Other group tasks involving contrived stress situations to demonstrate the value of teamwork would place the recruits in an authentic military atmosphere, replace anomic powerlessness with a feeling of accomplishment, and leave the impression among recruits that they have entered an organization with strict and worthy standards.

For example, with some contrived rules and creative imagination, instructors could convert present "confidence courses" for individuals into team tasks and problems. In addition, the use of heavy shields interlocked in a horizontal testudo only by the coordinated efforts of at least four recruits could change pugil-stick fighting from an individual event to a team sport. Combined with long and unwieldy two-man pugils, the natural tactical result would be a platoon-sized Swiss square. Squares that disintegrated into shieldless, disarmed individuals would be easy prey for coordinated groups. Thus, winning teams would have the "thrill of victory" to reinforce the teamwork concept, and the losers would have multiple bruises to remind each of them the price of combat disintegration. Of major importance in any kind of teamwork training, however, is a dedicated cadre of instructors who understand the precise goal of commitment training. Instructors must understand and accept the principles of group cohesion; an alienated cadre of instructors would only exacerbate the problem.

To make it easier for recruits to accept group concepts, basic training platoons or flights should include by design specific proportions of individuals at the three levels of alienation. Nonalienated individuals should comprise at least 10 percent of each basic training group. Shils and Janowitz found that each effective Wehrmacht unit had a hard core of highly dedicated soldiers who gave a high degree of stability and combat effectiveness to the group. These soldiers usually comprised 10 to 15 percent of a given outfit and provided a cohesive core that strongly influenced the less dedicated soldiers.³¹ A training organization could use existing survey instruments to determine levels of alienation and then ensure that all training platoons receive equal portions of nonalienated recruits. These recruits would tend to support organizational goals, provide much of the leadership in solving group problems in the field, and help to promote a spirit of cohesion. The nonalienated core group would thus help to speed and deepen unit identification and acceptance of military norms. Combined with group problem-solving techniques and rewards, the entire process is aimed at developing primary groups that accept traditional military mores and promote emotional acceptance of unit responsibility so necessary for successful combat operations.

Strong primary groups developed in basic training could be used to ensure effectiveness on the job. Appropriate ratios of nonalienated individuals included in the primary groups could also be directed into subgroups on the basis of specialty codes and operational specialties. These subgroups then move intact to technical training schools and, ultimately, to initial assignments. Indeed, if the structuring process were carried to its final logic, each subgroup would include at least one hard-core individual. As in basic training, this member would support operational leaders in promoting organization goals and would represent the type so vividly portrayed by Wiener in Guy Sajer's The Forgotten Soldier.³² By adjusting the frequency of permanent changes of station, subgroups could be assured of remaining together at least through the first assignment. This would permit subgroup recruiting, with job specialties, group integrity, and unit of assignment as "written guarantees" given by recruiters. The average size of cohesive subgroups seems to be five or six individuals; thus, a hard-core individual graduating from high school might be able to persuade his closest associates to join as a unit if he could promise that they would remain together in the service. Although ground combat arms could probably arrange first permanent moves for larger groups such as platoons directly from basic training, modern air forces could gain a special advantage from a system that reassigns subgroups as intact units.

The group cohesion built among smaller subgroups in basic training can be preserved. Units that recruit subgroups would return to their original recruiting unit after basic and technical training. The subgroups would retain maximum identity; for example, six high school friends preferring to work on aircraft might sign up for a local strategic bomber wing. On completion of basic and technical training as a unit, they return to their original community as full-fledged adults serving in a respected profession. The military thus gains a great advantage from this system. Individuals returning to home area units would be subject to constant pressure, on and off the job, to show continued exemplary behavior. Their military and civilian peers, elders, teachers, relatives, and other community authority figures would always be silent witnesses of their conduct. It is one thing for an individual to take a general discharge for smoking marijuana 2000 miles from home and quite another to face the immediate disapproval of parents, schoolteachers, and close friends. This system reinforces normative behavior and reduces the cross-pressures on the recruit as the service pulls him toward integration. As more subgroups sign up on the basis of returning to units in their local area, the frequency of moves within strategic units should eventually diminish to a minimum and those only to fill positions vacated by separation, retirement, or death. Some exceedingly static and stable units such as missile wings could strive to achieve personnel policies similar to those of National Guard units, in which survey data have shown lower levels of alienation.³³ The low rate of personnel turnover in National Guard units may be a contributing factor in the overall lower alienation rate. Maneuver elements of tactical combat forces both land and air require the highest levels of group cohesion because of the nature of their mission and the possibility of instant combat in the current unstable world situation.

