Cohesion during Military Operations - SAGE Journals

Armed Forceset&al.Society ARTICLE 10.1177/0095327X05277888 Ben-Shalom / Military Operation Cohesion

Cohesion during Military Operations A Field Study on Combat Units in the Al-Aqsa Intifada

Armed Forces & Society Volume 32 Number 1 October 2005 63-79 © 2005, Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society. All rights reserved. 10.1177/0095327X05277888 http://afs.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

Uzi Ben-Shalom Bar-Ilan University

Zeev Lehrer Tel Aviv University

Eyal Ben-Ari

Hebrew University–Jerusalem

Military leaders and social scientists often regard unit cohesion as the key element in combat motivation and fighting resilience. However, a close look at today’s battlefield calls for rethinking this assumption. This study is based on observations of combat units during the current Arab-Israeli conflict (the “Al-Aqsa Intifada”). In contrast to the usual depiction found in the scholarly literature, these units were characterized by some rather unique features. Instead of socially cohesive structures (based upon mutual, continuous, and common experiences), the action of these combat units during operations is based upon temporary frameworks based on short-term, ad hoc, and diverse components. In general, the components comprising these ad hoc frameworks do not have a common background and do not belong to the same organizational arms of the Israeli military. Nevertheless, the fighting power of the emergent amalgamations has not been diminished or damaged. Our study depicts several possible explanations for the social dynamics of such “instant units” and focuses on the importance of “swift trust” to their functioning. Keywords: military sociology; cohesion; combat motivation; combat effectiveness; swift trust

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ohesion is commonly considered by military leaders and social scientists to be a crucial factor in contributing to the effectiveness of individuals and groups in bat1 2 tle and to the postcombat survival of veterans. It was Shils and Janowitz who first theorized the contribution of “primary group cohesion” to resilience in combat in their 3 work on the Wehrmacht. Their argument, which is akin to the one found in much of the scholarship of the time, emerged out of dissatisfaction with explaining motivation

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only in ideological terms. This perspective was generalized after World War II when a number of research teams drew attention to cohesion as the primary factor in the moti4 vation of American soldiers. The concept of cohesion is currently so widely accepted that cohesion often appears to be a synonym for a successful military organization. Indeed, as Dinter contends, If the group is the right size and has sufficient time to grow together under relevant external pressure, cohesion will be achieved and in its wake will grow a group ethic which no member will dare to violate. The group then becomes the focal point in their lives, so much so, in fact, that it hardly matters any more where it is deployed, be it at home or abroad, or what it is fighting for.5

Cohesion has by now become so central a concept in the sociology and psychology of the military that one gets the impression that its mere existence in a military unit is 6 enough to predict combat effectiveness. As a result of this notion, many scholars have attempted to study cohesion and the conditions that create it, even while they declare 7 that the effects of this or another factor are unclear. At the same time, however, it seems that the experience of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the Al-Aqsa Intifada questions such contentions about the centrality of cohesion for military undertakings. During the conflict, many of the regular frameworks of the military were broken up and new ones established. Such ad hoc frameworks—that seemed to work highly effectively—seem to contradict the image of “textbook units” marked by clear boundaries, continuity of membership over time, and strong internal cohesion. The actual frameworks that waged the fighting were rarely the units depicted in training manuals. Rather, these “instant units” were often composed of constantly changing constituent elements that came together for a mission and then dispersed upon its completion. This article, therefore, explores the nature of cohesion that characterizes the action of combat companies in the current Arab-Israeli conflict. More generally, it represents an investigation into the new models of organization and social dynamics characterizing modern warfare. Indeed, the creation of impermanent frameworks that are very fluid in their makeup and life cycle is common to many such formations. But just how do these coalitions, joint forces, or indeed, instant units work? Based on data gathered during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, we first briefly review the major criticisms of the concept of cohesion to elaborate on the operational realities and properties of contemporary battlefields and armed action. Second, we argue that in many present-day situations, militaries have developed new forms of cooperation and collaboration that do not center on cohesion as it has been previously conceptualized by military leaders and social scientists. Our argument explicitly focuses on the variety of ad hoc task forces and temporary frameworks that are established to carry out missions. These various combinations of forces are composed of components drawn from a variety of units each with its own doctrines, traditions, self-images, and modes of operation. Instead of talking about the disintegration or dissolution of units that “send” their constituent components to join the new temporary frameworks, we

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suggest a number of insights about the characteristics and dynamics of these new amalgamations.

