Introduction

The interrelated issue of military structure and effectiveness confronts planners and commanders with some of the most intractable intellectual issues associated with organizational behavior. The realities of preparing forces to kill and to face death in the service of the state create problems with no analogues in other forms of social interaction. It is easier to define the behaviors one wishes to discourage in individuals – cowardice, flight, and non-cooperation – than to define the positive performance of complex organizations, which all armed forces inevitably become. ‘The primary object of organization,’ wrote General Sir Ian Hamilton, ‘is to shield people from unexpected calls upon their powers of adaptability, judgment, and decision.’ Yet other commanders have observed that individual and organizational flexibility is essential to military success.

Despite a sizeable theoretical literature on organizational efficiency, military effectiveness remains an ill-defined concept. For some civilian and military analysts, effectiveness is tied to the social structure of military organizations. The sociological approach focuses on factors such as unit cohesion, group solidarity, small–unit leadership, and Kameradschaft. Similar research seeks to link effectiveness to non-material factors like esprit, staying power, and the will-to-fight. Outside of the small-unit focus, the sociological focus– regardless of whether the methodology is quantitative or descriptive – may provide special insights into the likely performance of large-scale military organizations, since it focuses on such problems as the normative aspects of officership, recruitment, military socialization, morale and political attitudes, and troop trainability.