Tactical Units, Maneuver Elements,
and Permanent Change of Station

Like the British Empire of an earlier era, modern military powers must still maintain forces far from home in areas that can be unpleasant. Moreover, human needs for primary group cohesion are even more vital in units that are ordered into combat at any time, such as units of Rapid Deployment Force. The solution to this problem is to move all overseas tactical combat units to permanent duty stations in convenient groupings that maximize primary cohesion.

For maneuver elements of ground combat units, the system is relatively simple and duplicates on a grander scale the time-honored practice of rotating companies out of the line. The company is the ideal movement unit to maximize both management convenience and group cohesion. As platoons complete basic training, they would be welded to a permanent company cadre, provided necessary advanced training under this company leadership, and shipped overseas, much the same as the U.S. Army and the Wehrmacht assembled and shipped units overseas during World War II. Companies returning from overseas duty would take assignments within the continental United States if their retention rates were such that they could justify filling only a few slots with new recruits. Companies with low retention rates should be broken up to provide replacements for other units as required. Obviously, the system puts a high premium on intracompany retention efforts. A company that satisfies the belonging needs of its members makes every attempt to avoid disintegration. Since retention rate then determines the fate of the company, a soldier motivated by group loyalty encourages his peers to remain in the service for the sake of the unit. *

Similarly, tactical air units can use the squadron as the basic movement element for periodic exchange of entire wings. Each overseas tactical air unit is paired to another outfit with identical aircraft and mission capability in the continental United States. Over a period of approximately one year, each squadron of the overseas unit trades with its domestic equivalent until both wings have exchanged all elements, Each mass squadron move could be performed in a manner designed to ensure maximum training and emotional involvement of all members in both outfits. Involvement in a genuinely difficult task increases esprit de corps and reduces anomic feelings of meaninglessness. By frankly designing the move for maximum theatricality and combining the transfer with an almost immediate return to combat readiness, the entire operation results in both group cohesion and a genuine "show of capability." Both of these elements should strengthen our deterrent posture. These methods superficially resemble traditional methods of handling personnel. Yet there is more to understanding this system than in its surface appearance of tradition.

Training Leaders to
Combat Alienation

Understanding a problem is clearly the first step in solving it. If commanders and supervisors do not understand the nature of alienation, they can easily confuse the approach proposed above with outworn techniques of the past. A blind return to traditional methodology to control modern alienated troops would be a great military disaster. Today's alienated soldiers, faced with a regimental system that satisfied group needs on the one hand but imposed the cruel discipline of the nineteenth century on the other, would justifiably reject the system. A program aimed at restoring cohesion in any military organization must be introduced gradually with appropriate attention to doctrinal lessons of the past. A primary requirement is to understand that traditional ideas decline through a recognizable cycle.

The cycle of tradition begins when a leader either consciously or instinctively recognizes a natural relationship and institutes a procedure that either solves a problem or creates an effect that accomplishes his purpose. The leader mayor may not articulate his reasons for establishing the procedure, but the reasons are forgotten some time after his death or departure. Successive leaders indifferently or ignorantly continue the procedure. If it was originally a sound idea, they may continue using it for years. At this point, the procedure is maintained by ritual rather than reason. If sacrosanct restrictions do not forbid it, young Turks strongly promoting reform in the organization begin to ask, "Why do we do it this way?" Since the ritualistic operators of the system can articulate no reason for the method, the young Turks assume there is no reason, eventually prevail against the ritualists, and dismantle the procedure. If the procedure is a viable means of handling a continuing but unrecognized problem, the problem eventually overwhelms both the ritualists and the young Turks. No one considers restoring the old system, since it has already been discredited as mere ritual. This cycle is rapid in a society that reveres new ideas and discards, without regret, old solutions. But operators who understand the basis for a system will usually refine and tone it rather than destroy it.

To prevent the cycle of traditional ideas from destroying what appears to be the restoration of a traditional system, all officers charged with implementing and maintaining the system must understand it both on an intellectual and emotional level. Ideally, officers develop such an understanding during their accession programs. Higher commanders would need to institute some type of field training program to ensure understanding of the system among previously commissioned officers. Officer accession programs can provide lectures to explain the principles of group cohesion and field exercises similar to basic training activities to deepen understanding. Team sports are not sufficient for this purpose, even when directed by a skilled teaching cadre, for half of the unit must serve on losing teams in intramural sports programs. Team success is necessary for full understanding of group cohesion. The group problems described for basic training would provide this experience for all aspiring officers. Officers who have experienced genuine group cohesion can build cohesive units, but officers who view a military career solely as a competitive arena for promotion cannot teach cohesion. Thus, it may be necessary to permit some officers to forego opportunities for advancement in exchange for a full career identified with a particular unit. By temperament and training, these officers would be especially valuable in providing a hard core of commissioned leaders to maintain cohesion as other officers transfer in and out of the unit.

