MILITARY

PSYCHOLOGY

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NidhiMaheshwariAndVineethVKumar_MilitaryPsychology.indb 2 11/24/2015 3:00:32 PM
 MILITARY
PSYCHOLOGY
Concepts, Trends and Interventions

EDITED BY
Nidhi Maheshwari
Vineeth V. Kumar

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 Copyright © Nidhi Maheshwari and Vineeth V. Kumar, 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, record-
ing or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writ-
ing from the publisher.

First published in 2016 by

SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd

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The SAGE Team: Shambhu Sahu, Saima Ghaffar and Ritu Chopra

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 To
The Soldiers of India

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 Thank you for choosing a SAGE product!
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I would like to personally hear from you.
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 Contents

List of Illustrationsxi
List of Abbreviationsxiii
Foreword by Manas K. Mandal xix
Prefacexxi

Introduction1
Nidhi Maheshwari and Vineeth V. Kumar

SECTION I
Psychological Concepts and Trends in Military Context 11

CHAPTER 1
Military Psychology: The Centurion Phenomenon 13
Nidhi Maheshwari, Vineeth V. Kumar and N. P. Singh

CHAPTER 2
Intelligence and Aptitude Testing 33
Gurpreet Kaur, Dinika Anand and Soumi Awasthy

CHAPTER 3
Biographical Inventory for Selection 56
Suresh A., Arunima Gupta and Sucheta Sarkar

CHAPTER 4
Human Landscape of War 81
Joseph Miller

CHAPTER 5
Stereotype Threat and Marksmanship Performance 103
Emerald M. Archer

CHAPTER 6
Misconduct Behaviours in Armed Forces 119
Pankaj Kumar Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan

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 viii  Military Psychology

CHAPTER 7
Psychological Operations in Warfare 149
Ron Schleifer

CHAPTER 8
Future Warfare and Mind Control 165
Swati Johar and Updesh Kumar

SECTION II
Psychological Interventions in Military Context 183

CHAPTER 9
The Secret Weapon of Optimism 185
Eyal Lewin

CHAPTER 10
Building Soldier Resilience 213
Michael D. Matthews

CHAPTER 11
Training Hardiness for Stress Resilience 231
Paul T. Bartone, Jarle Eid and Sigurd W. Hystad

CHAPTER 12
Promoting Psychosocial Health of Disaster First Responders 249
Sujata Satapathy

CHAPTER 13
Value-based Leadership 267
Vidushi Pathak, Anju Rani and Sneha Goswami

CHAPTER 14
Familial Pathways to Soldier Effectiveness 283
Archana and Updesh Kumar

CHAPTER 15
Countering Terrorism: Interrogating Communication Oversight 298
James Okolie-Osemene

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 Contents  ix

CHAPTER 16 317

Winning Hearts and Building Peace
Amparo Pamela H. Fabe

CHAPTER 17 332

Beyond Century: The Future of Military Psychology
Nidhi Maheshwari and Vineeth V. Kumar

About the Editors and Contributors341

Index345

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NidhiMaheshwariAndVineethVKumar_MilitaryPsychology.indb 10 11/24/2015 3:00:35 PM
 List of Illustrations

Tables

2.1 Definitions of Abilities Used in Intelligence Tests 37

3.1 Asher’s Dimensions Indicating Differences between
Biodata and Personality Inventories 60
3.2 Differences between Biodata and Personality Scales 61
5.1 Marksmanship Data 107
9.1 Themes of the Testimonies 196

Case Studies

12.1 Brief Case Studies of DFRs in India 251

12.2 Sources of Stress for Disaster and Emergency First
Responders253
12.3 IEC Material on Self-care and Coping 262
12.4 IEC Material on Stress Management during a Disaster
Management Operation 262
12.5 IEC Material on Seeking Support 263

Figure

6.1 Identifying and Reaching the Soldier at Risk 141

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 List of Abbreviations

ADI Adaptation Index

AFP Armed Forces of Philippines
AFP-HRO Armed Forces of the Philippines-Human Rights
Office
AFMC Armed Forces Medical College
AFQT Armed Forces Qualification Test
AFSPA Armed Forces Special Powers Act
AGCT Army General Classification Test
AICHR ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human
Rights
AMC Army Medical Corps
AMC-TAB Army Medical Corps Trade Allocation Battery
APA American Psychological Association
APFT Army Physical Fitness Test
AR Augmented Reality
ASAP Armed Services Adaptability Profile
ASCI Administrative Staff College of India
ASVAB Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery
AVF All Volunteer Force
AWL Absence without Leave
BCI Brain–Computer Interface
CARHRIHL Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect of Human
Rights and International Humanitarian Law
CBCA Comprehensive Battery of Cognitive Abilities
CBT Combat Brigade Teams
CF Compassion Fatigue
CHR Commission on Human Rights
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CLAWS Centre for Land Warfare Studies
CMWG Complaints Monitoring Working Group
CPP Communist Party of the Philippines
CPSS Computerized Pilot Selection System

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 xiv  Military Psychology

CRMs Comprehensive Resilience Modules

CSF Comprehensive Soldier Fitness
CWC Council for the Welfare of Children
DAH Disordered Action of the Heart
DFR Disaster First Responder
D-I Developmental-Integrative
DIA Defence Intelligence Agency
DIILS Defense Institute of International Legal Studies
DIPR Defence Institute of Psychological Research
DoD Department of Defence
DOLE Department of Labor and Employment
DPR Directorate of Psychological Research
DRDO Defence Research and Development Organisation
DRS Dispositional Resilience Scale
DSM Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders
DSS Department of State Security
DW Disaster Worker
EBIS Educational and Biographical Information Survey
EBO Effect-Based Operation
ELF Extra Low-frequency
EMP Electromagnetic Pulse
EW Electronic Warfare
FGN Federal Government of Nigeria
FIND Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance
FOIA Freedom of Information Act
FY Fiscal Year
GAT Global Assessment Tool
GCRV Grave Child Rights Violation
GPA Grade Point Average
GPHMC Government of the Philippines Monitoring
Committee
GWOT Global War on Terror
HO Humanitarian Operations
HOI History Opinion Inventory
HRO Human Rights Office
HRV Human Rights Violations
IAC Inter-Agency Committee

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 List of Abbreviations  xv

IB Infantry Battalion
ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross
ICU Islamic Courts Union
IDF Israel Defense Forces
IEC Information, Education and Communication
IHL International Humanitarian Law
IIHMR Indian Institute of Health Management and Research
ILO International Labor Organization
IPAI Industrial Psychiatry Association of India
IPSP Internal Peace and Security Plan
ISCA Indian Science Congress Association
ISIS Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
IT Information Technology
JTF Joint Task Force
KDF Kenyan Defence Forces
LAT Language Aptitude Test
LAWS Lethal Autonomous Weapons System
LDRSHIP Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless service, Honor,
Integrity, Personal courage
LIC Low-intensity Conflict
LOM Lohamat Modi’in
LWE Left-wing Extremism
MALAT Mercaz L’Mivtzaei Toda’a
MAP Military Applicant Profile
MAST Military Adaptability Screening Test
MCRD-West Marine Corps Recruiting Depot-West
MILF Moro Islamic Liberation Front
MISO Military Information and Support Operations
MMMs Modern Military Missions
MNJTF Multinational Joint Task Force
MOOTW Military Operations Other Than War
MOS Military Occupational Specialties
MRRS Monitoring, Reporting and Response System
MRT Master Resilience Trainer
MSI Military Service Inventory
NAoP National Academy of Psychology
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NCO Non-Commissioned Officer

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 xvi  Military Psychology

NCS Nigerian Customs Service

NCW Network Centric Warfare
NDRF National Disaster Response Force
NIS Nigeria Immigration Service
NMM National Monitoring Mechanism
NPA New People’s Army
NPF Nigeria Police Force
NSG National Security Guard
NYDN Not Yet Diagnosed Nervous
OODA Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action
ORTAS Other Rank Trade Allocation System
OSS Office of Strategic Services
PA Palestinian Authority
PANAS Positive and Negative Affect Scale
PDA Prediction of Drug Use Admission
PET Prediction of Emotional Instability
PISCES Personal Identification Secure Comparison and
Evaluation System
PNP Philippines National Police
PoW Prisoner of War
PRP Penn Resilience Program
PRW Psychological Research Wing
PsyOps Psychological Operations
PTG Post-traumatic Growth
PTSD Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
PWML People with Mental Illnesses
RBQ Recruit Background Questionnaire
RSA Resilience Scale for Adults
SB 5 Stanford Binet Test 5
SCREEN Success Chances for Recruits Entering the Navy
SIWs Self-Inflicted Wounds
SJT Situation Judgment Test
SMS Short Message Service
SMT Sentence Making Test
SOPs Standard Operating Procedures
SRT Situation Reaction Test
SSB Services Selection Board
ST Stereotype Threat

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 List of Abbreviations  xvii

TFDP Task Force Detainees of the Philippines

TO Table of Organization
UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
USMC United States Marine Corps
VIA-IS Values-in-Action Inventory of Strengths
VMT Visual Memory Test
VR Virtual Reality
VT Vicarious Trauma
WAIS Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction
WWI First World War
WWII Second World War

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NidhiMaheshwariAndVineethVKumar_MilitaryPsychology.indb 18 11/24/2015 3:00:35 PM
 Foreword

With the ongoing global engagements of the soldier, military psychol-

ogy is being acknowledged widely by the research fraternity who are
involved in analysing the dynamics, determinants and development of
soldier’s well-being. Though military psychology has gained its identity
as an area of applied psychology, one cannot deny its evolution through
the psycho-analytic, behaviouristic and humanistic schools of thought.
More so, with IT and computer science becoming an integral part of
military missions and increasing involvement of cognitive sciences to
military, psychologists’ capabilities are put to test. Keeping this con-
sideration, any research attempt, publication, monograph, etc., is not
only highly appreciable but an equally challenging task.
The present volume titled Military Psychology: Concepts, Trends and
Interventions has been a significant attempt to take on this challenge.
The editors with their modest background in military psychology
have figured a judicious attempt to justify their association with the
subject. It is heartening to see that this volume on military psychol-
ogy has tried to bring the able researchers of military psychology to
a common platform for sharing their expertise on various pertinent
topics of soldierly concern. Such an attempt will deserve a humble
gratitude by those budding researchers who look forward to search
any discussion or publication in this area of research.
The contributions from all over the world reflect India’s competi-
tive perspective in this area. I am sure such a publication will help all
those students, researchers and professionals who wish to contribute
their might towards military psychology on one hand and towards
welfare of the main actor of military psychology, that is, the soldier,
on the other hand.
Manas K. Mandal
Director General (Life Sciences), DRDO
Former Professor, IIT Kharagpur

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 Preface

Wars often destruct societies but evolve sciences. Every society has
employed the psychological sciences for countering military chal-
lenges before, during and after participating in any war. Knowledge,
so evolved by one society, has benefitted other societies for maintain-
ing their forces. India is no exception. The country has witnessed
many significant wars, battles and revolts, both as a result of foreign
invasion, colonial participation, neighbours aggression or internal
unrest, such as, the famous Battles of Panipat, First War of Indian
Independence (1857), participation in World Wars, Azad Hind Fauz
(Indian National Army) struggle, Indo-Pak Wars (1947, 1965, 1971
and 1999) and Indo-China War (1962). Alongside, she has professed
various psychological concepts of military relevance to the world as well
as imbibed many relevant concepts and interventions offered by the
world into its military systems. Accordingly, it is always beneficial to
place on record the relevant psychological concepts, trends and inter-
ventions as championed by various countries across the globe in order
to provide impetus to the ongoing learning and research processes in
the interest of the soldier. This book is one such attempt from India.
Marking the forthcoming century celebrations of military
­psychology in 2017, this book is presented with the perspective of
apprising the researchers, scholars, service personnel as well as policy
makers alike about the theoretical underpinnings and advances of
military ­psychology so as to draw important conclusions for optimiz-
ing contemporary and future military performance. Contributors to
the book are senior international and national military psychologists,
experienced service officers, scientists, academicians, heads of various
strategic departments and researchers who have tried to address some
of the pertinent issues which are being faced or likely to be faced by
various Armed Forces of the world. Besides psychology, contribu-
tors also belong to the domain of peace and conflict studies, disaster
­management, political sciences, international law, medicine, social

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 xxii  Military Psychology

justice, military law and psychiatry. Thus, the inter-disciplinary infor-

mation can enrich our understanding about Indian as well as other
soldiers in a multi-faceted manner so as to help them better cope with
variety of operational challenges and optimize their performance in
diverse military setups. More so, the work may suffice to the needs of
Indian scholars and those of the Asian subcontinent amongst others, at
an inter-disciplinary level (Military Psychology, Defence and Strategic
Studies, Political Science, Sociology, HRM/HRD, Organizational
Behaviour, etc.) as per their respective courses. Equally, knowledge so
evolved can be incorporated into the selection, training and manage-
ment of societal human resource even in corporate systems dealing
with high-risk jobs.
It has been an enriching experience to work with the authors from
varied professional and cultural background worldwide, while under-
standing the subject of military psychology. We thank all the authors
for sharing their ideas and piece of work. Equally, sincere gratitude is
extended to Dr Manas K. Mandal, DG R&D (Life Sciences), DRDO;
Dr K. Ramachandran, Director, DIPR; and Sh N. P. Singh, Head,
Strategic Behaviour Division, DIPR for giving their consistent sup-
port to the endeavour. Moreover, God has been generous to grace us
enough wisdom, patience, determination and such a family that has
supported us through the rough times to reach the desired end. Hope
this book will be of interest to the readers and will lead to fresh ideas,
research works and newer perspectives to the understanding of human
behaviour in challenging contexts.

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 Introduction

Nidhi Maheshwari and Vineeth V. Kumar

The First World War (WWI), precisely 1917, signifies the formal
alliance of psychology to military with the implementation of Army
Alpha Tests for selection of men to Armed Forces. Consequent to this
confluence, for the first time the psychological principles of human
behaviour were applied to military performance in a scientific manner.
Thereby, the discipline of military psychology has evolved during past
100 years transgressing various barriers and alluring many other disci-
plines, while its journey through a century from WWI to the Modern
Military Missions (MMMs) giving rise to newer concepts along with
observance of certain trends and derivation of various interventions
in service of the soldier. Present book on military psychology is an
attempt to put forth some of the relevant psychological concepts,
trends and interventions that are of operational and strategic interest
to the Indian as well as other forces.
The book is based on the presumptions of inductive as well as
deductive learning processes for military scholars across the globe, with
special reference to India. Following the deductive processes, several
trends and concepts of universal occurrence in the Armed Forces have
been mentioned for drawing vital guidelines for Indian soldiers and
soldiers of similar countries. At the same time, general principles and
intervention modes are induced by considering independent military
cases from different parts of the world. Section I titled ‘Psychological
Concepts and Trends in Military Context’ deals with the significant
concepts and trends of military importance that qualifies a soldier
and his ideal performance. Evenly, Section II titled ‘Psychological
Interventions in Military Context’ deals with the interventions that
help the soldier maintain and dispense his ideal performance. Various
chapters under two sections cover topics like intelligence and person-
ality testing, stereotype threats (STs), combat stress, psychological
operations (PsyOps), Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF), resilience

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 2  Nidhi Maheshwari and Vineeth V. Kumar

building, hardiness training, countering terrorism, familial well-being,

ethical leadership, psycho-social health of disaster responders, inter-
national humanitarian law and winning hearts and minds.
Following are the broad areas relevant to the Armed Forces in gen-
eral and Indian Forces in particular that have been addressed through
various chapters in the book.

Selecting the Right Soldier

for the Right Mission

Armed Forces are undergoing metamorphosis with the advancement

of technology. Refined technology has set new parameters of cognitive
and non-cognitive abilities for military jobs. Due to the upgradation
of gun power, selecting the right manpower for the job has become
a challenge. The selection mode is of extreme significance in face
of anti-terrorism operations and contemporary guerilla warfare,
wherein night operations, ambush, raids, etc., are no exception for
soldiers. And both their cognitive and non-cognitive abilities are at
test to their best.
With special reference to the tests developed in India, Chapter 2
by Gurpreet Kaur, Dinika Anand and Soumi Awasthy and Chapter 3
by Suresh A., Arunima Gupta and Sucheta Sarkar focus on the
cognitive and personality assessment procedures that can be used
for selecting the right soldier. Chapter 2 casts a complete trajectory
of intelligence and aptitude testing in Indian Armed Forces with
a paradigm shift in the testing, definition of construct, mode of
assessment and technique of analysis all through the years. Also, it
highlights the use of computer and technology for adequate selec-
tion and placement of personnel. Chapter 3 enquires upon the use
of biographical inventory in Indian military selection. It favourably
compares the instrument with other personality measures used for
predicting soldier’s performance. Verifiability, generalizability and
validity of biodata are discussed alongside the process of construction
of such an instrument. More so, both the chapters provide essential
inputs while restructuring the selection system of India or of any
other country.

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 Introduction  3

Building and Sustaining Resilient Soldiers

Guarding the territory and integrity of a nation against external inva-

sion or internal aggression has eternally been an issue of concern for
any forces. Whether it may be the Global War on Terror (GWOT), pro-
viding humanitarian assistance in African continent, disparaging the
activities of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), resolving Syrian
conflict at the global level; or, back home, manning the counterinsur-
gency operations in Jammu and Kashmir, anti Left-wing Extremism
(LWE) operations in the red corridor, executing the Yemen evacuation,
high-altitude deployment in Siachen, Kargil, Arunachal Pradesh, etc.
against Pakistanis and Chinese aggression in Indian soil; the forces are
continually plagued with the concern for defying deployment stress in
soldiers and sustaining their morale and resilience. Military leaders,
trainers, policy makers, psychiatrists, operational psychologists and
soldiers themselves are equally concerned about the traumatic and
post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSDs) prevalent in the Armed Forces.
Instances from similar socio-geo-political contexts can give an insight
into the phenomenon of combat stress and its associated management
strategies that apply universally to every soldier.
Chapter 4 by Joseph Miller discusses the mental agony named
combat stress in a soldier during and after deployment by elaborating
the case of an English veteran. This chapter enables the reader to under-
stand PTSD from the perspective of a decorated soldier. It is expressed
that wars change the perception of landscapes for its soldiers, who in
turn try to change the landscape around them because of this changed
perception. Thus, the significance of combat stress, its management
and debriefing is upheld by the chapter which has become an issue of
concern for Indian Armed Forces also.
Likewise, Chapter 9 by Eyal Lewin focuses on enhancing optimism
in soldiers by studying the goal-oriented approach championed by the
Israeli forces during the Arab–Israeli 1973 War. Doubting the common
knowledge of social cohesion, collective fear and national ideology as
the basis of soldiers’ motivation to fight, chapter lauds the relevance
of optimism. Discussing the positive psychology theme, case studies
of four heroes at the northern front of Israel and five heroes at the
southern front during the Arab–Israeli 1973 War have been analyzed

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 4  Nidhi Maheshwari and Vineeth V. Kumar

to interpret and establish the significance of optimism. This empirical

demonstration of optimism offers many lessons to soldiers in India
and abroad for maintaining the weapon of optimism in their arsenal
of mental robustness. The construct shall be of special interest to the
soldiers working in counter-insurgency operations and naxal-prone
areas where they are unaware of the duration, intensity and progress
of their operations.
Similarly, Chapter 10 by Michael D. Matthews and Chapter 11
by Paul T. Bartone, Jarle Eid and Sigurd W. Hystad emphasize upon
the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) and hardiness training in
soldiers, respectively, for their adequate coping with military stresses.
Chapter 10 expresses concern over the rising psychological cost to
combat and offers resilience-building through the magnificent CSF
Programme as an alternative to the problem. Other elements of CSF
as Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG), and extension of CSF to army fami-
lies, children, civilians, other military and non-military organizations,
have also been highlighted alongside the historical contribution of this
programme to psychology. Chapter 11 draws the focus on hardiness
training as a measure to build resilience in military. Psychological har-
diness with commitment, control and challenge (3Cs) is presented as
the primary resiliency factor which needs to be strengthened through
training and leadership intervention. Also, self-help steps are provided
as easy aids to build up the same. Indian Armed Forces is deliberating
upon the concept of CSF and hardiness training for strengthening its
forces; hence, knowledge of the same is an asset. Needless to say, such
inputs are essential building blocks for designing the military training
doctrine of any nation.

