Chapter 8
The Realization of Strategy
This abstraction of war has limited strategic applications. While providing a reliable map of reality, it at no time replaces reality. Often the role of abstraction is confused with reality. If the wrong characteristics are abstracted or if the abstraction is wrong, no accurate equation of conflict can be expressed. While conflict expressed in terms of an abstracted theoretical pattern is expressive of a fundamental level of realistic conflict, this basic level of conflict is expressive of an underlying conflict of strategy. The abstraction of conflict has importance only if it enables realization of strategy in the expression of destructive force on the battlefield. The realization of strategy has function in military philosophy: to divine the symptoms and causes of defeat and formulate a practical but generally applicable recipe for military victory. Realization of strategy has certain distinct limitations which shape the essential quality of strategy. These limitations fall under two distinct groups which reflect the underlying concept of duality. These are the physical objective limitations and the nonphysical subjective limitations.
The physical limitations inevitably boils down to the limitations of the physical vulnerability of man and his means of survival to destruction by destructive force. The intrinsic vulnerability of man and his tool extensions cannot by themselves be reduced, but only indirectly by reducing the effectiveness of the opponent's destructive force. The limitations of the means of expression of force ultimately are limited by the factors of space and time. Any weapon has an intrinsic destructive potential, the realization of this potential becomes a matter of time and range of expression. Intrinsic vulnerability cannot be limited. Space and time remains absolute values. Only the destructive potential of weapons and the means of expression may be reduced or increased. The central concern then of strategy for physical limitations is with the utilization of destructive force: with its minimization or maximization. The function of the expression of force has fallen primarily to the task of the applied sciences and of technology: chemistry, engineering, mechanics and mathematics. With the evolution of technological civilization, the destructive force potentials have increased exponentially simultaneously with corresponding expansion of the spatial value and a compression of the temporal value. The importance of the spatial factors have been minimized while the importance of the temporal factors has been maximized. At the same time, man's intrinsic vulnerability has remained unchanged.
While primary strategic concern for the physical limitations is with the maximization and minimization of the effects of destructive force, the nonphysical limitations--the nonphysical determinants of the expression of force and psychological vulnerability--do not directly increase or divide this force potential, but only enable the fullest expression of physical force or eventual realization of physical vulnerability. Nonphysical limitations do not directly deal with force potential, but only indirectly through reducing nonphysical vulnerability. Unlike physical vulnerability, which intrinsic value cannot be directly manipulated, the primary concern of strategy for the nonphysical limitations is in reducing or increasing this fundamental psychological vulnerability. This task has fallen principally to the behavioral sciences of psychology and sociology and their practical forms of application. Research into this area of vulnerability has yielded important insights into the causes and symptoms of defeat and military incompetence. The classical perspective is not void of cases of defeat and incompetence. To avoid future failure in the realization of strategy it is necessary to study these past cases for the symptoms and causes, and to formulate a means of preventing or avoiding them. Failure should be studied only in terms of a comprehensive theoretical perspective which would allow universal applicability.
The human will is the principle incalculable variable in any theoretical equation of war, and this element manifests itself primarily in the form of resistance. Human actions are unpredictable. Humans are the imperfect element of warfare subject to error, vulnerable to emotional subjectivity, mental illness and profound irrationality. Strategy cannot plan for irrational behavior except in terms of an unpredictable variable. Strategy can be reliably based only on presumed rational human behavior. The culmination of irrationality may prove to be a useful device in nuclear deterrence, but it is inherently unstable and unsound basis for the formulation of sound strategy.
The irrationality of the individual becomes incorporated into the social system, including the military, resulting in a cultivation of irrationality variable and resulting in a repetition of military defeat and incompetence throughout history. One of the most prevalent symptoms of this fundamental human irrationality manifests itself in the general confusion of ends and means throughout military philosophy which has frequently led to failure of strategy. Specific psychological phenomena of this larger process of militarism within the military is the development of what I have termed the pathology of liferism, resulting in the dehumanization of the soldier. Much can be gleaned from the sociological case histories of soldiers, an untapped potential for research. Essentially we can choose between making human life the most valuable component of the military system or the cheapest most dispensable waste product. It is choice between an elite or a conventionalized national service. The pathology of liferism is self destructive, leading directly to the shock of defeat in wartime. Symptoms of the shock of defeat are untimely nonfunctional response, slow and inept behavior, failure of communications, intelligence, justice of war and in war a prevalence of terrorism. The abstraction of conflict and the study of warfare often leads to mistaken conclusion that war is fought for the purpose of the war itself and therefore destructive force should be indiscriminately maximized, leading to many dangerous corollary conclusions and to the general strategy of indiscriminant terrorism. The ends and means of conflict must always be kept in proper perspective. Conflict is only one means, and by no means the most satisfactory to the attainment of strategic ends.
As intrinsic human vulnerability remains unchanged in the presence of vastly increased destructive force potential, the need to understand and prevent human irrationality has become tantamount to preventing future military mistakes. Strategic realism requires an analysis of objectives followed by an appraisal of expectations. It requires rational and realistic objectives and expectation comprised to just and humane ends. Several theoretical perspectives exist which have profound relevance to the subject of nonphysical limitations. Too much attention has been paid to the physical limitations of strategy and not enough to the nonphysical limitations, leaving the strategic perspective a desperate problem of the dangerous consequences of this lopsided situation.
One important contribution of psychological to an understanding of nonphysical limitations is the book "On the Psychology of Military Incompetence" by Norman F. Dixon. It is here summarized in length.
The nature of military incompetence has to a large extent been unvaried and its possibility springs to a great extent from the side effects of creating military organization. The cost of incompetency has increased and its chances of occurring is increasing rapidly with a widening gap between human ability and the demands of modern warfare. Military organizations have a propensity for attracting a minority who prove menacing at high command levels, while the nature of militarism accentuates the more disastrous personality traits.
."The approach here is essentially eclectic. Drawing upon ethological psycho analytic and behaviorist theories, it attempts to explain military ineptitude in the light of five inescapable if unfortunate features of human psychology. These are:
1. Man shares with lower animals certain powerful instincts.
2. Unlike lower animals, most men learn to control, frustrate, direct and sublimate these instinctual energies.
3. While by far the lowest part of this learning occurs in early childhood, its effects upon the adult personality are profound and long lasting.
4. Residues of these early learning and in particular unresolved conflicts between infantile desires and the demands of punitive morality may remain wholly unconscious yet provide a canker of inexhaustible anxiety.
5. When this anxiety becomes the driving force in life's endeavors, the fragile edifices of reason and competence are placed in jeopardy.
War involves communication of information. The nodal points in the communication network are occupied by leaders primarily involved in the delivering of destructive energy. The ideal leader would be capable of receiving, processing and transmitting information to yield maximum gain at minimum cost. There exists noise in the system of interfering with the smooth flow of information. Leaders are channels of limited capacity to process information. To deal with more information they must take longer or else suffer the possibility of making more or greater mistakes. Unlikely or unexpected news contains more information than expected information. The greater the impact of the information the more it will be resisted. News require greater channel capacity, threatening the leader to return to a state of uncertainty and forcing him to confront the possibility of being wrong in policy. Noise acts on the flow of information and eventuated incompetent decision making. Military leaders receive much news and are peculiarly susceptible to noise both external and internal in origin and form. Decisions depends on payoffs, both negative and positive. The criteria for decisions are the anticipated consequences of alternative courses of action. Possible loss of self esteem or of social approval cold have greater weight in decisions than rational thinking. The fog of war extends the uncertainties of inputs and payoffs. Cognitive processes such as attention, perception, memory and thinking are liable to distortion by emotion or motivation. The effects of social or biological, neurotic or adaptive needs upon cognition are maximized when the needs are strong or when the external reality is ambiguous.
"…in brief then, military incompetence involves:
1. A serious wastage of human resources and failure to observe one of the first principle of war-economy of force…
2. A fundamental conservatism and clinging to outworn tradition, an inability to profit from past experience (owning in part to a refusal to admit past mistakes)…
3. A tendency to reject or ignore information which is unpalatable or which conflicts with preconceptions.
4. A tendency to underestimate the enemy and overestimate the capabilities of one's own side.
5. Indecisiveness and a tendency to abdicate from the role of decision maker.
6. An obstinate persistence in a given task despite strong contrary evidence.
7. A failure to exploit a situation gained and a tendency to "pull punches" rather than push home attack.
8. A failure to make adequate reconnaissance.
9. A predilection for frontal assaults, often against the enemy's strongest point.
10. A belief in brute force rather than clever ruse.
11. A failure to make use of surprise or deception.
12. An undue readiness to find scapegoats for military setbacks.
13. A suppression or distortion of news from the front, usually rationalized as necessary for morale or security.
14. A belief in mystical forces--fate, bad luck, etc.
"…they have a common etiology and can be understood in terms of a complex interaction between the nature of military organizations and certain features of human personality…"
"Since decision making is by definition a cognitive process, then obviously the oldest theory is in one sense a truism, but it by no means follows that the simple hypothesis of low intelligence fits the bill. On the contrary, by looking further into the nature of decision processes we are compelled to entertain another rather different possibility, namely, that the apparent intellectual failings of some military commanders are due not to a lack of intelligence but to their feelings. Cognitive dissonance, pontification, denial, risk taking and anti-intellectualism are all in reality, more concerned with emotion than with intelligence. The susceptibility to cognitive dissonance, the tendency to pontificate and the inability to adjust the riskiness of decisions to the real situation are a product of such neurotic disabilities as extreme anxiety under stress. Low self esteem, nervousness, the need for approval and general defensiveness. These, it seems, over and above his level of intelligence are the factors which interfere with what a man decides to do in a given situation.
Military organizations make for military incompetence in two ways--directly, by forcing their members to act in a fashion that is not always conducive to military success and indirectly, by attracting, selecting and promoting a minority of people with particular defects of intellect and personality.
The root cause of all this is that since men are not by nature all the well equipped for aggression on a grand scale, they have had to develop a complex of rules, conventions and ways of thinking which in the course of time, ossify into outmoded tradition, curious ritual, inappropriate dogma and that bane of some military organizations, irrelevant "bullshit". We are talking of "militarism" a sub culture which in the end may well hamper rather than facilitate warring behavior…"
"The essential nature of militarism should now be clear. We see it as an ever increasing web of rules, restrictions and constraints, presided over by an elite, one of whose motives was to preserve the status quo. We see it, in the case of the older European powers, as the natural product of a fundamentally jealous, class conscious hierarchy whose nostalgia and basic conservatism ensure that the present must always bear the hallmark of the past. And we see it as remarkably similar in may respects to the ethos of the prototypical Victorian upper class family group, where absolute obedience and submission to authority are traded for security and dependence."
"…that since at a deeper level of analysis militarism constitutes a number of defenses against certain anxieties, people who share the same anxieties and have a predisposition towards similar sorts of defense will be drawn towards membership of the military…In other words, an individual with particular problems of a psychological kind may be expected to gravitate towards a group which he recognizes not only as continuing fellow sufferers, but also as having developed effective ways of dealing with the special needs of its members."
"…In following this line of thought, we start with the apparent paradox that whereas the military way is concerned with the defense against the external enemy, a large part of militarism concerns defenses against the anxieties and aggressive of its member subscribers…"
"…It is just because the business of a soldier is destruction and violence that the need to take general precautions against disorder become so pressing…"
"Whatever its etymological significance, such definitions certainly capture the nature of military "bull" one of the most astonishing, apparently irrational and yet significant aspects of militarism, one which connotes an attitude of mind, a pattern of behavior and an end product."
"…the phenomenon involves ritualistic observance of the dominance submission relationships of the military hierarchy, extreme orderliness and a preoccupation with outward appearances. In this latter respect it is the extension of a commonplace tendency in most human societies--that of taking outward show as the criterion according too which most judgments are made…"
"…besides its emphasis on appearances and its constraining aspects "bull" also involves a compulsive concern with cleanliness. In this respect alone it may achieve impressive levels of irrationality."
"…Like any compulsive system, "bull" and its close cousins, ritual dogma and superstition have put themselves so far beyond reasoned thought that they create resistance to change and the acceptance of new ideas."
