Chapter 17

The Universal Elite

by Hugh M. Lewis

Military organizations, being subsystems of the larger national social system from which they issue, remain figuratively the slowest social institutions to incorporate modernization and social reforms into their standard operating procedures and organizational structure. They remain tied to perhaps the tightest bureaucratic organizational model ever occurring, very frequently varying from those standards which are tethered with nonsensical tradition and obsolete social practices. They are the product of nationalization, of top heavy planning committees and over centralization and overspecialization smothering creativity stemming from individuality by severely enforcing unquestioning obedience and blind conformity. They incorporate into their structure human mediocrity over an extended period of time, planning and preparing for an indefinite and indescribable but invariably distinctive future conflict while utilizing and practicing anachronistic procedures of some past war period. War is their primary justification for existence and for the maintenance of just nonfunctional behaviors. The few individuals who control these military organizations have the most to lose by reform and fear change. And what is the price paid for this parasitical relationship founded on social class and human inequity? Defeat in future war. Who will pay the price for that defeat? It is the citizen and the individual soldier who has been victimized.

Military organization are by their very nature parasitical in their relationship with the larger society. The reason for their existence is conflict, which is destructive of humanity and civilization. In peace they are a financial burden to their host society. They return nothing constructive for what they take. They slowly dehumanize their human constituents by obsolete authoritarian social practices. These so called modern military organizations, which in actuality are anachronistic fossils of past conflict, will go to war setting a minimum quantitative valuation on their most important means for success, its human resources. And what is the price of human blood? This is the $20,000 question which any so called leader must make in war. It is a paradox of humanity that in wartime more than in any other period requires the clearest thinking, most creative and constructive responses to emergencies and the extremist form of human adaptability. It is a paradox also that in wartime in which destruction and death is maximized the key to success has proven historically to be founded on human nature, on a maximization of human valuation and a minimization of dehumanization, destruction and death. It leads strategically to the efficacy of the indirect approach. It is also the most economical means of fighting and the most humanly just form of war. These points have been reiterated enough in this work. The validity of these conclusions are historically indisputable. Nevertheless the negative tied to the past bureaucratic model of military organizations remains today the predominant one occurring throughout the societies of the world, persisting even in the most "modern" of militaries. The military elite is an independent attempt to proffer to world humanity an alternative model incorporating changes and reforms that are necessary for a truly modern, successful, economical, minimal and just military organization. It is an alternative that deserves elucidation and public attention.

The model of the universal elite is founded on the elitist concept. This concept has crept into the historical scene periodically and primarily during the course of war, but has nevertheless remained a secondary and only contributory influence in historical military evolution overshadowed by the bureaucratic national conscript mode. The universal elite borrows its operational efficacy from the notably successful nature of this elitist concept. Yet exactly what is the nature of the elitist concept? Elite military organizations have been historically shown to be small voluntary organizations of highly professionalized individuals often organized very loosely under the democratic model, and often taking independent initiative inspite of bureaucratic resistance. They are epitomized as a small handful of individuals being able to successfully accomplish strategically and with stealth what whole mass organized armies could not accomplish tactically in destructive war. The elitist concept has become romanticized by product of war in social imagination. Nevertheless this concept, in its full realization and successful implementation has suffered and been critically limited by the persisting socialized military dogmas on the way humanity goes to war, dogmas cultivated by and seemingly supporting the existence of authoritarian power structures. Beyond these basic points the nature of the elitist concept remains a very broadly generalized one embracing historically tremendous, often contradictory variety of organization. The realization of the whole integrate nature of the elite remains elusively hidden behind social prejudices to critical reconstruction and reductive simplification of the conventional military model. Perhaps the description of the elitist concept is best clarified in the creative reconstruction of a fundamental elitist model. That model is the universal elite.