Promoting Mental Health of Soldiers

Involved in MOOTW

Nowadays, for every challenging incident Armed Forces are brought

in action. Whether it may be disaster evacuation in Nepal, Yemen,
Uttarakhand or Kashmir, providing humanitarian aid in Africa or
other South-east Asian nations, military comes as saviour to all.
Consequent to such increasing involvement in Military Operations

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 Introduction  5

Other Than War (MOOTW), Armed Forces across the globe includ-
ing the Indian soldiers have to gear themselves up with newer roles
and challenges thereupon. Chapter 12 by Sujata Satapathy illustrates
the changing nature of Indian Armed and Para-military Forces in
their stride to safeguard the nation and its citizen against various
natural and man-made vagaries. It acknowledges the promotion of
psycho-social health of soldiers involved in MOOTW often called as
the Disaster First Responders (DFRs). The chapter argues that with the
increasing deployment of personnel as DFRs during catastrophes and
other humanitarian operations, much care must be taken to prevent
and promote their psycho-social health. To begin with, several Indian
disaster relief cases have been highlighted in the chapter followed by the
work profile of the responders. Thereby, caregivers’ trauma in terms
of secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma
(VT) and burnout is discussed. Specifically, preventive and promotive
psycho-social care has been recommended for the responders through
the design and dissemination of relevant Information, Education and
Communication (IEC) materials which have proved their worth at
earlier instances also in the country. The knowledge so shared can
substantiate the significance and facilitation of psycho-social care of
DFRs operating in any part of the world.

Guarding Forces Against Gender Biases

Indian Armed Forces and other militaries in various continents have

opened or are reflecting on opening their gates for women in combat
arms. The fair gender is now not only going to be a part of the medi-
cal corps but also that of engineers, artillery, air defence, submarine,
etc. However, these warriors shall not be immune to the prevalent
stereotypes which somehow might affect their military performance.
Chapter 5 by Emerald M. Archer enquires upon the effect of stereo-
typing on the marksmanship performance of female Marines and
highlights the consequences of the threat in terms of self-handicapping,
reactance, distancing self from the stereotyped group and altered pro-
fessional aspirations. Indian and other similar forces have important
lessons to learn well in advance from this study on US Marines before
such challenges become a reality for them.

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 6  Nidhi Maheshwari and Vineeth V. Kumar

Curbing Misconduct Behaviours

Extremes of behaviour have been dispensed by soldiers both within

and beyond their territory during various peace-making and peace-
keeping missions. For positive behaviours, the Armed Forces need to
laud itself but for negative behaviours, the Forces must take preventive
as well as corrective steps. It is universally acknowledged that preven-
tive measures can be taken for misconduct behaviours before the situ-
ation worsens and slides beyond repair. Chapter 6 by Pankaj Kumar
Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan enunciates various
misconduct behaviours as codified by the Indian Military Law. It casts
a transparent picture about the forms of misconduct behaviours and
their preventive and corrective measures that are being channelized
in the Indian Military System. The chapter also explains why coping
training is not working and what should be done to control such
behaviours. Recommendations therein can have essential ramifications
for armies worldwide.

Cultivating Ethical Leadership

Almost every military system is full of examples of ethical and value-

based leadership. However, with the changing societal norms and
aspirations, soldier of any culture might compromise his integrity and
loyalty. This has become a primary concern for every military as it is
considered a sacred institution. In Indian context also, we have come
across cases such as the Bofors scam and the Tehelkha scam1, that have
raised eyebrows over the sanctity of the Services. Chapter 13 by Vidushi
Pathak, Anju Rani and Sneha Goswami refurbishes the significance of
value-based leadership in Armed Forces. Citing slokas (Sanskrit verses)
from the sacred Bhagwat Gita and taking other instances from Indian
and world military history, the chapter summarizes the core military
values that need to be cherished with an aim of cultivating a shared value
system and prospering authentic leadership in the national interest of
any civilized military.

1 http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/a-brief-history-of-defence-scams-in-india-590770. html

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 Introduction  7

Maintaining Healthy Military Families

Collectivist or individualistic societies both embrace the idea of unison

of the soldier with his family, irrespective of its size. Effectiveness of
a soldier is believed to be closely associated with the well-being of
his family. Based on the respective culture of the nation, consistent
efforts are made by the Forces to maintain the well-being of a military
family, especially when the soldier is away. Like other countries, Indian
Armed Forces are also ultra-sensitive to the familial aspect of a soldier
and leave no stone unturned to keep it healthy. Thus, Chapter 14 by
Archana and Updesh Kumar looks at the procurement of familial well-
being and quality of life as pathways to achieving soldier effectiveness.
Recurrent relocation, separation, frequent deployments, parenting
stress, abrupt reunion, etc., are presented as some of the familial
concerns in the military life. Thereby, measures are suggested to
create resilient families and raise the quality of life in soldiers through
building social support, sensitizing leadership, increasing positivity,
enhancing resilience and striking healthy work–family balance. Similar
measures can be practiced and preached in various military setups.

Countering Terrorism, Winning Hearts and

Building Peace

Like other parts of the world, forces in the Asian subcontinent also
are now battling against terrorism, building regional peace and win-
ning hearts of the local populace in their area of operation. The task
becomes exigent for Indian soldiers as they are often shunned by
the local populace in places such as Jammu and Kashmir, Assam,
Mizoram, Nagaland, etc., for allegedly violating human rights, fan-
ning fake encounters and custodial deaths, and resorting to looting
and other nefarious activities. There has been continued agitation by
various social agencies against the forces for the illegal use of Armed
Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and violent protests have become
the order of the day in the region. Conversely, the forces are intrigued
with the question of whom to catch and how to catch in a region where
the rival is rooted in strong social circles.

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 8  Nidhi Maheshwari and Vineeth V. Kumar

With the specific illustration of Boko Haram threat in Nigeria and

deployment of Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) against it, Chapter
15 by James Okolie-Osemene provides essential answers to questions of
defining terrorism and ways of containing it. Boko Haram, like Al-Qaeda
and ISIS, is often described by world leaders as a global threat. The chapter
surfaces the antecedents and consequents to such anti-terrorism activities
and the measures taken by the Forces while operating in such locations and
fighting an unknown enemy. Observance of human rights issues and adop-
tion of community-based approach are identified as workable strategies
to restoring people’s confidence in the forces and thereby strengthening
the forces to crack the back bone of terrorism. Indian security agencies
that are marred by similar activities of the sleeper agents, insurgents, ter-
rorists and other non-state actors in Jammu and Kashmir, North-east,
red corridor and other high-power locations can get useful insights for
developing workable strategies for restoring people’s confidence in the
forces and operating conveniently in the terrorism and naxal-hit areas.
Likewise, Chapter 16 by Amparo Pamela H. Fabe endorses the impor-
tance of upholding International Humanitarian Law by the Armed
Forces for winning hearts and building peace in the conflict-ridden
areas. Discussing the specific case of Philippines which is stained by
three-pronged insurgency war, the chapter enumerates the psycho-
physical constraints of Filipino soldiers who have to ‘‘fight with their
hands behind the back”. Equally, it lauds the efforts made by the Forces
in up-keeping humanitarian law by opening Human Rights Office
(HRO), partnering with civil society organizations and training their
soldiers on human rights. Also, interventions for protecting human
rights have been discussed keeping in sight their positive outcomes for
the Forces to conserve. Soldiers in the Asian subcontinent, especially
India, have a lot to learn from such instances as they are also subjected to
the “death by thousand cuts” warfare tactics and are “fighting with their
hands behind the back” to such deadly tactics in their area of operations.

Preparing Soldier for Future Warfare

Globally, Armed Forces have realized that now the war is going to be
more mental than physical. For India, facing the Chinese aggression in
Kashmir (like Aksai Chin) or Arunachal Pradesh (like Tawang), con-
taining threats of Pakistan-backed terrorists in Kashmir, stimulating

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 Introduction  9

‘hot pursuit’ of militants in Myanmar (against infiltration in Manipur

and Nagaland), eliminating naxals and de-radicalizing the disillusioned
religious fundamentalists to join the mainstream are now more a
matter of mental than physical might. There have been consistent
efforts in Jammu and Kashmir, North-east, Naxalism-affected areas
and other regions of the country to curb the rivals and win over our
people through PsyOps such as social engineering, propaganda and
brainwashing. Although PsyOps have always been a tricky issue for
any Armed Forces to master, yet it is the strongest non-lethal weapon
to train upon. Use of PsyOps requires immense skills and expertise to
win over the situation in favour of the State and its success depends
upon a number of factors for which Indian Armed Forces have to delve
upon. Also, effort is required to upgrade and update the Forces with
the enhanced use of technology and sophisticated weapon systems
in future warfare scenario, while moving for global missions in the
African, Middle-east, European and the South-east Asian regions.
Chapter 7 by Ron Schleifer throws light on the phenomenology of
PsyOps through the analysis of Operation Cast Lead (27 December
2008 to 18 January 2009) executed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
against the PsyOps of Hamas, the Iran’s client regime in Gaza. Various
components of the two warring PsyOps agencies are analyzed on lines of
their objectives, target, message content, transmission channels, media
and thereby the extent of success achieved. Also, the direction of future
PsyOps has been extrapolated through the analysis which is pertinent
in current Indian context. Functionality of various factors such as the
objective, the message, the channel and the media along with the target
needs to be studied by Indian Forces also before designing any PsyOps
strategy for its people within or behind enemy lines. Also, the input can
act as an incubator while defining initiatives and formulating policies
against naxalism or any other psychosocial threat worldwide.
Alike, Chapter 8 by Swati Johar and Updesh Kumar projects the
disposition of future weapons for Indian scenario keeping the vision
2050 in mind. It forecasts the possibility of bio-genetic engineered sys-
tems, cyber weapons, remote neural monitoring and cognitive hacking
through use of lasers, extra-low frequencies and mesh worms along with
the need for enhancing unmanned technology with human intelligence
interface, mind-enabled tools and psychological warfare strategies
which are highly relevant and going to be a reality in future combat.
The projections can also be helpful in globally facing the likely future
challenges in the psychological testing, training and operating arenas.

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 10  Nidhi Maheshwari and Vineeth V. Kumar

Revisiting Centurion Concepts, Trends and

Interventions

Future builds on the past. Without knowing the past labour in the
arena of military psychology, progression and growth of the subject
is meaningless. Chapter 1 by Nidhi Maheshwari, Vineeth V. Kumar
and N. P. Singh manifests the centurion concepts, trends and inter-
ventions in military psychology across the globe. Objective is to aid a
deeper understanding about the concepts associated with the psyche
of a soldier fighting an unconventional war and prepare him better for
future wars based on the past knowledge. Emergent concepts, trends
and interventions during the centurion deployment of psychology to
military are highlighted. Of special interest is the section on the rise
and growth of military psychology in India which can provide an input
to better understand our soldiers and enhance military performance.
Thereafter, Chapter 17 by the editors provides future challenges and
errands for military psychology. Past militaries of the world have
together evolved such a grand knowledge base which shall be used by
the future militaries of the world in soldierly interest.
Thus, it can be said that topics so covered in the book can aid the
Indian as well as other Forces of the world to strengthen their structure
and capability for optimizing performance during contemporary and
future warfare.

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 SECTION I

Psychological
Concepts and Trends
in Military Context

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NidhiMaheshwariAndVineethVKumar_MilitaryPsychology.indb 12 11/24/2015 3:00:37 PM
 1
Military Psychology: The Centurion
Phenomenon

Nidhi Maheshwari, Vineeth V. Kumar and N. P. Singh

Unlike in any other science or art, in war the object reacts.

—Carl von Clausewitz

Military psychology owes its allegiance to both the science and an art.
Science implies in knowing or deciphering the principles of military
behaviour whereas art divulges in applying those principles to soldier’s
performance and associated systems. This science and art of military has
evolved consistently with the evolution of society and wars. Kennedy,
Hughes and McNeil (2012) argue that the growth of military psychol-
ogy has occurred in spurts, each related to the demands, psychological
as well as military, of the conflicts of different nations. More so, it has
evolved from limited participation in wars of the past to today’s war,
where it has been an indispensable asset in combat readiness and policy
development. According to Dandekar (2000), many societal changes
resulted in a different view on the relevant competencies with regard
to military. Downsizing of the military, the civilianization of military
way of life, the end of the conscription in most of the West-European
countries and recent terrorist attacks have influenced the way in which
the military recruit, select, train and deploy in operations. Seligman and
Fowler (2011) also express that First World War (WWI) and Second
World War (WWII) drove explosive developments in aptitude testing,
selection and classification.
Conversely, the society and warfare have also evolved with the
­implementation of psychological principles to military performance.
Scales (2009) emphasizes that psychology and its closely associated dis-
ciplines are critical to success in contemporary war, and that this need
will generate paradigm-shifting changes in the science and profession
of psychology. He reveals that WWI saw dramatic developments in

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 14  Nidhi Maheshwari, Vineeth V. Kumar and N. P. Singh

chemistry, WWII in physics (notably radar and nuclear technology) and

the Cold War in information technology. Indeed, beginning with the
major wars of the 20th century and continuing to the current conflicts
of the 21st century, war pushed paradigm shifts in a variety of scientific
disciplines (Laurence & Matthews, 2012). Further, Matthews (2014)
argue that psychology is the science that will determine who wins and
who loses the wars of the 21st century, just as physics ultimately led the
United States to victory in WWII. Clearly, increasing necessity of the
society and emerging challenges lead the discipline to expand itself to
every nook and corner of military organization and behaviour. On certain
occasions, the discipline even revolutionized clinical, industrial, social,
health, vocational and organizational behaviour. More so, Mukherjee,
Kumar & Mandal (2009) express that although largely guided by the
users’ requirements, military psychology does not restrict its research
domain to applied fields; it provides researchers with ample ­opportunity
to investigate basic issues of science and to test their application on
ground. Thereby, Matthews and Laurence (2012) are justified in saying
that military psychology, by necessity, is a heterogeneous field of inquiry.
On one hand, it draws on all sub-disciplines of psychology to understand
the variables that affect soldier performance, whereas, on the other hand,
lessons learned from military psychology are of vital importance to all
areas of psychology.

Definition

Military psychology is a discipline which is concerned with recruiting,

training, socializing, assigning, employing, deploying, motivating,
rewarding, managing, integrating, retaining, transitioning, support-
ing, counseling and healing military members (Laurence & Matthews,
2012). It is an area of study and application of psychological principles
and methods to military environment (Gal & Mangelsdorff, 1991). It
is also defined as the application of research techniques and principles
of psychology to the resolution of problems to either optimize the
behavioural capabilities of one’s own military forces or minimize the
enemies’ behavioural capabilities to conduct war (Walters, 1968).
Cronin (1998) goes on to define military psychology as the application

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 Military Psychology: The Centurion Phenomenon  15

of psychological principles to the military environment regardless

of who is involved or where the work is conducted. In common
parlance, it is the research, design and application of psychological
theories and empirical data towards understanding, predicting and
countering behaviours in either friendly or enemy forces or civilian
population that may be u ­ ndesirable, threatening or potentially dan-
gerous to the conduct of military operations (Military psychology,
n.d.). Moreover, Cronin (2003) goes on to equate it with a microcosm
which embraces psychological disciplines and which affects almost
all aspects of military settings. Further, Kreuger (2003) highlights
the following nature of psychological research in military settings:

1. Recruitment, selection, placement, training and retention of

military personnel.
2. Prediction and enhancement of combatant performance in harsh
environments.
3. Human engineering design of complex weapon systems for
effective use by soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.
4. Training procedures to mould well-honed military teams by
maximizing specialized differential skills to permit success on
tough missions.
5. Soldier coping mechanisms for deployment to foreign lands, or
to carry out extended hours of work, or to work under austere
conditions.
6. Soldiers’ abilities to adjust to countless intricacies of military
lifestyle.
7. Collection and interpretation of large amounts of psychological
data to assist military leaders and civilian authorities in making
smart decisions and informed policies that affect millions of
military members and their families.
8. Providing advice on integrating people of diverse ethnic and
social backgrounds into the workplace.

Hence, it can be said that military psychology is both the science

and art of understanding and employing the principles of cognition,
affect and behaviour in military contexts so as to optimize the selec-
tion, training, adaptation and performance of soldiers in diverse roles
of building peace and m ­ aintaining security.

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 16  Nidhi Maheshwari, Vineeth V. Kumar and N. P. Singh

Century of Military Psychology:

Concepts, Trends and Interventions

Although psychological practices were deep seated in the military func-

tioning since ages as is evident in the slokas (Sanskrit verses) of Srimad
Bhagwat Gita, Kautilya’s Arthashastra, Sun Tzu’s Art of War and the
Clausewitz’s On War, etc. However, WWI can be considered as the
defining moment for the official inception of psychology to military
with the introduction of first intelligence test for selection of men in
1917. The episode will complete its 100 years in 2017. Since 1917, the
discipline has travelled a long distance while experiencing many crests
and troughs through its journey. There has been a war-wise spurt in the
arena of military psychology largely depending upon the need of the
warring nations, deployment of soldiers to various operations and mili-
tary settings with changing geo-political and strategic milieu. Windle
and Vallance (1964) opine that military psychology might be considered
an offshoot of industrial psychology, but one which has come through
luxurious growth to demand independent recognition. Consequently,
newer concepts, trends and interventions were witnessed in its ambit.
On the basis of the recorded history of soldiers’ deployment to opera-
tions/wars and associated deployment of psychology against emerging
challenges, centurion trajectory of military psychology can be studied
under three phases which are described in the succeeding paragraphs.

Centurion Trajectory of Military Psychology

Looking at the nature of warfare and deployment of psychology along

warfare, the trajectory of military psychology during the century can be
divided into three phases: (a) Initial Phase (during WWI and WWII),
(b) Middle Phase (during Korean, Vietnam and the Gulf War) and
(c) Contemporary Phase [during the Modern Military Missions (MMMs)].