"…it is no accident that "bull" is so closely linked to conservatism for its very nature is to prevent change, to impose a pattern upon material and upon behavior, and to preserve the status quo whether it is that of shining brass or social structure…"
"For a start it seems to be a natural product of authoritarian, hierarchical organizations. Secondly, though its outward and visible signs are manifold, they have three common denominators. The first is constraint, the second deception, and the third substitution for thought, in a sense each follow from the other…"
"…Perhaps the single most important feature of "bull" is its capacity to allay anxiety. There are two components to this function, one conscious and rational and the other unconscious and compulsive. Both operate to reduce two sorts of anxiety, the first social and the second instinctual."
"Again the imposed uniformity which is part and parcel of "bull" obviously make for group cohesiveness and that "we're all in it together" feeling which combats fear. We must suppose too, that the heightened conformity which it imposes will, like other forms of perceived conformity, encourage people through a diffusion of responsibility , to perform acts which they might otherwise avoid…"
"It would perhaps be truer to say that since the imposing of "bull" upon troops serve to reduce initiative, it will thereby increase the feeling of dependency which they have towards their superiors. This in turn will increase their obedience and loyalty…"
"But there is another less obvious reason for "bull", namely that it serves to reduce deeper seated feelings of anxiety which may well have their origins in events, unrelated to the here and now, of which the subject remains blissfully unaware. The response in this case has about it an immediacy which is clearly not the product of conscious deliberation. The most extreme examples of this phenomenon occur in obsessive compulsive neurosis, a condition in which the patient feels compelled to follow a pattern of ritualistic thoughts and acts. That these often includes such bizarre symptoms as compulsive hand washing, a preoccupation with timing and counting recurrent ruminative ideas, stereotyped verbal utterings and always standing with one's toes absolutely in line, has obvious significance for more military versions of the malaise. One underlying feature of such symptoms is that they are repetitive, stereotyped and occur without insight into their origins. Another is that they center around cleanliness and orderliness. Finally they are often defenses against anxiety or suppressed anger. This is clear from the great distress which may be occasioned by their forcible prevention…"
"Such symptoms are not, of course confined to the chronic sick. Wilder forms may well occur in the normal population during times of stress…"
"But why should compulsive ritual reduce anxiety, and what are these deeper anxieties."
"…it must be said that they involve for matters of primary importance in every human life: sex, elimination, eating and death…"
"…the greatest anxieties concern death and unconstrained disorder. Since the two are inextricably related, a defense against one is a defense against the other also. This is perhaps the crux of the origins of "bull"."
"Let us approach this from another standpoint. Whatever its particular form, "bull" results in a state of affairs which is opposed to what many people would regard as a primary source of delight, the natural diversity of nature. Towards such diversity it is implacably hostile. It is no exaggeration to say that this aspect of militarism is dedicated to the ironing out of differences, the efficiency with which it destroys variety and imposes uniformity is matched only by its demand for conformity."
"…it seems then that since "bull" is primarily concerned with substituting pattern for randomness, it evidently reduces anxiety by the reduction of uncertainty. But why should the removal of uncertainty in trivial matters assuage anxiety for more important issues?"
"By way of trying to explain these effects, two overlapping theories can be invoked. The first is that of entropy reduction. This maintains that "bull" exemplifies a general principle common to all organisms, that of combating randomness."
"According then to this theory of entropy reduction, "bull" represents an extreme manifestation of a general and necessary propensity on the part of living systems to resist randomness…But like waking consciousness in contrast to the dream, and normality in contrast to psychosis, "bull" makes its effect by constraint upon the "creativity" of thought."
"Obviously, the constricting, information reducting aspects of "bull" extend beyond the individual and his immediate possessions to embrace the total social scene, thereby preserving the hierarchy of rank and status, separating high from low, and delineating what is, from what is not, appropriate behavior for every situation."
"Just as the General Adaptation Syndrome is the body's response to the internal effects of stresses, so "bull" may be regarded as an organization's response to the threat of its disintegration. In the military this threat has two sources: the external enemy and the aggressive impulses of its own members. In either case, the greater the threat, the greater the constraints…"
"…the precise details of the process whereby babies-disorderly, demanding, self indulgent and incontinent- are turned into clean, dry, socially responsible adults is still a matter for debate. According to psycho analytic theory, between the ages of one to five years the fear of losing parental affection together with the threat of other dire consequences, moves the child towards renunciation of old habits for some rather bleak new ones. The latter reflect the standards of the society into which he has been born."
"Now those needs of a baby which results in the sorts of behavior for which socialization is required are in fact, as Freud has pointed out, centered on three erogenous zones of the human body, the lips and mouth, the genitals and the anus. In babies, as in adults stimulation of these areas is evidently pleasurable. This relationship between need and pleasure is hardly to be wondered at, in as much as it provides the essential motivation for the three vital activities of eating, elimination and reproduction…in its raw form, however, such enjoyment is hardly compatible with the ethos of adult society, which in demanding some control of basic drives, attempts to curb their free expression…Normally, however, and against apparently formidable odds, this hard fought campaign draws to a satisfactory conclusion, with parent and child winning a harmonious victory over the dark forces of disorder."
"I say "normally", for sometimes, so it has been suggested, there occurs a concatenation of factors which results in lasting effects of great relevance to the subject matter of this chapter. They include an unduly strong attachment by the child to the pleasure it derives from its erogenous zones an unduly strong distaste on the parent's part for manifestations of the child's underlying drives and as a consequence, the implementing of an unduly strict training program. When there three factors are operating, the resulting situation, which approximates to that of an irresistible force pitted against an immovable object, probably reaches its climax in the period of pot (or as some prefer to call it toilet) training. The nature and outcome of this process may be summarized as follows: the small child obtains considerable pleasure from its bowel movements, but when this pleasure is tempered by anxiety as a result of harsh training schedule the usual result is reaction formulation…In extreme cases he becomes parsimonious, stingy, meticulous, punctual, tied down with petty self restraints. Everything that is free, uncontrolled, spontaneous is dangerous."
"Now it does not need any vast stretch of the imagination to see more than a passing similarity between these obsessive traits and the practice of "bull". Both are ritualistic, concerned with cleanliness and orderliness and designed to hold down and then cover up, impulses of a totally opposite kind…"
"…Hence, so called obsessive traits may be regarded as defenses not only against dirt, but also against aggression--the aggression which originally arose through frustration of infantile desires. But "bull" also has a two pronged purpose, to combat dirt and to prevent illegitimate outbursts of aggression (aggression that is, towards superiors--the frustrating and potentially dangerous "parent figures")."
"…Only one last connection between "bull" and obsessive compulsive symptoms is the tenacity and proliferation…"
"…We are not saying that military organizations are hotbeds of obsessive neurosis, nor that those given to "bull" are necessarily manifesting compulsive symptoms. On the contrary, all that we have tried to show is that the anxiety reducing, aggression controlling and tenacious nature of "bull" becomes at least partly explicable in terms of two non-mutually exclusive theories. As to the second theory, the ontogeny of socialization is no more than a special, learned instance of the first, more general, principle that life depends upon the preservation of a minimum level of orderliness.
"There are four corollaries. Firstly, we would expect a complementary relationship between perceived threat and the occurrence of compensatory devices to preserve orderliness…Secondly, these compensatory devices or patterns of behavior might be expected to involve compulsive cleanliness and strict observance of a dominance submission relationship because the threat of disorder which they are (unconsciously) designed to meet activates a much earlier threat of being overtaken by the forces of disorder and aggression, a threat which is overcome by cleanliness and obedience. Thirdly, since the original causes of these reactions to threat are lost to consciousness, the resulting behavior tends to resist rational modification. Fourthly, since military organizations represent, par excellence, outlets for and consequently defenses against aggression and disorder, they will tend to attract people who have some difficulty in reconciling these conflicting needs, people who overvalue aggression, order and obedience…"
"…In other words, those very characteristics which are demanded by war--the ability to tolerate uncertainty, spontaneity of thought and action, having a mind open to the receipt of novel, and perhaps threatening information--are the antitheses of those possessed by people attracted to the controls and orderliness of militarism. Here is the germ of a terrible paradox. Those very people who because they have adopted attack rather than submission or flight as their preferred defense against threat are in theory best suited to warring behavior, may be the very ones least well equipped for other components of successful fighting…"
"Whatever it other causes military incompetence implies a failure in leadership. This is hardly surprising. Of the psychological problems which beset military officers few exceed in severity those associated with leadership. In this respect they are required to fulfill incompatible roles. They are expected to show initiative, yet remain hemmed in by regulations. They must be aggressive, yet never insubordinate. They must be assiduous in caring for their men yet maintain an enormous social distance. They must know everything about everything, yet never appear intellectual. Finally, as we saw in the last chapter, they well have been selected for attributes almost totally unrelated to the tasks they are expected to perform…"
'"…in military organizations leaders are usually of a rather different kind. For a start they are appointed rather than emergent…Secondly the military leader possess constitutional power of a magnitude which surpasses that of leaders in most other human groups…"
"The third and related feature of military leadership is that it is essentially autocratic and operates in what modern theorists call a "wheel net" rather than an "all channel communication net"…Not very surprisingly the wheel net, though no doubt gratifying to autocratic leaders, produces more errors, slower solutions to problems and reduced gratification to the group than does the more democratic all channel net…"
"…It has been shown that whereas low stressed groups, operating in situations that are devoid of painful uncertainties, do best under democratic leadership, organizations like the military in times of war that are subject to stressing ambiguities actually prefer autocratic leadership. In other words the feelings of dependency induced by stress successfully neutralize a person's normal antipathy towards the autocratic leader…"
"…There are at least three related reasons. Firstly in war, as in other situations of mortal threat, there is an understandable urge to clutch at straws--the good aspects of a leader are seized upon, the less good conveniently denied. We would guess that this anxiety reduction will moreover, be particularly likely to occur in a situation without degrees of choice. The situation of a soldier, in an organization which allows of no escape, confronted by the threat of imminent destruction, is just one such. To put it very simply, he makes the best of a bad job, and this includes wholeheartedly accepting a leader even when the latter was not of his choosing."
"Again it is in the nature of military organization to recapitulate the psycho dynamics of an authoritarian family group, one in which the pater families can do no wrong. It is not necessary to be an ardent believer in psycho analytic theory to realize that in times of stress, there is a natural harking back to an earlier source of security."
"But there is still one other reason for the extraordinary tolerance shown towards disastrous leaders, their invisibility…"
"The ideal military leader is of course, one who manages to combine excellence as a task specialist with an equal flair for the social or heroic aspects of leadership. Since the traits required for these two aspects of leadership are rather different, these so called "Great Man" leaders have been comparatively rare…"
"…There is however one further aspect of these more nebulous qualities of leadership which has played a not inconsiderable part in the story of military incompetence. It concerns the position which an individual occupies on two related continua: those of boldness to caution, and impulsiveness to indecision. Over the years military incompetence has resulted more than from a dearth of boldness than from a lack of caution, and more from a pall of indecision than from an excess of impulsivity…"
"…But there are more fundamental and pervasive reasons for these failures in leadership which can be ascribed to the general psycho pathology of military organizations. Their common denominator is anxiety. It is a feature of armed services that the penalty for error is very much more substantial than the reward for success…The net result of this bias towards negative reinforcement will be that fear of failure rather than hope of success tends to be the dominant motive force in decision making, and the higher the rank the stronger this motive because there is farther to fall. There are of course other reasons for supposing that the anxiety which tends to curb bold initiative will be stronger in the higher levels of command than lower down the hierarchy. For one thing, responsibility is greater and for another, perhaps for the first time there is no one higher p to whom the senior commander can appeal."
"…It concerns the role of false premises in the training of officers, false premises that have their origin in a simple and obvious fact: that an expectation of superiority in a leader by those who are led will increase the tendency to follow him. If on a priori grounds, you believe that someone is better educated and knows more than you do, then you will be more prepared to follow his lead than if you are not party to this belief."
