The Fairchild Papers are monograph-length essays of value to the

Air Force. The series is named in honor of Muir S. Fairchild, the

first commander of Air University and the university’s conceptual

father. General Fairchild was part visionary, part keen taskmaster, and “Air Force to the core.” His legacy is one of confidence

about the future of the Air Force and the central role of Air University in that future.
AIR UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Employee Warriors and the Future

of the American Fighting Force

HUGH S. VEST

Major, USAF

Fairchild Paper

Air University Press

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112-6615

2002
Air University Library Cataloging Data

Vest, Hugh S.

Employee warriors and the future of the American fighting force / Hugh S. Vest.

p. cm.––(Fairchild paper).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-58566-105-8

ISSN 1528-2325

Contents: Employee warriors––Traditional military culture––The new businessscientific culture––Quality and leadership––Equality, authority, and fraternity––

Tomorrow’s cyber warriors.

1. Military art and science––United States. 2. Sociology, Military. I. Title.

355.009′73—dc21

Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of

the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Air University, the United States Air

Force, the Department of Defense, or any other US government agency. Cleared for public release: distribution unlimited.

ii

This Fairchild Paper and others in the series are available electronically at the

Air University Research Web site http://research.au.af.mil under “Papers” and

then “Special Collections.”
Contents

Chapter Page

DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

1 EMPLOYEE WARRIORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Values Crisis? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Harnessing a Different Military . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Cultures in Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2 TRADITIONAL MILITARY CULTURE . . . . . . . . . 7

Professionalism and Homogeneity . . . . . . . . 7

Fraternity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Institutional Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Value Studies of the Military . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Traditional Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3 THE NEW BUSINESS-SCIENTIFIC

CULTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

New World Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Volunteer Fighting Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Occupational Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Technology and the Great Engineering

Venture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Civilian Military . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Force of Specialists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Corporate Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Organizational and Sociological Trends . . . . . 18

Modern Military Society in Focus . . . . . . . . . 20

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

iii
Chapter Page

4 QUALITY AND LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Marginal Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

McNamara and Systems Theories . . . . . . . . . 24

Scientific Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Limits of Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Total Quality Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Quality and the Defense Department . . . . . . . 28

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

5 EQUALITY, AUTHORITY, AND FRATERNITY . . . 33

Revolutionary Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Aristocracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Republicanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Social Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Individualism and Virtual Isolation . . . . . . . . 38

Democratic Society and Military Tradition . . . 40

Changing Patterns of Authority and

Sacrifice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Diversity and Fraternity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

6 TOMORROW’S CYBER WARRIORS . . . . . . . . . . 47

Tomorrow’s Battlefields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Equipping the Cyber Warrior . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Lessons Learned from the Gulf War . . . . . . . 52

TRADOC Looks Ahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Postwar Studies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Institutionalism for Tomorrow? . . . . . . . . . . 56

Blueprint for a Culture in Transition . . . . . . 58

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

iv
Foreword

Gen Muir S. Fairchild, for whom this series of papers is

named, would indeed have had great interest in Maj Hugh S.

Vest’s Employee Warriors and the Future of the American Fighting Force. The leadership and vision of General Fairchild, the

conceptual father of Air University, played a key role in shaping the culture of both Air Force officers and American fighting forces of the future.

As the nation’s campaign against terrorism proceeds, our

military services continue to embrace high technology, advanced sensors, and precision weaponry for use on current

battlefields. The term cyber warrior has truly stepped from the

pages of science fiction into reality. Equipment and technology

do not constitute the only developments, however, because

today’s cyber warriors emerge from a society and military culture very different in many respects from those of past generations of warriors.

In the spirit of Samuel P. Huntington’s book The Soldier and

the State, Major Vest’s paper takes a practical and conceptual

look at some of the deep cultural patterns of change within

today’s military society. The adoption of civilian business paradigms and attitudes of social democracy into the realm of the

modern military has ushered in a host of changes and conflicts.

Major Vest highlights the need to continue the dialogue on

shaping the military culture of tomorrow’s cyber warriors. Air

University Press is pleased to include his work as one of its

Fairchild Papers.

v

Dr. Shirley B. Laseter

Director

Air University Library/Air University Press
About the Author

Maj Hugh “Huge” Vest, born on 25 October 1964, is a native

of Independence, Missouri. A distinguished graduate of the

United States Air Force Academy in 1986, he entered undergraduate pilot training at Vance Air Force Base (AFB), Oklahoma, after which he completed pilot instructor training (again,

as a distinguished graduate) and served as an instructor and

check pilot in the T-37 aircraft. Named Vance’s instructor pilot

of the year in 1990, he transitioned to the F-16 and then served

at Kunsan Air Base (AB), Republic of Korea; Shaw AFB, South

Carolina; and Luke AFB, Arizona, where he was instructor pilot

of the year for the 309th Fighter Squadron in 1998. A senior

pilot with over 15 consecutive years of flying assignments; 3,400

flying hours; and 2,000 hours in the F-16, Major Vest has

served as an instructor pilot, flight commander, and assistant

operations officer. In 1999 he completed his master’s of liberal

studies degree at the University of Oklahoma as the outstanding graduate of the College of Liberal Studies. This paper is

based upon his master’s thesis, which represented the University of Oklahoma in the Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award

competition sponsored by the Western Association of Graduate

Schools. Currently stationed at Langley AFB, Virginia, where he

serves as an F-16 operations inspector with the Headquarters

Air Combat Command Inspector General Team, Major Vest is

married to the former Tracy L. Freeman of Creedmoor, North

Carolina, and is the proud father of a daughter, Delaney.

vii

Maj Hugh S. Vest
Preface

This work is unique in its synthesis of research into a

framework that addresses perhaps the most urgent contemporary issue facing modern military theorists—what military

culture do we need to equip tomorrow’s cyber warriors?

Popular media issues of retention in the services, the

adaptation of new technology, and gender equality within

combat specialties are most often the subject of current military dialogue. But these issues are merely indicators of

deeper cultural patterns of change within modern military

society. Military research has devoted itself to civil-military

relationships, institutionalism, occupationalism, technological effects, and gender/racial studies. No body of knowledge,

however, has addressed the conflicts inherent in a changing

modern military culture. Furthermore, no studies exist that

chart the military’s adoption of civilian business paradigms

and attitudes of social democracy.

The modest goal of this work is that it will focus current debate beyond the issues and onto the deeper cultural roots of

the conflict. Hopefully, it can serve as a beacon in the current

void of research, sparking much-needed, long-term studies on

modern military culture and the social forces that will shape

tomorrow’s warriors. The molding of future American cyber

warriors has already begun. As the traditional and modern

business cultures continue to collide, a unified, forward-looking

sense of purpose must emerge. Given the uncertain security

environment of the twenty-first century, America can afford to

do no less.

I wish to thank Dr. Donald J. Maletz of the University of

Oklahoma’s Political Science Department for serving as my

thesis advisor for this project. His patient mentoring proved

invaluable to the completion of this paper. I also wish to

thank the College of Liberal Studies and its staff at the University of Oklahoma for their outstanding support and understanding. Most of all, I thank my wife, Tracy, and my

daughter, Delaney, who patiently endured many missed

ix
weekends and evenings while I attempted to balance my thesis writing and research with the demands of being a fulltime fighter pilot.

x

HUGH S. VEST, Major, USAF

F-16 Operations Inspector

Headquarters ACC/IGS
Abstract

The rapid expansion of social democracy and technology, as

well as changes in the social/political patterns of American society, has drawn the military closer to civilian society. One element of this dynamic relationship is the military’s adoption of

commercial business paradigms and identities, resulting in

the institutionalization of what one can describe as a businessscientific/management-professional culture that surrounds

the warrior of the 1990s. This culture seems to contrast and

oftentimes openly conflict with the values and traditional culture that once embraced the professional military. This paper

dedicates itself to a conceptual and practical exploration of selected elements of the new business-scientific/managementprofessional culture within the American military and its conflict with and effect upon the traditional values and culture

once associated with a successful fighting force. This practical

analysis then proceeds to the question of whether the modern

occupational military can consistently fulfill the demands of

soldiers in the twenty-first century, or whether it is adversely

affecting the development of the heroic leaders and followers

we need for future military endeavors.

xi
Chapter 1

Employee Warriors

In January 1781, a hodgepodge American militia found itself in dire circumstances. British forces led by Lt Col Banastre Tarleton were in full pursuit and would soon trap the

Americans with their backs against the Broad River. Brig

Gen Daniel Morgan, in command of this ragtag cluster of

American warriors, knew the time had come to pick his

ground and fight. With courage, will, and tactical expertise,

he engineered an upset that would long mark the pages of

military history.

The flat grounds of Cowpens, South Carolina, allowed

plenty of room to maneuver, and having the Broad River at

their backs ensured that Morgan’s men would turn and fight.

By deploying his militia in depth with orders to fire and

withdraw, Morgan forced Tarleton forward with exposed

flanks. The American general kept his cavalry reserves hidden within the trees near the river to hold his flanks.

On the morning of 17 January, Tarleton rode “straight

with the sun” into Morgan’s ready militia.1 With accurate volleys, the Americans left the cascading British falling at the

heels of their retreat. As Morgan’s infantrymen regrouped,

his cavalry then pounded the flanks of the British cavalry

now in pursuit.

The day clearly belonged to Morgan, who “with his thousand men crushed Tarleton’s army [which] suffered 110 casualties with 830 prisoners taken. Morgan’s losses were 12

killed and 61 wounded.”2 The American fighting spirit, buttressed by heroic leadership, courage, and sheer will, did indeed have a grand beginning.

Over 200 years later, this warrior spirit heralds debate in

a multitude of circles. Cyber warriors have replaced militias,

and soldiers straight out the pages of science fiction now

roam battlefields. These warriors are equipped with integrated headgear, body armor, thermal sights, and computers

that provide near-complete battlefield information and allow

for semiautonomous operations.

1
Equipment and technology, however, do not represent the

only changes. These cyber warriors have their origins in a

modern “business-scientific/management-professional” culture very much removed from that of past generations. In the

midst of this vast change, military leaders and scholars now

find themselves asking which pillars of the traditional warrior spirit today’s soldiers need to maintain.

This paper is a conceptual and practical exploration of selected

elements of the business-scientific/management-professional

culture within the American military and their conflict with,

and impact upon, the traditional values and culture once associated with a successful fighting force. The paper also addresses the question of whether the modern occupational military is fulfilling the demands of twenty-first-century soldiers,

or whether it is adversely affecting the heroic leaders and followers that this nation needs for its future military endeavors.

Values Crisis?

In many instances, dialogue concerning the modern

American warrior has expressed itself in terms of a conflict

in values. The American military’s leadership seems to need

to remind its members about what values they should possess. In 1986 an Army white paper made “values” its theme

for the year.3 More recently, the Air Force published its “core

values” pamphlets, to be reviewed by all personnel. The

service academies, which often serve as microlaboratories in

military sociology, also mirror these trends. Senior academy

leaders seem to perceive significant changes in the values of

cadets: “The raw material is not coming in the door with the

same values that our grandparents and parents taught us

30 and 35 years ago.”4 Reporting on changing values in the

academies, the Air Force Times noted, “The notion that

today’s cadets lack some of the character of older officers

creates a generation gap. While the academy brass and its

earlier graduates wonder what has gotten into kids these

days, today’s cadets wonder what the fuss is about.”5 As the

modern American military services struggle with retention,

increasing numbers of its personnel are joining and identi2

FAIRCHILD PAPER
fying with the civilian community, alienated from the ideals

of a professional military they had carried into their tour of

duty.

Harnessing a Different Military

This paper addresses the simple question, What has

changed within the services? Why does today’s service member seem to identify more with the managerial lampoons of the

comic strip “Dilbert” than with the traditional military humor

in “Beetle Bailey”?

The analysis of change within the American military has

lent itself to a wide variety of conceptual models conjured up

by historians and sociologists. Some view the military as a

profession, a community, a culture, an organization, an occupation, and a way of life.6 “Explanations of the military using

these perspectives are limited because they tend to focus on

factors related to the specific type of social organization presumed.”7 Seen together over time, however, these structural

views depict some significant changes. Although this paper

does not presume to adopt any single comprehensive model, it

does analyze a variety of paradigms and takes “snapshots” of

the changing organizational culture of the US military. The

analysis focuses on several significant elements of this culture—specifically, the changing language, norms, modes of

communication, beliefs, values, philosophies, and worldviews

held by soldiers. It also narrows its application to combat and

combat-support roles within the services.

Recognized by both soldiers and sociologists alike, modern

military society, together with its values and patterns of interaction, differs markedly from the traditional military society of

the pre-Vietnam era. The rapid expansion of social democracy

and technology, as well as changes in the sociopolitical patterns

of American society, has drawn the military increasingly closer

to civilian society. The adoption of selected civilian business

models and identities into military society has played a part in

this close and dynamic association. Participatory management,

management by objectives (MBO), scientific management, professionalism, total quality management (TQM), and operational

3

VEST
risk management have become part of the language of the modern soldier. Many of these practices and attitudes have expanded the military’s efficiency and ability to communicate with

the civilian world, but they have also resulted in the institutionalization of a business-scientific/management-professional

culture that surrounds today’s warriors.

Cultures in Conflict

This culture seems to contrast and often openly conflict

with the values and traditional culture that once embraced

the professional military. Embedded within the analysis of

these two societies lies the perhaps more critical question of

which culture should shape the American fighting force of

the twenty-first century. Will traditional values and interactions remain intact? Will some elements survive permanently

altered? Or will they be abandoned as archaic remnants of a

military that failed to perceive the dawning era of modern

combat?