Initial Phase of Military Psychology (during WWI and WWII)

It all kick started with WWI when need was felt to psychologically
screen the civilian youths who were drifted to participate in WWI by
the consent of the American Congress. Yale’s Biopsychology Professor

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 Military Psychology: The Centurion Phenomenon  17

and erstwhile American Psychological Association’s (APA) President,

Robert M. Yerkes, took the challenge and inspired the psychologists for
providing their valuable contribution to the efforts of the nation. He
expressed that, “It is obviously desirable that the psychologists of the
country act together in interests of defence. Our knowledge and our
methods are of importance to the military affairs of this country and it
is our duty to work together to maximize the effective work aimed at
increasing the efficiency of our army and navy” (Yerkes, 1918). Even
before Yerkes, Sir Walter Dill Scott and his team had spent initial six
months of war in designing tests that would adequately equate civilian
skills and military tasks. Although Scott’s programme to classify Army’s
personnel structure based on occupational skills received immediate
approval from the Army. However, Scott and his team spent too much
time in finalizing the classification cards and designing trade tests
which adversely affected the interest of the Army in the proposition.
Subsequently, Yerkes proposal for mass intelligence testing came to the
fore. Obviously, this programme on mass intelligence testing received a
lukewarm response from the Army (Keene, 1994) vis-à-vis the classifica-
tion of personnel based on occupational skills. Nonetheless, pursuing
the initiative and reflecting upon Binet’s contribution in the arena of
intelligence testing, Army Alpha (for literates) and Army Beta (for illit-
erates) tests were developed and implemented to screen the recruits for
WWI in group setting under the guidance of Yerkes. This established
the significance of ‘intelligence’ testing of recruits for the Forces which
was otherwise an arduous task for the Army to embrace and convince
upon. Later, Army Alpha proceeded to become the Wechsler-Bellevue
Scale which led to the development of Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
(WAIS). Besides intelligence testing, Woodworth Personality Data Sheet
was also introduced at that time (Page, 1996) which was supposed to
detect personalities that would crumble under fire. Although it did
not work much, but the contribution was significant as it was the first
demonstration of personality being quantified. Besides intelligence and
personality assessment during that time, psychologists also ventured
into developing instruments for selecting and training gun pointers,
and developing techniques for predicting successful fighting aviators.
Systematic methods for judging and rating qualifications of officer
candidates and for training soldiers with differing ability to learn were
also introduced (Uhlaner, 1978).
This was also the period of ‘chemical warfare’ and ‘trench warfare’ as
it is called. Soldiers experienced the trauma of green gas, ‘the mustard

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 18  Nidhi Maheshwari, Vineeth V. Kumar and N. P. Singh

gas’ in war close to their trenches, witnessing their brothers fuming

in front of them, blown to pieces, hearing loud noises of round of
fires moving over their trenches, etc. Consequently, they developed
an unknown mental condition expressed physically by getting stuck
during war, being unresponsive to sounds and feeling incapacitated.
Originally, such soldiers were labelled as ‘cowards’ and were shunned
for getting into a condition designated as ‘shell shock’. But, gradu-
ally, terms such as ‘gas hysteria’, ‘war neurosis’, ‘Not Yet Diagnosed
Nervous (NYDN)’ and ‘Disordered Action of the Heart (DAH)’ came
to their rescue and these terms became the moniker of combat stress
henceforth. With such a diagnosis, strides were made in the arena
of neuropsychology, neurosurgery, cognitive rehabilitation (Boake,
1989; Franz, 1923) and cognitive restructuring for preventing and
rehabilitating the soldiers to such vagaries. Gradually, forward psy-
chiatry was implemented to advocate the PIE principle of proximity,
immediacy and expectation of recovery for treating shell shock cases
(Jones & Wessely, 2003). Thus, WWI enunciated significant psycho-
logical inputs to the art of war-fighting as well as handling war-ridden
victims. Kennedy et al. (2012) go on to say that lessons learned in WWI
continue to guide the mental-health professionals in addressing the
response to fear of the current terrorist threats to employ chemical
and biological warfare.
Also, problems related to morale, discipline and leadership came
to the fore during this time. Besides the psychology division for intel-
ligence testing, a morale division was also established under the aegis
of Colonel E. L. Munson, Director of Medical Officers Training in
the Office of Surgeon General, during the WWI period. The division
intended to streamline the adaptation of drafted civilian youths to
the army life. But, it could only exhibit staggered performances due
to the reluctance of the officers at the top and their beliefs that they
know better about their men than any other outsider to the system.
However, during the post-WWI period it made significant strides by
creating military’s first internal soldier survey (Keene, 1994).
WWII again demanded psychologists to work towards selection of
men (Melton, 1957) but with an enhanced focus on leadership develop-
ment, psychological warfare techniques, motivation and its manage-
ment (Gal & Mangelsdorff, 1991; Stouffer, Suchman, DeVinney, Star,
& Williams, 1949) rather than purely on aptitude. Capshew (1986)
expressed that while promoting themselves as experts concerning the

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 Military Psychology: The Centurion Phenomenon  19

‘human factor’ in warfare, psychologists also found employment in

military personnel work, propaganda analysis, survey research, equip-
ment design and other areas during WWII. Screening for military
service got transformed, and in 1940 the Army General Classification
Test (AGCT) was introduced. It was used to measure the aptitude of
recruits for selecting men for specialist courses (Drucker & Zeidner,
1988), and for officer training (Harrell, 1992). Standard test battery
included assessments of general intelligence, arithmetic, verbal and
non-verbal skills and instructions (comprehension). Nonetheless after
WWII, with the introduction of Selective Service Act in 1948 for uni-
form aptitude testing procedures, the Armed Forces Qualification Test
(AFQT) came into being in 1950 (Kennedy, Hughes, & McNeil, 2012).
Additionally, this phase (1944–1946) also saw the establishment
of Division 19 for Military Psychology in APA which indicates the
enhanced significance of the subject during that time. Essentially then,
Office of Strategic Services [OSS, now Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA)] came into being along with the first selection programme
for OSS operatives dealing with espionage and propaganda (OSS
Assessment Staff, 1948). This was also the time when importance
was assigned to the psychological principles of military performance,
morale, personnel selection, sexuality, leadership development and
psychological warfare. The classic book on Psychology of Men was
written by Boring (1945) highlighting such principles. Also, pigeons
were trained by Skinner to be used as guided missiles (Gilgen, 1982)
and possibility of bats was explored as possible messengers to drop
miniature explosives over Japan (Drumm & Ovre, 2011). Although
the efforts could not bear fruit due to logistical problems, soon the
introduction of atomic bombs surfaced. Also, efforts were made to
avoid malingering or gold bricking as it was called. Malingering was
considered a felony and malingerers were supposed to have psycho-
pathic personalities (Campbell, 1943).
On the other hand, the irresistible number of psychiatric casualties
during WWII established that combat stress reactions were gener-
ally normal responses to the emotional trauma and stressors of war
as opposed to a defect of character (Glass, 1969). This enhanced an
earlier overlooked need for a dedicated psychologist exclusively for
soldiers. Kennedy, Hughes, and McNeil (2012) express that during
WWII the United States did not initially utilize lessons from WWI
about combat stress reactions (i.e., need for timely intervention on

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 20  Nidhi Maheshwari, Vineeth V. Kumar and N. P. Singh

the frontline) as little forward mental health was practiced, favouring

reliance on psychological screening to avoid the negative psychological
reactions to the war. To begin with, few physicians and psychiatrists
were employed to meet the emotional needs of veterans, psycholo-
gists provided both individual and group therapy in Veteran Affairs
facilities (Cranston, 1986). The first psychology internship programme
was kick started in 1946 with initial enrollment of 200 interns in the
VA system. Phares and Trull (1997) express that these efforts resulted
in increased acceptance of psychologists, not just as researchers and
experts in assessment but also as mental-health providers. Unlike
WWI wherein psychologists were demobilized after war, post-WWII
brought permanent active-duty status for psychologists in 1947
(Uhlaner, 1967). Importantly, with the emergence of newer symptoms,
development of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM) (APA, 1952) came into being (Committee on Nomenclature
and Statistics, 1952).
Certain endeavours made during WWI gained resurgence such as
head injury rehabilitation, neuropsychology (Boake, 1989) and avia-
tion psychology with the development of US Army Air Forces avia-
tion programme in 1941 to assist the selection of aviation personnel
(Driskell & Olmstead, 1989) during this war. Besides the selection of
pilots, navigators and bombardiers, research was also conducted on the
service member–equipment relationship (Koonce, 1984). Interestingly,
the first modern simulator for WWII pilots, the ‘Blue Canoe’, was
designed by Edwin A. Link during this period to train pilots to fly by
instruments. The link trainer employed vacuum technology similar
to that used in organs in the 1920s (DeAngelo, 2000). Job analysis,
time and motion studies, studies of extreme climatic conditions in
tropical and arctic conditions (Hughes, 2007) were also the subjects
for psychologists during that time. In 1947, the US Air Force became
a separate branch of the military within which industrial psychology
got established (Hendrix, 2003).
Characteristic use of nuclear bombs and the surfacing of kamikaze
pilots or Japanese suicide bombers made WWII distinct from any other
war. Salter (2001) reports that survivors of nuclear attack developed
both acute and chronic psychological reactions, including withdrawal,
severe fear reactions, psychosomatic symptoms and post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD).
Thus, by the end of the initial phase of military psychology, psy-
chologists were not only employed for mental testing and assessment

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 Military Psychology: The Centurion Phenomenon  21

but also for enhancing morale, performing psychological operations

(PsyOps), providing counseling and designing work stations and
systems for the Forces.

Middle Phase (During Korean, Vietnam and

Gulf Wars)

Middle phase of military psychology signified important strides with the

challenges faced thereupon. Psychologists served overseas, in combat
zones and on hospital ships (McGuire, 1990) during the Korean war.
The war witnessed forced marches, severe malnutrition, inhumane
treatment, continuous propaganda and re-education on communism
(Ritchie, 2002) of soldiers along with significant use of torture as well
as execution of US prisoners of war which gave rise to the concept of
brainwashing (Ursano & Rundell, 1995). As a result, Survival, Evasion,
Resistance, Escape (SERE) model was included extensively in the training
programmes of soldiers who face the risk of being captured. The SERE
model is still being followed to train soldiers who are employed in dan-
gerous missions such as soldiers of special forces and aviation personnel.
Additionally, lessons learnt from WWII regarding the need for mental-
health providers in the combat zone were not forgotten. Also, after the
first year in Korea, rotation policy of nine months was implemented that
helped significantly reduce the number of psychiatric casualties (Glass,
1969). Psychological testing sustained importance during this time also.
The Army and Air Force collaborated on a technical manual, outlining the
role of military psychologists and proper use of psychological tests (US
Departments of the Army and Air Force, 1951). Additionally, the goal of
increasing the performance of military personnel given different equip-
ment, various physical states (e.g., fatigue) and various environments gave
rise to increased research in human factor engineering (Roscoe, 1997).
According to Defense Manpower Data Center (1999), the US imple-
mented the Airmen Qualifying Examination in 1958 after the Korean
War for administration to high-school students. Shortly thereafter,
Army and Navy developed their own group ability tests, and ultimately
in 1968 the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB)
was implemented to make a truly uniform aptitude tool. By this time,
troops were witnessing another war—the Vietnam War. This war has

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 22  Nidhi Maheshwari, Vineeth V. Kumar and N. P. Singh

been complex in terms of the nature of weapon, warfare technology and

soldiering experiences. US troops found themselves engaged in Jungle
warfare and often had terrific prisoner of war experiences. Implementing
rotation policy, individual soldier was asked to move instead of the entire
unit, which was detrimental to group cohesion and morale (Zeidner &
Drucker, 1988). Moreover, soldiers also experienced hostile home front
as the civilians were not in favour of such a war.
Although forward mental health care was available since the begin-
ning of this war, there were barriers to care at individual as well as
group level. Cases of combat neurosis were contained but the war saw
an emergence of character disorders and substance abuse in the troops
along with increased cases of PTSDs. Glaringly, some veterans are suf-
fering from PTSD till today. Hence, need arose for a formal response to
critical incidents, for example, death of a soldier during training, suicide,
natural disaster, etc. In such times, Tryon (1963) emphasized that due to
the increasing complexity of man–machine systems, social psychologists
and personality psychologists have much to offer than the predominantly
experimental psychologists drawn into military psychology.
Equally, warriors were challenged with unique stressors during the
Gulf War. According to Martin, Sparacino and Belenky (1996), military
personnel in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm were exposed to
multiple combat stressors: greater number of enemy forces, possible use
of chemical and biological weapons, environmental challenges, lethal
animal life, inadequate hygiene opportunities and a culture that did not
accept American values. Although stressors were multiple, yet there were
lesser combat stress casualties vis-à-vis the PTSD cases. For the first time
a psychologist was deployed on-board the Navy Aircraft carrier, USS
John F. Kennedy. However, Gulf War Syndrome emerged as a major
casualty due to the fear of vaccinations, exposure to toxic substances
and psychological trauma (Kennedy, Hughes, & McNeil, 2012).

Contemporary Phase (During MMMs)

Contemporary phase of military psychology is fascinating as the

Armed Forces engaged in MMMs bear immense diversity in their
roles and objectives. Now, armies seem to reach out to other nations
and populace in times of need, thus engaging into both combat
and non-combat operations. Troops during such warfare are often

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 Military Psychology: The Centurion Phenomenon  23

engaged defensively in counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism opera-

tions, whereas at other occasions, they might be offensively involved
in ‘capture or kill’ missions (like that for Saddam Husain and Osama
Bin Laden). On the other hand, they may be participating in opera-
tions related to disaster relief, humanitarian aid, Medevac (Medical
evacuation), non-combatant evacuation, strikes/raids, surveillance and
reconnaissance missions, hostage rescue, counter-drug/trafficking and
peace operations. Thus, MMMs may include Effect-Based Operations
(EBOs), Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW) and Global
War on Terror (GWOT). 
Sager, Van Iddekinge and Russel (2004) express that starting from
the experiences of the first Humanitarian Operations (HOs), Armed
Forces have realized that although war skills remain a central issue, yet
skills other than the traditional ones have become more important.
The evolving nature of peacekeeping duty in itself suggests that today
soldiers are faced with new psychological challenges (Litz, Orsillo,
Freidman, Ehlich, & Batres, 1997), and that it is no longer unusual for
contemporary peacekeeping missions to include exposure to traditional
war-zone experiences (Orsillo, Roemer, Litz, Ehlich, & Freidman,
1998). Under such conditions, much self-control, independent think-
ing and rapid decision making must be exercised. Additionally, soldiers
must be well-versed in dealing with local population and civilians
whom they are providing assistance. Thus, in the current context,
military psychology seems to incline towards understanding and
manipulating social processes and cultural systems besides focusing
on personal variables. For modern times, Vallance and Windle (1962)
were rationalized in predicting that just as the predominantly hardware
orientation of the military led to the confluence of psychologists and
engineers in ‘human engineering’ and ‘man–machine systems analysis’,
so the growing recognition of cultural variables may produce ‘cultural
engineering’ and ‘culture-machine systems analysis’. While working
with Army’s Human Terrain System, McFate, Damon and Holliday
(2012) report that what commanders want and need to know is remark-
ably consistent between theatres and over time: the prime categories
of knowledge are social structure, the political system (both formal
and informal), the economic system (both formal and informal) and
interests and grievances (pertaining to security, intra- and extra-group
conflict and the administration of justice).
Equally, role of positive psychology in enhancing soldier resilience
and preparedness is highlighted in these challenging times. Irrespective

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 24  Nidhi Maheshwari, Vineeth V. Kumar and N. P. Singh

of the gun power, the man behind the machine is strengthened,

especially for missions in which each soldier functions as a system.
Emphasis is placed on enhancing his resilience, morale, reliability,
coping skills and stress tolerance capacities, operational stress control
and readiness like never before. Soldiers are developed and trained to
be tough—mentally, physically and emotionally (Christian, Stivers,
& Sammons, 2009). Casey (2011) believes that disease-finding and
treatment, though extremely important, is a flawed approach if the
goal is increased military readiness and performance. Thus, instead of
pathogenic, a salutogenic model is emphasized vehemently. In 2008,
the Directorate of Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) was established
(Cornum, Matthews, & Seligman, 2011) to institute a holistic fitness
programme for soldiers, families and army civilians to enhance perfor-
mance and build resilience. The programme is unique as it draws upon
the principles of positive psychology and addresses not only soldiers
but also families and civilians working in a military setup. It focuses
on harnessing the signature strengths of soldiers to the benefit of the
organization. CSF program is the largest application of psychological
science in military history (Seligman & Fowler, 2011).
Importantly, this phase also saw an increased interest and concern
for the military families, post-deployment health and reintegration
issues. Familial well-being, psychological preparedness and quality of
life became the core areas of research so as to streamline the soldier’s
performance by strengthening his support system. Many studies (Booth
et al., 2007; Booth & Lederer, 2012; Castaneda et al., 2008; Stanley, Segal,
& Laughton, 1990) on family members of military ­personnel emphasize
the importance of familial well-being for the soldier. Similar results
were obtained by Orsillo et al. (1998), who found that stressors such
as being separated from family are predictive of ­psychiatric distress.
During this time, training in-sync with technology has gained bright
attention of researchers. Some of the significant trends in this direction
include serious games. They are training systems that utilize video game
technology for training purposes. These games have been developed
for training emergency medical procedures and combat casualty care,
logistics, convoy operations, small unit tactics and many other topics.
These games are designed to be engaging, challenging and motivating to
military students (Belanich, Sibley, & Orvis, 2004). Singer et al. (2008)
opine that improved game technology has dramatically lowered the
cost of simulation. Such games while played over Internet, open the

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 Military Psychology: The Centurion Phenomenon  25

possibility of training with units that are already in conflict area, a so-
called right-seat ride, or by units, now separated, that will be deploying
together. Further, training sessions with coalition partners provide
units with an opportunity to learn about differences in terminology
and culture ahead of experiencing them in an area of operations.

Military Psychology in India

Indian martials have a rich history to observe psychology converg-

ing with warfare. Mahabharata, the Great Indian Epic, proclaims
much of the concepts for military psychology to decipher. The vyuh
rachana (fighting formations), leadership strategies, camouflage and
deceit (PsyOps) were some of the notable emergences during the war.
Likewise, Kautilya’s teachings profess much about the implementation
of psychology to war and leadership. The Great Indian Mutiny of 1857
was yet another exemplary outcome of an unsung PsyWar marked with
a definite impact on the morale of the troops that were otherwise forced
to serve the adversary. Although rise of Satyagrah and Indian National
Movement too unfurled a host of avenues for military psychology to
claim its existence in India, hitherto, officially Military Psychology
had a subtle entry in India during the WWII by the establishment of
experimental War Office Selection Board in Dehradun during 1943
for selection of personnel to Armed Forces.
It is documented that in 1949, the experimental board was rechris-
tened as Psychological Research Wing (PRW) with the primary
objective to evolve a scientific system for the selection of officers
and update it through continued research programme. During this
period, Gardner Murphy, a noted psychologist, visited India and
held discussions with the then Prime Minister, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru,
on the emerging operational challenges in conventional warfare and
the scope of the institute’s charter (Sainik Samachar, 2007). Thus, in
1962, PRW was redesigned as Directorate of Psychological Research
to take on new areas of research related to morale, ideological convic-
tion, group effectiveness, leadership behaviour, job satisfaction, high-
altitude effect, motivation, attitude, anthropometrics, civil–military
relations and other issues. The Directorate of Psychological Research
grew into a full-fledged institute to be renamed as Defence Institute

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 26  Nidhi Maheshwari, Vineeth V. Kumar and N. P. Singh

of Psychological Research (DIPR) in 1982. The Institute has traversed

a long way toward its aim to achieve standards of excellence in the
arena of military psychology.
Mukherjee, Kumar and Mandal (2009) report that the institute’s
research focus is on finding optimum solutions to problems per-
taining to the selection of officers, placement and categorization of
men, with a view to optimise the efficiency of the Armed Forces and
to devise suitable standardized tests for personality, intelligence and
aptitude assessment. The institute provides technical training to
assessors who man the Services Selection Boards (SSBs) performing
selection duties, and monitors and evaluates the selection system,
vis-à-vis training and performance of the selected personnel during
service career. It also conducts human factors research and applies
it to selection of pilots, performance in extreme climates and under
difficult conditions, designing simulation devices and assessing mental
workload of personnel. Enhancing military leadership, building effec-
tive military teams, containing fragging and suicide, managing combat
stress behaviours both during and post-deployment, understanding
psycho-physiological correlates like that of biorhythm, night vision,
camouflage detection, etc., are the contingent areas of research.
Offering strategic services, the institute focuses on the personality
profiling of significant persons in military sociocultural context,
designing and countering PsyOps such as rumour and propaganda,
identifying malicious intent in crowd, community profiling, con-
ducting interrogation and underlining hostage negotiation tactics.
Additionally, share of research focuses on enhancing civil–military
relations, building effective small work teams and attracting youth
to join the Armed Forces. More so, keeping in focus the demands
and challenges of future conflicts, both extra-territorial and extra-
terrestrial warfare, emphasis in research is being placed on PsyOps
and cognitive neurosciences.
Some of the recent contributions of DIPR include the following:
the development of Computerized Pilot Selection System (CPSS)
(DIPR, 2005), Comprehensive Battery of Cognitive Abilities (CBCA)
for the selection of officers in the Armed Forces (DIPR, 2007a), PBOR
Selection and Trade Allocation Battery (DIPR, 2008), self-help guides
on combat stress and its management (KamaRaju & Singh, 2006; Misra,
Asnani, & Archana, 2006), Manual on Interrogation Techniques in

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 Military Psychology: The Centurion Phenomenon  27

Counterinsurgency Operations (Singh, Tripathi, & Asnani, 2007),

Deceit Detection and Interrogation Manual (Patnaik, Dhawalgi, &
Mandal, 2007), Organizational strategies and self-help techniques to
deal with the negative consequences of prolonged deployment in low-
intensity conflict (LIC) areas and studying the suicides and fratricides in
the Indian Armed Forces (DIPR, 2007b), etc. Alongside, research works
are also being pursued in the area of combat stress management, special
forces profiling, hostage negotiation, small-group leadership, PsyOps,
rumor management, identification of malicious intent and behaviour
in crowd, night vision for operational effectiveness, reliability testing of
personnel, suicide terrorism and profiling of significant military heroes.
Equally researchers from other institutions such as Armed Forces
Medical College (AFMC), IITs, NIMHANS, IDSA, USI and CLAWS
have upheld the flag of military psychology. Research work includes
the mental health care of paramilitary personnel (Verma, Mina, &
Deshpande, 2013), stress in the Indian Armed Forces (Ryali, Bhat, &
Srivastava, 2011), stressful life events of personnel (Raju, Srivastava,
Chaudhury, & Saluja, 2001), impact of LIC operations on soldiers
(Chaudhury, Chakraborty, Pande, John, Saini, & Rathee, 2005), PTSD
in soldiers (Saldanha, Goel, Kapoor, Garg, & Kochhar, 1996), ecology
of combat fatigue among troops (Puri, Sharma, Naik, & Banerjee,
1999), association of life events of serving personnel life with psycho-
pathology in their children (Prabhu, Prakash, Bhat, & Gambhir, 2011),
stress reduction of soldiers through meditation (Cheema & Grewal,
2013), terrorism, trauma and children (Harjai, Chandrashekhar, Raju,
& Arora, 2005), changing socio-economic norms and its impact on
India’s Armed Forces (Gokhale, 2013), etc.