Cohesion and Its Critiques 8

Cohesion has been conceptualized in the scholarly literature in a variety of ways. In the military context, cohesion is most often described as the quality of ties between soldiers in a military unit that influence the achievement of unit goals and members’ performance. Probably, the most important definition in this context has been that of primary group cohesion as suggested by Shils and Janowitz.9 They see cohesion as a characteristic of small groups of combat soldiers—usually not larger than a company—that is created in combat. These small groups are meaningful not only as providers of social support and sources of motivation but also as the institution that mediates between the individual soldier and the army as well as the state. Other conceptualizations center on the internal solidarity of a group and the distinction between it and other groups,10 or on the role of cohesion in providing emotional sup11 port or as a source of social control for achieving individual and group aims. The common characteristics of the different definitions, however, are significant: first, they all center on relatively small and stable groups with clear boundaries, and second, they argue that the threat experienced in dangerous situations creates a particular 12 closeness among the troops and between them and their commanders. Cohesion is thus based on the shared experiences of group members that do not necessarily depend on membership in larger social categories such as gender, race, or social class but are linked to external threats and dangers. Because cohesion is seen as a crucial prerequisite for combat performance and effectiveness, social scientists in a variety of armed forces tend to see it in very positive terms.13 It was during the late 1970s that critiques of the concept of cohesion and its application began to appear in the scholarly literature. Some scholars argued that for technical reasons, it was difficult to examine how cohesion contributes to military performance and effectiveness.14 This notion was accompanied by debates about the right way to conceive group cohesion. Other studies stressed the gap between the cohesion under conditions of routine garrison duty or maneuvers and the cohesion that develops under conditions of combat.15 Yet all these studies still assumed that cohesion is crucial for effective combat performance. An additional perspective focused on cohesion’s “negative” implications in hindering combat performance and accomplishing organizational goals when these stand in contrast to the goals of the small group.16 Other scholars contended that there are factors contributing to soldierly motivation other than cohesion. Based on the case of the Wehrmacht in the Eastern Front, Bartov suggested that attrition levels and turnover of personnel stood in the way of acquaintance between warriors, and thus, ideology became the most important factor for the motivation of combat soldiers.17 Rush similarly argued that when parts of units left over from previous battles were placed in new frames, there was no previous social contact between soldiers, and thus, punishment and threat were of central impor-

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tance. While not denying the importance of cohesion, Moskos cautioned that there are other factors, such as the degree to which soldiers perceive the war they are partici19 pating in to be legitimate, that influence soldiers’ attitudes. This critique was 20 strengthened by other scholars as well. Finally, summing up the large literature on cohesion, Segal and Kestenbaum contend the following: The key assumption on which arguments concerning social cohesion have been based— that people necessarily prefer to associate in small groups with those like themselves—is simply unsupportable in the face of research performed on social integration in the armed forces since World War II.21

As they point out, a “romantic mythology” has grown up around the studies published after World War II leading people to suspend critical judgment regarding their methods, to recall incorrectly their findings, and to overlook subsequent research that suggested limits on their generalizeability.22 In what follows, we take the argument in a complementary direction to show that during contemporary conflicts, military organizations systematically and consciously take apart and then combine units to achieve the goals of war. In this sense, this article uses the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict as an empirical arena through which to explore the concept of cohesion.

The Al-Aqsa Intifada From a military point of view, the Al-Aqsa Intifada is characterized by some rather peculiar features. First, it is difficult to define this conflict as a “war” because there are no clear state boundaries and because there is almost no use of conventional fighting techniques such as artillery and long, swift, armored maneuvers. Second, both sides are very different from each other in terms of their military power and potential and of their aims and modes of operation. Theoretically, the present conflict can be viewed as what Battistelli characterizes as a postmodern one: a conflict in which there is no use of weapons according to the dictates of total war and in which there is no victory or decisive moment in the accepted Clausewitzian meaning of the term.23 Third, however, this conflict has necessitated the use of large amounts of military resources including live ammunition, the active occupation of rural and urban spaces, and the use of a large variety of troops and units. Fourth, because this is the first time that the Palestinians have used large military forces within the occupied territories, many stages of the conflict have been characterized by rather intense battles. In addition, because of the surprise of the eruption of the conflict during its first stages, the IDF had to use very large formations to control roadways and settlements. All of these characteristics suggest that despite the fact that this conflict differs from traditional definitions of war, in essence, it also entails many elements characterizing large-scale warfare. Thus, for example, a soldier trapped in an ongoing firefight assumes that he is in such a theater of war, and a senior commander grappling with problems of holding wide areas with


only limited resources will face a similar experience. Hence, the current conflict provides a useful arena for the assessment of social processes characterizing highintensity conflicts.

Method A qualitative anthropological study was conducted in combat companies that were operating during the early stages of the current Arab-Israeli conflict (fall 2000–spring 2001). The aim of the study was twofold: first, we wanted to describe the social organization of these military units in terms of both everyday activities and operational maneuvers. This description was needed to explore different models of social organization characterizing a situation of ongoing conflict. Second, we wanted to explore the social dynamics characterizing this organization. Both objectives required close inspection of the actual processes and interactions going on in the field. Given the difficulties of in-depth participant observation with fighting units during conflict and combat,24 we developed a research method that we call “focused journeys.” We went out as a group, numbering the authors and three or four other research assistants, to spend a full day with units in the field. We usually arrived at the main posts in which the companies were stationed and then moved out to other outposts and strongholds in armored cars. Most of our journeys were held in the West Bank and the rest in the Gaza Strip. During the day, we spent some time observing life in the camps and conducting indepth interviews and focus groups with the men and (occasionally) women. The interviews were developed following preliminary “pilot” visits to a few combat units and were subsequently conducted as open sessions aimed at finding out about life in the units. We usually started the conversation with a completely open question such as, “What is going on here?” or “What are you doing here?” The interviewers were encouraged to ask as many questions as possible about the experiences of the soldiers and officers and about the wider dynamics of the companies. Most sessions took about one and a half hours, but some went on for as long as three and a half hours. In this way, we interviewed about 130 combat soldiers—officers, noncommissioned officers (NCOs), and conscripts—from the Infantry, Armored and Engineering Corps of the IDF. About half the participants were conscript soldiers, and the rest were NCOs and officers. Most of the interviews with the soldiers and NCOs were held in tents or sleeping quarters, while some of the commanders were interviewed in their offices, posts, or sleeping quarters. The bulk of our interviews were held at the platoon and squad levels, and some, at the battalion level. The interviews were recorded, and the full transcriptions were printed out and distributed among us. We read each transcription individually and then discussed them in open sessions held with our research assistants. During these regular meetings, we discussed our recollections of the previous journey and analyzed the texts that were gathered. These meetings were used to guide our assistants toward the coming ride. We then read the texts again, and the ideas that were articulated in our sessions were