The modest goal of this paper is to redirect and spark longterm research that shapes the warrior of the information age.

Winning the war of the future may involve the containment

of conflicts and the politicized use of limited violence. Is

today’s military society producing the values demanded of

tomorrow’s warriors? Specifically, is it technical, specialized,

politically sensitive, and group- and team-motivated? Can

the American warrior spirit, which had its roots in Daniel

Morgan and his militia years ago, survive in the information

battlefields of the twenty-first century? One idea remains

constant: those who embrace the future and remember the

lessons of the past shall find success. “Victory smiles upon

those who anticipate the changes in the character of war, not

upon those who wait to adapt themselves after the changes

occur.”8

Notes

1. W. J. Wood, Leaders and Battles: The Art of Military Leadership (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1984), 17.

2. Ibid., 27.

4

FAIRCHILD PAPER
3. Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-68, Values: “The Bedrock of

Our Profession”: White Paper 1986, June 1986, 5.

4. Jeff Thomas, “Values: How They Changed,” Air Force Times, 7 March

1994, 12–14.

5. Ibid., 14.

6. Frank Ray Wood, “U.S. Air Force Junior Officers: Changing Professional Identity and Commitment” (PhD diss., Northwestern University,

1982), 8.

7. Ibid.

8. Giulio Douhet, Command of the Air, trans. Dino Ferrari (1942; new imprint, Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1983), 30.

5

VEST
Chapter 2

Traditional Military Culture

The message was clear: to join America’s warrior elite would mean some

harsh treatment, much physical and perhaps emotional discomfort,

and not sympathy. I did not expect to be appreciated for any “diversity”

I might bring to the Corps or to get much “sensitivity” in return. Like

tens of thousands before me and thousands since, I was not to be disappointed. And, although it may seem hard for many of today’s critics

of the military to imagine, I didn’t want it to be otherwise.1

Expectations such as these held by young soldiers entering

the profession of arms indeed seem almost foreign to today’s

military. They seem as distant as the military society remembered by today’s aged veterans—one of dedicated sacrifice, authority, suffering, and fraternity. Were these revered warriors

of yesteryear so truly different from the military professionals

of the twenty-first century?

Before proceeding to this question, one must pause to examine the culture and values that once seemed to surround

the modern American military—the traditional military culture

that encompassed American warriors prior to the Vietnam

War. The process of defining the values and interactions that

shaped modern American military society should produce a

picture of this traditional culture.

Professionalism and Homogeneity

The language, methods, and models used to study the values and culture of military society have taken many forms.

The bulk of early research on pre-Vietnam American military

culture involved the application of paradigms of homogeneity.

Analysts viewed the military as a social unit isolated from civilian society. In the 1950s, C. Wright Mills studied the “military

mind,” which he describes as “the product of a specialized bureaucratic training . . . the results of a system of formal selection and common experiences and friendships and activities—

all enclosed within similar routines . . . the sharing of a

common outlook.”2

7
In 1957, military society received perhaps its greatest modern critique in Samuel P. Huntington’s The Soldier and the

State, which made the civilian term professionalism synonymous with modern military thought. Huntington focuses his

research on members of the officer corps who were concerned

primarily with the “management of violence and not the application of violence.”3 His study identifies the officer corps as a

professional body and details its relationship with a liberal

civilian society. The “professional body” he describes is ideologically different from the rest of society and homogeneous in

composition. His description of the orientation and values of

the “military mind” provides the basis for modern thought on

traditional military culture.

Huntington lumps his traditional values under the label of

the “professional military ethic.”4 Given the limited availability

of psychological and historical research on actual values once

possessed by military officers, his assumed values were obviously “implied by the performance of the military function.”5

Based on the service they provide society in terms of managing

violence, officers must be inherently Hobbesian realists in their

thinking. They must emphasize the importance “of society over

the individual and the importance of order, hierarchy and the

division of function.”6 Further, they must “exalt obedience as

the highest virtue and, in brief, be realistic and conservative.”7

Huntington also uses his description of the history of civilmilitary relations in America to highlight the differing values

between its political and military societies. American political

society, he claims, is dominated by the persistent notion of

“liberalism,”8 most often expressed in the ideas of individualism. As liberal thought and its emphasis on the individual became infused throughout society, it found itself in marked

contrast with military values (e.g., subordination, loyalty,

duty, hierarchy, discipline, and obedience),9 which seemed almost the antithesis of liberal thought.

This emerging chasm between perceived military values and

those of civilian liberal and commercial society is perhaps best

described by an officer’s comments in the early twentieth century: “The cardinal vices of the American Soldier are personal independence, rebellious spirit, excessive wants, deficient sense of

8

FAIRCHILD PAPER
obligation, criticism of authority, self-interest and ambition.”10

Indeed, these values, expressed in slightly different terms, sound

like a description of the modern national character.

Following Huntington’s landmark work, other commentators

often defined the values traditionally associated with the military

in terms of degrees of professionalism. Morris Janowitz uses the

term military professional code in his depiction of traditional military values. According to Janowitz, this code does not necessarily reflect reality but “seek[s] to draw inspiration from its own historical achievements.”11 It is “an interpretation of past events

designed to justify its missionary zeal, its emphasis on authority

and ceremony, and its suffering and hardships.”12

Like Huntington, Janowitz assumes that many of the values

associated with this code flow from their function within military society—to prepare a soldier for a heroic career. Although

he focuses on the merging of military and civilian societies,

Janowitz is much less specific in his definition of the traditional military professional code. The basic elements he mentions include dedicated patriotism; an almost mystical allegiance to national identity; and a sense of fraternity, intimacy,

social solidarity, and political conservatism.13

Fraternity

As a sociologist, however, Janowitz does devote considerable

research to the fascinating notion of military fraternity, one aspect of which he labels the “Buddy Relationship.”14 Defined in an

organizational context, “Buddy Choices” were often observed between members of the same organizational level when they had

the free choice to associate. These patterns, widely documented

in combat scenarios, perhaps best reflect the extremes of military

solidarity. Referring to a platoon studied during the Korean War,

Janowitz notes that “in a crisis and if forced to make a choice, a

man would think first of his loyalty to a buddy, and second to his

obligations to the organization.”15 As long-time special forces veteran Col David Hackworth once wrote, “Sure, I was fighting for

America, for all that was ‘right’ and ‘true,’ for the flag, the national anthem, and mom’s apple pie. But all that came second to

[the] fact . . . that I fought for my friends.”16

9

VEST
Institutional Values

Charles Moskos’s introduction of the “institutional/occupational” model in 1977 caused us to view the process of defining

traditional military values in yet another light. Precipitated by

the emergence of the all-volunteer force, this paradigm sought to

chart shifts in social organization and structures within military

society. One finds traditional military values and the professional

code in Moskos’s definition of the American military as an institution. In theory his “institution” mirrors Huntington’s notion of

“professionalism,” but Moskos goes a step farther in his comparison of military social norms with those of an occupation.17

Moskos’s military institution is organized vertically. Members

are expected to perform tasks not limited to their specialty, and

they remain under the umbrella of the military, whether on or

off duty. Work and residence locations are close together, and

frequent relocations are understood to be part of military life.

Membership in the institution extends, in a way, to spouses and

military families. Career patterns within the institutional military are gender-specific, and women service members are limited to support positions. Finally, a military institution “tends to

evaluate its personnel according to whole person criteria.”18

Value Studies of the Military

In addition to historical models offered up by sociologists,

one must also review the military’s own studies of institutional

values: “Value studies of the military are usually concerned

with the unique values of the professional military subculture.

Emphasis is placed on honor, courage, obedience, and sense

of duty, those values which bond the member to the military

organization in training and in combat.”19

The rigors of actually getting military research approved,

though, have made the study of military values an unrewarding endeavor for outside agencies. Protection of privacy in the

military and the need for researchers to win the support of

both the military and the Department of Defense (DOD) have

truly hampered any existing studies.

In similar studies, Wright and Murray surveyed the attitudes of selected groups of military members toward ethical

10

FAIRCHILD PAPER
values traditionally assigned to the military profession. Values

surveyed included honesty, loyalty, subordination of the individual to the group, integrity, respect for authority, courage,

trust, and obedience.20 Wright compared only priority listings

of 10 institutional values in his sample populations, and Murray surveyed only members selected to attend a senior-officer

command school. Not surprisingly, these limited surveys of

homogeneous groups yielded very little significant data. In his

survey of military values in 1975, Robert B. Weaver listed the

instrumental values of honor, courage, responsibility, ambition, logicality, capability, and obedience.21

Surprisingly enough, the relatively few other value studies

have focused on value differences controlled for sexual or

racial identification. The long-term study of military institutional values remains virtually unexplored.

Traditional Culture

Writers have used the notions of traditional military and institutional values and the military professional code to convey a

wide variety of concepts and characteristics. Seen together, these

models paint a picture of the values, beliefs, and worldviews of a

traditional military culture and society that have played a significant role in American military thought and organization. The

traditional military—a vertically aligned organization that encompasses its members’ homes, families, and lives—emphasizes

obedience, order, hierarchy, authority, discipline, ceremony, suffering, and fraternity. Its members are realistic, conservative,

and religiously patriotic. Perhaps Moskos’s comment regarding

Col Dandridge Malone’s narration of a soldier’s life story best

summarizes the uniqueness of traditional military values:

He tells the soldier’s story from the time he leaves home, a young recruit,

on his way to boot camp . . . the anxiety and confusion at training

schools, the friendships, the coarseness, the constant reassignments

and promotions, the compromises and satisfactions of the military marriage; on to Vietnam, the fire fights, the fear again, the deaths of friends;

survival and return; the first glimpse of children unseen for a year—and

if all these wondrous things Malone draws at the end . . . which thousands of us share in whole or part, can, by the mindless logic of a soulless computer, programmed by a witless pissant ignorant of effect, be

called just another job, then by God, I’m a sorry, suck-egg mule.22

11

VEST
Notes

1. John Luddy, “Sensitive Killers: A New Age Dawns at the Pentagon,”

World & I 9 (November 1994): 379.

2. Quoted in Frank Ray Wood, “U.S. Air Force Junior Officers: Changing

Professional Identity and Commitment” (PhD diss., Northwestern University,

1982), 18.

3. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard

University Press, 1957), 18.

4. Ibid., 62.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid., 79.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid., 90.

9. Ibid., 258.

10. Ibid., 269.

11. Morris Janowitz in collaboration with Roger W. Little, Sociology and the

Military Establishment (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1974), 127.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Morris Janowitz, ed., The New Military: Changing Patterns of Organization (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1964), 199.

15. Ibid., 201.

16. Quoted in Lt Col James M. Fisher, “Combat Leadership,” Defense Analytical Study (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air War College, May 1990), 10.

17. Charles C. Moskos and Frank R. Wood, eds., The Military: More Than

Just a Job? (Washington, D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey’s International Defense

Publishers, 1988), 18.

18. Ibid., 18–19.

19. Kaye L. Ekman, “A Comparative Study of Value Priorities in a Sample of United States Air Force Personnel and Their Spouses” (PhD diss.,

American University, 1982), 21.

20. Cited in ibid., 22.

21. See Robert B. Weaver, “The Contemporary American Military Mind:

The Role of Values in Military Behavior” (PhD diss., Rensselaer Polytechnic

Institute, 1975).

22. Moskos and Wood, 71.

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Chapter 3

The New Business-Scientific Culture

In The Soldier and the State, Huntington describes the clash

of values between the American military and American commercial society in the early 1900s. Reacting harshly to the

prevailing national spirit of industrialism and business, the

military sought to withdraw from society lest its traditional

code become contaminated. Officers deplored the infiltration

of business practices and “warned that the insistent requirements of business, society, and pleasure would enervate the

nation and leave it wealthy and powerless.”1

Oddly enough, the American military of the post-Vietnam

era now finds itself embracing the civilian business society it

once rejected. Many scholars even claim that military and

civilian societies overlap in so many key areas that they are

much more closely aligned than ever before. Much to the horror of Colonel Malone (see chap. 2), some have even gone so

far as to project an “occupation” model onto military life. The

business-scientific/management-professional culture that

surrounds today’s warriors is truly far removed from the traditional culture that enveloped soldiers of yesteryear. This

chapter focuses on the origins and constitution of this culture,

probing for an answer to the question, What has changed

within military society?

New World Order

In their effort to analyze military society, as well as its organization and value systems, sociologists often fail to include

the global-strategic scene as an external variable. Although little data exists that charts changes in service members’ attitudes brought on by a post-cold-war international order, one

can assume that it has had a significant impact. As one strategic study concludes, “A threat deficit accurately describes the

changes in the Soviet-American bipolar relationship. Yet, as

this threat recedes, the Third World and Eastern Europe grow

13
more unstable and volatile, endangering U.S. interests with

diffuse challenges at constantly shifting points on the map.”2

This shift from a centralized and clearly articulated global

threat to decentralized, undefined, and diverse regional conflicts does serve to challenge the individual and organizational

sense of mission: “The major function of the military is now to

accomplish some limited political objective. Hence, the military must share responsibility with politicians and diplomats.

Military force has become an option of last resort.”3 This

“threat deficit” and a vague sense of mission also challenge the

American military’s sense of identity in an uncertain world,

drawing it ever closer to professional civilian society. The management of violence, when the violence is unclear, can become

just management.

Volunteer Fighting Force

Perhaps the most significant historical development influencing the emergence of a new military culture has been the

adoption of the all-volunteer force. The end of the draft

sparked a myriad of theorizing about who would compose this

new fighting force: “A democratic society requires an armed

force which is broadly representative of the larger society but

would the enlisted ranks now be over-represented by minority

groups and would the officers now have selective civilian contact and distinct political orientations?”4

The military and its relationship with society as a volunteer

organization represented another concern to scholars. Would

this all-volunteer force remain a homogeneous unit separate

from society, and, if not, how would its process of socialization

occur? Most sociologists during that time adopted some version of a divergent-homogeneous model, which viewed the military as a homogeneous body separate from society.