Conclusion

Military psychology beholds a rich history of almost a century and has

a bright future beyond, for centuries. The legacy of the past paves the
way and directions for applicability of psychology in future warfare
scenario. Rather, it provides the launching pad for current research and
applications to take off so as to serve the Armed Forces, expansively
in the future. WWI introduced psychology to military in the arena of

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 28  Nidhi Maheshwari, Vineeth V. Kumar and N. P. Singh

testing and selection; thereafter, it graduated to counselling and forward

psychiatry, training, man–machine systems, motivation, leadership,
team building, and now to cultural systems, cognitive engineering
and operational and embedded psychology. Psychologists ventured
into newer areas to take on newer challenges, and thus the boundary
between disciplines and sub-disciplines got thinner. Clearly, host of
arenas remain under the jurisdiction of military psychology to reign
on and the century saga is just a premier to the epic.

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———. (1978). The research psychologist in the army-1917 to 1973. (Research Report 1155),
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Ursano, R. J. & Rundell, J. R. (1995). The prisoner of war. In R. Zajtchuk & R. F. Bellamy
(Eds.), Textbook of military medicine: War psychiatry (pp. 431–455). Washington, DC:
Office of the Surgeon General, US Department of the Army.
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Verma, R., Mina, S., & Deshpande, S. N. (2013). An analysis of paramilitary referrals to
psychiatric services at a tertiary care center. Industrial Psychiatry Journal, 22, 54–59.
Walters, H. C. (1968). Military psychology: Its use in modern war and indirect conflict. Iowa:
Brown Company Publishers.
Windle, C., & Vallance, T. R. (1964). The future of military psychology: Paramilitary
­psychology. American Psychologist, 19, 119–129.
Yerkes, R. M. (1918). Psychology in relation to the war. Psychological Review, 25, 85–113.
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 2
Intelligence and Aptitude Testing

Gurpreet Kaur, Dinika Anand and Soumi Awasthy

Selection and placement of military personnel were among the earli-

est concerns of the Armed Forces. At the onset of First World War
(WWI), effective selection and utilization of military personnel were
key interest areas for those responsible for creating combat units. It has
been in existence since times immemorial although the methods have
varied from arbitrary and quick to detailed and lengthy. Selection of
monks and priests through dreams, selection of a king by the method
of elephant garlanding are examples of arbitrary selection. However,
the evolving times and progress in domain of education and knowledge
created a need for replacing arbitrary selection system. Appointment
by heredity also lost its popularity and people craved for a system
based on evaluation of suitability. This paved the way for evolvement
of scientific selection system. Today, the importance and utility of
psychological assessment in the selection of military personnel has
increased manifold.
In the course of history, different criteria have been used for selec-
tion and placement of military personnel and intelligence testing has
always been a focal point. Modern intelligence testing started with
the work of Alfred Binet, who is hailed as the father of intellectual
assessment. Binet in 1903 used the term ‘intelligence’ to refer to sum
total of higher mental processes and in 1905, on the request of French
Minister of Public Instruction undertook the task of developing a reli-
able diagnostic system to identify children with mental retardation.
The first Binet–Simon scale was completed in 1905, followed by many
revisions, with the latest one being Stanford Binet Test 5 (SB 5). SB 5
assesses individuals’ fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reason-
ing, visual-spatial processing and working memory with verbal and
non-verbal tests (Roid, 2003). Binet–Simon testing propelled the study
and measurement of intelligence into its current central position in
the discipline of psychology.

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 34  Gurpreet Kaur, Dinika Anand and Soumi Awasthy

Binet’s work and its American adaptations by Robert Yerkes set the
impetus for considerable growth prior to WWI in the field of intel-
ligence testing. The combination of Army Alpha, a verbal test, and
Army Beta, a performance test were widely used by the Armed Forces
in the United States for intelligence testing. Thereafter, a number of
tests were developed such as group intelligence scale (Otis, 1918a,
1918b, 1918c), Terman group tests of mental ability (Terman, 1916)
and revision of army alpha test (Hendrickson, 1931).

Selection of Indian Military Personnel

In India, before Second World War (WWII), officers for the Armed
Forces were selected based on a competitive examination and an inter-
view conducted by the federal public service commission. The number
of Indian officers annually recruited before the war was relatively small
and no difficulty was experienced in filling the vacancies in this manner
(PRW note no. 2, 1949). Recruitment to regular commissions was
closed and there was a system of granting emergency commissions after
the outbreak of the war. This lead to the increased demand for officers;
thus, the recruitment of officers for the three services, Army, Navy and
Air Force, was taken over by the respective service headquarters, and
in 1942, recruitment of Armed Forces officers to the three services was
integrated at directorate of recruiting in the Adjutant General’s Branch
at the General Headquarters (PRW note no. 2, 1949).
After this integration, the selection of candidates was conducted in
two stages, that is, preliminary selection by provincial selection board
and final selection by the central interview board. Although all officers
for the Army were recruited through this integrated organization, the
Royal Indian Navy continued to take in a number of direct entry can-
didates under their own arrangements and the Royal Indian Air Force
appointed a few general duty recruiting officers who were authorized
to recommend candidates directly to the central interview boards.
But, gradually, it was noticed that a large proportion of the candidates
selected by the method of personal interview failed to qualify at training
schools. Subsequently, after discussions it was decided to establish a
separate selection board at Dehradun in 1943 to apply scientific method
of selection as an experimental measure. A small section to deal with the

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 Intelligence and Aptitude Testing  35

new technique of selection was also created in the recruiting directorate

of the General Headquarters. The new system gained approval from
the candidates who appeared before the two boards.
The Ghosh Committee was appointed in 1948 by the Government
of India to evaluate the system of selection. The Committee noted the
room for improvement in the prevailing protocol, stating that scientific
studies might be conducted to bolster the existing processes. Thus, the
Psychological Research Wing (PRW) came into being in 1949, and in
August 1962 it was developed as Directorate of Psychological Research
(DPR). Further, DPR came to its present status in January 1983 as
Defence Institute of Psychological Research (DIPR). The only major
modification introduced to date by the committee itself was the elimi-
nation of the interview by a psychiatrist. This system of selection has
been able to cope with the requirements of the Indian Armed Forces.
The main advantage of psychological method of selection is that it
does not merely differentiate the very good from the very bad, but it
can also classify those in between in order of merit. A system has been
adopted to assess these abilities and to relate these to the requirements
of the job. The selection into the Armed Forces is based on various psy-
chological parameters such as intelligence and personality. These two
are believed to be contributing most to individual differences, which
commensurate with any kind of selection. Thus, presently personnel
selection includes assessment of intelligence, personality and aptitude
testing for placement. The present chapter focuses on intelligence and
aptitude testing for the Armed Forces.

Intelligence Testing for Selection

Intelligence is undoubtedly an immensely popular, complex and

debated topic not only in the domain of psychology but also in daily
discourse. Over time, the concept of intelligence has become more
expansive and moved beyond the realms of IQ. Intelligence has been
defined in different ways by scholars and researchers over the years.
Burt (1957) opined that ‘‘intelligence is a quality that is intellectual and
not emotional or moral: in measuring which the effect of the child’s
zeal, interest, industry, and the like are ruled out”. In a similar vein,
‘‘intelligence is defined as composite of several functions that denote the

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 36  Gurpreet Kaur, Dinika Anand and Soumi Awasthy

combination of abilities required for survival and advancement within

a particular culture” (Anastasi, 1992). Howard Gardner is credited
with the theory of multiple intelligences and offers that ‘‘intelligence
is the ability to solve problems, or to create products that are valued
within one or more cultural settings” (Gardner, 1983). However,
despite the numerous definitions of intelligence offered, the most
popular definition is that of David Wechsler. Wechsler (1958) opines
that, ‘‘intelligence is a global concept that involves an individual’s
ability to act purposefully, think rationally and deal effectively with
the environment”.
The selection system in the Armed Forces initially relied heavily on
different types of intelligence tests. The selection protocol comprised of
intelligence tests based on verbal, non-verbal and performance-based
measures, as well as tests amenable to individual and group administra-
tion. Generally, only verbal and non-verbal measures of intelligence
were administered to the candidates and performance-based measures
were employed only if there was a doubt (PRW note no. 2, 1949).
Candidates who applied for technical arms such as the Royal Indian
Engineers and Indian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers had to take
another test assessing basic knowledge of science subjects.
The focus of the verbal and nonverbal tests was primarily reasoning
ability. It included analogies, classification, logical reasoning, abstract
reasoning, coding/decoding, matrices, picture completion, speed and
accuracy, numerical ability, etc. Some of these abilities are described
in Table 2.1.
All the above-mentioned abilities have been assessed using various
intelligence tests from time to time based on the requirements of the
Armed Forces. A few of the intelligence tests used are explained as
follows:

1. Matrix 38: This is one of the progressive matrices tests that

provides a non-verbal series suitable for measuring intelligence.
Each problem in the test consists of a design or matrix from
which a small part has been removed and candidate has to tell
the missing part (PRW note no. 2, 1949).
2. S.P. Test 15 (V.I.T.): This is a verbal intelligence test of the
omnibus type in which questions based on reasoning analogy
and number series, etc., have been included. Speed and accuracy
of thought are required besides the reasoning capacity. Here,

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Table 2.1
Definitions of abilities used in intelligence tests

Ability Definition
Analogies The skill of being able to transfer information from one
concept to another.
Classification The ability to organize, differentiate and understand given
information.
Logical reasoning The skill to deduce, infer and conclude based on the given
information.
Abstract reasoning The capability of an individual to use current information
to make logical inferences and deductions about abstract
concepts.
Fluid reasoning The ability to think logically and solve problems in novel
situations.
Quantitative Reasoning Ability to understand numeric relationships and compute
simple arithmetic functions.
Coding/decoding An individual’s skill to convert present stimuli into
another form based on given set of rules and norms.
Matrices An individual’s ability to understand and integrate the
information presented along with abstract reasoning and
choosing the missing figure.
Speed and accuracy The ability to perform on tasks with efficacy wherein the
success is measured by a sum total of speed, accuracy and
their interlinking.
Visual-spatial processing Ability to organize and understand information into
meaningful patterns and wholes based on the visual and
other stimuli.
Source: Authors.

since intelligence is tested through the medium of language it

is known as a verbal intelligence test or the V.I.T.
3. I.S.P. Test 20: It is a verbal intelligence test like S.P. Test 15
which distinguishes itself by presenting the items under separate
headings, namely, analogy, opposites, mixed sentences, classi-
fications, number series and coding and the like as opposed to
an omnibus format.
4. S.P. Test 2 (Bennett): The test assesses knowledge of everyday
science. The test booklet consists of 50 questions in the form
of pictures along with an answer sheet in which questions are
printed, each question corresponding to the picture of the same
number in the booklet.
5. S. P. Test 3-A: It is a simple test of mathematics, combining speed
with accuracy and quick thinking. It consists of two parts. Part I

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 38  Gurpreet Kaur, Dinika Anand and Soumi Awasthy

comprises of questions on addition, subtraction, multiplication

and division, whereas part II includes questions on arithmetic,
algebra, geometry and trigonometry.
6. Verbal Intelligence Test: It includes problems related to verbal
analogy, verbal comprehension, vocabulary, similarities letter/
number series, number/letter classification and scrambled
words.
7. Non-verbal Intelligence Test: The test is further divided into
four subtests. They are figure analogy, figure series, figure clas-
sification and spatial relations.

Aptitude Testing for Placement

Aptitude can be defined as a condition or set of characteristics regarded

as symptomatic of an individual’s ability to acquire knowledge or skills
with training. It is a pattern of traits, deemed to be indicative of one’s
potentialities and can be viewed as a readiness to acquire proficiency.
In essence, aptitude is a construct which provides us with a forward
reference based on an evaluation of current ability. An aptitude test
samples certain abilities and characteristics of the individual as he is
today. It helps to find out what he can do now and how well he can
do it. Aptitude test responses offer an estimate of future possibility of
accomplishment.
According to Freeman (1965), an aptitude is a combination of
characteristics indicative of an individual’s capacity to acquire (with
training) some specific knowledge or skills such as the ability to speak a
language, to become a musician or to do mechanical work. Moreover,
aptitude may also mean aptness or quickness, because some people
have practiced diligently for years under the best tutorship and still
do not achieve what others appear to do so within less time and effort.
The terms, special ability and talent, are frequently used synonymously
with the term aptitude. Aptitudes are natural talents, special abilities
for doing or learning to do certain kinds of things easily and quickly.
Musical talent and artistic talent are examples of such aptitudes.
Aptitude tests are generally grouped into two categories, special
aptitude tests that measure only one aptitude and multiple aptitude
tests which consist of a set of tests that measure different aptitudes.
An illustration of a special aptitude test would be a test that measures

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 Intelligence and Aptitude Testing  39

mechanical aptitude or electrical aptitude alone. The musical aptitude

test (Seashore, Lewis, & Saetveit, 1939) is a special aptitude test. At
the other end, multiple aptitude tests combine a set of separate tests
together such that the individual tests measure relatively different
independent abilities. This helps in maximum utilization of available
manpower pool, wherein the same battery of tests, weighted in differ-
ent combinations, provides predictive indexes for each applicant for
several jobs. The Differential Aptitude Test, first published in 1947, is
a popular and much used multiple aptitude test (Bennett, Seashore,
& Wesam, 1974).
DIPR had developed various aptitude batteries during the last 50
years (PRW note no. 22, 1950; DPR note no. 167, 1957; DPR note no.
271, 1966; DPR note no. 321, 1973; DPR note no. 326, 1973; DIPR
note no. 419, 1985; DIPR note no. 445, 1989; DIPR note no. 453, 1991;
DIPR note no. 458, 1991; DIPR note no. 476, 1995; DIPR note no.
477, 1995; DIPR note no. 478, 1995; DIPR note no. 514, 1997; DIPR
note no. 537, 1999), but they have essentially been paper-pencil and
performance tests. DIPR has recently developed a fully computerized
Other Rank Trade Allocation System (ORTAS) for allocation of 78 jobs
of eight arms and services of Indian Army (DIPR note no. 640, 2010).
One of the aptitude battery developed by DIPR was for placement of
leading radio operators into three branch specializations—telegraphy,
special and tactical. The aptitude battery comprises five tests, namely,
Verbint (for verbal intelligence), LAT (for language aptitude), VMT
(for associate memory), SMT (for expressional fluency) and Coding
(for associative learning) (DIPR note no. 386, 1982). Brief description
of the same is as follows:

1. Verbint: This is a test of verbal intelligence. It consists of four

types of questions, namely, verbal analogy, letter/number series,
letter/number classification and scrambled words.
2. Language Aptitude Test (LAT): The test comprises of two sub-
tests in which the first involves learning a new vocabulary based
on their provided English equivalents. In each item pair, the
first word is a new word and the second word is its equivalent
in English. After giving time to memorize the English equiva-
lents, the test taker is presented with a list of the same 20 new
language words arranged in a different order and is asked to
write the English equivalents. The second sub-test consists of
presenting a new set of 20 words which the test taker is supposed

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 40  Gurpreet Kaur, Dinika Anand and Soumi Awasthy

to memorize. The test given to the person is the same as in the

subtest one but with a difference that in this case, for each new
language word, five choices (English equivalents) are given to
indicate the answer. This part of the test can be considered as a
test of recognition. The test taker completes sub-tests one and
two and then is provided with an answer sheet to test his learn-
ing on the language learned in sub-test one. After completion
of which he is asked to answer sub-test two in the answer sheet.
3. Visual Memory Test (VMT): It measures associative memory
or how quickly and correctly one can memorize codes. This
test has been standardized on the sailors of communication
branch of Indian Navy (DIPR note no. 386, 1982). A code is
an arrangement of dots and dashes. Each code stands for an
English alphabet. For example, five dots (. . . . .) represents A
and the code five dashes (_ _ _ _ _) represents B. Letters from
A to Y have been given specific codes in this test. The test taker
is shown the memorization chart I on which appear the first
10 letters of the alphabet along with the respective codes. The
chart is shown for two minutes during which the test taker tries
to learn the association between the codes and the letters. Then,
they are shown 20 cards one by one, each card having a code
on it. Each card is shown for 10 seconds during which the test
taker recalls the letter associated with the code and mentions it
against the appropriate serial number in the answer sheet.
4. Sentence Making Test (SMT): It measures expressional fluency.
In this test, each item consists of three to five letters of English
alphabet in a particular form, for example
B. . . . . . . . . . . . . .f. . . . . . . . . . . . . .n. . . . . . . . . . .a. . . . . . . . . . . .a
The test taker is told that the first letters of new words are given
and that he should try to make connected words to form a mean-
ingful sentence. Proper nouns should not be used and only the
required number of words needs to be written.
5. Coding Test: This test is a measure of associative learning and
quickness in coding. In this test, the test taker is given the codes
and the letter of English alphabets associated with them, wherein
the codes are different combinations of dots and dashes. For
example, - - is E, 0-0 is F and so on. Twenty items are given
with each item consisting of six letters. The task is to refer to

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 Intelligence and Aptitude Testing  41

the codes given and write down the codes for the letters given
separately in the answer sheet.

An aptitude battery for Artificer Apprentices was also developed at

DIPR (DIPR note no. 477, 1995). Artificers are engaged in servicing,
maintenance and rectification of all types of equipment used in ships,
submarines and air-crafts. Following are the tests involved in the
aptitude battery:

1. Intelligence Test (Non-verbal): This test measures the indi-

vidual’s ability to do abstract thinking, analysis and see relations
among different objects. There are four types of items used in
this test namely, classification, series, analogy and matrices.
2. Space Relations Test (Non-verbal): A test of space relations
(paper–pencil type) measuring candidate’s ability to judge
shapes and sizes, the relations of objects in space and to manipu-
late them mentally and visualize the effect of putting them
together or turn them around was developed. The objects may
be seen in two as well as in three dimensions. Two types of items
were used in this test, namely, form board (paper pencil type)
for two-dimensional objects and space relations (paper pencil
type) for three-dimensional objects.
3. Mathematical Reasoning Test: In this test, items consist of
common mathematical problems. They require ability to reason
with numbers, to manipulate numerical relations and to deal
intelligently with quantitative materials. It also involves ability
to solve problems of reasoning in general.
4. Mechanical Information Test: The test measures the indi-
vidual’s knowledge of principles of mechanical engineering.