turned into systematic categories that were checked against other texts. Finally, we presented our ideas in broader group sessions that included academic colleagues and military psychologists. These sessions were held to compare and contrast our understanding and insights with those of academic and military experts.

The Creation of Instant Units From the perspective of this article, the most important finding in our research was the complexity of forces that were used with the onset of a conflict that was sudden, intense, and violent. Against this background, the IDF’s infantry, armor, and engineering units were split into components and then recombined with other elements for different missions and tasks. For example, once a position or site was considered of value, a task force, temporarily formed, was called upon to hold it. While these instant units were frequently formed around an infantry unit, a large variety of different roles and specialties was temporarily joined to it according to the task at hand: for instance, sniper squads, dog handlers, demolition crews and bomb-disposal elements, representatives of the IDF spokesperson, or intelligence operatives. The complexity of such temporary formations is remarkable. In the larger posts, this situation was very striking: The dining hall of the post is a long hall that is full of tables and benches. It is very lively when we enter. On the right side are two tank crews with red eyes and unshaven after having spent the whole night in observation. Opposite them and much more rowdy are about fifteen infantry soldiers from the infantry company. Crews of anti-aircraft units sit at a different table as do a group of female soldiers who are in charge of some surveillance instruments. There are also a few older soldiers from the permanent force who are in charge of technical matters. . . . It seems that everyone is aware of who is sitting in the dinning hall but the social communication takes place primarily within the groups.

As a result of this situation, cohesion, in the conventional sense of the word, characterizing a unit with clear boundaries and having a stable social structure, was no longer possible, because the “organic” unit had been split into components deployed in diverse areas and under the command of different commanders. The following is from our field journal about a visit to the Gaza Strip: The post is a small space no bigger than half a volley-ball court that is surrounded by no more than heaps of earth placed there by a bulldozer. . . . The narrow place is under the command of an infantry company commander who is actually located much deeper inside Gaza. The infantry soldiers and their armored personnel carriers were placed on one side of the post while the tank is placed on the other side. The soldiers had been located in this small post for a number of weeks. “Do you know who the infantry soldiers are?” one of us asked the tank commander and members of the armored technical unit who were there with them. “I have no idea. We just know how to call them on the signals net” came the answer.


During routine times, the IDF’s units are constructed along single-corps lines (thus, infantry and armored soldiers are not mixed) and in stable—organic—units that are most often organized in brigades. Such units guard their social and organizational boundaries very strongly and emphasize their unique identity in contrast to other brigades from the same corps. In the Al-Aqsa Intifada, however, the units were split time and time again: battalions into companies and companies into platoons and sometimes squads. As one infantry company commander told us, There is no situation in which the whole company is together. A company commander who wants to gather all of his men together for a talk, something that is quite taken for granted in routine times, cannot do so. He himself is constantly assigned to carry out different missions and many times he is not with his own soldiers.

The companies were often deployed at great distances and in very different missions: one would hold checkpoints at the entrance to Palestinian cities, while others would be in charge of nighttime arrests under the command of officers from a different corps. Similarly, a battalion commander could be in charge of a number of companies that were not part of his brigade, while some of his companies were deployed elsewhere under the command of a battalion commander from a different brigade. One example is the situation we found in the Gaza Strip where a deputy company commander of an infantry antitank company told us, “We are two teams here. I have one team in the north near Kiriyat Shemona [on the Lebanese border] and another in Pesagot [near Ramallah].” An infantry company commander explained, The battalion was very dispersed at the beginning of things. One company was here in this sector, two companies there . . . really a very strong split. And at some stage, I have to give . . . eight soldiers to the commander of the artillery battalion. They were under his command, slept there, worked there and ate there. He sat with them in meetings and everything. . . . This was the most un-organic situation possible.

Moreover, in the framework of our interviews, we found that the commanders of the organic units were very preoccupied by the sectors that they were put in charge of and that, very often, they could not physically get to the components not under their direct, organic command for a long while. “I have not seen my battalion commander for months” was a message we heard from a number of company commanders. On top of the constant splitting and combining of forces, many frames were characterized by high personnel turnover based on rotations or rosters of furloughs. Thus, when a crew was changed, it did not necessarily return to the same post or position it had previously occupied. As a result, again, the ability to maintain and create cohesion in the sense of belonging was severely hampered due to the high personnel turnover. To this complex situation, one must add the very rapid transformation of circumstances and assignments. Thus, we often heard about how a rather calm period was suddenly changed with the eruption of violence and the rapid implementation of various tasks during a long period of instability. What is significant in this regard is that each new assignment necessitated the creation of new frameworks comprising differ-


ent components. To reiterate, under such circumstances, primary group cohesion could not be sustained since the original units were under a constant process of splitting and reintegrating. How did soldiers and officers react to this situation? The uncertainty engendered by the situation was a major theme that came up in our interviews and was especially apparent in regard to the next mission on which the soldiers would be sent. A deputy company commander from the Armored Corps said the following: We simply move from one place to another. In every place to which we move we would settle down. They would throw us down somewhere in the field, on a piece of earth, and tell us “Here you have to build an outpost.” We built tents, generators, and everything here. And it is a battle each time [with the troops, because] . . . “Ok guys take your things and we are going somewhere else.”

