Document created: 1 June 04
Air University Review, November-December 1972

A New Style of Military 
for the United States: 
A Recommendation

I am tempted to believe that what we may call necessary institutions are often no more than institutions to which we have grown accustomed. In matters of social constitution, the field of possibilities is much more extensive than men living in their various societies are ready to imagine.

Alexis De Tocqueville

Today, in America, the popularity of the military is at one of its periodic low points. The problem is indeed serious when the President of the country admits: “It is open season on the armed forces. . . The military profession is derided in some of the so-called best circles of American.”¹ Adam Yarmolinsky describes society’s attitude as one in which “The military is regarded. . . as a wicked, greedy aggressor conspiring with other vested interests to subvert the American Dream.”² The U.S. military feels this deeply. Even a casual perusal of military periodicals of the last five years will reveal the often bitter reaction of military men to society’s attitude. Ward Just in his recent book, Military Men, quotes one senior officer at West Point: “ ‘The Army’s the only goddam thing holding this country together,’ one of them said, believing it, believing  that the Army was the only solid foothold in a country gone soft.”³

The division between society and the military must be of great concern to America. Conversely it must be a source of rejoicing for all who wish America ill. If America is to remain the major military power of the world or even an effective counterbalance to ideologically opposed forces in the international system, reconciliation between the U.S. military and U.S. society is imperative.

Society’s attitude has obviously been influenced by recent events such as the intervention in the Dominican Republic, the Vietnam war, My Lai, and the Cambodian incursion. However, these are hardly the root cause of the present division. For that we must look at the problems associated with operating an authoritarian, conservative military system within a liberal democracy; and the solutions to those problems lie with the military. Society may retreat somewhat from its freewheeling, minimally restrained position of the present, but to imagine the U.S.A. as anything less than an open, liberal society is an exercise in fiction. So long as society’s emphasis is on individual freedom and self-fulfillment, so long will there be basic conflict between society at large and any conservative subsystem within it. If one takes history as a guide, the logical long-term projection is for an even more liberal society. To this the military must accommodate. To place the burden on society is to fly in the face of reason and history.

The Military Ethic

The ethos of the military has been built around its purposes, it successful armed defense of the nation, and those behavioral characteristics that support that purpose. The military ethic may therefore be said to comprise the values, attitudes, and perspectives that inhere in the successful accomplishment of the battlefield task. Samuel P. Huntington in his classic work, The Soldier and the State, describes the man of the military ethic as “essentially the man of Hobbes.”⁴ To Professor Huntington, the military ethic stresses the evil in man, the weakness of man, and the importance of force. It also emphasizes the supremacy of the group and the importance of order. “It is, in brief, realistic and conservative.”⁵

If one leaves aside the issues of numbers of troops and their equipment, the combat effectiveness of a military force will depend on the degree to which its combat troops adhere to this ethic. In past centuries, when almost all troops had a combat function, the requirement for adherence throughout the armed forces was valid, and equally valid was the requirement that military practices and military training support the ethic. Today, when only about ten percent of the uniformed military specialize in combat skills and about twenty men are required to support each combatant, the validity of the requirement is questionable. Morris Janowitz, among others, has questioned the requirement that all military men in all their functions should adhere to the “combat standard.”⁶

An excellent example of the pervasiveness of the combat standard is provided by the Air Force. The combat soldiers of the air are the aircrews,* who provide a very small percentage of uniformed airmen. Nevertheless, the requirements of the battlefield influence the whole Air Force structure. The Air Officer’s Guide implores Air Force officers: “Officers will impress upon the young airmen lessons of patriotism and loyalty, and above all will impress upon them the necessity of obedience in the service. These lessons will be repeated again and again.”⁷ The necessity for such actions is easily lost on a young airman working in a support function with only the remotest of connections to the battlefield.

* The role of strategic missile crews places them in a different category. Although in an objective sense they are “combat troops,” the circumstances of their combat is unlike the traditional battlefield from which the military ethic is derived.