Paradigm Shift in Testing

The 21st century is marked by the Armed Forces being involved with
innovations in communication systems, weaponry and equipment cut-
ting across the diverse missions. All these changes make it imperative to
move away from the status quo in testing procedure (Rumsey, 2012).
A dynamic, fluid system of selection and assessment which constantly

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 42  Gurpreet Kaur, Dinika Anand and Soumi Awasthy

adapts and advances in response to the demands of the Armed Forces is

crucial. Non-conventional warfare and low-intensity conflict scenarios
have replaced conventional warfare and wars today cannot be won in
the physical domains, but can be conquered only through application
of cognitive science, that is, how we perceive, feel, think and decide.
Cognitive science has gained its due importance in recent years. The
scale and diversity of tasks carried out by the military offer extensive
opportunity for the application of cognitive science. With increased
dependence on information technology by the military and a conscious
paradigm shift to Network Centric Warfare (NCW), the quantum of
information available to military commanders is increasing exponen-
tially. The continuing growth of technology has made weapon system
reach new heights of sophistication and today the high-tech operations
are faster, more integrated and more complex, requiring much more
than the conventional skills of a soldier. Assessment of thinking and
decision-making speed, information processing speed and high level
of communication skills have become mandatory. Various cognitive
skills include a wide range of mental processes, for example, percep-
tion, memory, imagery, language, concept formation, problem solv-
ing, reasoning and decision making. Thus with this change in military
operations and warfare scenario, there is a necessitated paradigm shift
from intelligence testing to cognitive assessment.

Paradigm Shift in Construct Assessment

With respect to underlying construct being assessed, there is a broad

distinction between intelligence and personality testing, but now there
are tests developed to measure finer and specific abilities even within
these domains. These changes mostly echo the dynamism of the cur-
rent military operations and scenario. Moreover, the construct being
measured by a test is defined in specific contexts for specific purposes.
Thus, two tests that claim to measure the same construct may actually
differ in a significant manner. For example, a test measuring cour-
age for induction into military may measure a different underlying
construct altogether as compared to a test of courage developed for a
clinical population. The infinite variety of psychological test contents
that are available today is overwhelming and adds to the complexity
of the decisions involved in testing.

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 Intelligence and Aptitude Testing  43

As mentioned earlier, in testing, construct being assessed earlier

was intelligence and today the focus has shifted to cognitive testing.
Cognition refers to mental activities, more specifically the process
of knowing. It involves how one acquires, stores, retrieves and uses
knowledge. Cognitive science investigates how information is pro-
cessed (in faculties such as perception, language, memory, reasoning
and emotion), represented and transformed in behaviour (human or
other animals). It spans many levels of analysis from low-level learning
and decision mechanisms to high-level logic and planning, and from
neural circuitry to modular brain organization.
DIPR has been spearheading the movement for creating intelligence,
aptitude tests and assessment batteries that are reflective of the paradigm
shift in the Indian military context. The task of developing selection
protocols which delve into cognitive abilities that comprise intelligence
and incorporate contemporary understanding and knowledge has been
accomplished by DIPR. Studies were taken up by DIPR to assess the
general cognitive ability which includes comprehensive assessment of
cognitive abilities for officer selection and also a computerized cogni-
tive battery for officer selection. Comprehensive Battery of Cognitive
Abilities (CBCAs) determines an individual’s competence and levels of
cognitive functioning and constitutes three levels, that is, registration,
processing and higher order functioning (DIPR note no. 634, 2009).
Thus, it can be adjudged as an efficient tool that meets the demands of
the job and helps in assessing competent potential for the Indian Armed
Forces. DIPR has also developed cognitive batteries for selection based
upon three-stratum model of cognitive ability (Carroll, 1993). The cog-
nitive battery assessing ‘g’ measures individual’s fluid intelligence, crys-
tallized intelligence, general memory ability, visual perception, retrieval
ability, cognitive speediness and perceptual speed (Carroll, 1993).
Besides shift in assessment of selection tests, aptitude assessment has
also undergone a major change. DIPR has now developed computer-
ized aptitude batteries for various arms and services of Indian Army for
allocation of trades. ORTAS, the psychological trade allocation battery
is useful in allocating 78 trades to the recruits as per their aptitude,
in eight arms and services of Indian Army, namely, Armored Corps,
Regiment of Artillery, Mechanized Infantry, Corps of Engineers, Corps
of Signals, Corps of EME, Army Service Corps and Army Air Defence.
Eleven cognitive and two psychomotor tests were developed in it,
namely, observation, spatial ability, form perception, perceptual speed,
memory, English knowledge, visualization, reasoning, mechanical

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 44  Gurpreet Kaur, Dinika Anand and Soumi Awasthy

knowledge, visual discrimination, alertness and eye hand coordination

(DIPR note no. 640, 2010).
Besides ORTAS, DIPR has also developed Army Medical Corps
Trade Allocation Battery (AMC-TAB) for Army Medical Corps (AMC),
which would also help in allocation of 13 trades of AMC (DIPR note
no. 663, 2013).

Paradigm Shift in Mode of Assessment

There is also a change in the mode of assessment as contemporary tests

move away from being limited to the paper–pencil format for adminis-
tration or restricting to one kind of measure only vis-a-vis prevalence of
multidimensional approach in testing. The tests developed today offer a
comprehensive and multi-modal profile of the candidate encompassing
performance on verbal, non-verbal and performance-based questions.
Most of the tests developed in last five years are computerised. This
shift is partly motivated by the need to assess the ability of soldiers to
use the complex, technologically advanced weaponry that is available
today. Computerized assessment facilitates in assessing one’s reaction
time in real time. Time fixation of tests has become more precise by
computing reaction time of each candidate on each question. Tests
have become more speed-oriented wherein one’s decisionmaking is
also assessed. Various computer accessories such as joy sticks, head-
phones and customised keyboards are being used at present to assess
different sensory modalities of the candidate, which further facilitate
appropriate assessment of candidates’ cognition.

Paradigm Shift in Technique of Analysis

Item analysis in the early years was based on classical test theory
which consists of analyzing the overall performance on the entire
test instrument as a whole rather than delving in the nuances of item
responses. These methods only allow for generating group-specific
item statistics. However, with the advent of computerized testing the
use of item response theory has become more popular. IRT refers to
a set of mathematical models that describe, in probabilistic terms, the

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 Intelligence and Aptitude Testing  45

relationship between a person’s response to a test item and his or her

level of the ‘latent variable’ being measured by the scale. In IRT, besides
difficulty and discrimination level of each item, guessing factor and
ability score (person level statistics) is also assessed. IRT also facilitates
computer-adaptive testing in which items are selected by the software
based on the ability of the test taker.

Context-specific Selection

The validity of any research is determined by the measure being used,

if the measure is questionable, the research carries no meaning. Job
analysis-based test construction plays a vital role in the Indian military
context because environment in which the Indian Army, Navy and
Air Force operate is very different. It is possible that a gunner may
require different abilities to perform in different services of Armed
Forces besides the core abilities. As an illustration, the gunner posted
on a naval ship uses cues that are distinct and unique to his station as
opposed to those used by his counterpart on the ground. Job analysis
provides answers to questions about the context in which the candi-
date shoots, types of guns or equipment he uses and the operations he
performs and thus development of the test takes into consideration
all this information. Job analysis includes need analysis and profile
analysis to find out which are the abilities and skills required to deal
with challenges in different contexts.
Different methodologies are required to construct a scientifically
sound test for distinct and varied jobs. It is basically the interface
between environment and person, which becomes the basis for job-
based test construction. If the researcher intends to develop a test to
select a candidate who can work effectively under water, then he should
know almost everything about the underwater context. In-depth job
analysis can aid in finding most effective abilities required for a can-
didate for underwater activities. On the contrary, to construct a test to
choose candidate for high-altitude warfare, job analysis paves the way
for a very different methodology as compared to the former because
abilities and competencies required would be different. Thus, the tests
developed in this manner are valued for their intensity and depth, but
at the same time the researcher faces many challenges in developing
such job-specific tests. Some of the challenges are as under:

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 46  Gurpreet Kaur, Dinika Anand and Soumi Awasthy

Opertionalization
Defining the construct and having an operational definition is fun-
damental for test construction. Operational definition should be very
precise and ensures comprehensive knowledge of the terminology. It is
important that everyone has the same understanding of the construct.
Unless the researcher defines the meaning of the construct and its
assessment in an operational manner, validity of the test cannot be
established. Operationalization of the construct becomes all the more
relevant when researcher has to assess some ambiguous and novel
domain. This is a challenge that a social researcher confronts very
frequently because they need to have agreement about the construct
being assessed at the first place. Many tests do not get published because
of unclear definition of the construct being assessed.

Writing the Items

Comprehensive job analysis and operationalization of the construct
paves the way for writing items that are capable of assessing the required
skill or ability for a job. A critical aspect while writing the items is that
no item measures a single ability, for example if a test item has been
developed to assess memory then at the first step one requires read-
ing ability to read the instructions and also requires some amount
of psychomotor control to operate the mouse or the touch screen or
the keyboard to click the right answer. Therefore, an item is likely to
assess a major ability for which it is designed but at the same time, the
same item may also measure other abilities, although not with that
high magnitude. At this juncture, the researcher also needs to identify
the format of the test, that is, paper–pencil or computerized format,
individual test or group test, speed or power test and also verbal test
or non-verbal test.

Designing and Writing the Responses

A good item that measures the construct suitably constitutes not only
well-constructed stems but also scientifically constructed response
options. To have a good item, the researcher can combine open-ended
and close-ended formats together. Initially, few stems assessing desired
concept can be given to a said population. It can be in the form of
situation reaction test (SRT) where candidates are asked to write the
responses or reactions to the situations. Alternatively, the same stems

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 Intelligence and Aptitude Testing  47

are also given with response options. These are in the form of situa-
tion judgment test (SJT). SJT is in the form of multiple-choice ques-
tions wherein the candidate chooses the desired option. After taking
responses from adequate sample on both formats that is SRT and SJT,
responses are content-analyzed and the best responses are accepted.
Best responses here can be tailored as per the requirement of the job
for which test is being constructed.

Statistical Procedures for Job-based Test Construction

Computing reliability, validity and standardization are mandatory
for any scientific test. Reliability is computed broadly for two reasons,
either to establish internal consistency or for assessing stability over
time. There are different methods to measure reliability, but selecting
the right method and type of reliability depends upon the type and
rationale of the test being constructed. The tests developed for the
military user mostly fall under the domain of job-based tests as they
are driven ideologically by the job descriptions and charter of duties
that govern the various ranks and posts of the Armed Forces. Validity
measures of job-based test are difficult due to the absence of established
criterion against which comparisons may be drawn and thus, criterion
validity is computed using external criterion like performance marks
which are easily available. Standardizing the test, that is, setting the
norms is an important step in the job-based test construction. Test
construction is not complete without establishing the norms. Norms are
quite flexible depending upon the requirement of the user or job. The
cut-off for screening tests can be tailored as per the requisites of the job.

Way Ahead in Selection and Placement:

Use of Computers

The advent of computers and technology has reshaped the way assess-
ments are designed and delivered. The easy availability of computerized
technology, its simplicity of use and applicability to global assessment
practices have changed the landscape of selection and assessment.
Computers have helped to reduce the extent of human interference and
bias in testing at one end and modified the administrative processes
tremendously at the other end (Kaur & Mukherjee, in press). The use

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 48  Gurpreet Kaur, Dinika Anand and Soumi Awasthy

of computers is also seen in scoring and analysis of the data gathered

as evidenced in the plethora of data analytic tools available.
Technological advancement has most significantly altered presenta-
tion and appearances of test items and the response modes possible
in testing and selection. Vast reservoirs of different types of items and
response mode that greatly increase the validity of measurements are
now available. Computers today can be used for creating models and
procedures for scoring the responses of test-takers attempting differ-
ent versions of the same test. They are used to assist in the selection
and assessment process at different levels as discussed above (Bennett
et al., 1997). At one level, the computer system is mainly used for
recording the responses of the subjects electronically. Another situa-
tion in which computers are used is when part of the testing protocol
is delivered through the machine. An illustration would be a situation
in which the subject is made to view visual stimuli on the computer
screen and then record his or her responses on an answer booklet
provided. In some situations, the assessment protocols may include
some computer-based questions along with other questions that are
in the paper–pencil format.
Computer-aided tests provide recording of very detailed informa-
tion about the test-taker’s performance (Bartman, 2006). The physi-
ological parameters in terms of GSR, non-verbal cues, eye movement
and other such information can also be recorded today. Immersive
testing experiences are capable of recording information about the
process of arriving at a decision and the steps through which a person
works during the sub-tasks while solving the assigned problem.
A special class of computer-based testing is computer-adaptive testing
or calibrated testing in which the items are moderated according to the
skill and responses of the respondent. The basic premise is the tailoring
of testing protocol to each user by changing the difficulty level of ques-
tions. As an illustration, an incorrect response leads to the next item
being easier, whereas a correct response increases the difficulty level
of the next item (Wainer et al., 2010). Each test taker in this fashion
obtains a true score which reflects his true ability on the attribute being
measured (Rumsey, 2012). The format offers maximum item flexibil-
ity because the items constituting the test for each subject are always
different and tailored eliminating the possibility of the subject being
disheartened, discouraged or bored at any point. Also, the scores reflect
the nuances of the ability level due to the item difficulty level matrix.

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 Intelligence and Aptitude Testing  49

Computer-adaptive testing also involves a class of branched or

multi-step design in which the responses on initial questions determine
which of the available pathways will be followed during the remainder
of the test. Drasgow, Olson-Buchanan and Moberg (1999) in a case
study of a test opined that structured upon branches and the response
of the test taker form the route that is followed through the branches.
Each respondent starts the test by watching a video and answering
questions based on it, but the responses decide the further course of
the test in terms of which video is played next and so on.
The introduction of computers in testing also led to the develop-
ment of multimedia based tests. Multimedia by definition stands for
content in which the material presented is not limited to one particular
sensory modality but involves a combination of different modalities.
An illustration would be a test situation in which the examinee is
supposed to answer a question based on a video clipping shown or
a situation in which certain tasks are to be performed by integrating
the information presented on the screen, as well as that being played
through the headphones.
Media elements have the advantage of being highly dynamic, and
congruent with situations the test taker may face outside of the assess-
ment situation. Multimedia-based testing environments generally
require the user to interact with the system more than the requirement
of the multiple-choice format. The user may have to drag and drop
certain objects or sometimes drag text or graphics to their appropriate
locations on the screen. A key advantage of these tests is that they bridge
the gap between the natural context and the laboratory setting offering
a way to assess the perceptual skills of the test taker also.

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented

Reality (AR)

These are two key areas that are increasingly being used in the assess-
ment and testing environment in contemporary times. These facets
of technology will form the benchmark of any assessment or testing
protocol in the future due to their ability to create an extremely close
and true approximation of the natural life experience of the test taker
(Reynolds & Rupp, 2010). The use of computerized testing stands on

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 50  Gurpreet Kaur, Dinika Anand and Soumi Awasthy

the ground of reducing the gap between the artificial test environment
and the real-world experience, and this gap is going to become negligible
as researchers move further along the road of VR and AR experience.
Current trends in VR and AR include immersive video technologies
which allow the possibility to ‘navigate’ within a video, exploring the
scenario in all directions while the video is running. The VR technol-
ogy may still be in nascent stages, but it is a promising area and thus,
a future in which the current constraints pertaining to the quality,
cost and availibility of VR are eliminated can be envisioned (Saggio
& Ferrari, 2012).
VR, AR and simulation-based testing allow testing of actual behav-
ioural response patterns that may be evoked in critical situations at
work. This kind of testing is particularly useful for highly specialized,
skill-intensive and stressful professional situations. Hanson et al. (1999)
describe the development of a computer-based performance measure
for air traffic controllers’ selection. Similarly, Bartram and Dale (1983)
describe the use of a simplified landing simulator for use in pilot selec-
tion. Vora et al. (2002) found that VR system was better and preferred
over the PC-based training tool by the aircraft inspectors.
The widespread availability of the Internet and the progress in
Internet technology in terms of hardware, bandwidth, speed and so
on have also increased its use and applicability for the field of testing
and assessment. Bartman (2005) classifies four different types of test
administration over the Internet-based on the level of interaction
between the test taker and the test administrator. While at one end in
open mode, the test taker is unknown and there is no direct supervision,
the controlled mode involves a test taker who has been identified taking
the test in an unsupervised environment. The supervised mode involves
a certain level of human supervision with the identity of the test taker
and the test taking conditions being controlled and authenticated by
the administrator/supervisor. Last, in managed mode, a high level of
direct human supervision is assumed and there is also the need for
control over the test-taking environment. These two conditions are
achieved through the use of dedicated testing centres.
The popularity of Internet-based tests is also supported by a
significant body of research that points towards the equivalence of
results when tests are administered in the paper–pencil format and
also through the Internet. In one such study, Preckel and Thiemann

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 Intelligence and Aptitude Testing  51

(2003) compared the Internet and paper administration of a figure

matrices test. They found that both test versions were comparable
with regard to the contribution of item design features to task study.
Salgado and Moscoso (2003) reported high levels of congruence
between paper and Internet versions of a Big Five instrument, with
coefficients ranging from 0.93 to 0.98 for the five scales. DIPR has
developed Internet-based self-assessment tool for assessing one’s
military aptitude. This test assesses one’s potential for Indian Armed
Forces and provides instant feedback to the candidate about the same
(DIPR note no. 626, 2007).

Advantages of Computer-Based Testing

1. It increases the efficiency of assessment delivery process and

reduces the amount of time needed for administration of tests.
2. It saves resources utilized in printing and type-setting test mate-
rial, as well as the potential errors that these procedures involve.
3. The inclusion of stimuli of different modalities such as auditory,
visual and mixed stimuli becomes possible, thereby making the
assessment experience more true to life (Basu, Cheng, Prasad,
& Rao, 2007).
4. Computers facilitate in enhancing the precision of measurement
because of the advanced administration techniques.
5. Item randomization, parallel form administration and other
techniques to improve the security of the test and consequently
the accuracy of the test are made accessible to the administrator.
6. Variables which are difficult to capture in paper–pencil tests such
as eye movement or galvanic skin response can also be recorded
and measured easily today with the use of computerized aides
and software (Bennett et al., 1997).
7. There is flexibility in test management by creating room for
tailored administration schedules.
8. The security of the test material is also improved as compared
to physical testing situations in which tampering with answer
booklets, broken seals, damage during transportation or printing
and so on are always present.

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 52  Gurpreet Kaur, Dinika Anand and Soumi Awasthy

9. Test scores and results arrive instantly or relatively sooner as

compared to paper–pencil tests (Basu et al., 2007).
10. More engaging and interesting experience for the user thereby
bears impact on candidate’s motivation and interest.

Disadvantages of Computer-Based Testing

1. The initial cost of setting up a facility suitable for computer or

technology delivered testing is significantly higher as opposed
to that in the case of conventional paper–pencil tests. Also, the
cost of maintenance and upkeep of computers, ancillary equip-
ment such as printers, joysticks and so on also contributes to
the financial burden of using computer-based testing.
2. Infrastructure requirements for paper–pencil tests are easily
met in existing establishments such as schools, office spaces,
university classrooms and so on, whereas a computer-based test
needs a dedicated setup.
3. In comparison to conventional paper–pencil tests, computer-
based tests take more time to develop and create because of the
need to construct larger item pool and also because of the time
spent creating the testing interface and software on the systems.
4. Last, it is difficult to adapt certain classes of tests such as projec-
tive tests for computerized testing and this limits its scope of
application.