In 1972 Bengt Abrahamsson noted that officers underwent

an extensive period of socialization during which time they

molded their attitudes into a common outlook.5 Some researchers even warned of the development of a “near monolithic military mind” in the all-volunteer force.6 In 1976

Janowitz warned that changes in military and political society

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and technology would create a more isolated military body

that would possess selective linkages to civilian society.7 In

1977, however, Moskos challenged these views with his claims

that one could conceptualize this new all-volunteer force as

more of an occupation than an institution.8

Even more important than the theories and models born

after the creation of the all-volunteer force was the underlying

philosophy: “The current all-volunteer military in and of itself

need not be correlated with an occupational model except that

the architects of the present American [all-volunteer force]

have chosen the occupational model as their paradigm.”9 The

Report of the President’s Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed

Force (the Gates Commission) in 1970 was heavily influenced

by commercialism and the “reliance on recruiting and retaining an armed force based on monetary inducements guided by

labor force realities.”10 Business realities would now clearly

determine relations between this new all-volunteer fighting

force and the society it served. Uncle Sam would compete with

civilian businesses for the employment of people needed to defend the nation; marketing strategies for recruitment now offered civilian career preparation as an incentive; and collegetuition bonuses and slogans such as “It is a great place to

start” or “See the world” became the norm.

Occupational Identity

Indeed, it was no surprise when the military began to mirror the characteristics that now guide its existence. During

military-family conferences and in works such as Families in

Blue, a study of Air Force families, this value shift toward an

occupational identity repeatedly surfaced. In a 1981 conference, “members stated their subscription to the idea of Air

Force service as an occupation rather than or as well as a profession. Conferences were dominated by expressions of priority needs for increased pay and allowances comparable to the

civilian sector.”11 The civilianization of the military was rapidly

under way, and the business of fighting wars began to resemble any other business.

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Technology and the Great Engineering Venture

Beyond changes in the political nature of the military task

and occupational trends in recruitment and retention, military

sociologists Frank Wood and Morris Janowitz also note the social impact of technology on the modern military establishment. The age of technology and information has brought

about enormous change in a military society for which the element of change is a constant. Smart bombs, lasers, stealth

technology, nuclear weapons, satellites, and personal computers have launched a revolution in the way wars are fought and

managed. “Evolving technologies may result in a transition

from information-in-warfare to information-as-warfare in

which attrition and maneuver become supporting elements of

military, political, and economic leverage through information

control.”12

According to Wood and Janowitz, technological change has

also fragmented the military into varying specialties while narrowing the distinction between what is civilian and what is

military. Perhaps the hidden goal of technological innovation

in military society has been to mold the organization into a

massive engineering venture. As one soldier remarked as early

as World War II, “We go at this thing just like it was a great engineering job.”13

Civilian Military

Indeed, the immense complexity of technology in modern

warfare has increased the “reliance on nonmilitary experts (defense contractors and technical representatives) for the development and operation of weapons systems.”14 The requirements of maintenance, manning, and support have resulted in

the military’s use of civilian agencies to such a degree that the

line separating the military and civilian realms has become less

than clear: “The civilian character of the military establishment

increases as larger numbers of its personnel are devoted to logistical tasks, which have their parallels in civilian enterprise.”15 One example of such crossover involved the levels of

civilian personnel devoted to the Distant Early Warning Line in

the early 1970s. Ninety-eight percent of the 600-person force

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manning this critical air defense line in the Arctic were civilians. The level of technical specialization was so great that the

Air Force had to hire civilians, doubling their pay with bonuses

to compensate for the harsh living conditions.16

Wood points out in his research on the civilian-military overlap that the two worlds have not completely melded: “The pervasive requirements of combat set the limits to civilianizing

tendencies.”17 Combat will still require heroic leaders and

their sense of duty and honor; usually, such leaders will vehemently reject the application of engineering models to their

war-fighting tasks.

Force of Specialists

Although the modern military has increased its dependence

on civilian support, it has also divided its own society into

needed specialties. At the macrolevel, new commands such as

Air Force Space Command are emerging. At the microlevel,

technical specialization is leading to isolation within organizations, even for functions that should overlap. Soldiers within a

given service, base, wing, platoon, or squadron find few common threads. According to one flying officer, “They don’t even

know what we do—even the maintenance officer who gets the

airplane ready to go. The complexity of jobs has gotten to the

point we can’t even understand what the other guy is doing.”18

In one study conducted by Wood, officers were asked if they

thought of themselves as officers or specialists working for the

Air Force. Amazingly, almost half of them answered “specialists”!19

Corporate Language

The military’s adoption of selected business paradigms and

identities reflects the close and dynamic association between

military and civilian societies. In the ever-present battle for limited resources faced by any modern bureaucracy, the reliance

on business practices has increased the military’s efficiency

and its ability to communicate with the outside world: “Even

within the military organization, business techniques are used

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extensively. In a tight resource environment, these practices

manifest themselves in the ‘do more with less’ syndrome.”20

These corporate models have provided a common ground

of management practices throughout a diversified military

and have allowed it to garnish resources in a budgeted

world—but at great cost. Scientific management, quality,

marginal analysis, systems analysis, and cost-benefit analysis have created a business-scientific/management-professional

culture in the military, predictably resulting in significant

changes in the nature of that profession and its officers. An

Army War College study of 1970 described shifts in traditional values toward a new corporate ethic of survivability:

“In their model, officers have become ‘middle-tier managers’

whose primary concern is their own careers.”21 Further,

James Fallows notes that the most devastating result of the

emphasis on management in the officer corps has been the

shift toward occupational attitudes. The implication of this

thinking is that service members will become absorbed with

self-interest and career advancement.22

Careerism, the break from traditional military values, and

the emphasis on business practices are all indicative of the

civilianization of the modern military. Noticeable fallout has

included recurring issues of retention, frustration, and “employee” benefits. It remains to be seen to what extent this civilian culture has influenced the combat specialties and heroic

orientation necessary for future conflicts.

Organizational and Sociological Trends

Even before the application of occupational paradigms to

military organization and society, Janowitz charted five basic

areas of analysis for viewing the modern military. His five “hypotheses” lend insight into organizational and sociological

trends facing the military over the last half century. The first

element of change involved the “basis of authority and discipline within the military establishment where a shift was seen

from authoritarian domination to a greater reliance on manipulation, persuasion, and group consensus.”23 As the nature of

authority becomes increasingly based on “good management”

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practices, what consequences will this have for the traditional

heroic leadership required by the combat specialties?

Two other hypotheses relate to the previously explored issues of careerism and technical specialization. Janowitz addresses the changing notions of careerism within modern military society from the perspective of career patterns.24

Although traditional military society was not free from careerism, attaining elite status was based on “the realization of

pure military conduct.”25 People considered service in the infantry or assignment to a battleship or aircraft carrier “more

military” than duty on supply ships or in engineering.

In today’s military, career management takes on entirely

new forms. One attains elite status by pursuing a broad career

through existing institutions. The experience demanded of

modern elites requires skill in personal relations, management, decision making, and political negotiations. Officers develop these traits and a concern with broader military issues

through a slightly unconventional career that maximizes the

“breadth of contacts and sympathies with outside agencies.”26

Janowitz’s final two trends are related to the new political

character of the modern military. The composition of the officer corps represents one unique change. Notions of liberty and

social democracy as expressed in modern American society

have influenced the recruitment of officers. Once comprised

exclusively of men of high social status, the body of officers

now seeks men and women from a broader social pool.

Furthermore, Janowitz notes that as the function of the military becomes increasingly political, the attitudes, training,

and indoctrination within the military begin to mirror the

change in missions. Current indoctrination is now “designed

to eliminate the civilian contempt for the traditional military

mind.”27 The new political doctrine of the military is entirely

consistent with that of the society from which it receives its

mandate. Military professionalism now embraces such concepts as social democracy and nonethnocentrism. Human factors, human relations, and management have replaced discipline and authority. “In short, the new indoctrination seems to

be designed to supply military professionals with opinions on

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many political, social, and economic subjects, opinions which

they feel obliged to form as a result of their new role.”28

Modern Military Society in Focus

Although these changes are still in progress, the emerging

military culture finds itself quite removed from the world of

traditional warriors. Modern American soldiers are much more

occupationally oriented, and political considerations not only

dominate the heart of the military’s new mission orientation,

but also infiltrate every aspect of its culture. Today’s military

professionals are far more socially and politically conscious,

more technically specialized, and more likely to have ties to

civilian businesses and society. The military society now surrounding these professionals is dominated by commercial

business paradigms and theories of scientific management. As

Wood concludes in his detailed study of junior officers, “The

force will become more occupational, attrition will be high, and

the members will become more like ‘professionals in the military’ than ‘military professionals.’ ”29

Amidst this vast business-scientific/management-professional

culture that envelops today’s warrior, one wonders what kind of

soldier will fight tomorrow’s wars. The percentage of military

personnel engaged in “military” specialties has definitely

shrunk. In the Civil War, 93.2 percent of service personnel performed military specialties, but in the post-Korean US Army,

only 28.8 percent do so.30 Will those few individuals in the modern combat specialties find their traits of heroism and cohesion

suppressed by a culture that does not understand them? Is a

more politicized and technical modern soldier better equipped

for the battles of the twenty-first century? Before turning to

these questions, one would do well to explore the clash between

traditional and modern cultures in today’s military.

Notes

1. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard

University Press, 1957), 267.

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2. Gary L. Guertner, The Armed Forces in a New Political Environment

(Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College,

1992), 3.

3. Charles C. Moskos and Frank R. Wood, eds., The Military: More Than

Just a Job? (Washington, D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey’s International Defense

Publishers, 1988), 30.

4. Morris Janowitz in collaboration with Roger W. Little, Sociology and

the Military Establishment (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1974), 9.

5. Cited in Frank Ray Wood, “U.S. Air Force Junior Officers: Changing

Professional Identity and Commitment” (PhD diss., Northwestern University,

1982), 22.

6. Ibid.

7. Cited in ibid.

8. Cited in ibid., 23.

9. Moskos and Wood, 19.

10. Cited in ibid.

11. Kaye L. Ekman, “A Comparative Study of Value Priorities in a Sample of United States Air Force Personnel and Their Spouses” (PhD diss.,

American University, 1982), 3.

12. Lt Col Arsenio T. Gumahad II, “The Profession of Arms in the Information Age,” Joint Force Quarterly 15 (Spring 1997): 15.

13. Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1960), 32.

14. Moskos and Wood, 30.

15. Janowitz, The Professional Soldier, 32.

16. Ibid.

17. Quoted in ibid.

18. Quoted in Wood, “U.S. Air Force Junior Officers,” 61.

19. Ibid., 65.

20. Ibid., 36.

21. Cited in ibid., 38.

22. Cited in Roger W. Alford, Prevalence of Careerism among US Air Force

Officers (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Airpower Research Institute, January 1989), 37.

23. Janowitz, The Professional Soldier, 8.

24. Ibid., 11.

25. Morris Janowitz, ed., The New Military: Changing Patterns of Organization (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1964), 169.

26. Ibid.

27. Janowitz, The Professional Soldier, 13.

28. Ibid.

29. Wood, “U.S. Air Force Junior Officers,” 163.

30. Janowitz, The Professional Soldier, 9.

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Chapter 4

Quality and Leadership

The actual tactics used in Vietnam—a little more of this, slightly more

bombing here, try and see, and so forth—are normally identified far

more with the civilian marginal approach toward things than they are

with the military man’s instinct for the jugular. For better or for worse,

Vietnam was not exactly fought the way in which most military people

who were involved in it were actually recommending that it be fought.1

At the end of the long, bitter Vietnam campaign, as American society searched for answers, political and military leaders alike vowed that future conflicts would never be fought or

managed in a similar fashion. Little did they realize, however,

that the scientific management of military affairs was in many

respects just taking root and would soon play a much more integral role in American military culture than they ever could

have imagined.

The increased adoption of corporate language and business

paradigms into the once-sacred realm of military leadership

has become a battleground in the clash of traditional and

modern military cultures. The attempted melding of new corporate theories of scientific management with the demands of

combat military leadership has highlighted several key elements of the unique conflicts inherent in a changing military

society. This chapter charts the origins of scientific management; the rise and fall of total quality management—one such

corporate theory within DOD; and attitudes toward its applicability in combat units.

Marginal Analysis

Current trends in scientific management owe much of their

success to the tight resource environment following World War

II. By the 1960s, the American military bureaucracy found itself

no longer the national priority but simply another organization

competing for a piece of the pie: “Each new weapons system was

weighed against various public social programs which were also

being proclaimed to be national priority items.”2 In 1972 more

23
than six times as many Americans felt that cuts should be made

in defense spending as they did in 1962.3

In this competitive scenario, the survival of defense programs demanded that the military justify its positions in a

cost-benefit business language that would communicate with

the civilian leadership responsible for cutting the pieces of the

pie. Business terms such as systems analysis; Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System; cost-benefit analysis; and

marginal analysis became a prominent part of the American

military language.