Consequently, a constant theme that came up in our interviews was the desire to return to familiar organizational circumstances. This was expressed in the wish for the conflict to “end already” so that units could go back to their familiar routines. Not surprisingly, some officers experienced the splitting of the units as a negative situation of lack of control. An infantry company commander told us, The main problem of the company is that it is split in a crazy way. A company of more than a hundred men and there are no more than thirty men in one place. Apart from that we now have two officers who are rotating out and three other roles in the company that are changing.

But the uncertainty felt by soldiers and officers was not accompanied by a breakdown of troop morale or unit discipline or by feelings of helplessness on the part of our interviewees. Rather, many soldiers and officers felt that despite their internal heterogeneity, the new instant units had great advantages for organizational flexibility. This flexibility, we were impressed, was reinforced by a very strong “can-do” spirit to finding and acting upon solutions for technical, tactical, and organizational problems. Indeed, cohesion in these situations often took the form of several elements sharing technical relations, while emotional ties remained between members of the organic units deployed elsewhere. Yet while the notions of flexibility and a can-do spirit can explain some of the successes of the instant units, they cannot explain the actual cooperation that we found. It is with this point in mind that we began to search for systematic explanations for the dynamics of the instant units we have been describing.

Explaining Instant Units: Three Propositions Three seemingly relevant explanations questioning traditional views of unit cohesion have recently been put forward in the scholarly literature. We use them as theoretical frames to assess their strength in interpreting the data gathered and to gauge the power of our own contentions. The first, by Rush, is the suggestion that in times of


defeat or severe setbacks, the military is forced to create a mode of operation that is very different from the one used at the beginning of combat. During such setbacks, one finds the amalgamation of elements of units that were previously damaged into new formations but in a manner that generates serious impediments to the creation of cohesion. Based on the experience of the Wehrmacht, Rush’s hypothesis is that under such circumstances, cooperation is not the result of cohesion but of fear resulting from a policy of punitive measures. Theoretically, then, his explanation centers on unintended disintegration and cooperation based on fear.25 Given that the IDF did not face such a fundamental threat and that we did not observe the use of such punitive measures, Rush’s formulations do not seem to fit our case. What our case suggests is that such amalgamations need not necessarily be the outcome of defeat or the unintended disintegration of military units. Rather, the creation of instant units may actually be the outcome of intentional and planned operational modes of action. In addition, such instantaneous frames do not inevitably imply lack of any cooperation and solidity among members. Thus, our findings center on a move from the cohesive units of routine times to the ad hoc coalitions of emergencies and combat. Furthermore, we found no evidence of any kind of irregular measures that were instituted to foster cooperation (e.g., punitive or disciplinary methods). Finally, Rush’s explanation leaves unexamined the actual dynamics by which the elements making up the new formations cooperate. The black box of the ad hoc units is left unopened. A second kind of explanation centers on the concept of task cohesion or instrumental cohesion.26 It may be argued that during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, task cohesion emerged in heterogeneous groups or frameworks of the IDF. Mullen and Cooper suggest that “when the members of a group recognize and value the ability of other members to contribute to group missions, task cohesion emerges . . . [and the] major influence on task cohesion seems to be successful task performance.”27 Along these lines, it may be argued that in our case, cohesion was not created out of a commonality among members of groups. Rather, in such frames, soldiers maintained close technical ties that were the result of a common goal, and these ties lacked any kind of emotional load or sentiments of belonging. There are two problems with an explanation centered on task cohesion. The first is that it is unclear what allows successful task performance in the first place. Segal and Kestenbaum suggest that the underlying factor is the sense of commitment to the group’s goals that resonates very strongly with the ethos of a professional force. Yet this explanation is not an interactional one; because it focuses on a precondition for collaboration, it effaces an explication of the actual processes by which cooperation is achieved. A second problem is the assumption that while group membership is heterogeneous, it is nevertheless relatively stable. To restate a point that we made earlier, what our case underscores are very fluid and provisional frames and formations. A third, fascinating explanation is offered by Segal and Kestenbaum: Tolerance and appreciation of difference, furthermore, form a useful foundation for the creation of another kind of social cohesion in the military, often and inappropriately over-


looked in discussion of the armed forces. . . . [N]ot all social cohesion is necessarily limited to small groups. Nor does social cohesion necessarily inhere in bonds of particular other persons. . . . In the words of Benedict Anderson, this is the cohesion characteristic of an imagined community. . . . This sense of imagined community is precisely what may seem to distinguish the armed forces from the rest of society and simultaneously to bind 28 members together.