Conclusion

The domain of testing and assessment has undergone a significant

change from focusing on measures of reasoning on one hand to testing
more nuanced abilities within the fields of intelligence and aptitude. The
process of testing today is not bound by definitive, rigorous boundaries
which focus on evaluating every individual against a pre-defined and
pre-determined set but is a more cohesive process that seeks to achieve
a balance between the skills and abilities required by a person and
characteristics of a particular job. Situational and contextual demands

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 Intelligence and Aptitude Testing  53

along with individual differences find expression in the construction of

tests, as well as the overall process of selection and assessment. These
factors may be collectively responsible for the evolution in the field and
the influx of technology into the testing, selection and placement arena.
Although there had been significant changes in the selection process,
but these changes are not stable and will keep on changing with the
dynamic requirements of Armed Forces. Thus, it can be said that the
journey of intelligence and aptitude testing is never ending.

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 3
Biographical Inventory for Selection

Suresh A., Arunima Gupta and Sucheta Sarkar

Effective personnel recruitment and selection is one of the most essen-

tial steps in the enrichment of any organization and when it comes to
military, the task becomes arduous, yet imperative. Many organizations
spend ample time and effort to match the right person to the job as there
are many costs associated with hiring personnel who subsequently are
unsuccessful. These costs can be measured by their effect on the lives
and careers of the people involved (Strauss & Sayles, 1972). There are
a variety of selection techniques employed in the existing scenario. The
interview method is one of the most popular (Harris, 1988) but has
been criticized as being too subjective (Campion, Pursell, & Brown,
1988). The assessment centre approach asks the applicant to com-
plete a battery of selection tests and work samples, but it is very time
consuming and expensive (Adler, 1987). Biographical information
from job applicants is the third technique that is assumed to be less
subjective, inexpensive and effective (Mitchell, 1994). It is presumed
to predict future job success. Researchers have argued that biodata
signify a more valid predictor of job-related success than traditional
personality measures (Mumford, Costanza, Connelly, & Johnson,
1996), as well as reducing aversive impact in comparison to cognitive
ability tests (Stokes, Mumford, & Owens, 1994). This chapter inspects
upon the feasibility of biographical inventory for personnel selection
in Armed Forces.
‘Biodata’ (short for biographical data) refer to a pre-selection
technology wherein applicants provide job-related information on
their personal background and life experiences that tend to caus-
ally affect their personal growth. This assumption relies heavily on
the ‘consistency’ principle, stating that the best predictor of future
behaviour is past behaviour (Owens, 1976; Wernimont & Campbell,
1968). Fleishman (1988) noted that acquiring information about an

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 Biographical Inventory for Selection  57

individual’s past experiences may result in a more efficient prediction

of one’s performance at work. The information acquired about the
applicant may include (a) person’s background and life history (e.g.,
recreational, educational or work experiences), (b) indirect indicators
of achievements (e.g., awards, recognition, grades), (c) information
about the situations surrounding these activities (e.g., family income,
parents’ education level) and (d) personal information (e.g., age,
marital status, health, skills, interests and attitudes). Furthermore,
biodata scales are used to assess numerous characteristics, such as
temperament, assessment of work conditions, values, skills, aptitudes
and abilities (Mount, Witt, & Barrick, 2000).
The items in biographical inventory are usually constructed in
multiple-choice format and optimally weighted to predict criteria
of interest (Mumford & Owens, 1987; Owens, 1976). They best
describe the magnitude or frequency of an individual’s past experi-
ences. The job applicants respond to a more standardised version
of paper and pencil tests focusing on individuals’ past behaviour
which typically includes the kinds of data obtained on weighted
application blanks, life history data, personal history, individual
achievement record, life experience inventories, biographical infor-
mation blank and others.
In most Western countries, biodata are generally obtained through
application forms (Dany & Torchy, 1994). However, there exist notice-
able differences between application forms and biographical invento-
ries. First, application forms involve a series of questions comprising
basic information about the applicants’ knowledge, skills, education or
other job-related information, whereas biodata refer to a pre-selection
method wherein the applicants provide exclusively job-related infor-
mation concerning the desirable work criteria. Second, biographical
information obtained in a statistically systematic way helps in preparing
biographical profiles of job applicants for the purpose of classifying
their potentialities for future work performance, whereas application
forms do not provide any scope of profiling of job applicants. Finally,
the information obtained through application forms is assessed in non-
structured, informal and intuitive ways, whereas biodata encompass
‘weighted scoring’ in which the responses collected are empirically
scored and considered individually as predictors of future job criteria
or performance.

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 58  Suresh A., Arunima Gupta and Sucheta Sarkar

Why Biodata Predicts Performance?

The use of biodata—information about one’s life experiences—as

a means of predicting performance has become prevalent since the
1980s. Dean, Russell & Muchinsky (1999) attempted to extend the
ecology model by focussing on how negative life events are associ-
ated with affective and cognitive reactions. They also examined the
potential role of “resilience to negative life events” or moxie as a key
moderator and/or mediator of negative life event–job performance
relationships.
The ecology model has evolved from Owens’ Developmental-
Integrative (D-I) model (Owens, 1968, 1971, 1976), suggesting that
biodata items capture prior behaviours and experiences affecting
personal development on individual difference characteristics (e.g.,
knowledge, skills and abilities). According to the ecology model,
individual differences resulting from a person’s unique hereditary
characteristics and exposure to situational circumstances determine
one’s propensity to react in a certain way and shape the preferences
that individuals make.
The literature indicates that negative life events constitute key
markers of human development. Taylor (1991) noted that negative
events appear to elicit more physiological, affective, cognitive and
behavioural activity and prompt more cognitive analysis than neutral
or positive events. Peeters and Czapinski (1990) found negative events
elicited more frequent and complex causal attributional activity than
positive events, whereas others have shown that negative events are
considered longer (e.g., Abele, 1985) and elicit more extreme attribu-
tions (e.g., Birnbaum, 1972). Models of affiliation (Schachter, 1959)
and social support (House, 1981) also suggest negative or threatening
events cause people to seek companionship, support and assistance
from others. The above studies reveal that negative life events can
either increase the commitment towards goal attainment by helping
individuals overcome difficulties or can lower one’s self-concept lead-
ing to failure at work.
Thus, an analysis of positive and negative life experiences plays a
crucial role in the formation of individual identities which contributes
towards cognitive and developmental understanding of behaviour
indexed through biographical inventories.

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 Biographical Inventory for Selection  59

Biodata and Personality Measures

Review of previous researches indicated that it is hard to distinguish

between biodata scales and personality scales. Mumford and Stokes
(1992) noted that biodata items are often used in self-report personality
inventories. This observation implies that biodata items are often strong
predictors of scores on personality scales (Rawls and Rawls, 1968). Also,
Mumford and Owens (1987) found that biodata factors resembling
the “Big Five” factors of personality (Digman, 1990) emerged. This is
also supported by prior researches (Owens, 1976).
Nunnally (1959, p. 371) stated:

The biographical inventory is probably the best measure of ‘personality’

presently available for personnel selection programs. Although it is not
certain what kinds of personality attributes they measure, the inventories
often add substantially to the predictive efficiency which can be obtained
from tests of intellectual functions and special abilities.

Asher (1972) has outlined eight dimensions on which biodata items

differ from personality inventories (Table 3.1). Other researchers
(Goldberg, 1972; Hough, 1984; Mael, 1991; Mumford, Snell, & Reiter-
Palmon, 1994; Mumford & Stokes, 1992) also attempted to propose
few differences between biodata and personality scales. They have been
compiled in Table 3.2.

Verifiability of Biodata

Since a biodata instrument is essentially a self-reported set of responses

gathered for a specific purpose, there has been some concern about
verifying the accuracy of these responses. Faking is an important
issue in the use of biodata and all other non-cognitive measures. It
has long been established that the items that are historical, objective,
external, discrete, verifiable and firsthand serve to reduce the amount
of response distortion that occurs in self-report measures. One of
the major advantages that the biodata offer over other non-cognitive
measures is that the empirical keying methods of scaling biodata help
in identifying ‘subtle’ items for which the correct answer is not readily

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 60  Suresh A., Arunima Gupta and Sucheta Sarkar

Table 3.1
Asher’s dimensions indicating differences between biodata and personality inventories

A Taxonomy of Biographical and Personality Items

“A” (Hard Biodata) “B” (Personality)
VERIFIABLE UNVERIFIABLE
Did you graduate from high school? How often do you feel like crying?
HISTORICAL FUTURISTIC
How old were you when you started your In your next job, what type of work would
first full-time job? you like to do most?
ACTUAL BEHAVIOUR HYPOTHETICAL BEHAVIOUR
Did you ever build tree-houses as a child? If you were a professional athlete, what
sport would you play?
MEMORY CONJECTURE
During your last two years in college, If you were to buy a new car, which model
about how many hours a week did you were you to choose?
spend on studies?
FACTUAL INTERPRETIVE
On the average, how many nights a week When you complete a task, what allows
do you go out to eat? you to feel good about it?
SPECIFIC GENERAL
Which of your college courses was the Were summer trips a big part of your
easiest? childhood?
RESPONSE RESPONSE TENDENCY
Which of the following tasks have you When you need to solve a tough work
performed in previous jobs? problem, what do you usually do?
EXTERNAL EVENT INTERNAL EVENT
As a child, how often did your siblings Which best describes your feelings when
help you with the chores around the you last made a speech in public?
house?
Source: Kenneth S. Shultz (1996), p. 266.

known to the respondent. Conversely, researchers reviewed that the

inclusion of more subjective and non-verifiable items in self-report
measures increases the probability of faking (Becker & Colquitt,
1992). This issue raises concerns about the measurement accuracy of
biodata studies.
Lautenschlager (1994) reviewed numerous studies and found that
objective items are less susceptible to distortion than subjective items.
In an examination of the relationship between item attributes and
various measures of response distortion across five different samples,

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 Biographical Inventory for Selection  61

Table 3.2
Differences between biodata and personality scales

Biodata Scales Personality Scales

 Biodata items emphasize on prior Self-report personality items gener-
behaviour and experiences occurring ally solicit information regarding an
in specific situations. individual’s predisposition towards a
specific situational state. The focus is
therefore limited to personal identity
and an individual’s general behavioural
tendency.
 Biodata items capture environmental, Personality item responses are influ-
personal and the social factors that enced only by dispositional factors.
affect and are affected by the individual
in terms of the frequency in a given
time period.
 Biodata measures capture behavioural Personality measures are not tied to
patterns that are explicitly tied to the decision-making ability, but more to a
decisions that individuals make when preference.
presented with a particular situational
stimulus.
 Biodata items often tap into content Personality items do not capture the
areas that are probably influenced factors influencing an individuals’
more by individual knowledge or skills behaviour.
than by personality. Thus, biodata-type
items are often used as a preferred
vehicle for accessing job-relevant
information.
 Biodata items are externally Personality measures are internally
constructed. constructed.
Source: Authors.

Stanley et al. (2000) found that items that were internal, subjective and
summative were more related to response distortion indices than were
external, objective and discrete items. These findings were consistent
with earlier researches (Becker & Colquitt, 1992; Mael, 1991).
Mael (1991) noted that it is essential to introspect the climate under
which the biodata instrument will be administered. Lautenschlager
(1994) found that when respondents were instructed to fake, they
distorted their responses by either increasing or decreasing their scores
as directed. Furthermore, Hough and Paullin (1994) reviewed research
on both item subtlety and objectivity and concluded that item type was
insignificantly related to faking. Certain considerations about the appli-
cant population, as well as the employer, should be addressed. Under

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 62  Suresh A., Arunima Gupta and Sucheta Sarkar

varying circumstances, it is reasonable to expect that some applicants

may be highly motivated to fake or that some employees may mentor
applicants. Thus, it can be concluded that in some situations, response
distortion may not be controlled by item type.

Methods of Detecting Faking

Lautenschlager (1994) offered several ways to reduce response

­distortion:

1. The methods for reducing the likelihood of faking in respondents

comprise inclusion of verifiable items and warnings (Pannone,
1984). Trent, Atwater and Abrahams (1986) reviewed that
including a warning statement about the potential verification
of responses and the consequence of detected faking, along
with items that were verifiable, reduces intentional distortion
amongst applicants. Doll (1971) found that warning that a
follow-up interview will happen proved to be more effective in
reducing response distortion than a warning that the instrument
included a lie detection scale. However, Lautenschlager (1994)
noted that caution should be taken to ensure that the warning
is appropriate and does not lead to unintended consequences.
Warning may become ineffective if the applicant is able to under-
stand the notion behind its inclusion. Thus, it is important to
note that warning applicants on the consequences of faking can
mitigate the propensity to fake. Also, a biodata instrument must
include verifiable items to make the warning effective, which
further depends on the degree of job relevancy. Mael (1991)
suggested that non-verifiable items should be combined with
verifiable items, with many of the verifiable items loaded at the
beginning of the instrument to make the biodata questionnaire
more effective.
2. One way of attempting to detect faking is to include some type
of response validity scale and the repetition of some items as a
form of an accuracy check (Pannone, 1984). Mitchell and Stokes
(1995) suggested the need to validate scales with the same care
with which one validates one’s selection instruments.

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 Biographical Inventory for Selection  63

3. Snell, Sydell and Lueke (1999) discussed potential areas for

reducing faking with item content, format and scoring. Some
types of non-subtle items may be less fakable because the appli-
cants may find it difficult to determine the scoring of items. For
instance, Griffith, Frei, Snell, Hamill and Wheeler (1997) dem-
onstrated that under fake good conditions, respondents used a
“good thing versus a bad thing” strategy, which led to increases
in scores on a conscientiousness measure. However, scores on
a measure of openness to new experiences remained relatively
stable as respondents could not identify the right response to
fake for this construct with respect to the target job.
4. Snell et al. (1999) also observed that Likert-type scales largely
determine fakability of non-cognitive measures. Once a respon-
dent is aware of whether or not the trait measured by the item is
positive or negative, the correct response is clear. There is some
evidence stating that forced choice formats produce less score
inflation than Likert-based scales when honest conditions are
compared with fake good conditions. Owens (1976) recom-
mended that the construction of biodata items must be placed
on a continuum.
5. The keying method may also influence response distortion.
Kluger, Reilly and Russell (1991) studied faking using item
keying and option keying methods and found that option-keyed
responses were less susceptible to inflation than item-keyed
instruments in a sample of students applying for a fictitious job.
This method serves to be efficient in reducing the applicant’s
ability to fake because the scored options are not known to the
applicant and are at times counterintuitive. Hogan (1994) noted
that option keying serves an advantage when item criterion
relationships are significantly nonlinear.

The last method for detecting faking involves the use of a computer
to measure the amount of time that a participant takes to respond to
an item. On the contrary, many studies have produced inconsistent
results (Dwight & Alliger, 1997; Gore, 2000).
To conclude, concerns over the degree to which an applicant
indulges into faking behaviour and how this will affect the validity of
the biodata instrument are the two major issues that must be addressed
in the biodata form development process.

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 64  Suresh A., Arunima Gupta and Sucheta Sarkar

Validity of Biodata

A vast amount of research provides an insight into the biodata’s high

validity and the ability to predict a wide range of job criterion mea-
sures, as one of the most challenging aspects for personnel selection.
Adoption of meta-analytic studies is viewed as an important tool in
biodata research concerning the heterogeneity of the existing biodata
studies and the generalization of validities across samples.

Criterion-related Validity

Meta-analyses comparing biodata against other technically validated

predictor measures have been particularly useful in confirming
biodata’s potential validities. Van Rijn (1980) reported that over a
long period of time, the nature of biodata questionnaires has highly
supported the consistency principle, stating it to be one of the best
predictors of future behaviour. Consistently, these reviews found that
through the decade validities for biodata have varied significantly, for
example, from the low-to-mid .20s in Hunter and Hunter (1984) and
Schmitt, Gooding, Noe and Kirsch (1984) up to the .50s in Reilly and
Chao (1982) studies. Although even the lower-bound validity estimates
are higher than the validities reported for most personality scales, and
Schmidt, Ones and Hunter’s (1992) seminal meta-analysis of 85 years
of validity studies estimated a validity of 0.35 for biodata. Thus, it is
important to provide an accurate estimate of the validity of biodata,
which requires identification of the factors that tend to moderate the
relationship between biodata predictors and occupational criteria.

Generalizability of Biodata

Evidences for biodata’s generalizability are more restricted and recent.

Factors, such as changes in applicant groups, the nature of the target
job, job success criterion, the labour market, workforce needs and
personnel policies, appear to play a major role in contributing towards

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 Biographical Inventory for Selection  65

the generalizability and stability of biodata. Poorly constructed items,

small sample sizes and the susceptibility of biodata’s scoring proce-
dure to chance factors have also been found to be responsible for lack
of generalizability and stability of biodata (Anastasi, 1988; Hunter &
Hunter, 1984). To establish generalizability of biodata, ample amount
of evidence may be required that may provide the scope for adminis-
tering the carefully developed biodata questionnaire amongst larger
samples (Gandy, Outerbridge, Shraf, & Dye, 1989). Rothstein, Schmidt,
Erwin, Owens, & Sparks (1990) showed that biodata generalizes across
other variables that are frequently cited as moderators of biodata’s
validity. These include race, sex, education levels, years of company
service, years of supervisory experience, and age.

Incremental Validity

The relatively high correlations of biodata with measures of job suc-

cess and low correlations with most other predictor measures (Reilly
& Warech, 1990) make biodata a particularly vital component for a
composite predictor measure of personnel selection. Booth, McNally
& Berry (1978) found that the inclusion of just three biodata items
to a cognitive aptitude battery increased the multiple correlations
with training performance from 0.35 to 0.48. Biodata’s sensitivity to
situational, extrinsic and other non-personal factors associated with
past achievements supports and provides incremental strength to the
construction of biodata questionnaire. While cognitive ability tests
emphasize upon the potentialities of the applicants by ignoring the
situational variations, biodata seem to reflect the situational factors
held responsible for determining a person’s behaviour. Hunter and
Hunter (1984) suggested that biodata capture the futuristic aspect of
a person’s behaviour, whereas more traditional cognitive measures are
intended to predict an applicant’s ability to perform the job. By gaining
an insight into a person’s past experiences, greater prediction will be
possible for what a person will typically do in the future. Incremental
validity of biodata over cognitive ability tests has been demonstrated
in samples of army recruits (Mael & Ashforth, 1995) and air traffic
controllers (Dean, Russell, & Muchinsky, 1999).

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 66  Suresh A., Arunima Gupta and Sucheta Sarkar

With regard to personality, studies have shown that biodata scales

predict performance outcomes incrementally in US cadets (McManus
& Kelly, 1999). Moreover, Mount et al.’s (2000) study simultaneously
controlled for the Big Five personality traits and general cognitive
ability and found that biodata’s contribution to the four occupational
criteria, namely, problem-solving performance, quantity and quality
of work, interpersonal relationships and retention probability varied
from 2 per cent to 17 per cent.

Structure of Biodata

A narrow spectrum of research had been conducted on the structure

underlying biodata (Schmidt, Ones, & Hunter, 1992) that deals with
how large sets of personal data can be organized and reduced to a
limited number of latent factors or meaningful clusters. Mumford
et al.’s ecology model (Mumford, Stokes, & Owens, 1990) proposed
that biodata can be structured in terms of core knowledge, expertise,
aptitude, value and expectancy variables that describe the way people
develop their characteristic patterns of behaviour at work and beyond.
These constructs ‘facilitate the attainment of desired outcomes while
conditioning future situational choice by increasing the likelihood of
reward in certain kinds of situation’ (Mumford & Stokes, 1992: 81).
Nickels (1990) posited that these constructs can be categorized into
personality, social resources, intellectual resources, choice processes
and filter processes. In a recent study (Dean & Russell, 2005), these
constructs were replicated by administering 142 biodata items on a
sample of 6,000 newly hired air traffic controllers. The results high-
lighted that the overall biodata significantly correlated with job perfor-
mance and cognitive ability. Also, intellectual resources significantly
predicted job performance, followed by choice processes, social and
personality resources; filter processes were found to be least related to
job performance. Dean and Russell’s findings illustrate the usefulness of
biodata inventories as an alternative self-report non-cognitive measure
such as the Big Five (Sisco & Reilly, 2007). Since biodata scales stress
on verifiable and objective items, they are less likely to be affected by
respondents’ faking and impression management as compared to
existing personality measures.

