Cohesion: the Human Element in Combat by Wm

Co,,er: Pholog ap b) S a ff Sg . Bcnda. US ~.lar!nc (?c~rp~. ,~ rT: l,a~LIo Bodro~i. N DL' Dc-ci~n and Typography.' Branch. COHESION THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN COMBAT COHESION THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN COMBAT Leadership and Societal Influence in the Armies of the Soviet Union, the United States, North Vietnam, and Israel BY Wm. Darryl Henderson WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY Charles C. Moskos 1985 NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY PRESS WASHINGTON, DC Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the author, and do not necessar- ily represent the views of the National Defense University, the De- partment of Defense, or any other Government agency. Cleared for public release; distribution unlimited. SSR, Inc., Washington, DC, furnished indexing services under contract DAHC32-85-M- 1344. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 84-601104 This book is for sale by the Superintendent of Documents, US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402. Facsim- ile copies may be purchased from the following agencies: Regis- tered users should contact the Defense Technical Information Center, Cameron Station, Alexandria, Virginia 22314. The general public should contact the National Technical Information Serv- ice, 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, Virginia 22161. First printing, February 1985 Second printing, June 1986 Third printing, April 1989 Fourth printing, November 1993 IV In Memory of Staff Sergeant Victor 0. Fowler, Jr. Company D, 5th Battalion, 7th Air Cavalry CONTENTS Foreword xl About the Author xIII Preface xv Acknowledgments xxI Introduction by Charles C. Moskos xxIII The Significance of Military Cohesion 1 Measuring Military Power 3 The Human Element 3 Why Soldiers Fight 5 Methodology 6 Purpose 7 Research Plan 7 II Characteristics of a Cohesive Army 9 Organizational Characteristics 10 Small Group and Unit Characteristics 11 Leadership Characteristics 11 III Assessing Cohesion in Small Units 13 Physical, Security, and Social Needs 13 A Soldier's Perception of Successfully Escaping the Unit 16 VII VIII CONTENTS Maintenance of Unit Integrity and Stability 18 Motivation and Control 22 Surveillance and Conformity 24 Commonality of Values 26 IV Comparing Cohesion in the North Vietnamese, US, Soviet, and Israeli Armies 27 Physical, Security, and Social Requirements 27 The Soldier's Perception of Successfully Escaping the Army 40 Maintenance of Unit Integrity and Stability 45 Motivation and Control 56 Surveillance and Conformity 64 Commonality of Values 70 V Measuring Societal Group Effects on Cohesion 75 Potential for Nationalism Indicates Degree of Cohesion 76 Effects of Other Societal Factors 78 VI Societal Effects on Cohesion in the North Vietnamese, US, Soviet, and Israeli Armies 81 Potential for Nationalism in Vietnam 81 Potential for Nationalism in the United States 83 Potential for Nationalism in the Soviet Union 86 Potential for Nationalism in Israel 92 Additional Characteristics that Support Cohesion in Vietnam 95 Additional Characteristics that Support Cohesion in the United States Army 98 Additional Characteristics that Support Cohesion in the Soviet Army 101 Additional Characteristics that Support Cohesion in the Israeli Army 104 VII Leadership in Cohesive Units 107 Characteristics of Leadership in Cohesive Units 108 The Effect of Ideology 110 On Understanding Leadership and Cohesion 110 CONTENTS IX The Leadership Model 111 Sources of Leader Influence 112 VIII Leadership in the North Vietnamese, US, Soviet, and Israeli Armies 117 Characteristics of North Vietnamese Leader- ship 117 Characteristics of US Leadership 127 Characteristics of Soviet Leadership 134 Characteristics of Israeli Leadership 142 IX Conclusions 151 Appendix: On Why Soldiers Fight 161 Endnotes 167 Bibliography 183 Index 189 TABLES AND FIGURES TABLE 1. Unit Ability to Provide for Soldier's Physical, Security, and Social Affiliation Needs 39 . Soldier's Perceptions of Successfully Escaping the Unit 45 D Maintenance of Unit Integrity and Stability 55 4. Unit Motivation and Control 64 5. Surveillance and Conformity 69 6. Commonality of Values 73 7. Summary Comparison of Major Factors Promoting Small-Unit Cohesion 74 . Potential for Nationalism 95 9. Additional Cultural Characteristics that Promote Cohesion 105 10. Characteristics of Leadership 149 FIGURE 1. Leadership Model 112 FOREWORD One of the perils for military planners in a high-tech world is to be taken in by the destructiveness of modern weapons and to give in to the currently popular theory that modern war will last for days or weeks rather than months or years--in short, to envi- sion a world where technologies, not people, dominate war. We can ill afford to dismiss the human element in combat. The stakes are far too great. Colonel Wm. Darryl Henderson, US Army, maintains that we cannot expect tactical situations in future fields of battle to be devoid of the human factor. Most