War is often categorized by realists as a distinct social phenomenon separate from the more normal peaceful human activities in which the "norms" of human nature, of essential and often crucial valuations are foregone in the dehumanizing animal competition and aggression for survival. War always has been and will continue to be a human activity in which all the norms and valuations should be applied if they are not always considered in actuality. The key to success in war lies in the fundamental human nature in the individual's basic creativity and decision making capabilities which no group or organization has ever been able to fully replicate or substitute. The predominant bureaucratic model continually but unsuccessfully attempts to substitute this key to success with statistical quantification and mass conscription, with officialism and paper and book figures of strength. This places a minimal valuation on the human resource, making the human a mass conformist, herd following being led to slaughter. Only through maximizing individual human creativity, qualitative human valuation, of which the fundamental human rights are a part, replacing the superficial material "quantitative" norms of success with more ephemeral human "qualitative" valuations, can success through one's own strength, independent of the opponent's weaknesses, be assured. Utilizing and improving fundamental human creativity, maximizing the human resource in war instead of minimizing it, is the foundation of the universal elite. It begins with the premise that no human is totally worthless, that every person has an individual creative ability of some form which can be recognized, analyzed and made to serve in some corresponding military occupation. This is an educational process. It aims at developing the individual to maximum productive military valuability.

The foundation alone is but an ideal that without further revision would be impossible to realize. It must be modified to fit the means to its attainment, i.e. the physical limitations imposed by contemporary reality, the state of the art in military technology. Some amount of command authority and bureaucratic organizations must always be found to exist. This is part of imperfect human nature. The weapons and tools of modern warfare strictly define the character of further revisions to the model of the universal elite. It is with the spirit of compromise that the revisions are made, to realistically recognize these insuperable limitations to reality and to transcend them only by integrating them into the revisions. Compromise is founded on mutual cooperation, not on antagonistic competition or command control. Such antagonism precludes the essential inter-human trust which must be incorporated into the organizational hierarchy, instead of the prevailing mistrust based on fear. It is a gradual process of minimizing command control and maximizing human value and cooperation and qualitatively transcending the reality of contemporary limitations. Achieving a command control compromise in which human creativity and initiative are allowed to be cultivated to the maximum possible extent nor precluding the prevailing physical limitations in achieving a common wartime objective. Recognizing this first revision of compromise several other necessary reforms are required to be implemented into the model before its ideal of maximum human valuation can be realizable. This signifies the reorientation toward a more mutually symbiotic military relationship rather than the currently predominantly parasitic one.

The first prerequisite of the universal elite is its professionalization of its social organization. To become professionalized it must remain a small, volunteer organization in which the individual constituents rights and the right to consent and dissent have not been forfeited completely. Current military organizations tend too much to rely on mass conscription in which the individual has forfeited his right to consent and often does not like or want to do what he is forced to do. In such mass organizations paper statistical values aiming at quantification replaces true qualitative performance. The period of conscription is usually a relatively short one, 2 to 3 years, which set in motion the tendency of rapid turnover, a high transient rate, inhibiting growth of professional experience and cultivating into the command superstructure unqualified mediocrity. Bureaucratic organization is geared toward loss and replacement, either in peace or wartime. A professional organization must of necessity remain limited in size, not such as the prevailing tendencies to oversize. Only in a small organization can the individual performance and individual identity be maintained and cultivated. Not to be fed into the bureaucratic machinery of mass consumption, limited to an optimum operational size, is easier to finance and supply logistically, and in wartime will be forced to seek strategical success with a minimum of tactical bloodshed. Modern weapons technology favors reduction in size in the number of operands. The complexity of this machinery requires high levels of professional skills for efficient operation, something not possible in a mass organized conscript service. Professions operate under their own ethical and qualitative standards of behavior. They protect and cultivate their own integrity. Professions operate also in conditions that have not been depersonalized. They can relate wholly to what they do in a very intimate personal sense that their individuality and creativity can show through in what they do and know. It is the humanizing difference between artisan production and mechanical industrial reproduction. In mass conscript armies the result and effect is opposite from professionalization, with the principle of a high degree of division of labor, specialization and differentiation of function un-conducive to wartime success. The professional remains an artisan whose work is not primarily for money but is mainly the result of love and being able to relate wholly in a most personal sense. It is the re-humanizing of the military profession.