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Biographical Inventory in Military Selection

Prior research conducted in the field of biographical inventory revealed

the role of factors such as pre-federal aviation administration air traffic
control experience, high-school grades in mathematics and science,
self-assessment of performance potential, previous military ATC
experience and altruistic tendency as significant predictors of the air
traffic controller success (Collins, Manning, & Taylor, 1984). They
also examined the relationship between the biographical inventory and
training performance with respect to two groups of applicants, mainly,
minority versus non-minority groups. As a result, the determinants
of air traffic controller success amongst minority group were ranked
as age, high-school physical science grades and self-assessment of
future ATCS performance, whereas, for minority group, the sequence
varied placing high-school math grades first followed by age and self-
assessment of future ATCS performance.
The Biographical Inventory has been used continuously since Second
World War (WWII) till date to select naval aviators and other flight per-
sonnel (Frank & Baisden, 1993). The navy’s aviation selection battery
(Fiske, 1947) is composed of heterogeneous items empirically selected
and keyed to predict the retention of students in aviation training. This
form has been revised and developed several times. At present, the cur-
rent form, used since 1992, assesses the retention of both student naval
aviators and student naval flight officers with separate keys designed
for each of the administrations (Frank & Baisden, 1993).
Although experimentations on the effectiveness of biographical
measures in military services are being done, but there still remains a
scope for improvement and development of more effective and efficient
biographical instruments to enhance selection of successful military
service providers. Below is a description of several biographical and
attitudinal inventories.

1. History Opinion Inventory (HOI): The HOI comprises of 100 self-

report, true/false items covering the broad aspects such as school
adjustment, family stability, social orientation, emotional stability,
physical complaints, motivation and expectations for achievement,
and response towards authority. This inventory originated from the
Military Adaptability Screening Test (MAST) and was developed

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 68  Suresh A., Arunima Gupta and Sucheta Sarkar

by Air Force. It has efficiently played a crucial role in ­overcoming

the difficulties encountered by the MAST. MAST proved to be
unsuccessful in predicting basic military training success. In a
study, the History Opinion Survey was administered to 15,252
airmen during basic training, and its two scales—Prediction of
Emotional Instability (PET) and Prediction of Drug Use Admission
(PDA)—as well as the combined Adaptation Index (ADI) were
found to be statistically significant in predicting attrition during
basic training. This study concluded that the scales PDA and ADI
did make a unique contribution in predicting attrition among
Air Force recruits. In 1975, the scale was reduced to 50 items
and was renamed as ‘Military Service Inventory’. It began to be
­implemented as part of the Air Force Medical Evaluation Testing.
2. Military Service Inventory (MSI): The MSI is a 50-item subset of
the HOI. In 1977, the MSI was administered on 53,000 military
applicants over a four-month period and was found to be a valid
predictor of attrition.
3. Recruit Background Questionnaire (RBQ): The RBQ is a
55-item self-report inventory developed by the Navy. This
questionnaire has been designed to assess areas such as work
and school experiences, hobbies, interests and family history.
Approximately one-third of RBQ items are school-related. The
RBQ consists of two alternate forms, namely, form 1 and form 2,
which were administered on Navy applicants. This measure was
found to be significantly correlated with attrition, particularly
for male high-school graduates (r = 0.28 to 0.38). Correlations
for male and female non-graduates ranged from 0.17 to 0.21
and 0.18 to 0.26, respectively. These results were found to be
consistent with the cross validation samples with little variation.
Multiple regression analyses indicated that the RBQ significantly
predicted the attrition rate among the entry-level Navy recruits
through a screening instrument known as Success Chances for
Recruits Entering the Navy (SCREEN). This instrument attempts
to predict the said criterion on the basis of background items
such as age, education, number of dependents and aptitude score.
4. Military Applicant Profile (MAP): The MAP is a 60-item
­multiple-choice biographical questionnaire that deals with
family, academic and work experiences, athletic/physical

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 Biographical Inventory for Selection  69

competence, self-concept and social style/participation. There

are four alternate forms of the MAP. This instrument was
administered on a sample of Armed Forces applicants and the
analyses indicated differential prediction for attrition among
high-school diploma graduates and non-graduates. On the basis
of further analyses by Eaton, Weltin and Wing (1982), the use of
this instrument was extended to all non-high-school graduates.
5. The Educational and Biographical Information Survey (EBIS):
The EBIS contains 34 structured response questions providing
120 items of information concerning education achievement,
school attitudes, family relations, work history, status variables,
arrest record and alcohol use. This instrument was developed
by HumRRO and was also designed to tap the attrition rate
amongst both the applicants and new recruits. The objective
of such a measure was to improve the existing education and
moral enlistment standards by predicting the attrition rate.
6. Armed Services Adaptability Profile (ASAP): The ASAP is a
joint service biodata instrument currently under development.
Each of the two ASAP forms consists of 130 multiple-choice
items. These items were pooled from other biodata instruments
already administered and validated on military applicants.
Specifically, each form of the ASAP includes one complete form
of the MAP and several questions from the RBQ intended to
evaluate the adequacy of a common measure.

Construction of Biographical Instrument

Item Content

Mael (1991) categorizes the biographical items into mainly three

groups. They are as follows:

1. Historical: The historical nature of biodata items typically con-

cerns the past experiences of an individual rather than predicting
how a person will react in certain situations.

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 70  Suresh A., Arunima Gupta and Sucheta Sarkar

2. Methodological: Certain methodological attributes such as

externally focused, objective, first-hand and verifiable are
thought to aid in obtaining accurate biodata responses (Asher,
1972; Mael, 1991). Externally focused items are presumed to
capture an individual’s reaction to events in circumstances
in which he or she was actively involved. Questions such as
‘How did your parents evaluate your academic achievement?’
indicate obtaining second-hand information about how others
would evaluate the respondent. Such items must be avoided and
respondents should be asked for first-hand knowledge. Another
attribute associated with item content is verifiability. Verifiable
items are less prone to social desirability effect and encourage
eliciting accurate and honest responses from the candidate
(Cascio, 1975).
3. Controllability/Job Relevance: Controllability refers to the
degree to which a person decides whether to engage or not
to engage in an action (e.g., behaviours a person desires to
perform, such as playing sports, versus circumstances that
happen beyond a person’s control, such as parental socioeco-
nomic status). Mael (1991) posited that all life events (con-
sciously chosen or not) have the ability to shape a person’s
future behaviour and should be included in a biodata instru-
ment. There are differing views about whether to contain
items such as parental behaviour and socioeconomic status
due to applicants’ lack of control over their early environment
(Mael, 1991).

Biodata performance prediction generally does not involve liter-

ally predicting future performance by measuring identical past
performance (Dean, Russell, & Muchinsky, 1999). Wernimont
and Campbell’s (1968) proposed “samples” versus “signs” distinc-
tion, in which ‘samples’ represent past behaviours that are used to
predict future actions drawn from a single-performance domain.
Behavioural signs are assumed to causally influence subsequent
performance and are highly correlated with those causal influences.
Biodata instruments generally use both signs and samples of past
behaviour to predict future performance outcomes (Dean et al.,
1999; Russell, 1996).

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 Biographical Inventory for Selection  71

Item Development

Following are the different item generation techniques targeting cri-

terion construct prediction. Mumford and Owens (1987) explained
the following six sources of biodata items:

1. The literature on human development is assumed to provide

theories, models, associated constructs and operationalizations
that might help in selecting prior life experiences to target with
biodata item content (Human development literature).
2. Interviews targeting prior life experiences of high and low
­performing incumbents are assumed to generate criterion valid
biodata items (Life history interviews with incumbents).
3. Typical factor loadings of biodata items.
4. Life history correlates with the criterion domain.
5. Existing biodata items with known criterion validities.
6. Items generated from investigators’ general psychological
­knowledge.

The latter four sources rely on investigators’ subjective opinions or

existing biodata inventories (Russell, 1994), which appears to play a
vital role in ongoing validation research and subsequent item revision.
Theory-based item generation efforts (Dean et al., 1999; Mumford,
Costanza, Connelly, & Johnson, 1996; Russell, 1994) serve as an alterna-
tive technique for generating biodata items. The main objective of this
technique is to gather information about prior life experiences from job
incumbents and subject matter experts, using several methods, such as
interview, focus group discussion or writing assignment. The follow-
ing are the traditional steps involved in harvesting such information:

1. Identification of key job requirements using standard job analy-

sis procedures.
2. Communicating key job requirements to subject matter experts,
that is, subject matter experts should have first-hand knowledge
of job performance.
3. Description of prior life experiences in relation to key job dimen-
sions by subject matter experts.

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 72  Suresh A., Arunima Gupta and Sucheta Sarkar

4. Extracting critical incidents from subject matter experts’ prior

life event descriptions. Items generated from these critical inci-
dents typically include (a) behaviours engaged by the applicant
in the incident, (b) key aspects of the situation circumstances
(i.e., sources of assistance, obstacles, etc.), (c) attitudes associated
with the event, (d) role responsibilities held by the candidate
during the incident or (e) task outcomes accomplished.

Scoring of Biodata

A number of techniques have been used for scaling biodata items

(Nickels, 1994). The methods can be broadly grouped into test-centred
and person-centred. Methods that are test-centred include empirical
keying, factorially derived keying and rationally derived keying. Person-
centred methodology focuses on identifying particular recognizable
groups of individuals that share similar background experiences and
have common profiles. The method is most commonly known as
subgrouping.

Empirical Keying Method

The empirical keying approach emphasizes on maximization of predic-
tion through an external criterion and is most commonly employed in
the scoring of biodata (Devlin, Abrahams, & Edwards, 1992). A variety
of empirical scoring procedures exist for identifying and weighing
items on the basis of their ability to differentiate between successful
and unsuccessful employees (Aamodt & Pierce, 1987; Malone, 1977;
Telenson, Alexander, & Barrett, 1983). These methods are primarily
categorized as option keyed and correlational method. The methods
also differ regarding how criterion performance is measured (e.g., a
dichotomous criterion reflecting group membership), how item scores
are related to criterion scores and how item weights are statistically
derived (Hogan, 1994). The vertical percent method (England, 1971) is
one of the traditional option-keyed methods to empirical keying. Here,
each item or question is coded as 0 or 1 depending upon the nature of
response sets. The items having response set ‘Yes’ are coded as 1 and
those with response set ‘No’ are coded as 0. In the correlational method,

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 Biographical Inventory for Selection  73

weights are assigned to each item on the basis of their correlation with
the job criterion (as derived from the previous samples). In both the
methods, a composite score is finally computed for each candidate by
summing up the scores obtained on all the items.
The major advantage of the empirical keying approach is that the items
are directly related to an external measure of job success and it consti-
tutes high incremental validity in the prediction of occupational success
than existing cognitive and personality measures (Mount et al., 2000).

Factorial Keying Approach

The use of factor analysis has been a popular method for identifying
the patterns of correlations between individual biodata items and job
criteria (Schoenfeldt & Mendoza, 1994). Here, the biodata items are
statistically grouped and reduced to a small number of factors, which
are further used to identify the psychological structures and predict
occupation success. The correlation matrix can be obtained in numer-
ous ways. First, the items may be scored either rationally or empirically.
Second, the items may be item-keyed (i.e., each item consists of mul-
tiple responses scored along a continuum) or option-keyed (i.e., each
response option enters the correlation matrix as a scored binary item).
Third, the matrix may be formed by combining both the techniques.
Although this method provides some insight into the dimensions
underlying the structure of life experiences, but there are many limi-
tations. First, this method typically ignores large amounts of variance
(Hough & Paullin, 1994). In a review of several studies, the vari-
ance accounted for ranged from 19 per cent for a 10-factor solution
(Schoenfeldt, 1989) to 49.6 per cent for 15 components (Lautenschlager
& Shaffer, 1987). Second, it requires larger samples as that of empiri-
cal keying approach. Third, the scoring of the items used in the factor
analyses may vary depending upon the job criterion and the nature
of items used. Different approaches employed for keying the items,
whether empirical or rational, could theoretically lead to a different
factor structure. Fourth, the resultant factors depend on the items
included in the analysis. Items keyed using empirical approach against
a criterion would yield different underlying structures than analyses of
the items keyed rationally. Fifth, the factorial keying approach makes
biodata questionnaires equivalent to personality inventories, especially
when subjective items are included. Researchers argued that in such

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 74  Suresh A., Arunima Gupta and Sucheta Sarkar

cases experts would fail to distinguish between personality scales and

factorial keyed biodata (Robertson & Smith, 2001). Finally, this method
does not appear to be independent of situation-specific considerations.
Inspite of the above-mentioned drawbacks, the factor analyses
approach has been considered a useful tool for identifying the psy-
chological structures of both empirically and rationally scaled biodata
questionnaires.

Rational Keying Approach

Rational approaches to scoring biodata are internally based methods
in which biodata items are scaled based on the relationship amongst
the items and not on the external criterion. Fine and Cronshaw (1994)
proposed that a thorough job analysis informs the selection of biodata
items (see also Stokes & Cooper, 2001). Hough and Paullin (1994)
discussed two strategies: direct and indirect. In the direct approach,
the individual difference variables are defined using expert opinions.
In the indirect approach, the distinguishing job-related behaviours are
related to job-related psychological constructs through factor analysis.
This is followed by the construction of the biodata questionnaire aimed
at measuring the underlying dimensions. Both the techniques empha-
size on forming scales that are internally consistent and homogeneous.
The primary difference between the two methods is that in the direct
method, expert opinions are utilized based on theory and research to
select and weigh items, whereas in the indirect method factor analysis is
employed to select and weigh items. Researchers reviewed that although
the indirect method has little correspondence to the measure of job suc-
cess, the approach tends to have greater construct validity and greater
psychological meaningfulness. Another limitation is that the items
developed using this method may be objectionable to applicants as the
association between the items and the job success measure is not clear.
On the other hand, the direct measure yields greater face validity and
content validity and is more acceptable. However, this measure is equally
likely to be susceptible to falsification. Mitchell (1994) referred to using
factor analysis in a broad, exploratory, post hoc approach to discovering
the dimensionality of the biodata items as “more akin to rationalization
than to rationality” (p. 486). Practitioners often use both the techniques
of rational keying approach, with direct method used to develop scales
followed by the indirect method to refine the scales identified. Mitchell
(1994) noted that this approach has numerous advantages. First, biodata

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 Biographical Inventory for Selection  75

questions can be developed and validated as that of any paper–pencil

cognitive tests. Second, Mitchell’s biodata questionnaires should read-
ily generalize to occupations with profiles of antecedent behaviours
similar to those of the occupation used in the development of the key.
Moreover, reduced need for larger samples in the development of biodata
scale questionnaire opens up the application of biodata to jurisdiction.
However, one of the major disadvantages associated with this approach
is that making ‘correct responses’ becomes too obvious for respondents
which may increase the likelihood of faking (Lautenschlager, 1994).

Subgrouping
The fourth and the final approach for the scoring of biodata is sub-
grouping (Mumford & Owens, 1987). This approach seeks to categorize
individuals based on profiles created via autobiographical information.
The key objective here is to accurately assign individuals to specific
groups discovered based on biographical information provided.
Evidence suggests that this approach has a general predictive system
(Mumford & Stokes, 1992; Owens, 1976), using homogeneous sub-
groups as the unit of investigation. It was found that subgroup status
was predictive of verbal abilities (Eberhard & Owens, 1975), drug use
(Strimbu & Schoenfeldt, 1973), over and underachievement, Rorschach
responses and vocational interests (Mumford & Stokes, 1992). In addi-
tion to ongoing research that supported the predictive ability of the
technique from a longitudinal perspective (Davis, 1984), subgrouping
also served as a basis for “maximal manpower utilization” (Brush &
Owens, 1979), and served as an alternative to moderator group analysis
(Feild, Lissitz, & Schoenfeldt, 1975).

Conclusion

Utility of biographical information in personnel selection is based

on the notion that the best predictor of future performance is past
experiences. Although biodata have been applied to a wide range of
occupations such as clerical jobs, mechanical equipment distributors,
hotel staff, civil servant and managers, its role in military services is also
practical with the help of efficient biographical instruments designed
to enhance selection of successful military service providers.

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 76  Suresh A., Arunima Gupta and Sucheta Sarkar

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 4
Human Landscape of War

Joseph Miller

In America, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has become a

moniker of contemporary experience in Iraq and Afghanistan veterans
and a catchall term for psychological reactions to warfare. From the very
beginning of the psychological understandings of Shell shock, defini-
tions have included the altering of ideas relating to the environment.
Social psychologist and First World War (WWI) veteran Kurt Lewin’s
field theory was articulated in an essay titled War Landscapes (Lewin,
1917). His conceptualization of life space was premised on how war
changed the perception of landscapes for its participants.
Shell shock and syndromes relating to stress have always been linked
to the environment through triggering or the currently defined intru-
sive spectrum of symptoms. It also highlights how fevers offer a great
opportunity to better understand war’s effect prior to the 20th century
when understood in relation with Hans Selye’s “syndrome of just being
sick” or general adaptation disorder (Selye, 1973). That is to say, under
excessive and untreated stress some people get sick.1 While describing
research works, internal psychology and physiology of stress, this chapter
examines the life of General, Governor and Custom Collector James
Miller. A detailed case study of the life of territorial Governor James Miller
illustrates that he defined an illness that was an assault on his constitution
by nature. His fevered reactions after battles, storms and a return to the
frontier were called ague, and correlate to what psychologist Hans Selye
called general adaptation disorder: a disease of just being sick in relation

1 Psychologists and medical professionals still largely respect Selye’s early 20th century research
and Young’s research fundamentally contradicts it and basically misunderstands how the
limbic system rather than the hippocampal, or conscious memory center, is what the body
uses to manage stress. That is to say, a problem of a malfunctioning Hypothalamic Pituitary
Adrenal axis largely defies Young’s solely socially constructed model, especially in terms of
survival responses that are much more driven by evolutionary push factors.

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 82  Joseph Miller

to stress. His absenteeism as the Governor of the Arkansas territory

endures as a symbol of Arkansas on the periphery in its historical journal
to this day, but his utter contempt for the landscape of a frontier has
been overlooked as an expression of avoidance of a frontier that would
have reminded him of his service in the War of 1812, and in skirmishes
with the Shawnee confederation that preceded it. It can be argued that
when interpreted as representation of the intrusive spectrum of PTSD
symptoms, Miller’s failure as a territorial Governor is better understood
and the chapter concludes by placing his particularly public example in
context with other failed territorial Governors (William Hull, William
Henry Harrison and Meriwether Lewis), as well as how conflicts have
continually reshaped the American landscape.
This also illustrates how military heroes who failed in civil life were
a commonly misunderstood phenomenon and that the tendency to
highlight exceptional individuals, such as General Washington and
Andrew Jackson, is a problem of selective memory rather than a fair
representation of the experience in the early national period of the
United States (Resch, 1999).