"…Confronted with the necessity of recruiting its officers from a section of society that would have been unthinkable in years gone by, the military has made what it regards as the best of a bad job by insisting that, since officers must still be gentlemen, where no natural gulf exists between those who lead and those who follow this must be artificially inculcated by training..."
"…Here were crash courses in martial expertise and Spartan morality designed to turn ordinary youths from respectable middle class homes into highly professional officers. But somehow, somewhere along the line, the whole enterprise backfires. The youths emerged as four neo-feudal paternalistic despots, extraordinary anachronisms in the military forces of a modern democracy. It seems that all that remained of his training in the mind of each recipient was a faulty syllogism: officers should be gentlemen: I am an officer therefore I am a gentleman. After this he seemed to behave neither as an officer nor as a gentleman in any generally accepted sense of these terms…"
"…The argument centers around what has come to be known as a person's "social reinforcement standard": the set of expectancies which he acquires regarding other people's behavior towards him. From earliest infancy we all begin to build up a set of such expectancies…"
"…Nowadays things are different. The social distance between officers and men is more often than not, contrived rather than rooted in their ancestry. For officers of humble origins this might well be expected to produce sizable problems of adjustment…'
"…unable to protest, these new young officers have no alternative but to adopt a fresh set of expectancies which are so wildly discrepant with what they have been used to that they begin to overplay their hand. Conscious of the gap between their background and what is now expected of them, they over compensate. What is worse, for the individual whose ego is on the fragile side, this tendency to over compensate will be exacerbated by the discovery that, whereas ninety percent of his fellow human beings may be heaping him with ego boosting forms of address, there still remains another ten percent, his seniors, to whom, in theory if not in practice, he remains in contemporary equivalent of what used to be called a wart…"
"…From a general study of leadership it seems that there is much in military organizations to invite leadership. Officers are selected for the wrong reasons, required to fulfill incompatible roles and expected to function adequately in a communication system of dubious efficiency. At higher levels of command they are protected from adverse criticism by their invisibility, and by the plain fact that in times of stress even the poorest leaders, like drunken fathers and rabbits feet, are clung to with pathetic if misplaced dependency."
"Besides providing legitimate outlets for aggression, the gratification of obsessive tendencies and reassurances about virility, armies and navies also cater for another basic human motive: the need to achieve. They do this in several ways. First they embody related hierarchies of rank, money and class--with rank depending more (in the old days) upon money and class than upon merit…Second they accentuate the challenge of the promotional ladder by making certain upward movements very difficult indeed…Third the ethos of the armed forces is such that to make advancement laudable and highly rewarding…"
"Finally even the most modest thirst for achievement is encouraged by training and convention…"
At first sight these arguments would seem to suggest that the possibility of promotion in a military organization would attract those with a potential for achievement…unfortunately however, there are aspects of a military career which are unlikely to attract people with high achievement motivation. The fact that, traditionally, promotion depends upon seniority, class, wealth, conformity and obedience may well leave them rather cold. Neither the means nor the ends are sufficiently attractive.
…There is however another class of person for whom the military might well be an attractive proposition. These are people whose achievement motivation is pathological in origin. The crucial difference between the two sorts of achievement--the healthy and the pathological--may be summarized by saying that whereas the first is buoyed up by hopes of success, the second is driven by fear of failure. Both types of achievement motivation have their origins in early childhood. The former is associated with the possession of a strong ego and independent attitudes of mind, the latter with a weak ego and feelings of dependency. Whereas the former achieves out of a quest for excellence in his job, the latter achieves by any means available, not necessarily because of any sincere devotion to the work, but because of the status, social approval and reduction of doubts about the self that such achievement brings.
Although these two sorts of achievement motive may bring about rapid even spectacular promotion, their nature and effects are very different. The first is healthy and mature, and brings to the fore those skills required by the job in hand, the second is pathological, immature and developing of traits, such as dishonesty and expediency which may run counter to those required in positions of high command…
…The contrast in both cases is between the self imposed asceticism of high achievement motivation and the self indulgence of one less concerned with professional excellence than with personal advantage.
Clearly there are exceptions to the rule…One can only opine that to total behavior of these officers suggest that there must be other variable which contribute to the obvious differences in professional excellence and egocentric self betterment…
Notwithstanding these exceptions and at risk of over simplifying what are really very complex issues, there are grounds for believing that high achievement motivation characteristics manifestly successful commanders. By itself this is not a very surprising conclusion. Its real importance, however, resides in its antecedents and even more particularly in the attention it draws to those people whose motivation took them to the top but was clearly not concerned with professional excellence. In considering this reverse side of the coin we have to ask what was the nature of their impulse and how is it that some of the criteria for promotion in military organization are evidently such as to favor people with a pathological degree of achievement motivation?
There are grounds for thinking that incompetent commanders tend to be those in whom the need to avoid failure exceeds the urge to succeed…
"…They have to achieve not for the satisfaction which achievement brings but because only by so doing can they bolster up their constantly sagging self regard, a case of running hard to stay in the same place. But herein lies their special dilemma. Through they need to achieve, it is the very act of trying which exposes them to what they fear most-failure…"
"…this state of mind leads to a number of compromise solutions. Thus the person who fears failure prefers tasks which are either very easy or very difficult. If they are easy he is unlikely to fail, if very difficult then the disgrace attaching will be small, for no one really expected him to win. He will also tend to choose non-competitive jobs while avoiding complex or unfamiliar ones. He will be conformist rather than prepared to stick his neck out. He may gravitate towards careers which offer order, minimal competition, gradual advancement and diffuse responsibility and if forced into serious situations of achievement will be most concerned with the social approval that is placed on his behavior…"
…Contemplation of inept commanders suggest that they were of the latter genre. In the first place, they were renowned, almost without exception, for being hypersensitive to criticism. This fear of criticism follows directly from their need for social approval, which in itself the child of low self esteem…
"…As for the question of physical bravery, it in no way detracts from feats of courage to note that the fear of being afraid, the fear of social disapproval for cowardice and most important the personal shame attendant upon flinching in the face of danger cold drive a man to perform acts of valor far beyond the normal call of duty. This is not to deny that bravery occurs for other reasons--out of pure altruism or patriotism--but merely that some individuals are so lacking in self esteem that they will gladly exchange the fear of failure for their own physical destruction…"
"…In other words those sorts of behavior--conformity, obedience and physical bravery--which earn social approval and increased self esteem are the very ones rewarded by steady advancement in military organizations. Conversely many of the traits associated with the more entrepreneurial aspects of need achievement--unconventionality and scant regard for the approval of others--are not welcomed in military circles…"
"…Even if he has…considerable ability and can learn to overcome the more disastrous products of a weak ego, the man who reaches a position of high command out of a compulsive thirst for personal advancement will tend to lack that creative talent and flexibility of mind so necessary in modern warfare. In this respect he is twice cursed--firstly by his underlying personality which resulted in his attraction to the military, and secondly by a lifetime of learning to curb initiative and freedom of thought. Freedom of expression and cognitive processes unfettered by inhibitions were not looked upon with favor in military personnel…"
It seems than that in the case of achievement motivation (as with obsessive tendencies), military organizations attract and then reinforce those very characteristics which will prove antithetical to competent military performance…
"In discussing military organizations it was suggested that a symbiotic relationship exists between certain characteristics of armed services and the private needs of their individual members. Emphasis was laid upon the central role in this relationship of anxiety, that insidious motivator of much human behavior. In the military mind, it was pointed out, anxiety has many sources--fear of death and mutilation, fear of superstition, fear of failure and social disapproval, fear of public disgrace, and underlying all that fear of total disorder which is an inseparable product of unleashing normally tabooed instinctual forces. Finally it was suggested that a special predisposition towards these several sorts of anxiety may be present in some people as a result of their early childhood. Such people may well be drawn towards military organizations because the latter have of necessity, perfected devices like "bull" and discipline, hierarchical command structures and rigid conventions which not only allow of aggression without anxiety but actually reduce anxiety that may have originated at a much earlier period of life.
In the light of all of this it is encouraging to encounter a substantial body of research which not only provides support for the thesis but also fills in many of the gaps. It is that on the Authoritarian Personality.
"For the impetus behind this study of authoritarianism we have to thank the founders and proponents of the Third Reich. They it was who presented to the world a phenomenon the like of which has never been seen before or since--the systematic and bureaucratized murder of six million Jews. To the inquiring mind, anti-Semitism on this scale would seem to demand at the very least, some explanation. For a group of researchers at Frankfurt and later at Berkeley, in the University of California, the fact that human prejudice could assume such monstrous proportions suggested the possibility of a particular personality type being implicated in the perpetuation of these dark events.
"They were not alone in this supposition. Some ten years earlier the Nazi psychologist Jaensch reported that he had identified two basic personality types, "S" and "J". "S" types were so called because they manifested synaesthesia, the harmless enough tendency, one might think, to have subjective experiences in one modality when receiving stimulation in another. For Jaensch this artistic gift of being able to experience affinities between say colors and sounds amounted to a sort of "perpetual slovenliness" the careless mixing up of sensory impressions. Pressing the matter further, he fond that this trait went along with other "regrettable tendencies". The "S" type was liberal in his views and eccentric in behavior. He was also weak, effeminate, and prone to the heretical belief that people were largely shaped by their environment and education. All this Jaensch claimed (largely on the basis of his own prejudices and political leanings) was the result of inter-racial contamination and mixed heredity. "S" or "anti-types" as they were also called included Jews, Orientals and Communists. Fortunately for his racist views, if not for the repute of scientific theorizing, Jaensch also "discovered" a contrasting class of individual which he modestly labeled the "J" type. "J" types were "good" types and would make good Nazis. Amongst their sterling qualities were purity in perception and sure knowledge that human behavior is determined by blood, soil and national tradition. The "J" type would be a he man, hard and tough, a man you could rely on. These qualities would, he said, have been handed down by a long line of north German ancestors…"
"The one that corresponded to the "J" type they called the authoritarian personality. Such a person had anti-Semitic, rigid, intolerant of ambiguity and hostile to people or groups racially indifferent from himself. By the same token, the polar opposite to this type, Jaensch's contemptible "anti-type" was individualistic, tolerant, democratic, unprejudiced and egalitarian."
"…the results delineated the authoritarian personality. People who were anti-Semitic were also generally prejudiced and conservative. They also tended to be aggressive, superstitious, punitive, tough minded and preoccupied with dominance submission in their personal relationships. That this cluster of traits suggested a unique underlying personality structure was borne out by clinical interviews. It seems that authoritarians are the product of parents with anxiety about their status in society. From earliest infancy the children of such people are pressed to seek the status after which their parents hanker."
"There seem to be two converging reasons why such pressures produce prejudice and the other related traits. In the first place, the values inculcated by status insecure parents are such that their children learn to put personal success and the acquisition of power above all else. They are taught to judge people for their usefulness rather than their likeableness. Their friends and even future marriage partners are selected and used in the service of personal advancement, love and affection take second place to knowing the right people. They are taught to eschew weakness and passivity, to respect authority, and to despise those who have not made the socio-economic grade. Success is equated with social esteem and material advantage, rather than with more spiritual values. Then again, they are imbued with their parents with rigid views regarding sex and aggression. Sex is dirty and aggression permissible only towards such out groups as Jews, Negroes and law breakers. To complete this gloomy pattern, the sex role of stereotypes of an "upright" middle class are rigidly implanted. Boys must be masculine, tough and strong, and girls (under a respectable cloak of frigid femininity) aloof to the possibility of granting their favors in the service of status seeking. "
"In the second place the interview data collected by the Berkeley researchers also suggested that the parents of their authoritarian sample imposed these vales with heavy hand. It seems that, for these families, "the turning of little primates into little ladies and gentlemen" was an exercise in punitive repression. It is here that we discover the link between socially insecure parents and the prejudice manifested by their children. The extreme strictness of the parents, coupled with their lack of warmth, necessarily frustrates the child. But frustration engenders aggression which is itself frustrated, for it is part of the training that children never answer back. Hence the aggression has to be discharged elsewhere, and where better than on to those very individual whom the parents themselves have openly vilified--Jew, Negroes and foreigners--all those in short, who, being underprivileged have acquired bad reputations in a status seeking society."