Another prerequisite revision of the universal elite model is its decentralization of command authority as much as possible as far "forward" as possible, ideally to the level of the individual professional, more realistically to the platoon and company levels. But this does not preclude any from of centralized command authority, but rather must come after minimal centralization all the way up the chain of command. This minimal centralization can only come through comprehensive organization and coordination, to maximize the operational command flexibility at all levels and reduce the contingent influences on command behavior at any one level. Through bonds of inter-human trust, decision making authority and creative initiative is relinquished to the lowest levels possible. This must not be done only on paper but be realized in actuality. Initially many more operational mistakes might occur more frequently, but these mistakes will be in the long run diminish and be a minor cost when compared with the continuing large scale mistakes of top heavy over centralism and bureaucratic inefficiency. The unlimited resources available to a small professional organization can more than cover the cumulative expense of these frequent but small and diminishing errors of judgment. Mistakes such as these are a necessary educational tool, when honestly made mistakes must not be punished but must be forgiven and learned from. The degree to which they provide a negative learning experience and contribute to the qualitative growth of the overall fund of knowledge and professional experience, or the degree to which they are repetitive, should become the determining factor of an individual's promotability or a sub-units continuing organizational structure. Only in this way can decisions be made which are both timely and functional with reality, and the logistical snowball coming from top heavy over centralization and negativistic officialism be reducible to a minimum extent. The short term peacetime initial costs of decentralization of authority can an individual develop his decision making capacity in congruence with his profession, enabling him to become a true professional by allowing him to integrate his creative capabilities with his functioning. Only in this way can qualitative professional expertise based on normative capability be incorporated and cultivated within the organizations command superstructure instead of the cultivation of mediocrity and conformity of yes-no men based on tradition. Another prerequisite revision of the universal elite is the democratization of the command structure. It has been traditionally held that any army fights best when under the control of one centralized commander. The majority of military people the world over would automatically and unquestionably reject outright the concept of democratization of the military command structure. The authoritarian structure is held to be quicker, more efficient, more decisive, and necessary to insure command subordination and reflex. Democratic decision making is held to be slower, and more indecisive and divisive in its outcomes, encouraging disruption of command "authority" and a resultant loss of "morale". Within the military there exists the possibility that they may both be integrated into a single command control compromise decision making process instead of being dichotomized as they usually are, and that the resultant democratized decision making process will be both more efficient, more functional in response and more conducive to leadership. It is a more equitable solution conducive to professionalism. Here we see the gradual process of the minimization of one and the maximization of the other. Effective democracy depends upon the participation, cooperation, compromise and educational and creative level of the constituents. In the military this can only be accomplished through the professionalization process and decentralization of command authority. The chain of command must be replaced with a horizontal all channel open communication net. Democratic organization is a logical consequence of these two influences, only through it implementation may the individual decision making normative development find expression in the influence and outcome of the organization as a whole, and the individual become affiliated with his profession with a sense of trust and of self importance which are necessary to the inspiration of creative development. It is a process by which impetus can be given to professionalism and decentralization maintained in a fluid, non-crystallizing state. Professionalization, decentralization and democratization are interdependent revisions and must go together in the cultivation and improvement of human valuation. They form part of a more general and inclusive modernization and integration process which constitute by themselves important revisions to the elitist concept in description of the universal elite, for failure in these two respects have proven to be the crippling limitation to the past defeat of the elitist concept.