McNamara and Systems Theories

Although many of these terms had surfaced earlier during

the resource planning used to fight two world wars, they

reached their peak during the heart of the post–World War II

era. This trend is perhaps best illuminated by the career of

Robert McNamara: “During that fateful period, McNamara

rocketed to fame as a standard-bearer of the capacity of expert

management to solve problems.”4 An avid proponent of systems theory, McNamara was recruited during World War II

from his teaching position at Harvard into an Army Air Corps

planning group.5 “This operation was an experiment, designed

to test the potential of the emerging field of statistical control

techniques to give managers a new level of command over the

factors of production, human as well as material.”6 McNamara

and his team enjoyed great success. Fortune magazine applauded their achievement of modern systems thinking, calling it the application of “proven business methods to war.”7

McNamara’s scientific management again proved its mettle

when it engineered a dramatic comeback in the struggling postwar Ford Motor Company. Thus, it came as no surprise when

McNamara became an object of the Kennedy administration’s

effort to recruit the “best and brightest” to rejuvenate America.8

He quickly applied his genius to reorganizing DOD around systems theory, marginal analysis, quantification, and principles of

scientific management. New systems of control and quantitative

measures soon gained ascendancy over traditional military objectives: “McNamara’s program was designed to modernize the

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organization of the military services themselves, to bring them

into line with the latest management theory and practice. The

goal was to recast the military profession as something more

like civilian management on the business model. The new system, however, worked to play down just those structures of tradition, loyalty, and esprit de corps which had given the armed

forces their distinctive ethos and effectiveness.”9

Scientific Management

This application of the scientific-management theory proved

tragically unsuccessful during the Vietnam conflict. After McNamara resigned in 1968, efforts to align military leadership with

civilian business-management practices continued: “In a tight

resource environment, these practices manifest themselves in

the ‘do more with less syndrome.’ It is the application of marginal

analysis. Over a given time period, the theory suggests, resources are reduced, and productive goals are increased.”10

This basic theory of scientific management has become the

foundation for an almost endless variety of models and practices

that have widely influenced the civilian business community

and military society. Paradigms, terms, and ideas such as MBO,

systems analysis, cost-benefit analysis, TQM, participatory

management, employee empowerment, and operations risk

management have become synonymous with military professionalism. “In a large measure the practice of management has

been substituted for military professionalism over the last thirty

odd years”; in fact, “it will be difficult for the modern military

man to think objectively about management.”11 Management

practices have become an increasingly powerful force in military

planning and policy making. Indeed, it is almost impossible

today to find literature on modern military professionalism that

does not refer to management theories or practices.

Limits of Management

Although military-management theories and practices can

claim successes in efficiency and communication from inside

and outside the services, they have their limits. Wholesale

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applications of social-science theories such as management

often find it difficult to quantify and predict the highly random human variable involved. One commentator has described management “as an impersonal, rationalistic process

which attempts to quantify variables and allocate resources

to maximize efficiency, tends to exclude factors which are

difficult to measure, and views manpower as a commodity.”12

Traditional military leadership, which scholars have described as an art rather than a process, brings an almost religious zeal to mission accomplishment. Its focus on difficult-todefine human elements of authority, hierarchy, cohesion,

pride, and discipline seems to conflict with management theories and their emphasis on quantification, persuasion,

process, and analysis. In some ways, the rather vague art of

military leadership serves as a critique of many elements of

management theories.

Within modern military society, however, management has

become so infused into military professionalism and leadership that few have dared to mount any intellectual challenges

to it. Similar to the situation in civilian corporations, the military’s bureaucratic tendency to discourage critiques of management practices championed by its senior leadership has

also contributed to the growth of some theories into virtual

miniature empires. TQM was one such empire that took the

business world and DOD by storm in the early 1990s. The

paucity of critical research on TQM and other management

theories reflects the extent to which the military culture has

embraced those practices. In an Air Force listing of 173 books,

government documents, and periodicals relating to TQM, no

more than a handful offers any viable critique of its theories

and practices. In such a climate of near-universal acceptance

of scientific-management practices and extensive bureaucratic

roadblocks to outside studies, objectivity in research—even

critical research itself—becomes an elusive goal at best.

Total Quality Management

Quality-management theories date back to the 1930s,

while statistical process control and the plan-do-check-act

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cycle developed by Dr. Walter Shewart,13 a statistician at Bell

Telephone Laboratories, appeared in the early 1920s.14 The

relationship between quality management and the military

first blossomed during World War II, when defense industries

sought ways to regulate and control production. This partnership, though, was short-lived in the postwar environment, in which quality became watered down to “final product inspection.”15

Much of the current thought on TQM originated conceptually in America but has its practical roots in Japanese soil. The

occupation years following World War II were truly a time of

upheaval and regeneration. Struggling Japanese industry eagerly searched for new technologies and ideas to spark production. This rebuilding economy became an ideal proving

ground for the theories of quality and quality control now

abandoned by postwar US industry. In the 1950s, American

thinkers W. Edwards Deming, Joseph M. Juran, and Armand

V. Feigenbaum exported quality teachings to Japan.16 Well

suited to the adaptive and industrious Japanese worker, quality principles and their customer focus were soon embraced by

all facets of Japanese industry.

By 1989 Japanese assets amounted to over $350 billion,

and US debts totaled $650 billion.17 The Tokyo Nikkei market

surpassed Wall Street, and the top 10 world banks were

Japanese. In a 1989 poll, “two-thirds of those interviewed remarked that Japanese companies were better managed, their

workers were more industrious, and their technology was superior.”18 Although it is difficult to analyze quality management’s true role in this Japanese economic miracle, competitive pressure in the late 1980s forced US industry and

business to consider Eastern management techniques. Resurrected and given a distinctive American spin, the Japanese

management philosophy of total quality control was adopted

by most major progressive businesses, such as Ford Motor

Company, Hewlett-Packard, Campbell Soup Company, AT&T,

General Electric, Westinghouse, and Proctor & Gamble, to

name just a few.19

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Quality and the Defense Department

With most American businesses and the defense industry

touting the virtues and language of quality, it was only a matter of time before it entered the world of military society. As the

traditional American military culture gave way to a new business-scientific culture, senior military leaders began to see

their goals mirrored in those of US companies. Civilian businesses and the US military moved toward quality due to competition that challenged the life of their organizations, customer complaints, and the high cost of conducting recalls and

redoing completed work.

In the late 1980s, Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci noted

that DOD would emphasize “the satisfied quality-equipped,

quality-supported soldier, sailor, airman and marine,” and on

30 March 1988, the department officially embraced TQM. DOD

chose it because “it was powerful enough and universal enough

in scope to achieve the cultural change required for the DOD to

meet the unprecedented levels of quality required for future

weapons systems and equipment. It marshals the creativity of

workers together in a drive for quality excellence.”20

TQM in the Trenches

As one might expect, quality management found its most

comfortable niche and least resistance in the support, logistical, and technical agencies, whose functions and customers

more closely resembled those of civilian businesses. TQM encountered greater cultural and conceptual challenges in attempts to apply its theories and emphasis on the customer to

combat units. Although a review of the literature reveals very

little critical research in this area, a few studies highlight some

of these cultural and conceptual challenges.

A Naval Postgraduate School thesis of 1991 examined the

application of TQM to a fleet squadron. Although the study

primarily deals with the beneficial implementation of Dr. Deming’s 14 points in a squadron, one finds several key conflicts

in this blueprint for selling TQM. Properly defining the customer—the focus of quality management—is a conceptual

challenge for many industries. For a fighting squadron accustomed to accomplishing a “sacred” and well-defined mission,

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identifying a customer and shifting to a customer focus represent a major organizational leap.

Several of Dr. Deming’s points easily translate into the language of military leadership, while others require considerable

organizational and cultural change.21 The first points cover the

importance of creating a living statement of objectives and

teaching TQM throughout the organization. They also stress

the necessity of inspection, a staple of military culture. Other

points are more business oriented and involve refraining from

awarding business on the basis of price alone, improving the

system of production, and evaluating processes. Culturally related points address training, education, self-improvement,

innovative environment, and pride in workmanship. The final

point involves accomplishing the TQM transformation. The

thesis authors note that “the above points are difficult to

adapt to the squadron, but they must be implemented.”22

A 1991 research project that studied changes in institutional values among service members also highlighted the

many challenges TQM faced in its mandated application to

military units. TQM is based on a participatory-management

philosophy that sees human nature as rational and seeks to

involve all members as equals: “A rigid chain of command,

span of control, hierarchical delegations of authority, and a

caste structure of rank which is traditional in military organization will have difficulty adopting TQM. The objectives of

TQM are not incompatible with expectations of military leadership; however, the means to accomplish the objectives can

be significantly different and in some instances mutually exclusive as a means of military leadership.”23 Required to practice both TQM and military leadership simultaneously, most

senior officers and enlisted members were left struggling in a

quandary of expectations.

A Navy thesis that surveyed marines’ resistance to the application of TQM sheds further light on this dilemma. Like previous studies, this survey approaches TQM uncritically, concentrating on its beneficial implementation. After surveying 338

marines, the thesis concludes that a “general level of support

existed for the changes in the work place based on Deming’s

principles.”24 However, it does not attempt to measure the

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marines’ responses to the implementation of TQM within the

corps and does note several considerable hurdles that had to

be overcome: marines could be “expected to resist to some degree a comprehensive leadership philosophy that a first glance

appears qualitatively different from the ideals held by generations of their predecessors.”25

Specific areas in which surveyed marines showed resistance

to TQM included the use of quantitative methods of decision

making, the idea of giving lower-ranking individuals responsibility for the long-term operation of the organization, the reduced emphasis on individual performance, the notion that

quality already existed, and the belief that traditional leadership fundamentals apply to any situation.26 Other objections

to TQM were identical to those raised by civilian business—

specifically, the fact that it adds considerable work and disrupts the organizational culture.

The thesis also describes the incredibly broad range of

change that must occur to fully implement TQM in the traditionally oriented Marine Corps: “[TQM] requires discarding

many of the ‘old’ ways of doing things. It will require changes

in top leadership emphasis, organizational structures, goals,

orientation, vision, inspection requirements, and changes in

people’s attitudes.”27 In sum, it requires a complete reshaping

of the service’s culture.

The Fall of TQM

Just as the military experienced organizational resistance to

the imposition of TQM principles and the shift from traditional

leadership, so did civilian business begin to discover the limits

of quality. Like its predecessor MBO and other all-encompassing management theories, by the mid-1990s TQM found itself

in the graveyard of big-business ideas that had burned out.

The case of Florida Power & Light delivered the first stunning blow to TQM. This company’s implementation of a wallto-wall TQM program led to its becoming the first American

business to earn the Japanese Deming prize. Shortly after

Florida Power & Light won the award, however, “an employee

mutiny led the new management team to dismantle TQM.”28

Quality, it seemed, had become a “tyrannical bureaucracy

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with too much emphasis on indicators, charts, graphs, and reports resulting in employees working extraordinarily hard

merely to fulfill the basic requirements of their jobs.”29 The

Wallace Company, winner of the Baldridge Quality Award in

1990, also followed in the footsteps of Florida Power & Light.

The prestigious business-consulting firm Arthur D. Little conceded that many companies are now struggling to extend the

application of TQM tools to areas outside manufacturing.

In the 1970s, MBO was championed as the savior of the

business world, but in less than 10 years it had become a

passing fad. Like MBO, TQM had become a “thing in itself,

highly mechanistic in its mindset and methods, seeming to

view the organization as an apparatus rather than a human

culture. It lacked an element of ‘heart,’ required a great deal of

‘selling’ and training, and was imposed rather than co-determined.”30 Lagging slightly behind the civilian business culture, the military began to drift from TQM in the late 1990s by

curtailing quality inspections and canceling mandatory training sessions.

Now that the TQM military experiment has become a thing of

the past, it leaves behind some perplexing issues: Why would

the American military embrace a business-management theory

so diametrically opposed to its traditional culture of leadership? Will historical principles surrounding the art of military

leadership survive this onslaught of scientific-management

theories, or will they remain forever altered? Perhaps most of

all, was the acceptance of TQM just a breeze signaling a storm

of transition in a military culture that is becoming more business, scientific, management, and professionally oriented? Is

this new culture able to prepare tomorrow’s cyber warriors for

the missions and threats of the twenty-first century? Or does

future success now demand a rediscovery of the principles of

the traditional military culture? These questions will be explored in the following chapters.

Notes

1. Frank Ray Wood, “U.S. Air Force Junior Officers: Changing Professional Identity and Commitment” (PhD diss., Northwestern University,

1982), 35–36.

2. Ibid., 34.

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3. Ibid.

4. William M. Sullivan, Work and Integrity: The Crisis and Promise of Professionalism in America (New York: HarperBusiness, 1995), 112.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid., 113.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid., 115.

10. Wood, 37.

11. Paul T. Karschnia, The Civil-Military Environment: A Study of Military

Professionalism and Ethics (Washington, D.C.: National War College, 1974), 20.

12. Wood, 38.

13. Marc Thomas Nicholls, “Resistance to Total Quality Leadership

Change: An Evaluation of Individual Marine Responses to TQL Principles

and Change” (thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, December 1991), 3.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid., 4.

16. Ibid.

17. William Horsley and Roger Buckley, Nippon, New Superpower: Japan

since 1945 (London: BBC Books, 1990), 239.

18. Phillip Oppenheim, The New Masters: Can the West Match Japan?

(London: Business Books, 1991), 3.

19. Nicholls, 4.

20. Jack C. Strickland, “Key Ingredients to Total Quality Management,”

Defense/89, March/April 1989, 17–18.

21. See W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis (Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Advanced Engineering Study,

1986).

22. Edward L. Knighton II and Norbert F. Melnick, “Applying Total Quality Leadership to an Aviation Squadron” (thesis, Naval Postgraduate School,

December 1991), 61.

23. Eric E. West, “An Assessment of Institutional and Individual Values

in a Transitional Military Environment,” Executive Research Project (Fort

Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C.: Industrial College of the Armed Forces,

April 1991), 17.