HARDLY anyone recalls that Karl Marx lived in and observed a dismal part of nineteenth-century British society while writing his major works. Yet he developed his concepts while surrounded by the same society that refined to a high state the basic methods for making cohesive soldiers out of alienated individuals. The officers of the regimentally organized British Army turned the veriest dregs of alienated British society into one of the most cohesive military forces ever known. Only internal discipline could produce the gallantry of the Thin Red Line, the Heavy Brigade, and the Light Brigade. And the foundation of internal discipline is neither more nor less than human associations of men in combat units.

History has shown that the problems of an alienated military are not beyond solution. The suggestions of this study are not the only possible methods of reducing alienation in the armed services. Indeed, some of these proposals may be impossible to manage, while some are already in effect in some services. But what is important is that such methods do exist, and they do work. A recent study of U.S. Army forces found a measurable decrease in alienated attitudes toward the Army after highly realistic training exercises called Realtrain.³⁴ Although some experts hold that a drop in specific alienation is not accompanied by a lessening of diffuse alienation more closely associated with inefficient soldiering, the British experience refutes this argument. The British colonial troops were highly integrated into their units, but they were so alienated from their society that they accepted assignments to virtual exile. With enlightened and knowledgeable leaders, a modern military force can achieve effective levels of cohesion whatever the quality of the incoming recruits. The key is to understand the goal and to design personnel systems that will achieve the goal. Yet, current doctrine typified by AFM 1-1 mentions neither cohesion nor teamwork.

The system described in this study is vulnerable to legitimate criticism that it does not follow modern principles of management. But this system rests on leadership principles developed through centuries of human experience, not management theory. This proposal represents a military solution designed to solve the ultimate military problem by military methods, It draws on centuries of institutional experience to apply known solutions to the essential military problem--preparing men to perform tasks that run counter to every known human instinct for physical self-preservation, But the first law of human nature is not the law of physical self-preservation; it is the law of emotional self-preservation.³⁵ This proposal seeks to make the unit part of the emotional self of every soldier and airman, Emotional self-preservation for every soldier will then require the preservation of his fighting unit--even if he must die for the unit to live, Such is the force that leads to victory.

1. Herbert Butterfield, Man on His Past, quoted in John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York: Viking Press, 1976), p. 297.

2. See General S. L. A. Marshall, Men against Fire (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1947).

3. See Richard A. Gabriel and Paul L. Savage, Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the Army (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978).

6. Loyd D. Easton and Kurt H. Guddat, translators, Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society (New York: Doubleday, 1967), p. 265.

7. Whitney Pope, Durkheim's Suicide (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), pp. 9-14.

8. Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (New York: The Free Press, 1968), pp. 188-216.

9. Sebastian de Grazia, The Political Community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. xiii.

10. Robert S. Gilmour and Robert B. Lamb, Political Alienation in Contemporary America (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975), p. 3.

11. Mason Drukman, Community and Purpose in America: An Analysis of American Political Theory (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971), p. 7.

12. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1957), p. 64.

13. Kenneth Keniston, The Uncommitted (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1964), pp. 64-65.

14. Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1960).

17. Abraham H. Maslow, "A Theory of Human Motivation," Psychological Review, July 1943, p. 381.

18. Gerald H. Tonnell, "The Nineteenth Century British Colonial Army: The Need Satisfaction of the Soldier," Doctoral dissertation, Saint Mary's University, 1974, pp. 9-11.

20. Edward A. Shils and Morris Janowitz, "Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II," Public Opinion Quarterly, Summer 1948, p. 281.

21. Lynn White, Jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1962), p. 32.

22. Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), p. 81.

25. Stephen D. Wesbrook. "Sociopolitical Alienation and Military Efficiency," Armed Forces and Society, Winter 1980, p. 182.

26. Charles C. Moskos, Jr., "National Service and the All-Volunteer Force," Society, November/December 1979, p. 70.

30. Eugene H. Drucker, A Longitudinal Study of Attitude Change and Alienation during Basic Combat Training (Alexandria, Virginia: Human Resources Research Organization, 1974), p. 47.

33. Stephen D. Wesbrook, "The Alienated Soldier: Legacy of Our Society," Army, December 1979, p. 20.

34. Paul R. Bleda and Robert H. Sulzen, "The Effects of Simulated Combat Training on Motivation and Satisfaction," Armed Forces and Society, Winter 1980, p. 208.

35. F. Alexander Magoun, The Teaching of Human Relations (Boston: Beacon Press, 1959), p. 5 (footnote).

Major Daniel W. Jacobowitz (B.S., Rutgers University; M.P.S., Auburn University) is serving in the Psychological Warfare Operations Division, Combined Forces Command, Seoul, Korea. He has served as a missile operations officer and as a civic action officer at several bases in Thailand. Major Jacobowitz is a graduate of Air Command and Staff College.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.