Within this perspective, small-group cohesion is seen as limited as a motivating factor, while ties to larger frameworks are of prime importance. Thus, for example, in the British and the Canadian militaries, loyalty is based on membership in a regional unit that is rather large (usually the size of a battalion or even larger).29 The concept of imagined community clearly brings us back to a distinction first offered a few decades ago between cohesion and esprit de corps, that is, between the cohesion that arises in a face-to-face group and the sentiments of belonging to larger groups. The following passage sums this distinction up: Comradeship is the spirit of fellow-feelings which grow between a small group of men who live and work and fight together. Regimental spirit is the soldier’s pride in the traditions of his regiment and his determination to be worthy of them himself.30 31

To be sure, small group cohesion and esprit de corps can coexist within one frame. Yet what Segal and Kestenbaum seem to suggest is that in the absence of the first, it is esprit de corps that motivates soldiers, aids them in times of stress and fear, and propels them to action. Nevertheless, as our data indicate in regard to task cohesion, the concepts of imagined community or esprit de corps are still too broad. To begin with, while esprit de corps can usually relate to units of considerable size—a battalion, a brigade, and sometimes, a whole division—the units that we observed were much smaller. Furthermore, an account centered on the creation of an imagined community does not encompass the actual dynamics of cooperation and mutual support that arise in the instant units that are the focus of our study. More generally, explanations centering on task cohesion or on an imagined community are based on strong assumptions about time and stability. This point is underscored by Kinzer-Stewart, who states that time “is an important factor for the development of cohesion. Military tradition grows out of years and years, if not centuries of military heritage, lore and myth.”32 Notice that she stresses the element of time both for small-group cohesion and for military tradition (an imagined community). Similarly, Bartone and Adler report on a study of an army medical task force deployed to Croatia to provide support for UN forces that found that the newly formed unit (formed from disparate components) cohered over a period of six months.33 The time periods during which the instant units were formed by the IDF in the Al-Aqsa were much shorter and lasted weeks, days, and sometimes, hours. Therefore, while the three propositions presented here are based on solid theoretical and empirical grounds, they do not fully explain the dynamics that we have explored and presented.


Swift Trust and Temporary Combat Teams In what follows, we offer an alternative explanation for the dynamics of instant units. In general, our contention is that it is the process by which the temporary framework is created and maintained that is of prime importance. Along these lines, based on our data, we originally thought that the first meeting is critical for it establishes minimal conditions for collaboration. This meeting includes the mutual exchange of names, unit affiliation, experience with weaponry, and previous operational experience (in a variety of areas) as well as the definition of the specific assignment at hand, the operational division of labor, and the modes of operation. In cases where times are extremely short, these exchanges usually take place in private conversations between commanders of the constituent units. This situation, however, is fraught with difficulties. Speaking about his previous experience with other units in joint operations, a company leader observed, When you don’t know, it worries you. You don’t know what his capabilities are, what he knows. . . . You ask him: What can you do, what are your capabilities? . . . You study him, learn to know him a bit, you must do that.

Organizationally, what seem to be at stake here are issues of trust and risk. Trust always involves an element of risk because of the inability to monitor others’ behavior or to have complete knowledge about their motivations or because of the very contingency of social life. In the special context of combat with its attendant dangers and perils, trust seems to be an even more significant issue. Indeed, much of what has been argued in regard to cohesion in battle (involving various kinds of support and control) seems to revolve around trust. At the same time, despite the difficulties related to risk, the speed by which the temporary combat teams were assembled and the effectiveness by which they executed their missions are impressive. Theoretically, we suggest that the idea of “swift trust” is germane to the explanation of this speed and effectiveness. Meyerson, Weick, and Kramer developed this concept for explaining the dynamics of temporary teams whose existence is formed around a finite span of time and for a common task.34 Such teams consist of members with diverse skills, with a limited common history of working together, and with little prospect of working together in the future. Temporary, or ad hoc, teams include a large variety of groupings such as study missions, concert and music performers for one-off performances, film crews, theater groups, presidential commissions, cockpit crews, crews on ships of the merchant marine, and medical crews in operating theaters. In ordinary circumstances, trust is created through minute processes of exchange: actors learn the relative value of things, establish new bonds, and convey the centrality of reciprocity. Indeed, exchanges are a constitutive factor in all social relationships and provide the foundation for trust. Essentially, what happens in the regular formations of the military is that trust is built over a span of time, and what is often formed is a cohesive group or unit. In our case, however, the tight deadlines under which the teams have to work together leave little occasion for building relationships and very little social-


ization, courtship, and other types of communication. In these circumstances, because time pressure hinders the ability of team members to develop expectations of others based on first-hand information, members import expectations of trust from other settings with which they are familiar. An infantry company leader describes the minutes immediately prior to action: Trust needs time, but the problem is that you simply don’t have any time. So you must trust each other. There is no alternative. I got under my command a leader of an armored company and three or four tanks and you are ought to trust him to know his job. I’m not an armored specialist and there is nothing I can tell him.