The modernization is a more comprehensive concept which deal with two realms of military organization, the physical limitations dealing primarily with weapons and technology and their employment, and the human limitations, dealing with social organizational reforms and development of strategic decision making. The first realm has consistently received more attention by the conventional military forces than has the second, yet even so it remains a largely unrecognized and underdeveloped regenerative process which may be quite economically and profitably "modernized" even beyond the contemporary evolutionary levels. The "modernization" process of advancement of weapons technology is not completely recognized for what it is worth despite the fact that it has been the main recipient of economic attention and the main generator of military evolution. It is simply the evolutionary growth process of industrialized ephemeralization and of cyclic regeneration supplied from the growing fund of technical knowledge which is the true invisible commonwealth of humanity. It is the invisibly occurring phenomenon of "doing more with less" of creating something out of seemingly nothing which is the anti-entropic function of human life and occurs in every sphere of human activity, including the military. This subtle process continually transcends past oriented limitations and liberates human creative potential even in the military sphere whose ultimate purpose is destruction. The development of aircraft, nuclear weapons, the guided missile, or armored vehicles continually enables the individual combatant to yield more destructive capability further and with more coordinate accuracy than anything previously imaginable. It is industrialization and the evolution of scientific technology applied to the military itself. Yet especially in the military is this forward technological progress restricted in its scope for full potential by the mass quantitative mentality, by the inordinate authoritarian power structures, resulting in bureaucratic waste and inefficiency, by past oriented fixations. Weapons take form according to the rigid military mentality, self limiting the potentialities of their evolution. Weapons design is often compromised beyond optimum proficiency to inferiority for the sake of bureaucratic, egotistical and dogmatic satisfaction. The weapons take on the form of the users of these weapons and reflect in the intrinsic designs the inherent weakness of the military mentality. Money is the primary generator of this growth of military technology. This has been the primary limitation to the past success of the elitist concept. Elite organizations, when and where they were fostered under a parent conventional military organization, received second hand, hand me down equipment, limited by bureaucratic inefficiency inhibiting the full potentiality for success by receiving limited funds with which to operate. Yet here is the latent strength of the elitist concept, and the lever of modernization.

It is within full potential that complete technological modernization in the form of new weaponry and technology immediately applied and validated, receiving unlimited economic resources for creative and uninhibited evolution and provided in battle with virtually unlimited logistical feedback, constructive suggestion on weapon improvement, that is impossible with an over sized top heavy bureaucratic organization, but is feasible within the full economical scope of a small professionalized, highly decentralized, highly democratized military elite organization, which can be cheaply provided with the best and the most unlimited means with which to function. The creative process, the central factor of maximizing human valuation, can only achieve full potentiality of expression by cultivation of uninhibited evolutionary growth with unlimited resources.

Modern conventional military organizations have consistently failed in the second area of military modernization to incorporate adequate modern social reforms and criteria into the organizational model and its activities. The reasons for this have been reiterated enough. It is within scope even for expressed tendencies for small professional organizations such as the universal elite to be more adaptable to social reform and to have the potential of such reform. Due to the necessity of their diminutive size, they strategically take the most successful means of least resistance and least expectation which also proven to be the most economical and moral course. They seek victory indirectly with a minimum of bloodshed and destruction. Even though they may have comparably unlimited physical resources, they will consistently strive to economically expend the least, minimum amount necessary in the achievement of success. They will consistently strive to do more with less rather than the conventional tendency to do less with more. They cannot go beyond their means as can a modern conventional military and they will not strive to maximize costs and battlefield expenditures. They will operate in a more controlled humane manner, in which the dehumanization process in all its negativistic manifestations will be minimized and human valuation will receive maximum emphasis in both war and peace.

