Unit cohesion Unit cohesion is a military concept , defined by one former United States Chief of staff in the early 1980s as " the bonding together of soldiers in such a way as to sustain their will and commitment to each other , the unit , and mission accomplishment , despite combat or mission stress " . However the concept lacks a consensus definition among military analysts , sociologists and psychologist s . History . Unit cohesion is a military concept dating back to at least Carl von Clausewitz , if not to antiquity . Several scholars have cited the influence of Sigmund Freud ' s thinking on theories of unit cohesion . A number of them noted that Freud wrote of cohesion breakdown among soldier s , asserting that it leads to panic , insubordination , self - interested rather than cooperative reactions to threats , and " a gigantic and senseless dread " . The later development of the concept is strongly informed by the work of Morris Janowitz , who , with Edward Shils , began writing on the topic in the late 1940s . Janowitiz continued to work in this area in his sociological work , as the disruptive policy of frequently rotating individual soldiers and officer s during the Vietnam War came under scrutiny as a large factor behind low morale . Following the studies of several World War II armies , sociologists concluded that comrade ly ties between small combat units is a decisive factor in providing good morale , cohesion , and organization framework . The defeats inflicted on United Nations forces by the poorly equipped Chinese People ' s Liberation Army in the Korean War in 1950 further generated interest on the role of " human elements " on modern battlefields . Although Western armies traditionally created ties between soldiers through informal means such as teamwork or shared hardship s instilled by discipline , the Chinese army relied on formal methods to assimilate recruits into their units . The assimilation process involved features such as coercive persuasion , surveillance , and political control , while military rank s and physical punishments were abolished to allow closer relations between officers and soldiers . The stringent assimilation methods allowed the Chinese to create high morale and cohesion compared to the Western forces . However , high casualty rates and the lack of modern equipment later resulted in a significant erosion of morale and cohesion as the Korean War dragged on . One of the worst cases of this erosion was the partial disintegration of the Chinese army during the spring offensive in May 1951 . In the late 1980s , one researcher stated that , regardless of whether unit cohesion was an actual motivator or merely a stabilizer , what mattered was that unit cohesion " enhanced fighting power " , because it reduced " combat inhibitors ( stress , fear , isolation ) " and promoted " esprit de corps , morale and teamwork " . Other research has , however , concluded that there is value in distinguishing the components of social cohesion and " [ t ] ask cohesion . . . the commitment to working together on a shared goal " , since some studies conclude that unit effectiveness correlates strongly with task cohesion , not with social cohesion . This debate about the relative importance , or even need for , the concepts of social cohesion and task cohesion is exemplified by an exchange between Anthony King and Guy Siebold in the journal Armed Forces & Society in 2006 - 2007 . One U . S . military researcher has drawn a distinction between teamwork and unit cohesion — claiming teamwork as being merely " collaboration " , while unit cohesion involves a bond that can sustain mutual commitment , not just to the mission , but to each other , and to the group as a whole . This added bond , he argued , enabled teamwork under conditions under which an organization might otherwise break down . New uses of Unit Cohesion in research . The concept of cohesion was originally used primarily to examine combat behavior . However , more recently models of cohesion have been applied to other phenomena characterized by stress , uncertainty , and the strategic interaction of groups . Uzi Ben - Shalom et al . looked at cohesion during Israeli Defense Force operations in the Occupied Territories during the al - Aqsa Intifada , while Paul Bartone and Amy Adler examined cohesion in a multi - national peacekeeping operation . Terence Lee used a broad concept of cohesion to explain military behavior during events in China in 1989 and Indonesia in 1998 and , in another article , the Philippines in 1986 and Indonesia in 1998 . Lucan Way and Steven Levitsky also used a broad concept of cohesion in order to explain regime maintenance in the former Soviet Union . Jesse Paul Lehrke developed a multi - level model to facilitate the use of both social and task cohesion for examining military behavior during revolutions . Less elaborate versions of this approach can also be seen in work by Dale Herspring and earlier work by Jesse Lehrke .