In other words, the actual operation of units in the field does not always fit with the traditional military ways of bonding as in the case of unit esprit. We do not argue that this kind of military ethos is useless as a basis for bonding but rather contend that the dynamics of trust develop in a very different manner. Along these lines, individuals in temporary groups make initial use of category-driven information processing to form stereotypical impressions of others. In terms of our case, this means that in instant formations, soldiers and commanders import various kinds of reputations or stereotypes that abound in the IDF (as in any organization) in their first interactions with others. Such reputations allow the constituent units of an ad hoc framework to begin to work together based on a certain set of common, given assumptions. These reputations, in turn, also work as motivating factors because in such temporary teams, what is at stake are the professional reputations of members, the reputations of the persons to whom the team members report, and the impending threats from closely knit social and professional groups to which members and the supervisors belong.35 Thus, these reputations fulfill a dual role: to provide initial orientations and as motivating factors for action. In addition, troops may be more tolerant toward others and invest greater efforts in teamwork because they know that such efforts are required from them for only a limited period of time and because it may be easier for them to maintain distance and interact with “roles” rather than concrete personalities and real differences. Yet once different units have been placed within a new frame, the importation of reputations is not enough to assure collaboration (just as the assumption about belonging to an imagined community of soldiers does not suffice). At this stage, a process of mutual testing—that often accompanies the whole mission—begins. At the start, various understandings and fledgling arrangements are like a “canary in a coal mine” as they are intended to detect the possibility of extending cooperation to more-sensitive areas without suffering the consequences associated with plunging into untrampled terrain.36 To put this point by way of example, when a tank team joins an infantry platoon, even a small matter like placing tanks in the parking area may be seen as a test of a tank commander’s competence. Similarly, questioning a commander about his previous combat experiences may be a way to simulate his actions in the future. Indeed, social psychologists have shown that there are significant spillover effects in terms of trust in groups. From our perspective, it could be argued that the trust that developed


from cooperation in logistics could, for instance, cascade into operational matters. No less important, Meyerson and her colleagues suggest that after the team has begun to interact, trust is maintained by a “highly active, proactive, enthusiastic, generative style of action.”37 Action strengthens trust in a self-fulfilling fashion: action will maintain members’confidence that the team is able to manage uncertainty, risk, and vulnerability. It is here that the can-do spirit of many army people seems to be significant. When cooperation begins to be fostered, this attitude further reinforces the self-fulfilling spiral of collaboration. Yet what causes this dynamic remains an issue for further discussion. It is our contention that the dynamics of swift trust are a by-product of an organized military organization and the result of careful planning. Four more interrelated factors contribute to the success of instant units. The first is an envelopment or adoption by the “host” unit of “guest” elements in both logistical and professional terms. By logistical terms, we mean that any need is met promptly so that the guest unit is able to carry out its task (providing kitchen services, places to sleep, or specific types of ammunition). Professionally, the process centers on the dissemination and sharing of knowledge and on a willingness to learn through impromptu lessons, briefings, and explanations. Such sharing, even in miniscule ways, involves a process of “community building” through material exchanges (logistics) or of joint learning where “doing things together” becomes and important component of “knowing together.” Second, our interviewees mentioned that the most successful cases were those in which small forces worked within larger ones (say, an armored company commander under an infantry battalion commander or a breaching squad within a company). Yet, in all of these cases, the governing factor involved the ability of the smaller units to fully and freely express their professional knowledge and authority without direct relation to their rank in the military hierarchy. For example, an infantry battalion commander gives an armored company commander a mission, and it is the latter who recommends where to place the tanks so that their fire power can be used optimally. As a tank commander recalled, I was posted in Sufa [a border crossing near the Gaza Strip] and we worked with the Bedouin Battalion. . . . We were two tanks of our company and half a company from a reserve unit. We were under the command of a company leader from the Bedouin Battalion. You work with him on the tank’s mechanical problems as well. . . . I get along with the battalion commander and even with the brigade commander. They were requested me for operations and consulted with me about the best positioning of the tank . . . and when I was of the opinion that they were wrong I made some comments and then they changed things if it was possible.

What seems to be at work here is the principle of “corps expertise” within which there is a recognition of the professional authority of the commander almost always without reference to official rank. Within instant units, commanders from a corps that is different from the host unit are repositories of “authoritative knowledge” whatever their actual rank.


A closely related, third factor centers on “distributive justice”: the allocation of assignments in a way that does not discriminate against or deprive some of the constituent units of quality missions in comparison with the host unit. Fourth, many temporary frameworks create an innovative combination of doctrinal and “local” practices. By doctrinal practices, we mean the accepted tools that military units use, which include, for example, standard operating procedures, conventional drills, or guided maneuvers. Local practices entail a toolbox of routines, language, understandings, codes, and drills developed in specific settings. Our data are replete with examples of such locally produced linguistic distinctions (say, about different kinds of wanted persons) or drills (about entry into different kinds of buildings) developed in peculiar places and times. These measures also create a commonality among forces that have no common past. In other words, such combinations of practices often create a common base that allows one to overcome the problems of strangeness between the forces. Thus, the initial swift trust among strangers is institutionalized, and gradually, the innovation becomes familiar. This process of ongoing bonding may end with a high degree of mutual personal like or dislike, but the initial swift trust in its preliminary and most critical phase is definitely a delicate and crucial event.