The basic problem is that of reconciling the combat ethic of the military with the liberal value system of U.S. society. Professor Huntington takes the view that society must become more conservative and there must be “wide-spread acceptance by Americans of values more like those of the military ethic.”⁸ He further implies that, if this does not occur, the professional military must stand fast as a conservative enclave within the system. However attractive this might be for the military, it is more descriptive of a pre-World War I America than that which now exists. The traditionally low retention rates of the U.S. military produce a military in which most of its uniformed members are only temporary soldiers—they were recently civilians and soon will be civilians again. The intrusion of the civilian ethic is continuous and unrelenting. In an all-volunteer force in which retention rates will probably be higher, the effects will be mitigated, but they will not be removed. The task for the military is reduced to that of changing its value system to one that is more compatible with that of society. A perfect match is unnecessary and undesirable—the imperatives of the battlefield dictate otherwise. Majority rule has no place on the battlefield.

A New Military

The task of describing in detail the type of military society that could function in harmony with U.S. society, while still being fully effective and efficient in performing its prime functions, is beyond the scope of this article. Nevertheless, a conceptual framework can be erected, which could be used as a basis for further study and development.

The focus of the new military must be the combat soldier. *Irrespective of how smoothly a combat unit of whatever size operates, it is of little use unless it can perform its combat function. The requirement for group solidarity, social cohesion, rational authority, and obedience in the combat unit will not change. Consequently the problems associated with adapting an individual from a liberal society into an effective combat soldier will still confront the military. However, if the primacy of position of the combat soldier is clearly recognized, his education should be different from that received by noncombat recruits. It should be directed at the combat situation and be sufficiently deep and comprehensive to ensure that the soldier’s obedience to authority in combat is the product of a rational faith in both his leaders and their doctrine, based on personal observation and individual thinking. To the educated recruit of today and the better educated recruit of tomorrow, anything less would be insufficient.

* “Soldier” is used generically to describe all military personnel. “Combat soldier” describes one who actually participates in combat or whose duties place him on the “battlefield.”

For soldiers who are not involved in combat and for combat soldiers when not involved in combat or combat training, the opportunities are legion for changing military practices to bring them closer to those of civilian society. There exists no functional reason for doing otherwise if the combat function is performed effectively. The traditional military concept has been that noncombat functions must support fully the values and attributes required for effective combat performance. The necessity for this in a modern military force is, at the very least, arguable. More important, it is irrelevant. The traditional military practices that support the combat ethic have been rejected by U.S. society. To continue to invoke them will only exacerbate the serious tensions that already exist within the military and between the military and society. In shaping the new military, the nation must aim to create an effective military arm of a liberal society, not to produce one that is suited to an authoritarian society.

The concept of applying the combat ethic only to the combat situation and to combat training places many traditional aspects of military service in an entirely new perspective. Rules, regulations, and customs concerning personal appearance, off-duty activities, ceremonialism, saluting, the relations between supervisors and those they supervise, discipline, and dissent come instantly to mind as some things that would need to be altered in a changed military.

An argument that would be raised against the precise focus on the combat soldier is that an elite group would be formed within the military society. Elite is a word that is subject to both negative and positive connotations in the military. To some, it conjures up images of the Praetorian Guard—the reaction is about as outmoded as the image it produces. Elite groups already exist in the military, either by intention or by accident. Their combat performance has been excellent; examples include the airborne units in World War II and the special forces in Vietnam. More general elite groups are the aircrews of the three armed services. Although not officially designated as elites, they are recognized as such by the military and the public. Their education and training are oriented towards performance of their combat function and characterized by an informal and nonauthoritarian form of discipline that relies heavily on individual intelligence and self-discipline. Significantly, there have been few if any reports of breakdowns in the combat discipline of these groups in the continuing war in Vietnam.

