In July 2006, Armed Forces & Society published an article by Anthony King, “The Word of Command: Communication and Cohesion in the Military.” Guy Siebold took issue with King's model of group cohesion and his conclusions in a Disputatio Sine Fine response titled “The Essence of Military Group Cohesion,” published in the January 2007 issue. In that article, Siebold argued that social psychologists have always emphasized the centrality of collective practice to group cohesion; in contrast, King argues that, in fact, Siebold's criticism invokes an essentialist concept of cohesion. For Siebold, social cohesion refers to the underlying bond between soldiers, which exists independently of any particular activity. King, by contrast, maintains that cohesion cannot be separated from the collective practices in which military personnel are engaged and, therefore, there is a difference between the sociological position he originally developed and social—psychological approaches.
A. King , “ The Word of Command: Communication and Cohesion in the Military ,” Armed Forces & Society32, 1 (July 2006): 493-512 .
2.
L. Rosen , D. Durand , P. Bliese , R. Halverson , J. Rothbert and N. Harrison , “ Cohesion and Readiness in Gender-Integrated Combat Service Support Units: The Impact of Acceptance of Women and Gender Ratio ,” Armed Forces & Society22, 4 (Summer 1996): 537-54 ; L. Rosen and L. Martin , “ Sexual Harassment, Cohesion and Combat Readiness in the U.S. Army Support Units ,” Armed Forces & Society24, 2 (Winter 1997): 221-244 ; J. Griffith , “ Test of a Model Incorporating Stress, Strain, and Disintegration in the Cohesion—Performance Relation ,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology27, 17 (September 1997 ): 1489-1526 ; J. Griffith , “ Multi-Level Effects of Military Cohesion on Soldier Well-Being, Army Identification, Group Disintegration, and Combat Readiness ,” Military Psychology14, 3 (2002): 217-240 ; J. Griffith , “ Relating Cohesion to Stress, Strain, Disintegration, and Performance: an Organizing Framework ,” Military Psychology11, 1 (1999): 27-55 .
3.
G. Siebold , “ Military Group Cohesion ” in T. W. Britt , C. A. Castro, and A. B. Adler (eds.), Military Life: the Psychology of Serving in Peace and Combat : Vol. 1, Military Performance ( Westport, CT: Praeger Security International , 2006), 185-201 ; G. Siebold , “ The Evolution of the Measurement of Cohesion ,” Military Psychology11, 1 ( 1999): 5-26 ; G. Siebold and T. Lindsay , “ The Relation between Demographic Descriptors and Soldier-Perceived Cohesion and Motivation ,” Military Psychology11, 1 (1999): 107-126 .
4.
G. Siebold , “ The Essence of Military Cohesion ,” Armed Forces & Society33, 2 (2007): 291 .
5.
G Siebold and T Lindsay , “ The Relation between Demographic Descriptors and Soldier-Perceived Cohesion and Motivation.”
6.
G Siebold , “ The Essence of Military Cohesion,” 292.
7.
Ibid., 288.
8.
Ibid., 292.
9.
Ibid., 292.
10.
Ibid., 293.
11.
Ibid., 292.
12.
E. Durkheim , The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans. J. Ward Swain ( London: George Allen and Unwin , 1976), 52.
13.
R. MacCoun , E. Kier , and A. Belkin , “ Does Social Cohesion Determine Motivation in Combat? An Old Question with an Old Answer ,” Armed Forces & Society32, 4 (July 2006): 646-654 .
14.
T. Kolditz , “ Research in In Extremis Settings: Expanding the Critique of Why They Fight ,” Armed Forces & Society32, 4 (July 2006 ): 655-658 .
15.
L. Wong , “ Combat Motivation in Today's Soldiers ,” Armed Forces & Society32, 4 (July 2006): 659-663 .
16.
R. MacCoun , “ Does Social Cohesion Determine Motivation in Combat,” 652.
17.
U. Ben-Shalom , Z. Lehrer , and E. Ben-Ari , “ Cohesion during Military Operations: A Field Study on Combat Units in the Al-Aqsa Intifada ,” Armed Forces & Society32, 1 (2005): 63-79 . Stephen Biddle's recent work on military power might also be cited as evidence that cohesion and combat effectiveness in the military are the specific and local products of collective practices which the armed forces are trained to perform together. Against numerical or technological superiority, Biddle prioritizes the employment of combat power—and, therefore, training—as central to military effectiveness. Thus, Operations Michael, Goodwood, and Desert Storm were successful not because the German Army, the Wehrmacht, and the Coalition respectively demonstrated better interpersonal trust than their opponents but because they were more closely unified around collective military practices in planning and executing their missions: S. Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle ( Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press , 2004).
18.
It seems likely that there is a historical dimension to the issue of cohesion. In the mass armies of the twentieth century, standards of training and performance were generally poor, as S. L. A. Marshall's work famously demonstrated. Precisely because collective drills were weak, military forces at this time seem to have emphasized broader social commonalities to unify their soldiers: nationality, ethnicity, race, sex, or locality were drawn on to induce collective performance and commitment where coordinated military practice was actually lacking. In the current era of all-volunteer professional forces, these extra-military criteria have become less important as forces have unified themselves around collective practices, which have become deeply ingrained through intense and repeated training procedures and operations. 19. G. Siebold, “Military Culture and Values: A Personal View,” in T. W. Britt, A. B. Adler, and C. A. Castro (eds.), Military Life: The Psychology of Serving in Peace and Combat: Vol. 4, Military Culture (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2006), 7-8.