"In other words, albeit quite unwittingly, an authoritarian upbringing kills three birds with a single stone. It produces submission to the authority of the in group. It arouses aggression which is displaced on to a carefully defined out group. By these means the status seekers achieve their underlying goal, for the relativity of status depends upon the existence of an underprivileged out group. By these means the status seekers achieve their underlying goal for the relativity of status depends upon the existence of an underprivileged out group, and how better to ensure this state of under privilege than by aggressive persecution."
This theory based upon the psycho analytic notions of displacement and projection, explains the one striking finding of the Berkeley research, namely that the authoritarian personalities manifest a monolithic self satisfaction with themselves and their parents, and this despite the fact that no love was lost between them during the so called formative years. This apparent paradox is resolved when one considers the dynamics of authoritarian discipline. For the person who is anxious about status, it is imperative that his and his parents shortcomings should be strenuously denied. This is achieved in two ways: firstly as we have seen, by projecting their undesirable characteristics on to others, secondly by nurturing an impeccable and idealized, if wholly false, image of themselves…the lifestyle of the authoritarian personality is one of finding and prosecuting in others what he has come to fear in himself. This example of attack being the surest way of defense would be incomplete, however, if the individual did not also entertain a highly idealized image of himself. (It is this combination of transparent if unconscious hypocrisy and smug self satisfaction that makes such people particularly insufferable).
"These tortuous machinations of the authoritarian mind ramify yet further. Because he has to deny his shortcomings he dare not look inwards. He is fearful of insight and strenuously avoids questioning his own motives. By the same token, he cannot allow his extra punitive defenses to be threatened by humane considerations for the objects of his hostility. At first sight this may seem a useful adaptation to the tribulations of early childhood. Unfortunately, however, a price is paid--one which can prove crippling to the human mind. In the place of free ranging, creative and inventive thought, an authoritarian's thinking is confined to rigid formulae and inflexible attitudes. He is intolerant of unusual ideas and unable to cope with contradictions. Recent research confirms the authoritarian's preference for order and simplicity. As Brown has put it: "if he has a problem the best thing to do is not to think about it about and just keep busy". Similarly, the authoritarian personality is intolerant of ambivalence and ambiguity. Just as he cannot harbor negative and positive feeling for the same person but must dichotomize reality into loved people versus hated people, white versus black and Jew versus Gentile, so also he cannot tolerate ambiguous situation or conflicting issues. To put it bluntly, he constructs of the world as image as simplistic as it is at variance with reality…"
"…one such is the nine year research by Rokeach, another American, published a decade after the Berkeley research. His The Open and Closed Mind centered on the problem of an individual's capacity to absorb fresh information. Humanity it seems, varies considerably in this respect. At one extreme, are open minds, ready and willing to entertain new facts, even if these are incompatible with their previously held attitudes and beliefs, at the other are closed minds, which as their name suggests, resolutely resist taking in anything that conflicts with their preconceptions and treasured beliefs. Not very surprisingly the possession of a closed mind turned out to be yet another facet of the authoritarian personality. This finding had great generality…"
"Finally we come to something touched upon in an earlier section, the psychology of the obsessive personality. It will be recalled that this type of person, orderly, stingy and stubborn is in reality manifesting the prolonged effects of the early infantile conflict between being dirty and wishing to avoid the wrath of parents who themselves have anxieties about dirt. He resolves this conflict by developing the triad of personality traits given above. They represent symbolic defenses against those tendencies which he has had to renounce or to be more accurate keep under strict control. Under the circumstances it is not surprising that a positive relationship has been fond between obsessionality and authoritarianism."
"What is the relevance of all this to military incompetence?"
"…To be more specific, the personality traits of authoritarianism and the associated characteristics of the closed mind and obsessive character, may contribute to incompetence in the following ways:
1. Since authoritarians have been found to be more dishonest, more irresponsible, more untrustworthy, more socially conforming and more suspicious than non-authoritarians they are more unlikely to make successful leaders.
2. Authoritarians will be less likely to understand enemy intentions, and to act upon information regarding such intentions as conflict with the beliefs and preconceptions which the commander must hold…
3. The inability to sacrifice cherished tradition and accept technical innovations…
4. The underestimation of enemy ability (particularly when the enemy are colored or considered racially inferior)…
…The contribution of authoritarian prejudice to military incompetence is that it introduces an inappropriate variable into the selection or sacking of personnel…
5. An emphasis upon the importance of blind obedience and loyalty, at the expense of initiative and innovation at lower levels of command…
…This readiness to obey even when the consequence of obedience was an act of outrageous inhumanity, was significantly greater in authoritarian personalities than others.
Besides providing support for one facet of authoritarianism, this finding has a two fold relevance for military incompetence. Firstly, the effect of obeying orders which they knew to be wrong and which conflicted with their normal set of values left the participants in a severe state of mental and physical stress--one hardly conducive to military efficiency. Secondly it is just this aspect of authoritarian obedience…which leads to such atrocities as that of the My Lai massacre--atrocities which quite apart from their inhumanity do great harm to the prestige and therefore efficiency of the military organization in which they occur.
6. The protection of the reputations of senior commanders and punishment of those lower in the military hierarchy if they voice any opinion which however valuable in itself implies criticism of those higher up…
7. Closely related to the foregoing effects of authoritarianism is an individual's propensity to blame others for his own shortcomings…
8. The close relationship between authoritarianism and obsessive traits has also played a significant part in military incompetence…
9. There is one trait of the authoritarian personality which at first sight may seem to have nothing whatever to do with military incompetence, belief in supernatural forces…
10. One of the least attractive aspects of the authoritarian personality is his generalized hostility, what the Berkeley researchers called "vilification of the human…
"However, we must stress that it is not purpose to level value judgments about the lack of humanity of particular commanders but rather to point out that the aspect of authoritarianism which constitutes a lack of humanity makes for military incompetence. Furthermore, humanitarianism in a senior commander contributes to military success in at least two ways. Firstly it is a controlling factor in the making of tactical or strategic decisions, for it feeds into the complex process by which such decisions are arrived at two important criteria: economy of force and the need for safeguards against the possibility of unforeseen disasters…"
"Secondly humanitarianism is a prerequisite for those pillars of military success, high morale and physical health…"
"Finally there is the fact that authoritarianism itself so damaging to military endeavor, will actually predispose an individual towards entering upon the very career wherein his restricted personality can wreck the most havoc…"
"Before going on, there is one further point. It concerns the distinction that has been drawn between "irrational" authoritarianism as dealt with here, and so called "rational" authoritarianism. By the latter is meant the readiness to accept and obey the dictates of rational authority. An irrational antipathy towards all authority, as evident in some cases of student militancy may be just as neurotic and non-adaptive as a predisposition towards "irrational" authoritarianism. The common denominator of "irrational: authoritarianism and blind anarchy is that both states of mind are compulsive and derive from underlying ego pathology. "
"In fact this distinction between "rational" and "irrational" authoritarianism has been implied throughout this book. Without the exercise and acceptance of rational authority, without certain minimal levels of discipline and even without certain features of "bull", military organizations would cease to function."
"It is necessary to labor this point because of some semantic confusions regarding the term "authoritarian". Throughout this book it refers to the (irrational) authoritarianism of T.W. Adorno and his colleagues. For so called rational authoritarianism we prefer the phrase "autocratic behavior". The terms are not synonymous. Whereas the autocrat exercises tight control when the situation demands it, the authoritarian is himself tightly control led, no matter what the external situation.
While this summarization of the psychology of military incompetence provides a crucial insight into the functioning of the human irrationality variable in the realization of strategy, its primary focus has been toward the senior echelons of military command, on the pretext that military incompetence at these levels has a most pronounced and decisive influence on the course of strategy. Yet its basic concepts are applicable at all levels of command, down to the private soldier, and to the civilian counterparts in any related organizations that may influence strategy and the overall effects of such diversified incompetency might play a more decisive influence than the more specialized form at senior command levels. Psychology has made many important contributions to understanding but has not directly influenced reform. It cannot destroy the military organization without constructively filling the void with an improved system, but it must be carefully tested. Typical of psychological surveys, while of immense critical value, it offers little constructive suggestions in its criticism for changes to eliminate or minimize the effects of the causes of incompetence. While some centralization, control of aggression, drill and bullshit may be necessary, it seems that emphasis should be toward its minimization instead of maximization. It will increase of its own accord under stress of conflict. This leads to a central confusion of war and peace. We need a proper perspective, with an increased emphasis on intellectual goals, positive rather than negative reinforcement, a more open, feasible all channel communication net and a ore democratized decision making structure. We need to reevaluate the human worth and the role in the military organization with an orientation towards its maximum effectiveness through increased integration and valuation of the human element, leadership and the communication net. There is a deep underlying bias of society in general, an equation of society and civilization with peace in which war and the military are dichotomized as brief, abhorrent but inevitable interruptions. There is to be recognized a danger of these inversed values of society and dichotomization leading to an outcasting of the military as an external and inferior if necessary dirty work organization instead of an honorable if unpleasant profession of continuing if not diminishing importance, such as any police organization, neither to be exaggerated in importance nor unrecognized for its worth. The military system fallacy is based on a general underestimation of the potential human worth consistently throughout military organization.
While this theory is primarily concerned with the individual psychology affecting the military, of personal incompetence and its reflection and causes in military organization, the military organization as a whole, and as divisible sub-units, and as a sub-unit of a higher level of social organization, achieves a momentum, a character and a decisive influence of its own, in addition to the sum of its individual constituents, which may contribute to the non-physical vulnerability factor and the realization of strategy. A social unit is not only a sum of its individual constituents of their abilities and limitations but assumes an identity of its own, superseding or inhibiting the potentialities of its members. This has summarily been termed the "system" and its name, though indefinite and nondescript in general use is very applicable in this context. The influence of this system may be slower to change than the personnel involved, exerting a continued negative influence long after a complete turnover of personnel has occurred, or it may negatively influence the effects of the total group despite the unanimous and unquestionable competence of its members.
Research into this area has fallen mainly to the task of sociology and social psychology and has yielded complementary and mutually reinforcing theoretical insights into the nature of the extension of the unpredictable and imperfect human variable. One important contribution is made by the book "Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Survey of Foreign Policy Decisions and Fiascoes" by Irving L. Janis, the theoretical outline of which is here briefly summarized:
"…the deficiencies about which we know the most pertain to disturbances in the behavior of each individual in a decision making group--temporary states of elation, fear, or anger that reduce a person's mental efficiency, chronic blind spots arising from a person's social prejudices, shortcomings in information processing that prevent a person from comprehending the complex consequences of a seemingly simple policy decision…The usual way of trying to counter the limitations of individuals mental functioning, however, is to relegate important decisions to groups."
"Groups like individuals have shortcomings. Groups can bring out the worse as well as the best in man. Nietsche went so far as to say that madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups. A considerable amount of social science literature shows that in circumstances of extreme crisis, groups contagion occasionally gives rise to collective panic, violent acts of scape-goating and other forms of what could be called madness. Much more frequent are instances of mindless conformity and collective misjudgment of serious risks, which are collectively laughed off in a clubby atmosphere of relaxed conviviality…"
"Lack of vigilance and excessive risk taking are forms of temporary group derangement to which decision making groups made up of responsible executives are not at all immune. Sometimes the main trouble is that the chief executive manipulates his advisers to rubber stamp his own ill conceived proposals. In this book, however, I shall be dealing mainly with a different source of defective decision making, which often involves a much more subtle form of faulty leadership. During the group's deliberations the leader does not deliberately try to get the group to tell him what he wants to hear but is quite sincere in asking for honest opinions. The group members are not transformed into sycophants. They are not afraid to speak their own minds. Nevertheless, subtle constraints which the leader may reinforce inadvertently prevent a member from fully exercising his critical powers and from openly expressing doubts when most others in the group appear to have reaches a consensus…"
"Many other sources of human error can prevent government leaders from arriving at well worked out decisions, resulting in failures to achieve their practical objectives and violations of their own standards of ethical conduct. But, unlike group think, these other sources of error do not typically entail increases in hard heartedness along with soft headedness. Some errors involve blind spots that stem from the personality of the decision makers. Special circumstances produce unusual fatigue and emotional stresses that interfere with efficient decision making. Numerous institutional features of the social structure in which the group is located may also cause inefficiency and prevent adequate communication with experts. In addition, well known interferences with sound thinking arise when the decision makers comprises a non-cohesive group. For example when the members have no sense of loyalty to the group and regard themselves merely as representatives of different departments with clashing interests, the meetings may become bitter power struggles at the expense of effective decision making.
