Part 6

An Alternative Military Model

by Hugh M. Lewis

The conventional military model, vestiges of which are manifest in most modern armed forces, some more and some less, I prefer to call the Prussian military model, despite possible regional connotations for several reasons. Its persistence has been the indirect result of that too rigid Napoleonic military mentality which has predominate military affairs since Frederick the Great and von Clausewitz.. 

This conventional military model has several crucial weaknesses that are incorporated on erroneous conceptual premises into the operational foundations and the organizational structure which automatically predisposes the military inherent weaknesses and frequent failure. The first inherent weakness is the primary dependence of the model on national conscription, which separates the conscript masses from the professional soldier, encouraging insulated over protection of the latter to the gross neglect of the former, resulting in unnecessary and inefficient wastage of human resources and in a cultivation of mediocrity into the rank superstructure. 

The second weakness is the dual rank superstructure, an enlisted and a commissioned branch, which is fundamentally unnecessary in societies with a predominantly well educated middle class, creating false class boundaries, delineating between line and staff functions, detoxifying to a debilitating degree the human potentiality and power in each general direction, decreasing operational efficiency and overall proficiency of leadership. 

This soldier-officer dichotomization, the same mind body dichotomization reflected so much throughout all human organizational activity, has been unconditionally accepted as the only organizational form for the military possible. It leads to another predominant, recurrent, yet fallacious military dichotomization: that between the mission and the men. This underlying dichotomization of the military mentality does not necessarily provide the best organizational command form for inter-human conflict at any level of the warfare spectrum. 

The third weakness is the concept of a primary staff organization, giving rise to over-centralization at the top of authority, bureaucratic inefficiency, officialism, maladapative standard operational procedures and insulated group think type command behavior. It leads to stagnant and inept command decision. It predisposes military command behavior to a prevalence of set piece planning and an over rigid set piece military mentality, incapable of efficiently dealing with all the innumerable factors involved in actual inter-human conflict unable to be simplified on maps and drawing boards. It mitigates against decentralized encounter decision command abilities, operational, logistical and tactical flexibility and efficiency, a morbid lack of battlefield mobility, both physically and non-physically, and failure to effectively decentralize command decision to the appropriate optimum level of the line unit. It is founded on the erroneous presumption that the embodiment of command authority in the form of a single person is necessarily the most efficient means of command in context to the battle. 

Such centralized command decision is not necessarily the most conducive type of command organization to battlefield success. The fourth weakness is that military social organization is founded primarily upon the concepts of fear based deficiency motivation and dominance-subordinate punitive authority relationships instead of upon the concept of mutual trust, open communication and cooperative inter-human behavior. Such a rigid military organizational form and inflexibility military mentality is justified on the erroneous presumption that battle necessitates human tyranny and unquestioning obedience in orders. It is a tragic attempt to incorporate these erroneous philosophical conclusions into the formal military organizational structure. This is a mistaken precept inapplicable and nonfunctional to the actual battlefield environment. 

All of these factors are quite out of coordination with fundamental human nature, with human behavior on the battlefield, and indeed is founded on the failure to adequately valuate the human potential. The conventional military model has failed to reform itself and keep pace with the advance of modern military technology, resulting in grossly inefficient and unreal anachronistic practices of the modern peacetime military, a general doing less with more process of growing inefficiency under the reigns of a self perpetuating and extremely insulated command authoritarian power structure. Perseveration of such military behavior might very well result in numerous critical battlefield defeats in future warfare. Then success will be more of a matter of avoiding defeat and of being not as inefficient rather than as any direct product of strength and efficient behavior.

There is an alternative military model which I hold actually predates the conventional Prussian model that is most prevalent today. It antedates this model by some two millennia. The origins and nature of the alternative model--of structural command organization--may be found to have its exemplification in the ancient Macedonian forces of Alexander, the Carthaginian force of Hannibal, in the Roman forces of Caesar, and later in the Mongolian forces of Genghis Khan. It evolved gradually as a product of necessity to the type of combat then prevalent, yielding optimum operational efficiency, command flexibility, organizational mobility and was a major influence to the unchecked battlefield successes of all these forces. It enabled these famous military commanders, provided with superior social organizational tools the superior command scope, flexibility, mobility and freedom that lead to their undaunted military success as much as any other single factor of personality or strategy or situational happenstance. 

The success of these leaders was as much in the nature of organizational structure of their forces as it was to the individual commander's ability. This ancient model has been mostly neglected and forgotten in the conventional military of today. The fundamental differences of this alternative model are: a single integrated command structure, encouraging both operational efficiency, technical proficiency, seamanship and experientially based human leadership and intellectual planning capabilities, a strong corps of middle of the road professional leaders capable both of spur of the moment encounter decision flexibility and long range linear set piece planning, optimizing unit operational flexibility enabling devolution of command authority; councils of war instead of staff organization in which professional advice and consent was more freely given and criticized; democratized leadership stressing a maximum valuation of individual human potentialities, representing a move away from the unit rigid, set piece mentality in which the individual constituent is dehumanized into a limited, expendable and easily replaceable part of the organizational system, toward maximum increase in individual valuation, becoming expressed in tactical mobility and versatility, superior offense-defense relationships, logistical superiority and flexibility and finally a well blooded mercenary professional corps body of soldiers who were veritable experts in the art of war, not so easily replaceable and with more respectable expandability. Restoration of this forgotten, superior alternative model of military social organization is long past overdue. The nature of modern battlefield dictates this crucial social reform.

It is needless to say that this old model has survived in the form of a small elite organizations and has periodically recurred throughout modern military history out of battlefield necessity, often bringing fame to its successful commanders. It is founded on human valuation, not on official dehumanization. It is founded on cultivation of natural human integrative and creative ability, of the normative decision making process, throughout its structural organization. It is founded on maximizing individual human creativity while at the same time optimizing communicative co-operational flexibility and inter-human unit integrity. 

The problem with this model today is that it has become "officially" outcast from the "proper" military mentality. It arises almost spontaneously out of necessity for combat success, due to the very nature of inter-human conflict and subsides just as quickly as it becomes repressed beneath the official controlling authoritarian power structures which so manipulate the peacetime military functioning. Anywhere in the annals of military history, when the rigid inflexible Prussian model is found to predominate there is gross wastage of human life, rampant combat inefficiency, inept command behavior and classic military defeat. Where the alternative model has arisen, military success has been found to predominate, with a minimum wastage of human life and optimum operational efficiency. The major problem with modern military elite organizations is that they are highly overspecialized in operational functioning, subordinate in authority and logistically dependent upon larger, bureaucratically organized conventional parent systems, are too small and too highly self insulating to yield large scale and consistently decisive results. 

The interesting paradox about this alternative model is that in the contemporary modern military situation it best fits the functionary role of supranational police organization. It would serve as a powerful tool in the deterrence of future aggression. The technological and manpower requirements for such a superior predominating world serving organization is far beyond the means of any single nation or any minority of allied nations. Yet if contributed to by a majority of nations it would be much cheaper and more efficient, doing more with less, with smaller, no growth stability that the national forces of today which are primarily founded along the conventional lines. It is time to reevaluate the conventional military fighting stance, for the sake of a better world peace in a safer world environment.

Military Dimensions