Conclusion As recent experience has taught us, on the modern battlefield, it is the ability to split and recombine units that gives a commander the power to use the military resources at his (or very rarely, her) disposal to the fullest. Many of the armed forces of the advanced industrial countries are moving in this direction: the dispersion of forces and the integration of disparate units into varying and temporary combinations of land, air, and sea frameworks. Indeed, a senior Pentagon analyst suggests that “configuring and reconfiguring forces into combined arms teams appropriate to the evolving environment should dominate small-unit doctrine and training.”38 Mangelsdorff links cohesion to the new tasks of the American military: “The organizational structures, roles, and functions of the armed services have shifted from strictly combat to include other operations such as peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance. For these missions, task forces are being formed consisting of a blend of active and reserve components personnel. The integration of these forces into cohesive units will be a challenge.”39 When examined historically, it seems that many temporary formations have been created when units were torn apart and regrouped and for specially tailored missions (such as the American-led mission in Mogadishu or the Israeli raid on Entebbe). Ironically, these factors make it very difficult to maintain social cohesion since ad hoc formations are composed of subunits that are socially and professionally different from each other. In these joint ventures, a primary problem is integration: the ability of members of a task force to talk and coordinate among the component units. Based on the experience of the IDF in the Al-Aqsa Intifada, we suggested that many combat situations necessitate the activation of units in special arrangements that make it very difficult to create cohesion among members of a group. Instead of cohe-


sion based on face-to-face ties and long-term, stable relations, what we found were rather loose coalitions created ad hoc for specific tasks. Within this organizational field—which, to stress the obvious, involved combat and battles—we found many forms that do not fit the conventional model of organic cohesion that is often described in the literature. Let us be clear that we are not arguing for a need to discard the concept of cohesion. Rather, it seems that while cohesion may exist at the small-group level, other dynamics—those related to the creation and maintenance of swift trust—are important at the level of the ad hoc formations. What we find in the case of instant units is an intensification of time through the constraints of carrying out assigned missions. The dynamic is one of amplification: relations and trust must be created much more quickly and swiftly. The mission becomes the stimulus that sets the dynamics of the instant unit and coheres team members. Analytically, “in-between places” are created that have their own dynamics and character: temporariness, swift trust, constant negotiations and testing, and rapid creation and dissolution of ties. Such temporary groups constitute an organizational equivalent of a “one-night stand”: “They have a finite life span, form around a shared and relatively clear goal or purpose, and their success depends on a tight and coordinated coupling of activity.”40 In such frames, the soldiers do not necessarily know each other, but the very variety of capabilities, equipment, and perspectives may actually allow much flexibility and the use of the lethal potential of the military to its fullest potential.

Notes 1. Nora Kinzer-Stewart, Mates and Muchachos: Unit Cohesion in the Falklands/Malvinas War (New York: Brassey’s, 1991), 15; and William Darryl Henderson, Cohesion: The Human Element in Combat (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1985), 1-7. 2. Shabtay Noy, “Combat Stress Reaction,” in The Handbook of Military Psychology, ed. Reuven Gal and David A. Mangelsdorff (Chichester, UK: Wiley, 1991), 507-30. 3. Edward A. Shils and Morris Janowitz, “Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II,” Public Opinion Quarterly 12, no. 2 (Summer 1948): 280-315. 4. Samuel L. A. Marshal, Man against Fire (New York: William Morrow, 1947), 41-42; Roy R. Grinker and John P. Spiegel, Man under Stress (Philadelphia: Blackiston, 1945), 21-22; and Samuel A. Stouffer, Arthur A. Lumsdaine, Marion Harper Lumsdaine, Robin M. Williams Jr., M. Brewster Smith, Irving L. Janis, et al., The American Soldier: Combat and Its Aftermath, vol. II (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949), 100-4, 136. 5. Elmar Dinter, Hero or Coward: Pressures Facing the Soldier in Battle (London: Frank Cass, 1985), 71. 6. Peter C. Boer, “Small Unit Cohesion: The Case of Fighter Squadron 3-V1.G.IV.,” Armed Forces & Society 28, no. 1 (Fall 2001): 36. 7. Paul T. Bartone, Bjørn Helge Johnsen, Jarle Eid, Wibecke Brun, and Jon C. Laberg, “Factors Influencing Small-Unit Cohesion in Norwegian Navy Officer Cadets,” Military Psychology 14, no. 1 (2002): 1-22. 8. Guy L. Siebold, “The Evolution of the Measurement of Cohesion,” Military Psychology 11, no. 1 (1999): 5-26. 9. Shils and Janowitz, “Cohesion and Disintegration,” 280. 10. Frederick S. Manning, “Morale, Cohesion, and Esprit de Corps,” in The Handbook of Military Psychology, ed. Reuven Gal and David A. Mangelsdorff (Chichester, UK: Wiley, 1991), 453-70.