The concept of group think pinpoints an entirely different source of trouble, residing neither in the individual nor in the organizational setting. Over and beyond all the familiar sources of human error is a powerful source of defective judgment that arises in cohesive groups--the concurrence seeking tendency which fosters over optimism, lack of vigilance and sloganistic thinking about the weakness and immorality of out groups. This tendency can take its toll even when the decision makers are conscientious statesmen trying to make the best possible decisions for their country and for all mankind.
I do not mean to imply that all cohesive groups suffer from group think, though all may display its symptoms from time to time. Nor should we infer from the term "group think" that group decisions are typically inefficient or harmful. On the contrary, a group whose members have properly defined roles, with traditions and standard operating procedures that facilitate critical inquiry is probably capable of making better decisions than any individual in the group who works on the problem alone. And yet the advantages of having decisions made by groups are often lost because of psychological pressures that arise when the members work closely together, share the same values and above all face a crises situation in which everyone is subjected to stresses that generate a strong need for affiliation. On these circumstances, as conformity pressures begin to dominate, group think and the attendant deterioration of decision making set in .
The central theme of my analysis can be summarized in this generalization which I offer in the spirit of Parkinson's Law: The more amiability and Esprit de Corps among the members of a policy making in group, the greater is the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by group think, which is likely to result in irrational thinking and dehumanizing actions directed against out groups. "
Hypothesis about when group think occurs:
"When group think is most likely to occur pertains to situational circumstances and structural features that make it easy for the symptoms to become dominant. The prime condition repeatedly encountered in the case studies of fiascoes is group cohesiveness. A second major condition suggested by the case studies is insulation of the decision making group from the judgments of qualified associates who, as outsiders, are not permitted to know about the new policies under discussion until after a final decision has been made. Hence a second hypothesis is that a more insulated a cohesive group of executives becomes, the greater are the chances that its policy decisions will be products of group think. A third hypothesis suggested by the case studies is that the more actively the leader of a cohesive policy making group promotes his own preferred solution, the greater the chances of a consensus based on group think, even when the leader does not want the members to be yes men and the individual members try to resist conforming"
"…The eight symptoms of group think are:
1. an illusion of invulnerability, shared by most or all of the members, which creates excessive optimism and encourages taking extreme risks;
2. collective efforts to rationalize in order to discount warnings which might lead the members to reconsider their assumptions before they recommit themselves to their past policy decisions;
3. an unquestioned belief in the group's inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions;
4. stereotyped view of enemy leaders as too evil to warrant genuine attempts to negotiate, or as too weak and stupid to counter whatever risky attempts are made to defeat their purposes;
5. direct pressure on any member who expresses any strong arguments against any of the group's stereotypes, illusions or commitments, making clear that this type of dissent is contrary to what is expected of all loyal members;
6. self censorship of deviations from the apparent group consensus, reflecting each member's inclination to minimize to himself the importance of his doubts and counter arguments;
7. a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view (partly resulting from self censorship of deviations, augmented by the false assumption that silence means consent);
8. the emergence of self appointed mind guards, members who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.
When a policy making group displays most or all of these symptoms, the members who perform their collective tasks ineffectively and are likely to fail to attain their collective objectives. Although concurrence seeking may contribute to maintaining morale after a defeat and to muddling through a crisis when prospects for a successful outcome look bleak, these positive effects are generally outweighed by the poor quality of the group's decision making. My assumption is that the more frequently a group displays the symptoms, the worse it will be the quality of its decisions. Even when some symptoms are absent, the others may be so pronounced that we can predict all the unfortunate consequences of group think.
"…in effect then, the hypothesis asserts a positive relationship, which may be far from perfect, among three variables that can be assessed independently. A high degree of group cohesiveness is conducive to a high frequency of symptoms of group think, which, in turn are conducive to a high frequency of defects in decision making . Two conditions that may play an important role in determining whether or not group cohesiveness will lead to group think have been mentioned--insulation of the policy making group and promotional leadership practices."
"Obviously the main generalization about the relationship of group cohesiveness and group think is not an iron law of executive behavior that dooms the members of every cohesive group to become victims of group think every time they make a collective decision. Rather, we can expect high cohesiveness to be conducive to group think, except when certain conditions are present or special precautions are taken that counteract concurrence seeking tendencies."
When a group has a low level of cohesiveness there are of course sources of error in decision making in addition to deliberated conformity out of fear of recrimination. One that is especially likely to plague a non-cohesive group of politicians or administrators is a win lose fighting stance, which inclines each participant to fight hard for his own point of view (or the point of view of his organization) without much regard for the real issues at stake. When unlike minded people who are political opponents are forced to meet together in a group, they can be expected to behave like couples in olden times who were forced to live together by a shotgun marriage. The incompatible members of a shotgun committee often indulge in painfully repetitious debates, frequently punctuated with invective, mutual ridicule, and maneuvers of one upmanship in a continuous struggle for power that is not at all conducive to decisions of high quality. This is another reason for expecting that policy making groups lacking amiability and esprit de corps, even though shared the unfavorable symptoms of group think will sometimes show more symptoms of defective decision making and produce worse fiascoes than groups that are moderately or highly cohesive. When we consider the two major sources of error that beset non-cohesive groups, deliberate conformity out of fear of recrimination and a win lose fighting stance, we see that cohesive groups can have great advantages if group think tendencies can be kept from becoming dominant.
As the members of a decision making group develop bonds of friendship and esprit de corps, they become less competitive and begin to trust each other to tolerate disagreements. They are less likely to use deceitful arguments or to play safe by dancing around the issues with vapid or conventional comments. We expect that the more cohesive a group becomes, the less the members will deliberately censor what they say because of fear of being socially punished for antagonizing the leader or any of their fellow members. But the outcome is complicated because the more cohesive a group becomes, the more the members will unwittingly censor what they think because of their newly acquired motivation to preserve the unity of the group and to adhere to its norms. Thus, although the members of a highly cohesive group feel much freer to deviate from the majority, their desire for genuine concurrence on all important issues, to match their opinions with each other and to conduct themselves in accordance with each others wishes--often inclines them not to use this freedom. In a cohesive group of policy makers the danger is not that each individual will fail to reveal his strong objections to a proposal favored by the majority but that he will think the proposal is a good one, without attempting to carry out a critical scrutiny that could lead him to see that there are grounds for strong objections. When group think dominates, suppression of deviant thought takes the form of each person's deciding that his misgivings are not relevant, that the benefit of any doubt should be given to the group's consensus. A member of a cohesive group will rarely be subjected to a direct group pressure from the majority because he will rarely take that position that threatens the unity of the group.
Prior research on group dynamics indicates that at least three different types of social regards tends to increase group cohesiveness friendship, prestige and enhanced competence. Concurrence seeking tendencies probably are stronger when high cohesiveness is based primarily on the rewards of being in a pleasant "clubby" atmosphere or of gaining prestige from being a member of an elite group than when is based primarily on the opportunity to function competently on work tasks with effective coworkers. In a cohesive policy making group of the latter type, careful appraisal of policy alternative is likely to become a group norm to which the members conscientiously adhere, this helps to counteract group think. But even when the basis of high cohesiveness is enhancement of task oriented values in a well functioning group whose members trust each other sufficiently to tolerate disagreements, there is still the danger that group think will become a dominant tendency. Each member develops a strong motivation to preserve the rewards of group solidarity. Each member develops a strong motivation to preserve the rewards of group solidarity, an inner compulsion to avoid creating disunity, which inclines him to believe in the soundness of the proposals by the leader or by a majority of the group's members.
The central explanatory concept involves viewing concurrence seeking as a form of striving for mutual support based on a powerful motivation in all group members to cope with the stresses of decision making that cannot be alleviated by standard operating procedures. Anxieties aroused by salient risks of material losses for themselves and for their organization or their nation will generally impel members to become vigilant, to set in motion the administrative machinery for obtaining objective information, and to institute other standard operating procedures for working out careful plans in order to eliminate the threat. However, other sources of stress in decision making cannot be coped with so easily. For example, few, if any, operating procedures enable a policy maker to cope with the threat of losing self esteem from violating ethical standards of conduct. Often the groups deliberations about policy issues generate within each participant an intense conflict between humanitarian values on one hand and the utilitarian demands of national or organizational goals, practical politics, and economics on the other. The participant may try to reassure himself with the platitudinous thought that "you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs." Nevertheless, each time he realizes that he is sacrificing moral values in order to arrive at a viable policy he will be burdened with anticipatory feelings of shame, guilt and related feelings of self depreciation which lower his self esteem. Similar feelings are generated whenever a decision maker is faced with a perplexing choice that he considers beyond his level of competence or that forces him to become keenly aware of his personal inadequacies. For all such sources of stress, participating in a unanimous consensus along with the respected fellow members of a congenial group will bolster the decision maker's self esteem.
Concurrence seeking and the various symptoms of group think to which it gives rise can be best understood as a mutual effort among the members of a group to maintain self esteem, especially when they share responsibility for making vital decisions that pose threats of social disapproval and self disapproval. The eight symptoms of group think form a coherent pattern if viewed in the context of this explanatory hypothesis. The symptoms may function in somewhat different ways to produce the same result.
The greater the threats to the self esteem of the members of a cohesive decision making body, the greater will be their inclination to resort to concurrence seeking at the expense of critical thinking. If this explanation hypothesis is correct, symptoms of group think will be found most often when a decision poses a moral dilemma, especially if the most advantageous course of action requires the policy makers to violate their own standards of humanitarian behavior. Under these conditions, each member is likely to become more dependent than ever on the in group for maintaining his self image as a decent human being and accordingly will be more strongly motivated than ever to maintain a sense of group unity by striving for concurrence.
This theory of group think offers profound insight into the passable defects of the system but also serves as only a partial explanation. While its focus is primarily on the dynamics of top executive groups, small in number, on the presumption that they can critically influence strategic determination. It is possible that group think occurs in milder form in many types of groups including those with military staff organizations, low level as well as high, in which the group decision making process may contribute to the eventual outcome of strategy. It may also be applicable to much larger organizations. While group think emphasizes the specific decision making process of groups, it opens the door to further speculation and deeper insight of the possible defects of the system. A continuing group mentality may result in inflexible maladaptive group behavior patterns, which solidify into group character and culture which describes the distinguishing idiosyncrasies of the group and could have a decisive influence on the realization of strategy. This group character may occur in small groups or in whole nations, continuing to function after a complete turnover of the constituency many times over, restricting analytical and constructive action and changes with doctrine, sop, dogma and tradition. While it may help to fulfill the capabilities of some of its members it may prove detrimental to the whole group.
This solidification of patterned behavior is characterized by the influence of old times trade value of time in service as being equivalent to experience and competency, with the strong heritage of stories and memories and a net growth in the solidarity of group character. Group character is based on the underlying assumption that despite inheritance and previous learned behavior patterns, people are influenced by the external group environment of the moment, by their group, to the degree that their behavior follows predictable grouped patterns of response in everyday functioning. The group forms a common set of social expectations which become reflected in the operation of the system and are sought by its members in the initiation of new members, of manipulating, punishing or ostracizing members failing to conform to the standards, rewarding those who are most adept at fitting into the patterns and the rejection of any new procedures or outside influences which contradict or intervene in the continuity of the on going normal character, being rationalized as dangerous to group morale, operational efficiency and security, leading to double standards by the leadership and inept Sop's and having a decisive influence in limiting and directing the willpower of its members. The willpower reflects the transient attitudes which can be manipulated and directed and the group morale which may be lower than perceived by an insulated and filtered command and which is in continual fluctuation, determining both the upper attainable ceiling of will power and the lowest acceptable standards of behavior. The longer the group has been operating the higher the stress levels caused by a changing environment and the more similar and common the origins of its members the greater the group characterization. The greater the tendency to form group character the more adverse will be the effects on strategic determination. Newly formed groups operating in radically external conditions and with a membership of diverse backgrounds with minimal cohesiveness, the less will be the ill effects of group character. Some character and an optimum level of group cohesiveness is valuable to the efficiency of group and individual operations, yet too much of either may be easily harmful. Character will become expressed in terms of the resultant culture which gradually develops and counterculture which develops within. Group character, indefinable in any explicit manner is more a vague but generally certain feeling and a prejudice which lends itself to easy stereotype.