Integration, a more generalized concept of revision to the model of the universal elite, is the means of modernization in both physical and social aspects. Integration covers both comprehensiveness and specialization. It must be facilitated and maximized in both directions. Failure to integrate both comprehensively and specifically has been the repetitious failing of the elitist concept in its application. Past elite units were often overspecialized, formed at a specific time and place to meet certain transitory need. This overspecialization has been the undoing of many elite organizations. Overspecialization leads to extinction: elites suffer defeat in battle by following too predictable behavior patterns. Overspecialization is actually a consequence of a failure to properly integrate. Integration is a natural human creative process arising from transcendentally compromise with limitations and leading to creativity. It occurs both comprehensively and specifically, both extensively and intensively. Failure of integration arises from inability to appropriately modify to changing external and internal conditions. Failure to integrate leads to maladaptability and nonfunctional response, especially in battle which eventuates inevitable defeat. Integration increases scope of potential success both comprehensively and specifically. It applies to every aspect of the model of the universal elite. More than any other revision the model is dependent upon the concept of integration to achieve operational validation.

Comprehensive integration leads to a corollary prerequisite concept of universality in adaptation which is the final revision of the model of the universal elite. The concept of universal adaptability implies a form of omniscience and omnipotence which applied to the military means the capability of responding to any type or combination of conflict within the warfare spectrum in any region of the world at any time within a functional time ad in a controllable and decisive manner. It implies comprehensive control of violence, in all its forms, more popularly known as the strategic concept of flexible response and more traditionally within a social system the function of a police department. It might be said that universality is incompatible to the previous revisions and the primary model of the universal elite, for a small decentralized organization would be completely incapable of such a comprehensive feat. Yet the model of the universal elite fits almost perfectly the role of a police organization of a social system, in this case a supranational world society. Only under such central authority as a world government would the model of the universal elite be most effective. It is beyond the economic scope of any single nation or alliance of nations to bring the model to full realization. It s only by the common efforts of a majority of the world nations that it may be most efficiently and successfully implemented. What is the gain of such mutual and international cooperation? Adequate deterrence and prevention of future total warfare and a guaranteed and permanent peace.

When fit into the role of a supranational police organization the universal elite functions on a comprehensive grand strategy similar to flexible response. The force service group is the basic unit of the universal elite police organization, being the maximum level at which centralization and command authority exists, and representing the minimum level of authoritarian structural organization. It is the building block of the world police force. The optimal number of such identical force service groups which may serve as an adequate police protection force within international society is sixteen, each operating independently in its own area of authority and cooperatively and interdependently supporting each other. To provide sixteen such identical force service groups is beyond the capacity of any single nation. It is most economically feasible if a majority of world nations contributes equitably and proportionately to its establishment. To understand the nature of the model of the universal elite as a world police organization one must understand more thoroughly the nature of a single independent force service group and then multiply its quantitative potential by sixteen.

In proffering the model of the universal elite as an alternative to the conventional military model, many crucial and contradictory weaknesses may be obvious to persons whose military wisdom is better. It was created independently, drawn from a very limited cross sectional fund of personal military experience. Others may add to or replace this model with better alternatives. If nothing else the elucidation of the model of the universal elite serves to demonstrate that alternative solutions to military problems other than those conventionally recognized are indeed possible if we want them to exist and to acknowledge with a constructive response some deeply and personally felt need for radical reform within the military. It is only a personal prejudice that the efficacy of this model is indisputable in the final analysis.

Consideration of its possibilities will no doubt shock military minded people. Democracy within a military organization is an unheard of suggestion. The military mind and the military system behaves along very rigid and prejudicial lines, this rigidity is reflected in almost every sphere of military consideration--it is notable for lack of spontaneity. The modern conventional military today is more a product of a prejudiced military mind than it is a functional solution of reality. There are alternative directions of military evolution, other than the general course currently being followed. Even though it is the only one realized, the present course is not necessarily the best or the only possible one. It is a personal conclusion that it is indeed one of the worst possible solutions in the contemporary world of modern military technology and unsolved political and social problems. If the modern military is to increase its efficiency, flexibility, strength, quality and chances for success that demanded in the state of world affairs and the state of art in military technology, alternative directions must be considered and then taken.

Military Dimensions