24. Nicholls, 61.

25. Ibid., 11.

26. Ibid., 81–82.

27. Ibid., 44.

28. Karl Albrecht, “No Eulogies for TQM,” TQM Magazine 4 (October

1992): 271.

29. “The Downside of Quality,” Training & Development 46 (March

1992): 11.

30. Albrecht, 272.

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Chapter 5

Equality, Authority, and Fraternity

In 1990 a Marine major sent the following message to Officer Candidate School recruiters in his command: “Effective

immediately . . . do not contract non-minorities. . . . Once we

receive enough minority applicants to complete the district

mission we will start approving majority applicants. . . . This

is a team effort. . . . If you have minority applicants above your

assigned mission, submit them. Let’s get the minority mission

complete ASAP. Concentrate on minorities. . . . This plan has

been blessed by the powers that be.”1

Such statements would indeed seem odd to the military society of the past, which sought values of cohesion, unity, masculinity, authority, and fraternity—not diversity. In truth, the

underlying fabric of equality that runs throughout today’s “politically correct” military would render that society nearly unrecognizable to warriors of yesteryear.

The modern military contains elements of diversity, managerial equality, persuasion, sensitivity, isolation, individualism,

and inclusion. One could argue that this society is more closely

aligned with popular social trends in the American civilian

world than at any other time in recent history. This has not always been the case; Huntington notes that in the early 1900s,

the “proper cultivation of the military spirit required the military to withdraw from contact with the materialistic society

which they served lest they be corrupted by the ‘spirit of the

age’ and become simply a ‘fighting industrial association.’”2

The social chasm that once separated military and civilian

societies in the early 1900s no longer seems to exist. The assimilation of liberal democratic principles into modern military

society, however, has ushered in its share of clashes with tradition. Current media headlines and debates showcase this

battle of changing cultures, highlighting stories of women in

combat, sexual harassment, treatment of homosexuals in the

services, and other equal-opportunity issues.

Although the mass media dwells on these specific issues,

they are only small indicators of major upheavals in how the

33
American military culture has come to view the notions of

equality, authority, diversity, fraternity, and individualism.

This paper has previously described modern military society

as having become occupationally rooted, politically conscious,

and technically specialized, with functions and paradigms that

overlap those of the civilian business community. That is, the

modern military now reflects much of the vast social change

taking place in civilian democratic society.

As American political society has struggled with changing

ideas of liberalism and democracy, military society has often

served as an experimental social battleground where these

new ideas challenge the norms of traditional military culture.

Before exploring these ideas, one would do well to describe

some of the changes in American liberal political society. In

The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Gordon S. Wood

eloquently describes how American society has moved from republicanism toward social democracy.3 This chapter uses this

theoretical construct to chart changing patterns in American

society and describe how they have influenced military notions

of equality, diversity, authority, fraternity, and individualism.

Revolutionary Society

In 1831 the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville toured a

booming America and in his short stay offered one of the most

insightful and lasting critiques of American culture and society ever produced: “Amongst the novel objects that attracted

my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing

struck me more forcibly than the general equality of condition

among the people. The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I perceived that this equality of condition is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be

derived.”4 Tocqueville saw the unique nature of American

democratic culture as the driving force behind society and political life in the United States. Huntington identifies this essential character of American society as “liberalism.”5

This liberal character has found expression in the “social revolution” engineered in America as it progressed from a monarchical to a republican society and now finds itself seeking

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equality and social democracy. Gordon Wood has fashioned a

model for this vast social upheaval: “The American Social Revolution was not conservative but radical, based on the amount

of social change. The new society was very different from colonial society, producing the most liberal, democratic, and commercial minded people in the modern world. It utterly destroyed aristocracy and gave respectability and dominance to

ordinary people and dignity to menial labor.”6

Aristocracy

The aristocratic world of the founding fathers is lost to

Americans in the postmodern era. Eighteenth-century America still favored differences in class and social rank. Members

of the constitutional convention, therefore, were not “ordinary”

men but elites and aristocratic gentlemen. Members of early

colonial society inherited many traits of English society. Most

of them lived under the influence of the English tradition of

staying in a particular social station in life and adhered to the

philosophy that “God in his great wisdom had given a variety

of abilities to men suitable to several stations in life.”7 Patriarchal domination was the social norm, extending from the basic

family to the limited monarchy, and patriarchal dependence

was a “measure of obedience which we owe to those whom

providence hath placed over us.”8

Similar to English society, colonial society consisted of a matrix of personal and private relationships. Young men of average

means could find advancement only by soliciting the sponsorship of a patron or noble. Politics was not the sport of ordinary

men but of the aristocratic and idle. Personal political appointments were common. For the most part, economic activity was

conducted in the private realm, where personal credit and gold

ruled, and banks and paper money were distrusted.

Republicanism

The Enlightenment ushered in a new kind of elite. The spirit

of republicanism was a child of newly enlightened men of

honor. Men such as Thomas Jefferson were first-generation

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gentlemen whose status focused on self-proclaimed “qualities

of learning, politeness, and character.”9 Others, such as

George Washington, were obsessed with honor and public

opinion. The tradition of dueling carried all the way through

President Andrew Jackson’s term of office. This preoccupation

with honor, however, is a “notion that makes sense only in an

unequal society—exclusive, heroic, and elitist!”10

As was the case with citizens of the Roman Republic, the republican spirit also entailed a search for virtuous citizenship.

“We the people,” placed in the context of republicanism and

colonial society, applies only to selected individuals, “autonomous and free from ties of interest and qualified to be citizens.”11 According to strict eighteenth-century republican

virtue, the freedom of Americans rested in guaranteeing that

only men of society and character held office. Undoubtedly, the

greatest testament to elitist, gentlemanly values and republican notions of the constitutional framers was their reaction to

social change brought on by popular democracy in the new

world. “All the revolutionary leaders died less than happy with

the results of the American Revolution,” and Alexander Hamilton claimed, “This American world was not made for me!”12

Social Democracy

Enlightened republicanism, a short-lived concept, bred social competition and individualism, and Huntington’s liberalism came to be expressed more in terms of self-interest. Modern America emerged as an egalitarian, materialistic, and

individualistic society. “The spectacular and rapid growth and

movement of people weakened traditional society and intensified feelings of equality.”13

A unique capitalistic spirit and democratic culture emerged

under the umbrella of modern American democracy. Pioneers

of the great American capitalistic spirit were labeled “GoGetters” in Daniel J. Boorstin’s study The Americans: The Democratic Experience: “The Go-Getters made something out of

nothing. . . . They discovered new resources, and where there

seemed none to be discovered, they invented new ways of profiting from others who were trying to invent and discover.”14

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The marriage of democracy and capitalism left America a vast,

limitless frontier of opportunity for the entrepreneur. Around

these attitudes an American democratic culture was forged.

Even in the early 1800s, as Tocqueville noted, “The first thing

which strikes a traveler in the United States is the innumerable multitude of those who seek to emerge from their original

condition. The love of wealth is therefore to be traced, either as

a principal or an accessory motive, at the bottom of all Americans do.”15

Another aspect of this democratic culture was an imbedded

“consumption culture” and the need of market economies to

expand and make every item and every experience available to

everyone, a phenomenon Boorstin describes as the “democratization of things.” “As never before,” he points out, “the world

would witness the ‘equalizing’ of times and places. The American Democracy of times and places meant making one place

and one thing more like one another, by bringing them under

the control of man.”16 Food from across the continent could be

packaged and transported to the average household; the automobile and airplane compressed time and space; windows and

skyscrapers brought the outside world inside; and photographs and television captured “repeatable” experiences. Democratic capitalism and technology had brought the world to

the fingertips of the average person.

The price paid for this rapid equalization of things within a

culture, however, was that they became trivialized. Things “that

made experience repeatable could actually dilute experience,

dull consciousness, and flatten sensations.”17 Thoreau wrote

that “we do not ride on the railroad, it rides on us.”18 He was not

simply talking of the new tracks tattooing the countryside of

early America. The massive growth of American democratic culture has proceeded like a locomotive, barreling over groups of

people in society who, in many ways, have been left out of the

democratic experience. Social democracy in the United States

has also carried with it some trade-offs: “While there is no denying the wonder and benefits democracy has brought to the

masses of common laboring people, the costs have been vulgarity, materialism, rootlessness, and anti-intellectualism.”19

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An engine of revolutionary shifts in attitudes and thinking

drove this locomotive of social democratic change: “The result of

assaults on elite opinion and celebrations of common ordinary

judgment was a dispersion of authority and ultimately a diffusion of truth to a degree the world had never before seen.”20

American liberalism now seemed to express itself in the social

dialogues of relativism, acceptance, and inclusion. Political correctness and the popular fears of passing judgment and claiming absolutes seemed to best characterize these trends. Moral

relativism, the morality of a commercial-democratic America,

differs from traditional republican virtues of civic spirit. Relativism is the new language of a self-interested, egalitarian, and

valueless society. It comes as no surprise that postmodern,

commercialized American society has left so many people

searching for values since it provides none.

Social democracy, liberalism, and the mass equalization of

things have permeated every aspect of American society, leveling traditional society and elite republican notions. These attitudes involve “institutional practices in society which promote

science, develop technological innovation, idealize certain

forms of behavior (competitive, aggressive, opportunity seeking, and acquisitive) deemed necessary if the economic system

is to be continually renewed and promote attitudes that are experimental, flexible, skeptical, pragmatic, and secular.”21

Individualism and Virtual Isolation

Another expression of liberalism that deserves more consideration is the concept of individualism, which lies close to the

very center of American culture. More than a social construct,

individualism continues to be “basic to the American identity.

We believe in the dignity, indeed the sacredness, of the individual. Anything that would violate our right to think for ourselves,

judge for ourselves, make our own decisions, live our lives as we

see fit, is not only morally wrong, it is sacrilegious.”22

The proper role of individualism as a pillar of American society, however, is open to a multitude of interpretations. Modern individualism and the commitment to individual dignity

have brought individual rights, opportunities, and equality

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into new social realms. Although it has ushered out inequalities, aggressive individualism has also seen the end of older

civic and republican traditions that bolstered society. “Modern individualism seems to be producing a way of life that is

neither individually nor socially viable, yet a return to traditional forms would be to return to intolerable discrimination

and oppression.”23

Out of modern individualism has risen a culture of isolation

and individuation. Several factors have combined to leave the

individual alone in society. The rise of technology, the equality

and availability of experiences and things, a rapidly mobile

culture, the fragmentation of modern life into a number of separate sectors, the television and personal computer—all of

these have contributed to the development of isolated communities of individuals living in proximity to one another.

In the 1800s, Tocqueville warned Americans of the powerful

inward turn toward the self that could plague democracies,

leaving people isolated from their history and communities. As

this turn became increasingly apparent in modern American

society, many intellectuals looked to electronic virtual communities as the saving grace of the collective: “With cellular

phones and E-mail, one can be physically alone yet still in the

midst of a clamoring invisible crowd.”24 In The Wired Neighborhood, Stephen Doheny-Farina finds quite the opposite

trend, with technology having the effect of isolating people: “It

is no longer American democracy that isolates the individual;

it is the simulacrum of democracy, the electronic democracy,

the virtual culture, the society of the net that isolates individuals while seducing them with mere appearances of communication and collectivity.”25 Arthur Kroker and Michael A. Weinstein come to the same conclusions in their study Data

Trash: “[America has become] not a wired culture, but a virtual culture that is wired shut; compulsively fixated on digital

technology as a source of salvation from the reality of a lonely

culture and radical social disconnection from everyday life,

and determined to exclude from public debate any perspective

that is not a cheerleader for the coming-to-be of the fully realized technological society.”26

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Democratic Society and Military Tradition

In many instances, people feel that traditional military society, with its aristocratic and republican themes, is the antithesis of American individualism and social democracy. As

previously mentioned, the principles that held traditional society together include obedience, order, hierarchy, authority,

sacrifice, discipline, and fraternity. These characteristics were

driven by the “military’s main goal—to transform a group of individuals into an efficient unit for the purpose of inflicting extreme and deliberate violence.”27 Current trends in social

democracy and individualism outwardly seem to combat these

notions. Themes of social equality, rejection of authority, acceptance, inclusion, diversity, technological and communal

isolation, self-interest, and materialism now dominate modern

American society. Fashioning an effective fighting unit from

these ideals would prove a daunting task, even for the most

brilliant military theorists.

Unsurprisingly, the selected adoption of many current socialdemocratic trends into a traditionally structured modern military has produced strange bedfellows and generated much

controversy: “Although diversity and sensitivity are indispensable ideals in a pluralistic society, the military must play by

a very different set of rules because it has very different expectations of its members. While the military strives to reflect

society’s composition and values whenever possible, soldiers

inevitably surrender many freedoms that civilians take for

granted because, unlike civilians, they regularly face death

just because they are told to.”28

These different sets of rules and the ways in which civilian

democratic society changes these rules create some interesting paradoxes for its members. This controversy, existing to

some degree in support agencies, is most readily apparent in

the military services’ combat forces.

Changing Patterns of Authority and Sacrifice

Historically, as Huntington points out, military writers in

all the services have aggressively attacked individualism and

glorified the military’s traditional republican and aristocratic

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concepts of authority: “The group was supreme over the individual. The highest glory of the soldier was ‘obedience, unthinking, instinctive, prompt and cheerful obedience.’ ‘Military discipline is invaluable because it never reasons.’ ”29

These ideas of domination and subordination are truly difficult to instill in recruits who enter the military world from an

egalitarian and individualistic society. The new businessscientific, marketplace mentality that is quickly becoming the

norm within military society has almost reduced traditional

notions of obedience and authority to archaic remnants.