78 Armed Forces & Society 11. Martin W. Rempel and Ronald J. Fisher, “Perceived Threat, Cohesion, and Group Problem Solving in Intergroup Conflict,” International Journal of Conflict Management 8, no. 3 (Summer 1997): 216-34. 12. Roger Little, “Buddy Relations and Combat Performance,” in The New Military: Changing Patterns of Organization, ed. Morris Janowitz (New York: Russell Sage, 1964), 195-223. 13. Bartone et al., “Factors Influencing Small-Unit Cohesion,” 2. 14. Siebold, “Evolution of the Measurement of Cohesion,” 6-7. 15. Manning, “Morale, Cohesion, and Esprit de Corps,” 456-59. 16. Charles C. Moskos, “The American Combat Soldier in Vietnam,” Journal of Social Issues 31, no. 4 (1975): 25-37; Richard A. Gabriel and Paul A. Savage, Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the Army (New York: Hill, 1978), 31-36; Hitoshi Kawano, “A Comparative Study of Combat Organizations: Japan and the United States during World War II” (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1996), 347-48; and Donna Winslow, “Misplaced Loyalties: Military Culture and the Breakdown of Discipline in Two Peace Operations,” in The Human in Command: Exploring the Modern Military Experience, ed. Carol McCann and Ross Pigeau (New York: Kluwer Academic, 2000), 293-309. 17. Omer Bartov, Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis and War in the Third Reich (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1991), 38-66. 18. Roberst S. Rush, “A Different Perspective: Cohesion, Moral and Operational Effectiveness in the German Army, Fall 1944,” Armed Forces & Society 25, no. 3 (Spring 1999): 477-508. 19. Moskos, “American Combat Soldier in Vietnam,” 25. 20. Anthony Kellett, “The Soldier in Battle: Motivational and Behavioral Aspects of the Combat Experience,” in Psychological Dimensions of War, ed. Betty Glad (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1987), 215-35. 21. David R. Segal and Meyer Kestenbaum, “Professional Closure in the Military Labour Market: A Critique of Pure Cohesion,” in The Future of the Army Profession, ed. Don M. Snider and Gayle L. Watkins (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 453. 22. Segal and Kestenbaum, “Professional Closure,” 445. 23. Fabrizio Battistelli, “Peacekeeping and the Post Modern Soldier,” Armed Forces & Society 23, no. 3 (Spring 1997): 467-84. 24. The difficulties in studying conflict during actual fighting were negotiated by S. L. A. Marshall by conducting interviews and observations as soon as the companies were drawn out of the line in both World War II and Korea. See Samuel L. A. Marshall, Pork Chop Hill (New York: William Morrow, 1956), 16. Participant observation seems to be a useful tool in this kind of study and, indeed, has been found to be very useful in studying life in military systems. See R. Wayne Eisenhart, “You Can’t Hack It Little Girl: A Discussion of the Covert Psychological Agenda of Modern Combat Training,” Journal of Social Issues 31, no. 4 (1975): 13-23; and Feige Michael and Eyal Ben-Ari “Card Games and an Israeli Army Unit: An Interpretive Case Study,” Armed Forces & Society 17, no. 3 (1991): 439-48. 25. Rush, “A Different Perspective,” 501. 26. Albert V. Caron, “Cohesiveness in Sport Groups: Interpretations and Considerations,” Journal of Sport Psychology 4 (1982): 123-38. 27. Brian Mullen and Carolyn Cooper, “The Relation between Group Cohesiveness and Performance: An Integration,” Psychological Bulletin 115, no. 2 (1994): 210-27; and Segal and Kestenbaum, “Professional Closure,” 452. 28. Segal and Kestenbaum, “Professional Closure,” 454. 29. Anthony Kellett, Combat Motivation: The Behavior of Soldiers in Battle (Boston: Kluwer, 1982), 97112; Patrick Mileham, “Moral Component: The Regimental System,” in New People Strategies for the British Armed Forces, ed. Alex Alexandrou, Richard Bartle, and Richard Holmes (London: Frank Cass, 2001), 63-84. 30. Field Marshal B. L. Montgomery cited by Kellett, Combat Motivation, 62. 31. Chrles Kirke, “A Model for the Analysis of Fighting Spirit in the British Army,” in British Army: Manpower and Society into the Twenty First Century, ed. Hew Strachan (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 227-41. 32. Nora Kinzer-Stewart, “Military Cohesion: The South Atlantic Conflict of 1982,” in Problems and Options of the Mass Armed Forces, ed. Jurgen Kuhlmann (Munich, Germany: SOWI, 1990), 191-210. 33. Paul Bartone and Amy Adler, “Cohesion over Time in a Peacekeeping Medical Task Force,” Military Psychology 11, no. 1 (1999): 85-107.

Ben-Shalom et al. / Military Operation Cohesion 79 34. Debra Meyerson, Karl E. Weick, and Roderick M. Kramer, “Swift Trust in Temporary Groups,” in Trust in Organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research, ed. Roderick M. Kramer and Tom R. Tyler (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996), 166-95. 35. Meyerson et al., “Swift Trust,” 166. 36. Michael Barnett and Emanuel Adler, “Studying Security Communities in Theory, Comparison and History,” in Security Communities, ed. Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 418. 37. Meyerson et al., “Swift Trust,” 180. 38. Roxana Tiron, “Military Training Needs More Flexibility, Analysts Contend. National Defense,” National Defense, November 2001, http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2001/Nov/Military _Training.htm (accessed June 28, 2005). 39. David A. Mangelsdorff, “Preface to Special Issue: Military Cohesion,” Military Psychology 11, no. 1 (1999): 1. 40. Meyerson et al., “Swift Trust,” 167. Uzi Ben-Shalom holds the rank of major, is a senior research officer in the military psychology center of the ground forces command/IDF, and has a postdoctoral residence in the Department of Psychology at Bar-Ilan University. His areas of interest are military psychology, military sociology, and adaptation and diversity in the military. Address for correspondence: Uzi Ben-Shalom, Bar-Ilan University, Bolivia 14-40, 96746 Jerusalem, Israel; e-mail: [email protected]. Zeev Lehrer holds the rank of lieutenant colonel, is a senior research officer in the military psychology center of the ground forces command/IDF, and is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at Tel Aviv University. His areas of interest are military psychology, military sociology, women in the military, and diversity in the military. E-mail: [email protected]. Eyal Ben-Ari is a professor of anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His areas of research include Japanese society and culture, military psychology, military sociology, and peacekeeping missions. E-mail: [email protected].