Underlying group character but more subtle in influence is the morality of the members of the group which may often come into conflict with group character. Group character often seeks to replace these personal value systems with a group value system, a process reflected by the attempts of open groups to separate the church and state so as to have multiple value systems functioning simultaneously within the same group, mutually reinforcing one another, or by the communist direct displacement of older religious value systems to enable a new communist value system to take root and develop. The stronger the group character the more common is the group value system. The purposes of strategic determination ultimately rests on this group value system. If this value system is limited and superficial, the strategy adopted will have similar characteristics. To be successful strategy must be in harmony with this value system. The group value system is not explicitly identifiable, but is something intangible and somewhat undefined, overlapping with group character when it achieves objective conceptual expression, consisting of nonverbal consensus of the majority of values of the members expressed by glib and trite phrases and clichés. These values form the basis of feelings which circumscribes and limits strategic determination and may be so subtle as to be only subconsciously held, limiting and filtering the amount and type of news perceived, information processed and the rationality of subsequent behavior patterns. Group value systems forms the basis of group culture. Because they are so difficult to accurately identify and define, and can be so unquestionably defended or denied, the group value systems are the slowest to change, the hardest to reform and can wreck the most amount of havoc in the realization of strategy. A group value system may so influence the patterns of thought and behavior of its members and the subsequent determination of strategy to the extent that the group may inadvertently seeking unfavorable and unacceptable circumstances which result in reinforcing these values and in incompetence and even self destruction. There also exists the possibility that patterned behavior may be genetically inherited which can ultimately form the basis of strategic determination in stagnated and highly insulated gene pools.
While group think, group character and group values serve to maintain the cohesion of the group and continued persistence of behavior patterns affecting decisions, the group is continuously bombarded by changes, facts and contradictory dimensions to which it must adjust or else suffer the consequences. The irreversible effects of the evolution of civilization are frequently met with attempts to recreate or return to a previous simpler environmental condition and these reactionary endeavors become reflected in nonfunctional strategic decisions. These are the adverse effects of the condition of future shock which creates the time lag between external reality and the realization of strategy, the results of too much change too fast. Words, phrases and books becomes obsolete frames of reference, and strategic determination becomes regressive. This condition of collective group shock may be illustrated by the adverse effects of the too rapid modernization which is outside induced on primitive cultures; in the form of culture shock which often proceed unnoticed to drastic levels. These are the adverse affects of the exponentially increasing growth rate of civilization, in which human behavior patterns and enculturated value systems have remained too long unaltered in a drastically changed environment, a slow but culminating process in which the old agricultural value systems and characterizing behavior patterns are eroded and cease to be functional in a changed modern environment, never quickly enough replaced by new more functional patterns and values. Often there is left a void of new replacement functions and the reactionary operational patterns are initiated as the only available apparent modes. While the individual's intellectual capacity may be capable of handling tremendous stress the collective group mentality may be rather less capable and ultimately respond in a nonfunctional manner. The collective conceptual basis for the evaluation of the present conditions and the extrapolation of realistic future values rapidly becomes irrelevant and obsolescent. The seniority system of leadership, the past experience and wisdom of the sages is no longer adequate criteria for strategic determination. The higher up the decision making ladder the more adverse the possible effects on strategic realization.
This leads to consideration of the adverse affects on noise in the two way intelligence transmission and communication net which is a key element to the realization of strategy. While not being a sole factor in defeat, a lack of proper intelligence has had a critical influence in the realization of strategy. The military is a human system and as such is subject to human limitations. The command, control and communication vital to the unity of this system are subject to human friction in the viable inabilities. As the site and complexity of the military system is increased so too is the amount of friction and the need to subdue it, while inherent human channel capacity has remained unchanged. The greater is the required channel capacity, the more difficult is strategic determination in the military system and in its counterparts, the larger are the required staff organizations and the less liable is the command to receive and process vital and pertinent intelligence. Larger organization requires greater insulation, specialization and differentiation to subdue this increased friction and noise, yet without appropriate integration this trending leads to over specialization which eventuates in extinction of any synergistic entity in a naturally entropic environment. Military systems as only one example of many, when considered synergistically suffer drastically today from a condition of over specialization.
Computers and electronic communication technology has become vital aid to this coordination process enabling an exponentially increased channel capacity. There is a tendency to presume that the computer is an infallible independent and that its results are always veritable. The computer is essentially a tool, an extension of the human personality and as such it does not by itself think or make strategic determinations, but only enables men a much larger capacity for doing so. While it may produce tremendous advantages it may also magnify to drastic proportions minor errors in the programming text or minor fallacies of its human controllers. Its technology may suffer in a synergistic context the same weaknesses as it does its human counterparts in the determination and realization of strategy. While its results may seem reasonably conclusive they may nevertheless not be the best nor the most preferable choice in the human environment.
The intelligence net is still vulnerable to the human variable as the final determinant in the realization of strategy. There is a recurrent tendency of this intelligence net to overemphasize probabilistic modes of strategic determination to the stubborn ignorance or even blatant denial of possibilistic modes, even when the contradiction of possible risks is obviously dangerous. Strategic determination is a process in which risks are discerned, evaluated and compensated for in the realization of strategy. Possibilism is the more fundamental process in which risks are evaluated as to the maximum amount of possible danger and strategy is then oriented to reducing the value of these risks. Any and every possible risk is determined from all intelligence, requiring a substantially increased amount of channel capacity. Possibilism underlies probabilism, which recognizes the inevitable infinity and difficulty involved in the contribution of all possibilities, concentrating instead effort to what is deemed the most probable course of action to the exclusion of minor possibilities. This is where intelligence and valuation whether it be in the collective form of the group or in the personal form of the individual constituent plays such a decisive role in strategic realization. It must be recognized that all strategy eventually must be derived from the probabilistic mode of thought, yet herein lies also its crucial weakness, when valuation dominates to the preclusion of realistic intellection in the more fundamental, basically defensive, possibilist mode. This is the dilemma presented by human nature, the subject object dichotomy, in the problem of strategic determination and realization, a problem with which no computer, no matter how complex in design and function can cope. Probabilism is the basis for offensive spirit, but its overemphasis has resulted in an ignorance and overlooking of risks which have often played a decisive role in the net outcome.
This tendency toward probabilism is no doubt a reflection of the same human and system imperfections which have been previously noted. This tendency has several identifiable symptoms. (1) A general denigration of the importance of the role of intelligence resulting in a failure to make adequate reconnaissance. (2) An over dependence on active intelligence sources such as reconnaissance in force or reconnaissance by fire and of "official" second hand sources to the neglect of "unofficial" sources, more passive and subtle forms and ignorance of telltale signs or more abstract reading in between the lines. (3) An overemphasis on intelligence operations leading to a general neglect of counterintelligence operations in the form of concealment and camouflage (passive) and in the active form of deception and misleading feints. (4) A misplaced reliance on the intelligence system to function as strategic determinor on the basis of completed staff work instead of the command properly assuming that responsibility of strategic determination in the probabilistic mode. The appropriate role of the intelligence function is as gatherer of information and reducer of possible risks, of enemy locations, a function of time and mobility and enemy force potentials and vulnerabilities. Intelligence functions primarily in the possibilist mode and only secondarily and under appropriate circumstances in the probabilistic. (5) A failure to cross-examine and validate alternative intelligence sources. (6) An unrealistic consideration or ignorance of other operating factors, weather, terrain, morale, native population. (7) An increased frequency of nonfunctional responses to enemy deceptions and feints. (8) A general failure to adequately interpret dangerous signs of enemy activity and concentration leading to a nonfunctional response to main enemy efforts. (9) A failure to adequately process intelligence information leading to premature conclusions and a state of strategic shock culminating in decisive defeat.
Closely related to the function of intelligence in the tactical sphere of operations is the function of information in the logistical sphere of preparation. While a failure in the former function can have a major contributory influence in the limitation of strategic ends a failure in the latter function can have a similar influence by the limitation of strategic means. The basis for this form of failure is similar to the tendency toward probabilism. It is the tendency to proceed in tactical operations and in strategic determination as if logistics were an open ended unlimited source of power subordinated to tactical and strategic considerations rather than as a limited and important determinant of the scope of tactical operations.
Symptoms of this general failure are (1) A lack of overall continuity in the requirement, procurement and distribution phases of logistics resulting from a lack of harmony between the consumer and producer. (2) A failure to adequately assess the rate determining factors and potentials at key points throughout the logistics process, resulting in a simultaneous occurrence of undermanned and overworked staff at some points and superfluous inefficient manpower wastages at other points. (3) A failure to adequately assess logistics requirements resulting in limited over ambitious tactical operations or an over concern of logistic limitations resulting in a loss of initiative and a failure to exploit tactical successes, a tendency toward immobility. (5)Sudden unanticipated shortages of crucial resources and a continued oversupply of irrelevant resources, comfort items and conveniences rather than necessities. (6) Emphasis on the continued servicing of obsolete and inadequate components while a rapid regeneration of new and adequate versions is left unserviced. (7) A noticeable wastage of resources physical and human as well as too much preventive maintenance to the ignorance of crucial maintenance needs or to the limitation of tactical operation or a squandering of important resources or a hoarding of nonfunctional ones. (8) A lack of reserve systems, alternatives or replacements (9) An inhibitory amount of red tape or a lack of an organized resource control system. (10) A lack of logistical flexibility to changing operational requirements.
A consideration of neglect in the logistical sphere limiting the realization of strategy leads to another set of limitations arising from the general failure of the military system to implement an adequate military government. War usually causes a vacuum of power control behind the force operations which forces the controlling military organization to set up a temporary makeshift government. Failure to do so usually arises from the attitude about war as being an interruption of peace and power control in which anarchy and devil's justice becomes the rule instead of the exception, instead of war being an intensified continuation of peace during which new variables are introduced as a decisive influence on the course of realization of strategy. General symptoms of this failure include (1) a general ignorance of the necessity and importance of adequate military government resulting in a relinquishing of the responsibility and inadequate incorporation of military government into the system in peacetime preparation. (2) an overemphasis on military government in meeting forces to the neglect of the needs of the native civilian population. (3) a high displacement rate of civilians and an unsolved refugee problem resulting from a failure to meet the immediate and long term needs of these people and leading to an increased in underground crime, terrorism and guerrilla warfare leading in turn to stricter enforcement of law and diversion of more front line troops. (4) a high civilian casualty rate resulting from a failure to use force discriminately. (5) an increased reliance on improvised oxbow justice vigilantism and retaliation due to a lack of formalized constitutional justice. (6) a failure to apply justice in the use of force resulting in an indiscriminate use of force leading to incidences of inhumanity and atrocity and violence reciprocated in turn. (7) a high attrition rate and low morale in both peacetime and during wartime leading to an increased rate of drug abuse, insubordination, desertion and mutiny. (8) an increasing reliance on the use of force in the administration of justice, a tendency towards punitive reinforcement of standards and a general lack of positive reinforcements. All of these types of symptoms may occur simultaneously, are interdependent and interrelated causes of escalation resulting in a snowball effect similar to failure in the logistics process in siphoning need forces and supplies from the main strategic effort which can have a critical influence in the determination of strategy. There is a tendency arising from common origins as failure in intelligence and logistics to treat military government as if with minimal importance and secondary value rather than as an important crucial determining factor in strategy.