Shortly after World War II, Janowitz identified a major trend

facing the professional American soldier: the “changing modes

of authority from domination to persuasion.”30 Management

theories, persuasion, and employee participation have become

widespread and in many cases have replaced standard, authoritarian lines of communication.

In the Air Force’s fighter-pilot community, one of the last

bastions of traditional principles, “crew resource management” has replaced the once sacred and unquestioning authority of the flight lead. This new training philosophy being

instilled in single-seat fighter pilots emphasizes the involvement and participation of all flight members in decisions, regardless of rank or experience. Such “flying participatory management” for combat pilots has caused confusion in and met

with considerable resistance from older members of the community who grew up in an atmosphere in which the flight lead

had unquestioned authority. Under the guise of fostering

teamwork and involvement, participatory management has

entered the realm of even the most traditional of combat units,

such as the Marine Corps.

Social equality is indeed gradually seeping into military society, altering traditional patterns of authority. This fascinating trend reflects a military culture that increasingly identifies

itself with civilian business society. Equality, persuasive management techniques, participatory management, and employee empowerment cannot exist in a social climate dominated by subordination, obedience, and the unquestioning

authority of elites. In light of the fact that our leaders seemingly have charted this course of equality for military society,

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it will be interesting to see what pillars of tradition they will

preserve to steer this wandering ship.

Diversity and Fraternity

Diversity, inclusion, and sensitivity have become the battle

cries of American liberalism in the politically correct era.

Throughout American history, the services have traditionally

managed to sidestep these terms, citing their overwhelming

need to defend the society where liberal thought abides. Such

notions also seem to contradict their mission and focus, which

they accomplish by “transform[ing] young civilians into warriors. Diversity? In order to form effective units that can win

wars as quickly and painlessly as possible, the civilian recruit’s

individual identity must be subjugated to the needs of the unit.

Sensitivity? Because a warrior’s principal purpose is killing

people, much of the sensitivity must be stripped away.”31

Applying the principle of equal opportunity to military organizations has long proved a dilemma for most democratic

societies. In the United States, this challenge began with racial

integration during the War of Independence. Historically, the

“massive historical and sociological data from the Revolutionary War through World War II has produced two major proven

propositions: (1) Although involved in all conflicts, race relations didn’t vary significantly from the unequal treatment in

the civilian sector. (2) After participation in conflicts, most minorities were rejected from service when peace returned.”32

The post–World War II environment, however, saw some different trends in integration as the armed services led the way toward racial equality by desegregating in 1948. Cultural diversity or understanding was neither emphasized nor promoted

during this military “first.”

Just as racial equality has at times mirrored civilian society,

so have social trends of “diversity management” and inclusion

entered the military realm. These current emphases extend

beyond simple equality of opportunity and seem to imply a

more aggressive approach toward inclusion and acceptance

within military society. “The rationale for ‘diversity management’ is that an institution is strengthened simply by having

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different people in it.”33 Subjects of popular diversity-management themes reaching the mass media have included minorities, women, homosexuals, and their acceptance within the

military culture.

A culture of inclusion and acceptance has been generated to

support policies of diversification. It promotes mandatory

social-actions training, sexual-harassment training, equalopportunity training, and sensitivity training. In 1994 the

Army chief of staff commented, “We are deeply committed to

diversity. It’s a serious issue. . . . Diversity is fundamental to

the strength of the institution.”34

The central tension in this promotion of diversity and inclusion, however, arises from the military combat unit’s need for

cohesion, unity, and a sense of fraternity. This conflict operates

in much the same way as the social conflict between republican and democratic principles. Actively seeking members of diverse identities and backgrounds requires a new focus in an organization “where[by] people are trained to look and act alike,

work towards the same purpose, and be completely interchangeable. . . . Individuals mean nothing and units mean

everything.”35 A military service that reported to a socially democratic nation which allowed and practiced discrimination in

the name of unity would represent the height of irony, though.

Issues of inclusion and sensitivity training generate similar

perplexities. One must coolly examine the issue of breaking

down masculinity and the fraternal bonds that have historically embraced success in combat: “Is it realistic to try to finetune sensitivity, sensitizing soldiers in some respects while at

the same time inculcating an insensitivity to the brutality that

they must be capable of inflicting and enduring to survive and

win on the battlefield?”36 Given the changes in the nature of

modern combat that have driven the military into a genderneutral/socially neutral status, would modern pluralistic society tolerate the discrimination that accompanied a return to

fraternal unity in the services’ combat roles?

Battle lines in the conflicts among authority, equality, diversity, and cohesion have already been drawn on the sides of

the civilian marketplace and social democracy. As modern military society increasingly identifies itself with the civilian social

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and business sectors, attitudes of equality, technical isolation,

individualism, materialism, inclusion, and diversity may soon

become prevalent within the services. When these attitudes

counter traditional military principles and the conflicts remain

unresolved, service members will be faced with confusion and

the prospect of teetering between the two extremes. The final

chapter addresses the issue of striking a balance between

postmodern warfare and the missions faced by cyber warriors

of the twenty-first century.

Notes

1. John Luddy, “Sensitive Killers: A New Age Dawns at the Pentagon,”

World & I 9 (November 1994): 390.

2. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard

University Press, 1957), 267–68.

3. See Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New

York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992).

4. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. Richard D. Heffner

(New York: New American Library, 1956), 26.

5. Huntington, 90.

6. Wood, 4–8.

7. Ibid., 20.

8. Ibid., 43.

9. Ibid., 215.

10. Ibid., 40.

11. Ibid., 103.

12. Ibid., 365.

13. Ibid., 316.

14. Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The Democratic Experience (New

York: Vintage Books, 1974), 3.

15. Tocqueville, 254–55.

16. Boorstin, 307.

17. Ibid., 389.

18. Quoted in ibid., 380.

19. Wood, 369.

20. Ibid., 361.

21. Sheldon S. Wolin, The Presence of the Past: Essays on the State and

the Constitution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 50.

22. Robert N. Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985),

142.

23. Ibid., 144.

24. Stephen Doheny-Farina, The Wired Neighborhood (New Haven,

Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996), 8.

25. Ibid., 7.

26. Quoted in ibid., 5.

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27. Luddy, 380.

28. Ibid., 381.

29. Huntington, 258.

30. Cited in Frank Ray Wood, “U.S. Air Force Junior Officers: Changing

Professional Identity and Commitment” (PhD diss., Northwestern University,

1982), 21.

31. Luddy, 381.

32. Charles C. Moskos and Frank R. Wood, eds., The Military: More Than

Just a Job? (Washington, D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey’s International Defense

Publishers, 1988), 119.

33. Luddy, 381.

34. Ibid., 388.

35. Ibid., 381 and 389.

36. Ibid., 384.

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Chapter 6

Tomorrow’s Cyber Warriors

Equipment for the cyber warrior is not science fiction. Development is

underway—and includes multisensor-aided technology, digital battlefield communications, intelligent minefields, precision munitions,

night imaging, and integrated multi-media information transport. The

cyber warrior is almost completely autonomous with gear that allows

for the collecting, processing, analysis, and interpretation of information critical to a mission.1

American warriors of the twenty-first century will most certainly be children of technology and the information sciences.

These cyber warriors, however, will also be very much a part of

the military and civilian cultures that surround them. The

present is indeed a confusing time. Tomorrow’s soldiers are immersed in mixed signals from the conflict between a developing

business-scientific/management-professional culture and the

gradually eroding traditional military culture of yesteryear.

The battlefield of tomorrow is also in constant transition.

Warriors may face a myriad of threats, from “non-state actors,

such as terrorists, to advanced states.”2 Recent US military

endeavors such as the Persian Gulf War of 1991, antiterrorist

operations, and the host of peacekeeping efforts from Bosnia

to Somalia point to a series of diffuse and highly political challenges facing US interests in the future. Precision-guided munitions; stealth technology; satellites; and advances in computers, communications, and information have affected the

conduct of modern military operations as well as their command and control. “New information systems have improved

target acquisition and the ability to attack an enemy’s infrastructure. As a result, many analysts have suggested the imminence of a revolution in military affairs (RMA) brought about

by the integration of information” (emphasis added).3 Information centers may now have become strategic targets for crippling the more advanced states. In the United States, these include the “Federal Fund Electronic Switchboard at Culpeper,

Virginia, the Alaska pipeline, the Internet, and the Air Force

Satellite Control Network.”4

47
With soldiers outwardly draped in technology, perhaps the

most difficult question confronting futurists is the “inward”

equipment necessary for cyber warriors fighting in the new age

of the RMA. This chapter explores this question by examining

the differing demands imposed by the RMA upon the military

culture. It then compares these demands to lessons learned

from Operation Desert Storm—the first large-scale American

conflict of the information age.

With these lessons in mind, the chapter then proceeds to

the question of whether the current business-scientific/management-professional culture is inwardly meeting the demands of tomorrow’s cyber soldier or if we need a rebirth of

traditionalism within the military. Both military historians

and futurists would agree that technology alone cannot serve

as a panacea for a military organization and culture if neither

is prepared for the challenges of a new age.

Tomorrow’s Battlefields

Envisioning the battlegrounds of the next century and the

demands placed upon soldiers is truly a less-than-exact task.

We can paint at least a blurred picture of tomorrow’s warriors

and proving grounds by summarizing current trends and predictions debated by military theorists today.

Although military futurists and historians suggest differing

paradigms as they conjure up their images of tomorrow’s battlefields, most agree that a new revolutionary or at least evolutionary form of warfare will take place. Alvin and Heidi Toffler

predict that a “third wave” of warfare will follow what they label

the agricultural and industrial waves.5 “The Third Wave’s distinguishing characteristics are brain force, proliferation of technologies, non-lethal weapons, and knowledge-based warfare.”6

This view promotes a level of economic determinism insofar

as, according to the Tofflers, society pursues warfare based on

its economic base. Therefore, a developing “information” economy, such as the one in this country, will seek information

warfare. This model also inherently suggests that a society, in

the pursuit of its own interests and security, must be able to

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conduct warfare on varying levels, according to the economic

base of its threats.

William S. Lind and others have proposed a “fourth generation” model to explain warfare in the modern era. According to

Lind, warfare has progressed through three generations/tactics

of line and column, fire and movement, and nonlinear maneuver.7 The fourth generation is an extension of the nonlinear nature of the third generation: “The distinction between

war and peace will be further obscured and conflict will be dispersed over an even larger battle space. A non-Western, ideabased warfare, including war that resembles terrorism, is in

this view a possible alternative to the Western, technologybased mode of warfare.”8

Thomas X. Hammes looks for a broader basis for Lind’s

fourth generation of warfare, one in which information warfare

dominates the battles of a new era. “In place of Lind’s vision of

terrorist wars spawned by ideas, Hammes foresees a future of

‘netwars’—‘societal-level conflicts waged in part through internetted modes of communications.’”9

Analysts of recent American conflicts are also quick to highlight several recent trends that will likely affect the structure

of future military endeavors. The modern American style of

warfare calls for the use of massive force and relies upon technological superiority. Advocates of the RMA “see a future with

capabilities that will allow the U.S. military and its allies to

win rapid, overwhelming, and nearly bloodless victories, because this changed nature of warfare will decisively favor the

side that fields the most advanced technology.”10

This strategy of technology wars with little human involvement also seems to fit neatly within the framework of achieving popular support for the use of force abroad: “One manifestation of this idea appears to be the growing belief that the

American people will not endure casualties suffered in the application of foreign policy for protecting and fostering our national interests.”11 As technology and the modern media have

brought warfare into our living rooms, this attitude has expanded to include not only friendly casualties, but also noncombatants and even enemy casualties.

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The reliance on technology also carries with it some other

significant strategic disadvantages and vulnerabilities. For example, the proliferation of technology can allow smaller adversaries to level the playing field: “Skillful employment of ‘offthe-shelf’ and arms-market weapons and equipment to serve

the requirements of a combat force could make ‘technological

dominance’ by the more lavishly outfitted side unlikely.”12 Additionally, many scholars foresee future adversaries against

whom technology carries a limited decisive advantage, similar

to what occurred in the Vietnam War: “Opponents are envisioned as rising among ‘street-fighter’ nations and non-state

groups of the world, prepared to wage war in unconventional

fashion using small groups unconcerned about humanitarian

limitations, innocent civilians, rules of warfare or even their

own casualties.”13

Equipping the Cyber Warrior

What, then, can we assume about equipping cyber warriors

for the uncertain demands of the twenty-first century? Projections of current trends in force downsizing and technological

advancement suggest that “the high-tech military of the future

will be smaller, but more sophisticated and specialized. The

military will be comprised of well trained, skilled warriortechnicians who are comfortable operating with advanced

electronic gadgetry.”14

As Wood and Janowitz predicted (see chap. 3), technological

change will continue to fragment the military into varying specialties. Technical expertise will undoubtedly become a vital

element in equipping these military specialists. This need for

specialization will also increase the reliance on civilians within

the military to fulfill certain support roles.

The soldier of the RMA likely will be a member of an organizational structure driven by new advances in information. In

the past, the hallmark of American military organization was

a strict, hierarchical chain of command that encouraged individual initiative within the boundaries of this chain. As the

caretakers of violence, the military organization preserved

order and discipline with this authoritarian structure. In a

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digital battlefield, where precise information about the combat

environment is rapidly disseminated to warrior-specialists at

the lowest level, the use of multiple layers of command may

actually serve to degrade military performance. The GoldwaterNichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986

represented one early step in this direction, giving the regional

war-fighting commanders in chief more authority and streamlining the war-fighting chain of command: “As information

proliferates at faster speeds and is available to a wider array

of individuals, hierarchical organizations evolve into networks

and power is shifted more to individuals and groups.”15

Some futurists even foresee a day when traditional command arrangements totally disappear. If this trend is fully realized and if groups, networks, and individuals replace the

traditional layered hierarchy, we will still face the challenge of

preserving the unity of command necessary to the execution of

the military’s deadly mission. The responsibility of bearing the

public’s trust in this critical function demands no less.