Some evidence indicates that the Army is focusing more attention on combat soldiers and on elite groups. General Westmoreland, while Chief of Staff of the Army, in testimony before Congress referred to the specializing of the missions of various divisions:

It would increase the personal challenge to the individual soldier by fostering the sort of elan which has been so conspicuous and successful in other elite elements of the Army—airborne troops, for example, or our Special Forces. This might contribute materially to Service attractiveness and our volunteer Army goal.⁹

This raises the obvious point of whether sufficient men could be recruited for a new military force of the type described. With respect to noncombat troops, the realignment of the military along more liberal lines would remove many of the so-called irritants of military life and improve both recruitment and retention. In this respect the new perspective of the military might also change the military’s perception of noncombat functions and lead to the conversion from military to civilian of many noncombat positions and functions. Professor Janowitz has pointed out that “the profession seems only dimly aware that the elimination of many of these research and supply operations would, in effect, unify the military establishment and reduce the strains on authority.”¹⁰ The usual argument against such action is that the overseas commitments of the U.S. military, particularly in remote locations, necessitate the use of military personnel rather than civilians in many noncombat positions. This in turn requires that military men occupy similar jobs in the U.S. as a rotation base from which the overseas posts can be filled. The continuing reduction in U.S. military forces overseas would allow greater civilian employment in these noncombat positions.

With combat forces, recruitment and retention would rely heavily on their elite nature and the professional’s pride in accomplishment. The true professional soldier would be the member of the combat unit irrespective of rank. The aim of combat training would be to foster the professional spirit as it pertains to the profession of arms and to engender the esprit de corps so often referred to in the military, yet so seldom achieved except in elite groups. Whether this will be sufficient to attract enough recruits to the combat elements of the armed forces is extremely difficult to predict. Certainly a smaller total military establishment would help, while an all-volunteer force would ensure that those who did enlist had the necessary initial motivation. Intuition suggests that enough members would be available to support current U.S. foreign policy. However, in the absence of substantive data on which to base a forecast, the question of attracting sufficient numbers must remain an open one. The use of coercive methods to achieve a numerical quota remains as an unattractive alternative—it erodes the very basis on which a combat force of true professional soldiers is formed.

My recommendation, then, is to retain the combat ethic for the combat situation and to liberalize the military practices in all other areas. For the continued security of the nation, the combat ethic cannot change, but there is no longer any good reason why it should pervade all military life and influence all military practices. The type of military force that is needed is one in which the normal and most visible practices of the military approximate those of the society from which it draws its members but in which its combat forces, in combat and in combat training, still adhere to the practices on which military success is based.

Regardless of whether this recommendation or some variant of it is accepted, a new type of military force is needed. Military leaders must, therefore, have a very clear conception of the type of military force that is necessary and viable for American and the patience, flexibility, and fortitude to introduce it.

Amberley, Queensland, Australia

Notes

1. President Richard M. Nixon, “U.S. Military Strength Source of Freedom’s Strength,” a speech given at the Air Force Academy commencement exercises 4 June 1969, as quoted in Air Force Policy Letter for Commanders, Supplement 7, July 1969, p. 26.

2. Adam Yarmolinsky, The Military Establishment (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), p. 406.

3. Ward Just, Military Men (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970), p. 47.

4. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (New York: A Vintage Book, Random House, 1957), p. 63.

5. Ibid., p. 79.

6. Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1960), pp. 38-51.

7. The Air Officer’s Guide (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Stackpole Company, 1970), p. 183.

8. Huntington, p. 458.

9. Department of Defense Appropriations for 1972, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Ninety-second Congress, First Session, Part 1, Washington, GPO, 1971, p. 553.

10. Janowitz, p. 424.

Contributor

Wing Commander Raymond G. Funnell (M.P.S., Auburn University) is Commanding Officer, No. 6 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force. The squadron will convert to F-111s in early 1973. His previous flying assignments include flight commander positions in training and fighter squadrons. He has served as a personnel staff officer in both the Australian Department of Air and the USAF Military Personnel Center. He is a graduate of the RAAF Academy, RAAF Staff College, and USAF Air War College.