There is yet another often neglected factor in strategic determination, a general failure to provide for adequate health and morale of the human element of the military system. Symptoms of this failure are: (1) a high peacetime as well as wartime casualty and attrition rate. (2) a tendency to overemphasize curative programs to the neglect of preventive programs. (3) a frequent failure to apply adequate and timely medical aid resulting in an unnecessary attrition rate. (4) a separation of these medical services from the control of the command structure of the system, in which they are deemed as an unavoidable side effect rather than as a decisive factor in strategic determination. (5) an over reliance on vague intangible quantitative comparisons to the neglect of first hand qualitative evaluation in the analysis and judgment of these determining factors, health and morale. (6) a tendency to rely on nonfunctional superstitious panaceas in the treatment of mental health and morale evidenced by an overabundance of preachers and religious leaders in the command structure to a general exclusion of para-psychological and psychiatric assistance with a laconic attitude toward self reliance and character values in the solving of complex and debilitating personal problems. (7) a noticeable over exaggeration or under indulgence of troops with a general lack of sincere continuity in their care and frequent fluctuation with changing command in the vales of the "system". (8) a breakdown in the medical system, an overworked staff leading to increased inefficiency.
Morale can be increased just by cultivating the general feeling of being cared for and by continual but unexaggerated proper indulgence. Failure in this important aspect results from a general attitude and doctrine of the mission as being more important than the men. Instead of being dichotomized these two factors of men and mission must be integrated in strategic determination. Neither one comes before the other in importance to the realization of strategy. An optimum balance must always be sought. The reality of mission over men so often professed by the military mind leads to an overemphasis of the former and a neglect for the latter resulting in detrimental snowball effect in the expectations of command and decreasing morale evidenced by an over reliance on punitive negative reinforcement and a general lack of application of positive rewards. A failure in a reward system results in a general tendency for monetary, rank, social and liberty rewards to become instead of realizable and realized objectives in a constituent's career an unrealizable favor of command seldom materializing. A general dichotomization of war and peacetime leads to the confusion of the two in which the erroneous belief is entertained that positive reinforcement of rewards should be purposely foregone in peace as part of preparation for war in which assisted deprivations are of necessity suffered. The inalienable peacetime rights of members are treated as manipulated privileges often foregone on the rationalization about deprivations necessarily suffered in wartime. War is an intensified and increased continuation instead of an interruption of peace in which the determining factors are magnified and complemented rather than altered and replaced. War has similar affinities with peace. The attrition rate in peacetime, desertion, morale, dishonorable discharges and military crimes is similar to the wartime attrition rate of death and injury.
This consideration of the affinity of conflict and peace leads to a corollary determinant in the realization of strategy, a redundant failing of peacetime preparation of men in training and leadership. Symptoms of this failing of peacetime training for war include (1) a redundant and continuing training doctrine oversimplified, resisting change and adaptation to alternative circumstances. (2) an overemphasis on drill and rote memorization of unquestioned shallow and simple lessons, resulting in lack of fluidity and depth and a stagnation of knowledge. (3) a lack of continuity and expansion of technical expertise in which personal style and creativity is severely crapped. (4) an almost completely unquestioned sycophancy to the training doctrine, eventuating in obsolescent, unrealistic, stagnant and nonfunctional behavior patterns and conceptualizations. (5) a consensus of dissatisfaction among the constituency and boredom in training leading to fantasy escapes and finalizing in alcoholism, drug abuse, and lowered morale. (6) over reliance on secondhand formalized information and on the documented print, on training schedules, literature, technical manuals, to a neglect in constructive first hand experience, leading to false presumptions and misinterpretations of criteria in evaluating training. (7) a noticeable gap between the said and the done. (8) an over dependence on inspections and frontal shows of cleanliness and efficiency to impress others. (9) a promotion and rewards system based more on maintaining the status quo, oriented towards the loudest, most favored and favoring quasi religious values of character logical personality traits and social leadership rather than technical proficiency, resulting in a cultivation of ignorance in the command structure and ranks. (10) a noticeable lack of mobility and mental flexibility of command. (11) a continuity or noticeable of standards based on over reliance on the opinion of command, reflected in a biased system and double standards, and stress on pedantry rather than investigative research and critical analysis based on relevant criteria. (12) a fragmentation of training doctrines, variation of doctrine and double standards throughout the system reflecting a lack of comprehensive unity. (13) an overemphasis on physical functions, capabilities and a genera ignorance of intellectual capabilities and exercises. (14) failure of promises, general disillusionment and low morale.
Two standards must be stress in peacetime training; individual proficiency and team efficiency. There are no second best standards. The limitations of peacetime training is in being unable to provide the necessary blooding, of being shot at as well as shooting, and in providing the necessary intensification of events. These limitations cannot be overemphasized . Training should not attempt to duplicate war but full consciousness of the limitations must be maintained. In stimulating war a very close approximation can be attained, not as a concentrated single experience but as a sum of different and interrelated experiences in proper perspective occurring over a less intense period of duration. The optimum training level must be recognized beyond which diminishing returns set in. an over trained uncarefully patterned professional elite can be as inhibiting to strategic determination as an inadequately trained conscript army of teenagers. What is sought from peacetime is not to duplicate war but to stimulate it in proper proportion to attain an optimum level of response to the event of actual war. Some training procedures may be effectively implemented in peacetime which of necessity will be foregone in wartime. The sole criteria for the basis of training programs should not only be the operating doctrine which occurs in wartime, such as group discussion, all channel communication nets and democratic leadership practices to simulate wartime battlefield promotions. All too often the command talks down to the constituency, turning them off from active mental participation and interest, and subsequently blames them for the commands own mistake. Rigid textbook training is too limited, teaching lessons which must be relearned in wartime.
The survey of this possible determinants which could have an adverse influence in the realization of strategy leads to a survey of possible limitations of existing emphasis in the staff organization and leadership of the command structure. While some of the strategic determinants have a functional staff in the command structure to deal with the specialized problems there exists a lack of continuity throughout the command levels, disorientation of roles and a lack of intercommunication and unity between the various staff function.
At present there are four generalized staff functions, intelligence, training, logistics and personnel administration to the neglect of the function of military government. The role of the intelligence branch to gather vital information and evaluate risks often tends to be confused with the role of command in strategic determination. They should consider equally not only intelligence but counterintelligence operations and rely equally on a wide variety of sources and operating procedures rather than limited source or method to test and cross examine. The primary function is to determine the location and strength of the enemy. Personnel staff functions stresses administration, paperwork of records and contracts and orders to the neglect of evaluation of qualitative factors of morale, psychology and physical and emotional health. Training staff functions suffers from a discrepant lack of unity between the stated goals and standards and the operational reality, with a redundant lack of continuity and adequate documentation of past training methods to provide basis for progressive development of training methods. Logistical staff functions confuse its primary role of determination and realization of resources and supply of logistical information about shortages with the command's responsibility of determining the logistical feasibility of an operation. It should only advise, not make the final decision. The function of military government is usually a responsive improvisation to need rather than a prepared implementation. A staff functioning to critically evaluate and service the role of justice as a determinant in strategy would substantially increase the operating efficiency of the command structure and reduce the commands responsibility and time in this area which may be better spent in other areas if involvement. Another staff function which might be implemented to provide an overall coordination and intercommunication between the separate staff groups would be the evaluation and analysis of data produced from each section and to provide a continuous comprehensive reevaluation of force potential, vulnerability and enemy force potential and vulnerability, assisting the command in probabilistic prediction making, policy formulating on the basis of completed staff work, serving as secondary relay in the communication net between the command and staff. The staff organization has its application within the command structure limited to the battalion level, resulting in an impersonality of the system which is so oppressive to initiative and personal reform. It might be made more efficient by transferring and duplicating these battalion level functions down to the company and even platoon level on a proportionate scale of operation. This increased functioning capacity of the staff organization would at first glance seem to require an increase in personnel and a greater specialization of labor. The staff organization has a preponderant reliance on the authority of the written word and official red tape, requiring a larger number of personnel to handle these aspects of command. An increased integration into the staff organization of the computer and electronic communication at all command levels would increase significantly the operating capacity and efficiency requiring a minimum of red tape and entailing an overall reduction of personnel. The initial expense of such an integration of machine technology would be more than compensated for by the long run cost reduction and savings of more efficient operation. The computer cold handle the quantitative aspects of the system leaving the human element free to handle the qualitative aspects.
The command structure, whose primary function is strategic determination, serves two roles in leadership, that of social leader and that of technical expertise. This dichotomic nature of command is reflected in the dual nature of the command structure, in which the commissioned officer rank structure serves primarily the first role of social leadership while the enlisted rank structure serves primarily the second role of technical expertise. This division of leadership responsibility has several side effects which adversely affects strategic determination. The proper roles at each command level can become confused and neglected resulting in an unnecessary amount of emotionality taking up precious channel capacity. It creates an unnecessary amount of nodal points through which the strategic determination process must pass before becoming functionally realized. The dual command structure is an anachronistic and obsolete carryover of an archaic social system that was founded primarily on negative reinforcement by an aristocratic nobility, of superior socio-economic status in controlling a poorly trained conscripted centizenry, aided in technical matters by an elitist mercenary staff of professional soldiers. While at one time serving as a useful and important function with a predominant division between upper and lower social classes, its continuance into the military systems of modern post industrialized democratic societies with a strong middle class that is well educated as a rule and not the exception is no longer adequately functional nor efficient. The sophistication of the modern personality and social relationship is vastly increased creating new but unsolved problems of social organizational reforms. The superior position of the officer command structure over the enlisted rank structure sets into motion adverse influences in the strategic determination process. The emphasis on the command structure is primarily on the former function of social leadership, stressing cultivation of quasi-religious character traits rather than technical proficiency. The latter technical aspects of leadership are of secondary importance and tends toward increased specializations rather than generalized integration. The two functions are of reversed emphasis and are dichotomized, resulting in a tendency toward advancement of people with the former capacity to the neglect of the latter.
The career of the officer which promises prompt promotion to the highest command levels and untold higher benefits, makes his primary concern promotion while technical proficiency is only of secondary and subordinate importance. Officers are appointed from above from a limited resource pool and form only a small ration of the overall organization. Stratification of the social system could result in a general and dangerous uniformity of character traits of officers at higher ranks. As officers occupy higher positions of the command structure they become further and unnecessarily removed from the realistic and technical aspects of the system, from the operational realization of strategy and results of strategic determination. There is an increased amount of influence and interference by the staff organization between the command and the realization of strategy. The members with the most potential for initiating reforms in the military system, the high ranking officers, are those least predisposed for doing so. Such reforms being possibly most harmful to their future careers.
The enlisted command structure remains primarily in the lower echelons of command, offering a limited future career and providing little incentive for intelligent career oriented individuals, resulting in a overall cultivation of incompetence, mediocrity, and power hungry individuals to the neglect of technical proficiency, initiatives and intelligence. The enlisted membership forms a larger and more diverse resource pool with the majority ration which is less likely than the officer structure to suffer the negative effects of stratification of socio-characteriological traits. Orientation of technical proficiency is toward increased specialization with increased generalized technical proficiency, rather than a divisive specialization in which disunity of command rather than comprehensive control is the rule, and overall responsibility is relinquished to a nonexistent ghost entity instead of being individually increased. Technical leadership should be oriented toward increased integration and overlap of differing technical functions including an increased comprehensiveness of the staff functioning and the relationship of the staff to command.