Tomorrow’s soldiers will also need heightened political consciousness and awareness. Modern conflicts have become increasingly more political. The projection of military force and

US interests internationally must deal with a myriad of national political controls and limited objectives, along with additional challenges brought on by joint and multinational operations. During Vietnam, strict and highly unpredictable

political regulation played a part in target selection and the

use of force. The Gulf War of 1991 saw the development of

multinational coalitions, the drawing of a “line in the sand,”

and the imposition of limited political objectives. In Somalia

and Bosnia, warriors assumed the role of peacekeepers and

police officers in civil struggles.

Responding to quick, politically limited campaigns; conducting policing operations; and dealing with terrorist actions, as

well as a variety of nonstate actors, require an unprecedented

level of political, cultural, and social understanding from the

soldier in the field. One slight miscalculation or misperception

can dramatically alter the political scene surrounding such actions. With the advent of information warfare, war is not just “a

real political instrument,”16 but politics have become a real in51

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strument of war. The political dimension in “infowar” rises to a

new level as it becomes a strategic target itself. “On the strategic level the United States seeks to acquire, exploit, and protect

information to support national objectives. Sectors for exploitation and protection include the economic, political, and military.

Cultural as well as social information may also be required to

support U.S. interests and strategic goals.”17

Will these cyber warriors become a different breed of soldier,

far removed from those of yesterday’s wars? If the predictions

of current theorists and futurists hold true, professional

American soldiers of the information age will be technical experts and specialists comfortable with the latest technology.

They will likely be part of semiautonomous organizational networks and information clusters, and will find themselves increasingly connected to the political, social, and cultural aspects of conflicts.

It is doubtful, however, that infowars and a potential RMA

will completely usher out those historical constants of successful military operations. The teachings of Sun Tzu and

Clausewitz should ring just as true in the information age:

Conflicts in the information age will not be less common or less violent.

On the contrary, the transition period between the industrial and information ages is likely to be even more chaotic. If committed to war,

cyber-warriors will fight as ferociously as their predecessors. Information will enhance the way they operate on the battlefield. These future

warriors will quickly outflank and outmaneuver an enemy with knowledge of its position and combat situation. With information age

weapons at their disposal, they will engage an enemy precisely and decisively.18

Lessons Learned from the Gulf War

Stepping back from the crystal ball of the futurists and theorists, one finds that historical analysis of Operation Desert

Storm also offers some insight into equipping tomorrow’s

warriors. As the first major American conflict in the post-coldwar era and a harbinger of the information revolution, the

Gulf War teaches us many lessons that we can apply to future

campaigns.

First, however, we would do well to put this military endeavor in perspective. It was a brief war—Iraq invaded Kuwait

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on 2 August 1990, and cease-fire talks took place on 3 March

1991. It was also not a very violent war in terms of casualties:

211 coalition soldiers and 60,000 to 100,000 Iraqis were

killed.19 “Culturally, the results of this war will not be substantial. Its significance is in its profound political, economic,

scientific-technical, and military impact, which makes it of the

greatest importance to us all.”20

Militarily, the war’s many general lessons readily apply to

future conflicts. One cannot overestimate the significance of

airpower and air superiority—in fact, airpower alone may be

enough to win some limited future confrontations. The short

ground campaign “reaffirmed what strategists since Sun Tzu

have stressed concerning the importance of good strategy,

daring, good discipline, and training.”21

Other lessons learned include the dominance of high-tech

weapons and technology. The exorbitant amounts of money

spent on electronic warfare and weaponry proved to be a valuable investment: “JSTARS [joint surveillance, target attack

radar system] was an overwhelming success, Stealth proved

its worth, the Stand-off Land Attack Missile (SLAM), and precision guided munitions were tremendously successful.”22

Electronic warfare and control over the electromagnetic spectrum also contributed to control of the battlefield. In the maritime campaign, the struggle to eliminate Iraqi mines showed

that even a small investment in technology could cause great

difficulties for a superior opponent.

The need to integrate intelligence caused some frustration

among the coalition forces. US information centers performed

very well, but the management of intelligence was disjointed

and lacked controls. Integration of the political and military

realms also provided an important lesson: “Today’s telecommunications are such that they have heightened the interrelationship of the political and military aspects of a war, to the extent that the two are now very symbiotic, and an occurrence

in one realm can prompt a reaction in the other.”23 Vivid television coverage of the coalition’s rout of Iraqi forces, especially

of the “highway of death” from Kuwait to Basra, influenced the

Bush administration’s decision to call an early end to the war.

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TRADOC Looks Ahead

Outside of these broad historical lessons, the American military’s alteration of its training and doctrine following the Gulf

War provides another view of twenty-first-century warfare—

witness the changes made in the US Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). Led by Gen Fred Franks, TRADOC

faced a “new strategic landscape, marked by a broader and

much different set of conditions, in a more unstable and ambiguous setting.”24 As R. James Woolsey, former director of the

Central Intelligence Agency, remarked, “After forty-five years

of fighting a dragon, we finally killed it and now instead, we

find ourselves standing in a jungle with a bunch of snakes.”25

In 1991 TRADOC faced the daunting task of integrating the

Gulf War’s lessons and developing the Army’s post-cold-war

battle doctrine. Operation Just Cause in Panama and Desert

Storm “had been fought with twentieth-century tactics, technology, and doctrine, but had both shown signs of twentyfirst-century warfare.”26 These conflicts showed that potential

adversaries of the United States—either small, hostile political

groups or nations—could quickly acquire new technologies

and advanced weapons. Even in limited form, this technology

could pose a serious threat in the modern battlefield: “To

counter such threats, the Army had to look ahead to the potential of virtual reality, digitized communications, and other

information-age technologies for sharing, retrieving, and

transmitting information—they needed to synthesize the various disparate pieces—some new, some old—into a new concept for the battlefield.”27

Looking to the future, TRADOC pursued four key areas:

force projection, operations other than war (OOTW), joint and

combined operations, and conduct of the land battle.28 Desert

Storm demonstrated the need to prepare for future military

confrontations by focusing on a rapidly deployable force with

the separate branches of the services working together as part

of larger, multinational coalitions. OOTWs such as Provide

Comfort and peacekeeping operations demanded some of the

same “discipline, skills, teamwork, and toughness that come

from preparing to fight.”29 OOTW missions also demanded

more personnel from a rapidly shrinking military force.

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TRADOC’s research on the land battle of tomorrow produced great insights into the conflicts of a new age. Its development of battlefield laboratories in 1992 involved computerassisted simulations that focus on future “battle dynamics”30

and the application of new technology that provides snapshots

of future wars. Not surprisingly, many traditional concepts

shine through the wizardry: “The outcome of land battles is

still decided by physical force. In army versus army, on a given

piece of terrain, raw physical courage, physical toughness in

all types of terrain and weather, combat discipline, skill with

weapons and in units, and leadership in the face of chaos are

still very much needed.”31

Information wizardry, though, and its application in the labs

by highly trained, skillful soldiers are revolutionizing modern

warfare. Warriors not only will know their position at all times,

but also will be able to engage the enemy rapidly, precisely,

and directly while simultaneously informing other platforms

that also can provide support. Experiments with onboard sensors, communications links, and precise navigation equipment in the battle labs confirmed this vision. Information allowed for greater autonomy, dispersion, and lethality of

combat power. This dispersion suggested that some of the futurists’ trends in command and control, especially a shift toward a more horizontal flow of information, were being realized: “When all the troops know what is going on, what

happens to the hierarchical military command structure? Can

you expand the leader-to-led ratio while you disperse units,

keep them informed, and place fewer troops in a given battlespace?” In 1994, experimental unit XXI, consisting of cyber

warriors, was fielded at Fort Hood, Texas, to seek answers to

these and other questions.32

Postwar Studies?

At the end of the Desert Storm, a flood of analyses on technology in modern warfare and the political implications of this

limited campaign hit the shelves. Outside of selected biographies and personal testimonies, however, one finds very little

research regarding the inner characteristics and institutional/

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organizational values that led to success or even created confusion in the Gulf War. As was the case following almost every

major American military campaign, the nation retreated inwardly after this conflict, implementing a massive drawdown

and turning away from things military. These cutbacks and

force reductions left little room for analysis.

In July 1993, the Army conducted one of the very few studies regarding lessons learned from the Gulf War on the attributes of a successful modern warrior. Its Research Institute for

the Behavioral and Social Sciences asked 357 Gulf War veterans to evaluate a list of leadership competencies with an eye

toward judging their relative importance in various situations.33 The institute compared these rankings, which had

high statistical reliability, for combat, combat-support, and

combat-service-support units: “Competencies at the top level

were professional ethics, decision-making, and technical/

tactical skills, while competencies at the bottom level were supervision, teaching/counseling, and use of available systems.”34 In 1992 Kessling and others found similar results

after interviewing soldiers returning from an intensive training

session at the National Training Center.35

These studies, while statistically reliable, have limited applicability because they focus on voluntary samples of primarily junior officers; they confine themselves to leadership issues; and they compare only nine basic competencies/

attributes. However, they do demonstrate the relatively lower

importance attributed to supervision, planning, and counseling in modern combat scenarios. Ironically, these attributes lie

at the heart of the business-scientific/management-professional

culture that envelops today’s peacetime warrior.

Institutionalism for Tomorrow?

After having examined modern business-scientific culture

and traditional military culture, we now turn to the critical

question of what elements of each culture should shape the

American fighting force of the twenty-first century. Have traditional institutional values and interactions already been permanently altered? Does the changing battleground, previewed

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in the Gulf War and described by futurists, require a new

business-scientific military?

Sociologists such as Huntington, Janowitz, and Moskos

have used a variety of models to paint a picture of the traditional, institutional military subculture and society that has

historically played a significant role in American military

thought and organization. This military featured obedience,

order, hierarchy, authority, discipline, ceremony, suffering,

and fraternity.

We found that the ideas and subculture influencing today’s

military professional are distinctly removed from those of the

traditional soldier. Modern American soldiers are occupationally rooted, politically conscious, technically specialized, able

to share functions with civilian society, and surrounded by

commercial business paradigms and theories of scientific

management. The services’ wholesale adoption of TQM reflected the extent to which this culture had come to dominate

American military thinking. The scientific-management

scheme, as applied to combat organizations, was closely related to business/manufacturing, tended to quantify human

variables, relied on too many charts and graphs, and simply

lacked “heart.” Marginal analysis and management theories

had a pronounced effect upon traditional principles of military leadership.

Along with upheavals in leadership and management, the

modern military subculture has also become more closely

aligned with liberal civilian society, especially its notions of

equality, authority, diversity, fraternity, and individualism. The

progression of American social democracy and the melding of

these concepts into military society contrast openly with traditional military principles and the services’ goal of “transforming

a group of individuals into an efficient unit for the purpose of

inflicting extreme and deliberate violence.”36 Modern technology isolates individuals and leaders in virtual crowds and even

virtual commands. Patterns of organizational authority have

changed from domination to persuasion. In many scenarios,

leaders now assume that diversity strengthens the military organization. Patterns of inclusion and sensitivity training have

altered elements of fraternity once associated with combat.

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Research from military futurists and analyses of the Gulf

conflict seem to point to conflicting views over which elements

of the traditional or modern military culture should dominate

the future fighting force. The rising level of specialty and technical expertise apparent in today’s business-scientific culture

appears more than consistent with demands of the twentyfirst-century battlefield. Changing patterns of organization

and authority are less than clear, however. Information on the

battlefield will permit the traditional vertically organized hierarchy to dissolve into networks and groups. Although information in the conflicts of the future may lead to greater dispersion and autonomy, a strict and unified chain of command

will remain a necessity. Undoubtedly, the art of military leadership and the human elements of interaction, decision making, and ethics will also continue as decisive factors in any

conflict. Finally, staying abreast of the military culture’s

trends in political consciousness and increasing the modern

soldier’s understanding of the political operating environment

will prove critical to the future range of military endeavors.

Blueprint for a Culture in Transition

In this midst of this uncertain fighting environment and

clash of traditional and business-scientific cultures, it is indeed easy for theorists and historians to call for a blanket reinstatement of traditionalism. Such an attitude, however, does

not fully fathom the degrees to which the traditional subculture has already been transformed: “The problem with deep,

fast, and rampant innovation is not getting people to accept

the new but to surrender the old.”37

The first step toward striking a delicate balance between the

two subcultures involves achieving an understanding of the

new business-scientific/management-professional culture and

its implications for the future conduct of the military. This realization, however, must look beyond simple indicators of

change, such as retention problems, a perceived “values crisis,” or increasing occupational attitudes. It must probe critically and progressively into the roots, focusing on the internal

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and external variables that have created and shaped this new

military culture.

By remaining clearly focused on the demands of the future

battlefield, many elements of this emerging culture will prove

beneficial to the crafting of tomorrow’s cyber warriors. The

changing nature of military authority, for example, which

may seem detrimental to the traditional culture of an older

generation of warriors, can actually favor the future soldier:

“The technology of warfare is so complex that the coordination of a group of specialists cannot be guaranteed by authoritarian discipline. The complexity of the machinery and

the resultant interdependence produce an important residue

of organizational power for each member.”38 In the mid1970s, Janowitz noted this change in the nature of authority

from domination to manipulation, the latter referring to influencing behavior based on achievement, goals, indirect

techniques, and group persuasion.39

A proper analysis of any change within the military subculture can begin only with information provided by long-term

studies. Currently, we have no such studies on changing values or patterns of interaction within military society that could

prove useful in shaping the warrior of the information age.