recently, for example, Iraq's war with Iran was potentially a high- tech and swift war. That war is entering its fourth year and has cost, to date, 900,000 lives. Cohesion--mutual beliefs and needs that cause people to act as a collective whole--has so far played a more significant role in the Iran-Iraq war than all the sophisti- cated weapons on either side. Does American society produce the type of soldier who would, under stress, suppress his individuality and act for the mutual good of the group? In the post-Vietnam, all-volunteer force environment, the kind of American citizen attracted to military service--the qualities he carries from society and what qualities the military organization is able to impart to him--must XI XiI FOREWO R D be a matter for serious thought and planning. Colonel Hender- son's work is a step in that direction. Richard D. Lawrence Lieutenant General, US Army President, National Defense University ABOUT THE A UTHOR Army, wrote this book while attending the National War College where he was also a Senior Fellow at the National Defense University. He served earlier as a rifle platoon leader for two years and as a company commander for three years, including a tour in Vietnam as a company commander. He was seriously wounded by the North Koreans in the DMZ in 1975. Colonel Henderson also has served as a battalion commander and in the offices of the Secre- tary of Defense and the Chief of Staff of the Army. A combat vet- eran with a Ph.D. in Political Science, he has taught military psy- chology and international relations at West Point. Colonel Henderson is a coauthor of the Handbook of World Conflict and author of Why the Vietcong Fought. XIII PREFA CE IN ASSESSING WHO WINS WARS AND WHY, it is easy to overweigh any one factor and neglect others. Broad factors such as objectives and strategies, weapons and materials, technology, numbers of soldiers, and the human element must all be considered in determining who wins and why. Although this study is concerned with the human element in war, it recognizes the prob- ability of major effects on war outcomes from other sources. Sin- gle-cause explanations must be avoided: they claim too much for one factor at the expense of others. This appears to be the case with today's emphasis on a defective US strategy as the prime explanation of the US loss in Vietnam and on technology as probably the determining factor in future modern wars. I want to register my reservations about three seemingly prevailing currents in contemporary thought about military affairs: the strategy-failure school explanation of the outcome in Vietnam; the high-technology school assertion that unit cohesion will not significantly affect future "high-tech" wars; and a related school assertion that cohesion can only be maintained in mass armies and not in small, specialized team armies of the future. First, the Vietnam outcome: in a limited analysis of US strategy in Vietnam contrasting US strategy with the axioms of Clausewitz and the Principles of War, Colonel Harry G. XV XVI PREFACE Summers, Jr., points to deficient US strategy as the main cause of the US loss in Vietnam.* This conclusion is probably not justified based on Colonel Summers' work. By limiting his analytical framework to Clausewitz and the Principles of War, Colonel Summers neglects a thorough examination of what many other knowledgeable observers have identified as the overall US strategy in Vietnam, that of "graduated compellance." The chief objective of this strategy was to bring the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table on US terms through a process of escalating the costs of their involvement in the war. Because US strategy was determined primarily by civilian ana- lysts, an examination of their product, its assumptions, and espe- cially its underpinning in economic game theory in such books as Thomas Schelling's Arms and Influence and The Strategy of Con- flict is essential. Further work must be done before the full story of US strategy in Vietnam is revealed. Perhaps an even more significant shortcoming of the strategy school is the failure to con- sider the quality of the human element on each side prior to determining reasons for the US defeat. The organization, policies, and leadership that created North Vietnamese Army resiliency to hardship, danger, and outside influences while their opponents were significantly affected by almost all elements within their environment are perhaps as important in explaining the final outcome of Vietnam as is defective US strategy. In the future, the effect of high technology on military cohesion and combat effectiveness must be considered. The lethality and multiplier effects of new and modernized weapons systems will continue to modify the nature of war, as they have through history. From the time of the French Revolution and the begin- ning of the era of modern warfare, when French armies dom- inated the battlefield, cohesion and its relation to nationalism became a major factor in warfare.

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