The increased wartime field promotions based on technical proficiency and tested battlefield ability has no peacetime equivalent, but could be simulated by an orientation of promoting toward democratically selected task leaders rising from initiative and competence rather than selected from above on the basis of conformity and character. Instead of the wartime authoritarian wheel net communication system based on negative reinforcement, an all channel egalitarian net stressing positive reinforcement may be economically implemented in peacetime training, improving the performance level of the group, which would of necessity be transformed keeping authoritarianism to the minimum possible level rather than being maximized. An increased reliance on the free enterprise type of economy with a minimal social economy is a possible method of improving logistical and manpower performance. The peacetime military is a large pool of human resources whose potential in many alternative directions has largely remained untapped by the imagination and limited by the deep bias of the military mind. They may serve alternative functions of designing, new weapons, psychological and sociological profiles, etc. Instead of specialization and separation of tasks, generalization and increased integration throughout the system should be stressed. Individual creativity and teamwork should be the goals of the system, not conformity and unquestioned obedience, with built in safeguards against superfluity, individuality becoming a guise for nonconformity and teamwork an excuse for anarchy. The deprivation necessarily suffered in wartime do not justify deprivations suffered in a regular basis in peacetime, serving to inhibit rather than to improve military potential. Spartan leadership concepts and behavior result in an unnecessary amount of suffering of members to compensate for the inadequacies of the leadership and the system. It is an unprofitable trade off of nothing for something, creating a void of qualitative human evaluation and leadership, leading to dehumanization of the individual constituent and a cumulative overall erosion of the operational efficiency of the system. An integration of the dual command structure into a single command structure would solve many problems derived from its present dichotomic nature and improve the operational efficiency and humanization of the system. A reversal in leadership values is necessary with a decreased emphasis on quasi-religious character traits and aspects of social leadership and stressing instead realistic values of technical proficiency. Integrating the dual command structure would enlarge the human resource pool of selection of competence, encouraging task professionalization giving the opportunity for a good career to all constituents of the system, eliminating nonsensical, presumed social distinction of class, superiority and insulation of the officer, improving the morale, leadership and following producing overall improved operational efficiency which in turn would improve the realization of strategy.
Military organization has stagnated within the suffocating structure of institutionalization, assuming characteristics beyond those of its individual constituents, gathering a strength, character, and momentum of its own. It carries with it an inertia of bureaucracy, over specialization beyond practical levels, limiting human capability to uncreative and unproductive roles resisting the cultivation of generalized comprehensive wisdom and fruition of creative initiative. The snowball growth of bureaucracy results in an inertia of mental adaptability. The personal responsibility of command has been obscured by the authority of bureaucratic titles and roles, with the occurrence of officialdoms, the over centralization of command and a generalized reneging of responsibility to the system.
Bureaucracy has grown with the increasing complexity of weapons and warfare. It is the logical outcome of completed staff work, that all thinking needed to arrive at a decision has been done by a staff requiring only approval or disapproval by the command. It cultivates a stagnate state of mind that tends to grow in all individuals who exercise routine power. It leads to a stereotype of little imagination, narrow-mindedness, resentment to change, over protection of prerogatives, condemnation in advance, being highly skilled in administrative delay and involved in petty struggles for personal power. The greater the institutionalization of command the greater is the inertia of the system and maladaptability to change.
It is the nature of man and the system that the command cannot thoroughly consider plans, schedules leaving no leisure time for intuitive thinking essential to creative planning. The military is a system of dispersed responsibility. Today institutionalization is moving responsibility upward with the effect of erosion of decision making. With all decision being made at high command levels, low levels develop indecisive operating doctrines. Commands tend to raise the level of authority to make affirmative decisions, there is a subsequent official delegation of negative authority rather than affirmative. New members never learn to make decisions under the new system. Systematic authority and responsibility for decision making at appropriate levels is eroding. The greater is the institutionalization of command the greater centralization of command, with such over centralization resulting in ineffectual decision making through the cultivation of mediocrity. In a top heavy over centralized command structure all decisions crowd in at the top and await resolution. Command becomes so cumbersome and rigid that it must be telescoped under stress or urgency. Over centralization is conducive to abuses of power and compounding of mistakes, killing imagination, initiative, suffocating effectiveness and integrity.
These tendencies must be counterbalanced and minimized in their effect in decision making. There is needed a harmonization of theoretical concept. Mutual responsibility and conceptual unity start at the top and descends through the command. There must be a two way communication net, not just one way. As stress increases so does the need for combat effectiveness and political control. Organization is less important than the value and leadership of men, who may be distracted by personal achievement. Very few politicians will sacrifice their political future for national interests. An officer will sacrifice his life more readily that his professional career. The need of leadership is increased and less well met. The very nature of the overall command system may tend to lead down the path to the very disaster the system is designed to prevent.
There are two fundamental social models based on orientation to fundamental human nature and normative decision making needs. Both are extreme examples, tendencies to which have occurred imperfectly throughout history. One is the authoritarian power structure, from which the bureaucratic organizational model indirectly derives its nature. History has been plagued by an over abundance of this model. It is essentially parasitic to the fundamental human potential in every aspect. The other form is the democratic model, in which human decision making has been optimized within the system. The first is based on the maximization of centralized authority, the second model on the minimization of centralized authority. The second model has rarely occurred in history. It is a symbiotic and healthy human social model founded on fundamental human nature and allowance for its fullest expression. Organization is necessary for the communication and coordination of individual human effort. Inter-human communication has several limits to its scope of accomplishment primarily founded on mutual human understanding. The first model does not recognize these limits to adaptability and individual creativity and therefore bases its dependence entirely on an institutionalized system which works on paper but not in reality. It seeks to minimize human valuation and potential. A theory of decentralized organization for the military system that is more conducive to developing and maximizing the individual's capabilities and latent creativity is required, rather than the centralization of authority to one person, perhaps involving the alternatives of computerization of the system, improving the atmosphere of open communication and individual initiative and creativity in expression, the value of an open all channel communication net and of a democratized horizontal command structure.
There exists another human limitation in the realization of strategy, the efficacy of which is undeniable. It is the limitation imposed by the moral reality of war, of justice in the execution of strategy and in tactics. It is the continuing ignorance of the essential justice in strategic determination that leads to the escalation of war and violence and to the strategy of terrorism which usually in the end proves strategically unprofitable. The realm of justice and strategy are intimately interlaced in human nature, in the need for both, and offers the same fundamental dualism in its problematic expression. It is the dilemma arising from dichotomization of ends and means of justice and justice in war. For the individual these two ends and means cannot be properly dichotomized, but must be integrated. It comes in the final analysis to a question of the guilt of aggression, the guilt of the individual and of his social environment in the expression of self aggression, self pity, indirect aggression, sublimation, or of direct aggression. Justice is a process of separating and distinguishing the true guilt of aggression of society in a direct form and the guilt of self aggression in an indirect form. Within the power hierarchy of society the duality of justice is dispersed among four extremes of combatants, noncombatants, military leaders and civilian leaders. It is a question of proper self aggression and just direct social aggression. It is a question of individual refusal of unjust state demands.
Future conflict promises little room for adjustment after the fact of needed reforms which were neglected in peacetime strategic preparation. The human potential has been too long neglected, the individual being derogated to the role of an expendable functionary automaton instead of a human that has rights and qualities which needs to achieve expression. Militarism seems to be almost a necessary stage in the cultural and character logical development of a nation, a stage which is grown out of eventually, but not without lasting side effects, only after the completely negative influence of this generally pathological behavior results in an inevitable defeat, a disastrous shock to the culture and resultant disillusionment in political and military authority. This has seemed to be the experiential negativistic learning process by which the general ignorance of militarism is dispelled. Society in general remains relatively ignorant about the nature of military organization. The military in turn has capitalized on this general ignorance to enable the harmful persistence of many outmoded anachronistic social practices in violation of human rights. The underlying precept that the mission comes before the men is a key to the understanding of the duality occurring in the operational perspective of military organization. The dichotomization of men and mission enables many frequent peacetime as well as wartime violations of the moral reality of war. It is here stated that this fundamental precept of the mission and the men must cease to be dichotomized in the military mind. It must be integrated to achieve the mission and to care for the men. They go together, not separately, one cannot be without the other. This necessitates creative application in all strategic determination.
This dichotomization is the crucial clue to the irrationality which leads to the general pathological condition of the military mind. It may seem like a minor irrelevancy, yet this dichotomization or integration whatever is chosen, leads to many limited or transcendent conclusions, respectively, in military philosophy.
The subject object dichotomy that recurs in all philosophy as a basic duality is here most manifest. How we answer this question will determine how we go about thinking and acting about the military in general, as to whether it is a world apart isolated and insulated with its own governing rules. Here lies the heart of mankind's most pressing problem, that of rampant militarism. How it is answered must lead us either to the minimization of conflict, whether in the future we will opt for peace or for continuation and inevitable escalation of war. The human element in the abstraction of any military relationship must never be neglected, ignored, denied not substituted. Quite the contrary it must be maximized in value to achieve any successful determination in the realization of strategy.
The moral reality of war forms a crucial if pure human limitation to strategic realization. It is a responsibility to understand and exercise this reality which is shared by every human, irrespective of position, civilian, politician, commander or soldier. It is a reality which has been frequently violated, only implicitly recognized, and seldom enforced. Continued ignorance of this nonphysical limitation in future conflict may mean drastic happenstances. There is no worse totalitarianism nor greater authoritarianism than in war. The ultimate application of justice dictates the existence of no military nor the occurrence of war. No amount of military philosophizing can compromise this fact. The application of justice in the military and in war must precede any realization of peace. The ultimate objective of any strategy is an improved state of peace.
The future problem crucial to strategic determination for the civilian as well as for the military person is not the increase of destructive potential--the building of a better bomb--but rather the final evaluation of the human. How much are we going to ignore the human variable? How much value are we willing to place on the human resource? How much potential will he be allowed to acquire and how invulnerable will we render him to destructive force? The basis of these questions is the heart of all strategy and in its final most abstract sense it is a moral dilemma that requires a definable answer. It remains the unsolved the twenty thousand dollar dilemma which when finally resolved will be the basis of strategic determination.
Most of the problems of military organization are inherent to the very nature of militarism, arising out of necessity from the existence of military organization. This dilemma of weakness of organization leading to incompetence and strategic limitation as being the very nature of military cannot be ever overcome except through the complete eradication of the military and war. Yet as long as the military exists, the malevolent causes and effects can be minimized to enable a maximization of potential in strategic determination and realization. All of these inhibitions and defects arise from a single common yet most complicated source, the fact that a person is willing to allow himself to be a mere respondent to the dictates of his society, a manipulated slave to his own self ignorance and emotional well being, rather than choosing to be a dynamic influence on the strategic course of his and his society's future. It starts with honest self appraisal, self introspection, soul searching, moral definition leading to rational conclusions about the realities of the nature of militarism. It starts with leadership and moral courage.
All these nonphysical limitations form a limited perspective and a disparate group of considerations, even though there exists an underlying sense of unified comprehension. Theories alone are of limited value. While all may have a an important influence in the realization of strategy, none can function adequately alone or separately from the whole. All except a continuing and interdependent influence simultaneously in a comprehensive synergistic theoretical perspective. There exists unrecognized factors and consequences. The variables are many and complex. They tend to cast a negative pessimistic outlook on the future strategic perspective of humanity. While the behavioral sciences have proven adept at criticism and destruction of the foundations of well tested human systems, they have also proven rather clumsy and reluctant in pioneering and constructing improved versions. While the history of human achievement is blemished, it remains overall a profound testament to human value. In hindsight the comprehensive effects of human achievement has far outweighed the negative. The benevolence of philanthropists have had permanent and profound affects, over balancing the malevolence of misanthropists which tends to be temporary and superficial in effect.
Strategy and morality are both normative subjects and as such are interdependent in consideration. Science can only assist so far in the determination and realization of strategy. There science leaves off the qualification and rational valuation of philosophy must take over. The important consideration of military philosophy is in strategy and morality.
The mainstream of mediocrity has been toward the evolution of civilization, despite frequent setbacks and endemic limitations, promising the realization of future potentialities of humanity despite any theories about man's devolution towards idiocy and virtual extinction through over specialization, to be outlived by bacteria, insects and monkeys. The efficacy of the optimistic outlook still shines brightly under the shadow of the mushroom cloud.
1. "On the Psychology of Military Incompetence" by Norman F. Dixon, 1976, Basic Books Inc. Publishers.
2. "Victims of Group Think: A Psychological Study of Foreign Decisions and Fiascoes" by Irving L. Janis, 1971, Houghton-Mifflin Publishing Co.
Military Dimensions
1979-80
Hugh M. Lewis
Blanket Copyright, Hugh M. Lewis, © 2005. Use of this text governed by fair use policy--permission to make copies of this text is granted for purposes of research and non-profit instruction only.
Last Updated: 09/03/11