One finds many barriers to critical research within the military. In such an organizational bureaucracy, driven by so

many external variables, establishing long-term programs and

studies can become a daunting task. Given the rank structure

and vertical hierarchy within the services, a certain level of

top-down “groupthink” produces studies that tend to support

current policies. For example, no one interested in career advancement in the early 1990s dared question the need for

TQM. Extensive bureaucratic barriers, such as the Privacy Act

and the oftentimes hard-to-obtain cooperation and support of

DOD and the military services, also discourage critical studies

from outside agencies.

Striking a balance in the clash of military cultures also involves

seeking out new modes of building institutionalism in an increasingly occupational organizational climate. Moskos’s institutional/occupational thesis identifies several key areas in which

the American military can foster an institutional identity, one

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that is not always driven from within the military: “On both the

military and civic sides, military people must be given justification for the utility of the armed forces which may be enhanced

by patriotic and military rituals. They must be accompanied by

a civic identification with the nation and an appreciation of the

service member’s role in the military organization.”40

Moskos also notes that immediate leaders, who are an “institution to their subordinates,” play the most significant role

in the socialization of military personnel.41 Promotion criteria,

he claims, must favor those leaders most concerned with

group improvement and willing to devote extra time to mentoring subordinates.42 Leaders must not view themselves as

“pawns in the grip of larger forces” but must emphasize the

distinctive, value-driven nature of the military forces. “After

they have articulated the unique and awesome responsibilities

of the military institution, the senior military leaders must be

seen as concerned and effective in protecting members’ rights

and entitlements.”43

Moskos’s final method of increasing socialization and institutionalism involves the system of professional military education (PME). Finding that “no real evidence exists that [PME]

programs, as presently designed, increase holistic or institutional thinking in the career force,” he proposes necessary

changes in the content, format, and tracking of PME.44 To

avoid “ticket-punching” quality education, he advises not even

entering it in the service member’s formal record. Continuingeducation programs should include both formal and informal

seminars, realistic reading lists, and programs designed and

administered by local commanders. Such programs would be

less selective and more voluntary, and they would seek to

broaden experience over simple preparation for promotion.

Building institutionalism, according to Moskos, does depend

upon “spending time at the officers’ club, spouse’s participation in the military community, or on-base residence. It does

not imply a turning back of the clock, but it entails the establishment of a new balance after a long period of indiscriminate

acceptance of the marketplace mentality.”45

Preserving institutionalism from the “marketplace mentality”

also involves a commitment of the services to define, shape, and

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communicate to civil society those attributes valued as necessary in their combat soldiers. In terms of values and motivation, many elements of traditional combat roles hold true for

both today’s and tomorrow’s warriors. In the early 1960s,

Janowitz listed three major explanations of how individuals

perform in combat roles: “The first asserts that their performance is motivated by identification with some formal symbols

of a particular organization or its traditions.”46 The second is

that soldiers behave as they do in combat in order to adhere

to some code of behavior such as “being a man.” The third has

its origins in a soldier’s relationship to larger society, patriotism, family, or the flag.47

A commitment to preserving and defining the warrior ethic

in a peacetime military organization bombarded by pressures

of social democracy is a challenging task. In an era of limited

resources, it is far easier to give in to social pressures, adopt

the business-management language of those who cut the

budgetary pie, and gradually whittle away at the warrior culture. In defining this combat ethic, however, one must not rely

too heavily upon traditionalism but keep an eye on the changing nature of warfare. In its combat roles, the military must

seek an environment that fosters the team—individuals with

technical and tactical expertise; heroic leaders and improvisers; and aggressive members who strive to win and accept suffering, physical and emotional hardships, and the insensitivity of being professional killers. Because it is entrusted with

managing violence, an effective military organization must discriminate when it comes to combat arms. This warrior ethic

must remain an absolute standard for qualified individuals

and must show no preference in terms of social standing, gender, or race. These combat values must play a significant role

in the training of soldiers, on par with mandated courses on

sensitivity, inclusion, and equal opportunity.

Dedication to the warrior spirit requires that service members and senior leaders educate civilian society and communicate these combat values. Senior leaders who traverse the

bureaucratic bridge between military and civilian societies

must continue to fight against policies and practices that

would adversely affect tomorrow’s heroic leaders and followers.

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Preserving the warrior spirit goes beyond notions of professionalism. As Huntington concludes, “Today, America can

learn more from the military, than the military from America.

The greatest service they can render is to remain true to themselves and serve in the military way. If they abjure the military

spirit, they destroy themselves first and their nation ultimately. If the civilians permit the soldiers to adhere to the military standard, the nations themselves may eventually find redemption and security in making that standard their own.”48

A final weapon in the battleground of traditional and business

cultures is the services’ need to reward and encourage the

human art of leadership. Leaders are the key to preserving institutionalism and the warrior spirit in the services of tomorrow. The American military remains more than determined to

build, train, and encourage its leaders. Volumes of literature

address military leadership, and it is taught in classes and

seminars at all levels of military education. Much leadership

training, however, is more devoted to issues of scientific management, marginal analysis, and other business-oriented theories. We need greater focus on the more-difficult-to-define art

and human component of military leadership. Advances in

technology and information and the tendency to isolate individuals into virtual commands demand that the future military

leader be proficient in human interaction. “E-mail commanders” must step away from their keyboards and discover the

human elements that are essential to successful leadership.

In Leaders and Battles, W. J. Wood describes leadership as

“an exceptional skill in conducting a human activity.”49 In his

study of successful combat leaders, he finds that “battles can

be won by the minds of leaders, the art of leadership is embodied in the individual, and this art must be based on certain

attributes.”50 Wood further proposes that forces in warfare

exist—specifically, danger, chance, exertion, uncertainty, apprehension, and frustration—which test the unique qualities of

military leaders. Personal attributes of successful military leaders, such as courage, will, intellect, presence, and energy allow

them to overcome what Clausewitz labels the fog of war.51

In the twenty-first century, the American military must balance its imported business-management paradigms with the

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pursuit of artful leaders who have courage and human presence. Future leaders must be evaluated and promoted not so

much on the basis of success in statistical management but

on human variables. Although the peacetime, occupationally

minded nature of the modern services makes such an endeavor difficult, the military must stress its unique qualities—

those that separate it from successful civilian companies.

The molding of tomorrow’s cyber warriors has already begun.

As the traditional and modern business cultures continue to

collide, a unified sense of purpose must emerge and look forward. As Anthony Eden wrote in 1951, “We must be bold and

vigilant lest daily cares cloud our longer vision of the task that

lies ahead and of the fair fortunes at our command. . . . But

this unity, this understanding, this sense of interdependence is

the heart of the business. Without it we shall make no headway. With it there is no fair ambition we cannot realize.”52

Notes

1. Lt Col Arsenio T. Gumahad II, “The Profession of Arms in the Information Age,” Joint Force Quarterly 15 (Spring 1997): 17.

2. Ibid., 18.

3. Lt Comdr Jeffrey A. Harley, “Information, Technology, and the Center

of Gravity,” Naval War College Review 50, no.1 (Winter 1997): 66.

4. Gumahad, 18.

5. Cited in Harley, 70.

6. Ibid.

7. Cited in ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Cited in ibid.

10. Gen Richard I. Neal, “Planning for Tomorrow’s Conflicts: A Recipe for

Success,” Naval War College Review 50, no. 4 (Autumn 1997): 12.

11. Ibid., 14.

12. Ibid., 13.

13. Ibid.

14. Gumahad, 17.

15. Ibid., 16.

16. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and

Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), 87.

17. Gumahad, 17.

18. Ibid.

19. Bruce W. Watson et al., Military Lessons of the Gulf War (London:

Greenhill Books, 1991), 247.

20. Ibid., 213.

21. Ibid., 216.

22. Ibid.

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23. Ibid., 118.

24. Tom Clancy with Fred Franks Jr., Into the Storm: A Study in Command (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1997), 497.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid., 498.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid., 499.

29. Ibid., 506.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid., 507.

32. Ibid., 511.

33. Joel M. Savell, Trueman R. Tremble Jr., and Ross C. Teague, Some

Lessons Learned about Leadership in Operation Desert Shield/Storm, Army

Research Institute Study Report no. 93-05 (Alexandria, Va.: US Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, July 1993), vii.

34. Ibid., 11.

35. Cited in ibid., 12.

36. John Luddy, “Sensitive Killers: A New Age Dawns at the Pentagon,”

World & I 9 (November 1994): 380.

37. James Stavridis, “The Second Revolution,” Joint Force Quarterly 15

(Spring 1997): 13.

38. Morris Janowitz in collaboration with Roger W. Little, Sociology and

the Military Establishment (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1974), 59.

39. Ibid.

40. Charles C. Moskos and Frank R. Wood, eds., The Military: More Than

Just a Job? (Washington, D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey’s International Defense

Publishers, 1988), 287.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid., 288.

44. Ibid., 289.

45. Ibid., 291.

46. Morris Janowitz, ed., The New Military: Changing Patterns of Organization (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1964), 204.

47. Ibid., 205.

48. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard

University Press, 1957), 466.

49. W. J. Wood, Leaders and Battles: The Art of Military Leadership (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1984), 2.

50. Ibid.

51. Clausewitz, 120.

52. Quoted in The President and National Security Policy (New York: Center for the Study of the Presidency, 1984), 4.

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Index

all-volunteer force, 10, 14–15

Bosnia, 47, 51

business practices/society, 3, 8, 13, 15, 17–18, 20, 23–25, 28, 31, 34, 41, 57

business-scientific/management-professional culture, 2, 4, 13, 18, 20, 28, 47–48,

56–58

careerism, 18–19

Carlucci, Frank, 28

civilian culture, 3, 7–8, 13–15, 18, 31, 34, 40–42, 57, 61

civilianization of the military, 15, 17–18

core values, 2

cost-benefit analysis, 18, 24–25

cyber warriors, 1–2, 31, 44, 47–48, 50, 52, 55, 59, 63

Deming, W. Edwards, 27–30

Department of Defense (DOD), 10, 23–24, 26, 28, 59

divergent-homogeneous model, 14

diversity, 7, 33–34, 40, 42–44, 57

doctrine, 19, 54

employee empowerment, 25, 41

equality, 33–44, 57

equal opportunity, 42, 61

Feigenbaum, Armand V., 27

flying participatory management, 41

Franks, Fred, 54

fraternity, 7, 9, 11, 33–34, 40, 42–43, 57

Gulf War, 47, 51–52, 54, 56–58

homogeneity, 7–8, 11, 14

inclusion, 33, 38, 40, 42–44, 57, 61

individualism, 8, 33–34, 36, 38–40, 44, 57

information age, 4, 48, 52, 59

information warfare, 4, 48–49, 51–52

institutional/occupational model, 10, 59

institutional values, 10–11, 29, 56

isolation, 15, 17, 33, 38–40, 44

Juran, Joseph M., 27

Korean War, 9

liberalism, 8, 33–34, 36, 38, 42

McNamara, Robert, 24–25

management, 3–4, 8, 14, 18–20, 23–28, 30–31, 41–42, 53, 57, 62–63

management by objectives (MBO), 3, 25, 30–31

marginal analysis, 18, 23–25, 57, 62

69
military culture/leadership, 1–4, 7–11, 13–14, 16–17, 19–20, 23–26, 28–29, 31,

33–34, 40–43, 47–48, 56–59, 61–62

moral relativism, 38

Morgan, Daniel, 1, 4

obedience, 8, 10–11, 35, 40–41, 57

occupational attitudes, 18, 58

occupational model, 15

operational risk management, 3–4, 25

operations

Desert Storm, 48, 52, 54–55

Just Cause, 54

Provide Comfort, 54

operations other than war (OOTW), 54

organizational culture, 3, 30

participatory management, 3, 25, 29, 41

political correctness, 33, 38, 42

political doctrine/society, 8, 14, 19, 34

professionalism, 3, 7–10, 19, 25–26, 62

professional military education (PME), 60

quality management, 3, 18, 23, 26–28

quantitative methods, 24, 26, 30

republicanism, 34–36

Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 56

revolution in military affairs (RMA), 47–50, 52

scientific management, 3, 18, 20, 23–26, 31, 57, 62

sensitivity, 7, 33, 40, 42–43, 57, 61

Shewart, Walter, 27

social change, 34–36, 38

social democracy, 3, 19, 34–38, 40, 43, 57, 61

socialization, 14, 60

Somalia, 47, 51

systems theory, 24

Tarleton, Banastre, 1

technology, 2–3, 15–16, 27, 37, 39, 47–50, 52–55, 57, 59, 62

Tocqueville, Alexis de, 34, 37, 39

total quality management (TQM), 3, 23, 25–31, 57, 59

traditional culture/military, 2–4, 7–11, 13, 18–19, 24, 26, 28–31, 34, 40, 44, 47–48,

56–59, 61

Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), 54–55

values, 2–4, 7–11, 13, 18, 29, 33, 36, 38, 40, 56, 58–59, 61

Vietnam War, 7, 25, 50

World War II, 16, 23–24, 27, 41–42

70
Employee Warriors and the Future

of the American Fighting Force

Air University Press Team

Chief Editor

Marvin Bassett

Copy Editor

Debra H. Banker

Book Design and Cover Art

Daniel M. Armstrong

Composition and

Prepress Production

Linda C. Colson