Examining the Historical Origins of PTSD

In his famous work on the WWI, Paul Fussell (2000) described a radi-
cal reevaluation of place that came inside of the trenches. For British
soldiers the shear proximity of the trenches to home created a surreal
irony that forever shaped their notions of home. How could home be
so close to the hell of the trenches? Shell shock became the first widely
accepted work of mental illness relating to combat. However, if we
look at the works of historians such as Dean (1997) and Sommerville’s
(1995, 2011) on combat and condition, then WWI’s primacy for the
origination of PTSD must be challenged. Psychiatrics Shay (2002)
and Wessely (2006) have also challenged this recentness of today’s
war syndrome by finding evidence of PTSD during the Boer War and
Trojan War. Similarly, other research works have also challenged the
notion (Jones, Palmer, & Wessely, 2002; Shay, 2002).
Recent research illustrates how Shell shock was not the observation
of a new phenomenon rather a change in the observation of an existing
condition. Shell shock was not new, psychology was new and there was

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 Human Landscape of War  83

finally a scientifically grounded method to categorize and analyze a time-

less syndrome.2 Great work is being done to both understand war’s effect
on the psyche and help existing veterans and survivors of trauma rein-
tegrate following extreme circumstances. An important, yet overlooked
aspect of war’s affect is how war reshapes the soldier’s view of nature.
Despite the widespread acceptance of Shell shock as a war neurosis
during WWI, the PTSD diagnosis is still in its infancy. This has only
occurred after Vietnam veterans lobbied for years in order for there
to be clinical disorder that was not the result of weakness or lack of
fortitude. There is still controversy regarding a syndrome designed to
highlight an acceptable syndrome for male (or females conforming to
male ideals), so even with a concrete diagnosis criterion there is still
widespread and at times contentious debate (Andreasen, 2010; Micale
& Lerner, 2001; Schaller, 2012). Also, in the social undercurrents of
contemporary debate the condition has become a catchall to describe
any form of mental illness relating to war (Hoge, 2010). Within the
flurry of debate that comes at the initial phase of research on a newly
redefined disorder/injury, an important aspect that has endured from
the outset of the understandings of war’s effect on the psyche has been
greatly overlooked: how survival shapes views of the environment.
Humans have a strong evolutionary drive to survive when they are
exposed to life-threatening events, so it is natural that such events
would forever shape the way that survivors view similar environments.
Kurt Lewin’s field theory is almost always associated with physics
because the propensity of psychologists to associate themselves with
the “harder sciences”, but his initial trajectory as a scholar came from
his experiences in WWI (Goodwin, 2011). Lewin (1917) argued how
a specific landscape could be inspiringly beautiful for some, but for
veterans solely a source of impending danger and a place for opponents
to hide. His overall concept of field theory in social psychology would
be that behaviour is a function of personality (experience included) and
environment B = ƒ (P, E) (Goodwin, 2011). Although Lewin’s social
psychological research would never make great strides in war’s effect, it
began with his intuitive knowledge of how war shaped a human being’s
view of the environment. Understanding how Shell shock changed
views of land and by viewing these changes in actors before hand, it is

2 See Allan Young’s The Harmony of Illusions: Inventing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (1997).

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 84  Joseph Miller

possible to broaden both the understandings of war and how humans

interact in their environment.
Another key figure in early understandings of the stress research
was greatly influenced by similar intuition, observation and personal
­experience. Hans Selye was medical doctor who spent his life research-
ing the physiological aspects of stress. He was not a veteran of WWI, but
his father was and he observed how difficult it was for him following his
service as a trauma surgeon. One experience from his youth that would
shape his views on stress was hearing the stories of bayonet charges and
becoming physically ill afterwards. His autobiography was titled The
Stress of My Life in order to demonstrate how his own life influenced his
research and discovery of general adaptation disorder that was simply
the somatization of illness in relation to continuous or extreme stress.
The evolutionary drive to survive was so strong that it would make the
body ill without the presence of any actual sickness and Selye’s first
exposure to this was from stories of war in his ­childhood (Selye, 1977).
In the early 20th century, malaria would be better understood and
the fevers that were widespread during previous conflicts began to be
isolated from Selye’s new syndrome of just being sick because of stress.
In Britain, Boer War vets who did not show the modern signs of the
malaria bacteria were isolated from most of the cases of rheumatic fever
(Jones et al., 2002; Jones & Wessely, 2004). Historians would be wise
to recognize that before the 20th century, fevers were not so carefully
defined and it is problematic to presuppose that all fevers of that age
are the same as the fevers of our age, in the same way that it is danger-
ous to draw linear boundaries before nations formally existed. Greer
(2010) has called the tendency to presuppose the national boundaries
as ‘hypernationalism’ and in the same vein hypermalarial ideas are
similarly problematic when giving modern definitions of previous ill-
nesses of constitution when other mental maladies could just as easily
explain the sickness, but better explains the failure of veterans in civil life.
Before psychology, mental disorders went wholly untreated and would
have more often resulted in the general adaptation disorder identified
by Selye. Within today’s understanding of PTSD as a master catch-all
condition that explains all war-related mental illness, cases of fever in
relation to combat trauma help illustrate what Selye initially observed
about the body’s physiological reactions to stress in an era long before
the proliferation of psychology as an accepted scientific discipline.

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 Human Landscape of War  85

In a careful examination of the contentious suicide of Meriwether

Lewis (another failed Governorship after a harrowing adventure on
the frontier), James Holmberg cautiously accepted the necessity of
examining Lewis’s life in terms of manic depressive/bi-polar disorder.
He stated, “While we must be careful in assigning a modern diagnosis
to Lewis’s documented symptoms, it is also appropriate that we do so”
(Guice & Buckley, 2007, p. 20). This author finds the act of diagnosis
fruitless given the fact that a medical diagnosis’ purpose is to estab-
lish a regimen of treatment for a man who has long been dead, while
respecting Holmberg’s careful analysis of an early modern suicide in
relation to mania. However, by employing contemporary medical and
psychological understanding of illness historians can better understand
the intimate details of the life of early modern actors. The case of James
Miller illustrates the intrusive spectrum of PTSD symptoms that fully
reshaped his views about nature. This illustrates how the place of
combat, violence, or any life-threatening event will often be entangled
and negatively associated with those memories.
James Miller witnessed and participated in terrible acts of violence
on the frontier and would forever avoid and think negatively about it.
Joanne Bourke has observed that the language of trauma and PTSD
did not exist for men until the late 19th century and women until the
1960s (Bourke, 1996, 2009; Micale & Learner, 2001). Prior to Charcot’s
isolation of emotionally traumatic experiences through hypnosis, and
Freud’s expansion of this process, hysteria was linked to the uterus and
trauma was a word solely used to describe physical injuries. Examining
PTSD in a time that lacked a language to describe war as an emotional
rather than physical trauma is problematic at best, yet by examining
Miller’s completely oppositional temperament towards the environ-
ment, or more as he would say the climate, of the Arkansas Territory
provides an early modern example of the avoidance spectrum that
comes with PTSD even without the benefit of the language of emo-
tional trauma. Furthermore, examining the writing of participants
of the campaign fought by James Miller demonstrates a pattern, in
contradiction to the medical notions that trauma was solely injury, of
employing stoic descriptions of wounds, but detailed demonstrations
of illness and violence. Prior to the professionalization of psychology,
and science in general, the intuition of soldiers often provides better
records of psychological trauma than medical writing.

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 86  Joseph Miller

James Miller: A Case Study

James Miller: As New England’s Most

Distinguished Soldier (1808–1819)

James Miller’s performance during the War of 1812 was nothing short
of spectacular. He was awarded four Congressional Gold medals for
leading Bayonet Charges at Brownstown, Chippewa, Lundy’s Lane and
Fort Erie. Four ‘awards of the medal’ that preceded the Congressional
Medal of Honor are not equal in the US Military history. In 1850,
Hawthorne described him as New England’s most distinguished
soldier. His reputation was so great that he was named a Territorial
Governor, he easily won a Connecticut Congressional seat, and his vote
of approval and character statements about William Henry Harrison
in 1840 increased his credibility as a presidential candidate. Despite
his fanfare and popularity in the US during the early national period,
Miller has been largely lost to larger memory: save for the US Army’s
Fifth Infantry Regiments motto of “I’ll Try Sir” that commemorates
Miller’s charge at Lundy’s Lane.
His war record may be impressive, but the most inspiring thing
about James Miller was how frail and sick he was during his leader-
ship, all the while constantly inspiring his men through some of the
most difficult fighting on the frontier between the United States and
what would later confederate into Canada. ‘Ague’ was Miller’s term for
fevered reactions that are often assumed as solely the result of malarial
parasite, but a close analysis of Miller’s paroxysms illustrates that they
started after harrowing events in combat and that began with his first
exposures to violence. Private Adam Walker’s journal (1816) was pub-
lished with the name of his popular commander in the title. Walker
could not objectively resist the urge to commend James Miller, but his
account gave incredibly specific details of Miller’s bouts of sickness. His
first case of ague came with many other soldiers of the Fourth Infantry
Regiment after a cunning tribal warrior penetrated their perimeter
under cover of darkness. Walker would also describe his commander’s
collapse after a battle at the village of Maguaga, which the Americans
called Brownstown. This will be returned too, because Miller would
later describe the sickness as a result of being exposed to a storm, but
it is very much important to understand Walker’s perception of ague.

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 Human Landscape of War  87

Walker’s description of the ague is surprising because of how

much they differed from physical injuries. For Walker the ague was
something terrible, he like most soldiers was an exemplar of stoic
manhood, but this was different when it came to ague. Walker would
list the quotations of wounded men. “I received a wound and was
obliged to retire” is how Sergeant Orr responded after getting shot
by a musket at Tippecanoe, whereas Walker would describe the ague
in starker terminology (Walker, 1816, pp. 26–28). “We daily obliged
to wade the river and haul the boats after us over the rapids, which
occasioned of our men at the arrival of Vincennes, to be disordered
with that painful disease, the fever and ague” (Walker, 1816, p. 43).3
Walker would further describe how Miller performed the “duties of a
common soldier” to safeguard the health of his soldiers (Walker, 1816,
p. 43). It is important to note that for Walker, and we will see this later
in Miller’s descriptions, the environment caused the illness, but he lists
high sickness rates after harrowing river crossings, after a tribal war-
rior breached a perimeter, and after battles (Walker, 1816, pp. 17–18).
Contemporary actors believed they were afflicted by a sickness caused
by the frontier itself. So in a time when the only trauma was physical
injury and there was not yet a language for emotional trauma, a private
was upset with this commonly held medical idea. He described a sick-
ness that came in fevered fits directly after battles in harsher language
than actual physical traumas. Walker’s language illustrates how the ague
was something far more difficult to suffer from than a simple fever: a
harrowingly traumatic response to violence. Both Miller’s words and
in greater measure his life would challenge hypermalarial ideas about
the sickness he suffered until his last days, especially given the way it
changed his ideas about nature and the frontier.
For Miller, weather, climatological factors and summer in the fron-
tier would trigger his illness, and although it is clear that being exposed
to infected mosquitoes causes malaria, malaria will not explain the full
spectrum of climatological and traumatic triggers that exacerbated
Miller’s sickness. Any shell-shocked veteran understands how frighten-
ing lightening can become after combat. In general, being exposed to
a thunderstorm is intimidating, to say the least. The natural process of
static electricity building and building into a sudden boom is palpable.

3River crossings persist as one of the most dangerous aspect of US Ranger training in both
the Mountain and Swamp phases of the Ranger qualification course.

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 88  Joseph Miller

The silence just before a strike is equally intimidating, but it is never

understood in terms of how similar it is to being exposed to combat in
the early 19th century. The silent pause and the waiting for the static
build-up to a load explosion is akin to the tension and sense of time
moving slowly that occurred in the ranks when units stood face to face
and fired volleys at each other. Worse the war on the northern fron-
tier was characterized by ambushes to movements, so the exposure to
combat would be similar to being caught in a storm. Miller’s veterans of
Tippecanoe would fall victim to ague again after the Battle of Maguaga.
At the trial of Miller’s commander, General William Hull, it was stated
that the sickness occurred because of a storm that occurred on the march,
but it was the second time Miller fell sick after a battle. Miller confirmed
the proximity of the battle to his illness, “The men were very much sick,
and fatigued. I had a relapse of ague the day after the battle” (Forbes,
1814, p. 171). So, it is not only natural to assume that men would attach
the sickness to storms rather than combat because of the similarities
between such a storm and the combat that characterized their campaign.
It is not coincidental that Miller fell ill after a tribal warrior attacked his
perimeter and then following the leading of a bayonet charge, yet these
traumatic experiences before the language of emotional trauma would
be expressed in terms of an aversion to the climate, weather and the
environment from the very outset of their campaign until their descrip-
tions in later life. The New England regiment’s culture merged with a
painful disorder that they could not quite understand, but that was in
ways worse than physical injuries, in a way that made the frontier itself
seem dangerous. Miller would bring this aversion to his leadership in
Arkansas, but only after one of the most impressive examples of courage,
leadership and daring in the American military history.
What is most impressive about the interaction with William Hull
during his court martial was Miller’s recognition of his own infirmity
and his determination to fight despite it. Trials in which accused defend
themselves often have intense moments of confrontation and Miller’s
commander’s trial did not disappoint. After admitting his illness and
those of his men, Miller essentially called his commander a coward for
not ordering them to fight anyways. When asked if his commander’s
actions to safeguard the health of Miller’s regiment were justified and
not cowardice, Miller stated, “Yes! Such an immediate surrender I
think was indicative of a want of courage” (Forbes, 1814, p. 151). Miller
would continue to fight and earn his greatest laurels after his infirmity.

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 Human Landscape of War  89

James Miller: As the First Governor of Arkansas

Territory (1819–1824)

Despite his universal appeal to his soldiers, Miller’s service as the

Governor of the Arkansas Territory was far from laudable and he very
appropriately fostered contempt for his performance by the people of
Arkansas. This is largely because he was absent from the state more
often than he was present. During his tenure, including a tribal war,
Miller was in New England more than in the territory. For him the
climate was the source of his illness, and he would cite that precedence
from the very beginning until the very end of his tenure as the Governor.
He began his tenure in Arkansas by arriving late because as he stated in
1820, “I had spent the prime of life in the Service [Army]; my constitu-
tion was impaired by privation and exposure to the inclement seasons
of the North during the late war”. Again, Miller would cite his illness
as the result of weather and climate rather than repeated exposures to
combat. His tardy arrival would not be an isolated event. His absence
due to illness and his words in criticism of the Arkansas territory
still represent a strong historiographical tradition in Arkansas.The
two biographies of Miller’s tenure as the Governor highlight Miller’s
failure due to his aloof temperament and absenteeism. The Arkansas
Historical Quarterly has published two articles relating to Miller’s poor
performance as the territory’s first Governor. Ledbetter (1988) and
White’s (1960) articles both conclude that Miller’s absence from the
state for the majority of his term as the Governor led to his inevitable
failure. Both biographies cited Miller’s initial popularity and universal
acclaim, but maintained that his fear of illness influenced his absence
and decision to abandon the appointment. Further, the Arkansas
Historical Quarterly has published two of Governor Miller’s personal
letters to highlight his dislike of the frontier climate (Miller, 1820). In
this vein, Miller has become a symbol of the Arkansas Territory on the
periphery; a place that’s first federally appointed Governor despised.
The focus employed in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly recognized
Miller’s failings and sickness, but made no effort to reconcile that with
Miller’s success in the military.
In fact, the most thorough description of Miller’s ague is made in
his letter to “his friend in Peterboro” found in the Arkansas Historical
Quarterly (1820). He described the difficulties of understanding

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 90  Joseph Miller

persistent illness in the early 19th century, and his weakness due to the
ague that was “a slow bilious fever” (1820). His fever was persistent
and he was often incapacitated by constant illness, yet he never suc-
cumbed to disease. Miller stated, “Very few deaths occur by disease,
but people remain weak and fit for nothing for a long time” (1820).
As a romantic writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne would use more creative
language to state that Miller and other veterans were “by no means less
liable than their fellow-men to age and infirmity, they had evidently
some talisman or other that kept death at bay” (Hawthorne, 1850,
p. 24). The talisman was simply the fact that their illnesses were somatic
expressions of trauma, and were not as likely to result in death. Miller
was struggling to reconcile his constant illness that incapacitated him
without taking his life.
Miller’s performance would continue to suffer and he remained at
his New England home for most of the duration of his governorship.
During Miller’s absence in the summer of 1821, he neglected to name a
“Sub-Agent either to the Quapaws or Cherokees”, and when war broke
out between the Cherokee and Osages the acting governor, Robert
Crittenden, was left without any instructions. Miller was an increas-
ingly aloof figure, but he understood the dangers of such a conflict.
In a letter that Miller sent to Calhoun he concluded that without the
intervention of the federal government to amend the Jackson-Hinds
treaty that “if it passes in its present shape the Territory is destroyed
forever (sic)” (Carter, 1953). During the winter and early spring,
Miller’s role as the Chief of Indian affairs was marked by conflicts,
yet when he returned to New England, he left no successor (Miller,
1820). The Army Commander, Major William Bradford, spoke of
Miller’s absence without guidance on the impending war by stating,
“War will exist this summer unless I take hand with them” (1820).
Bradford was left without guidance on how to settle an impending
war while Miller traveled home. A man, who earlier condemned his
commander’s cowardice for recalling Miller, due to illness, was now
leaving his territory at the outset of tribal warfare. No persistent fever
could explain this slow progression of behavior to avoid conflict better
than the progression of PTSD-related avoidance symptoms that occur
with continued misuse of the HPA axis (DSM-5). Again for Miller, it
was a result of frontier climate and summer.
Miller and his contemporaries regularly cited climatological factors
as the cause of his illness and reclusive behaviour. As the Governor
in 1820, Miller suffered sickness when travelling on the “Arkansas”

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 Human Landscape of War  91

river. Climatological factors were cited as the cause of Miller’s sickness

at General Hull’s court-martial, and in the writing of Adam Walker,
as well as in Miller’s speech to the Arkansas legislature, in all of his
requests for leaves or absences from the Arkansas territory, and in his
decision to step down as the Governor (Forbes, 1814; Walker, 1816).

James Miller: As Collector of Customs in Salem,

Massachusetts (1824–1849)

Perhaps the best account of Miller’s affliction following the War of 1812
was in the “Custom-House” introduction of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
(1981) The Scarlet Letter. Notably, this was a nonfictional account,
with obvious stylistic license and political bias, and Hawthorne utilized
information about the men of the Custom-House gained from his
entire life in the small town of Salem rather than solely from his tenure
at the Custom-House. It is not the sort of essay that lends itself to charts
and empirical methodology; however, its sentiment and expression of a
novelist, who challenged the values of his own generation, are valuable.
For Hawthorne, Miller was an old reclusive soul who became increas-
ingly aloof, because of his bayonet charges and not his age. He used the
metaphor of the old, deteriorated and overgrown Fort Ticonderoga.
Miller still had all the essential aspects of the fort intact, yet with time
and without necessity for such attributes had decayed. Long before
science was a profession, Hawthorne would grasp that Miller’s skills in
battle were still immersed into the older man, yet without that danger
it had become cumbersome. However, this would not even be his best
metaphor describing PTSD.
For Hawthorne, Miller’s service in combat was both admirable and
burdensome, yet it was onerous in precisely the way PTSD is under-
stood today. Hawthorne would describe Miller’s performance posi-
tively by stating that the “benevolence, which, fiercely led the bayonets
on at Chippewa or Fort Erie, I take to be of quite as genuine a stamp as
what actuates any or all the polemic philanthropists of the age” (1850,
p. 32). What is most revealing was that Miller’s wartime service was
arduous long after the fact. According to Hawthorne Miller’s “earlier
days; of integrity, that, like most of his other endowments lay in a
somewhat heavy mass, and was just as unmalleable and unmanable as
a ton of iron ore” (1850, 32). This precisely describes the prognosis of

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 92  Joseph Miller

untreated PTSD in that the hippocampus, or the part of the brain that
controls conscious/declarative memory, is damaged progressively by
the overuse of adrenal chemicals (Karl et al., 2006). In his description
of PTSD, Jonathan Shay used remarkable similar terms to describe lost
declarative memory. Shay stated that “the veteran has lost authority
over his own process of memory” (Shay, 1994, p. 38) and Hawthorne’s
recognition of Miller’s burdens grasped this struggle long before there
was a named medical condition (Shay, 1994). Hawthorne both under-
stood and observed a phenomenon before scientific understanding
codified it. He also understood how it shaped James Miller’s sense of
nature and to a lessor extent his masculinity.
In his description of Miller in terms of the metaphor of Fort
Ticonderoga, Hawthorne recognized Miller’s affinity for the cultivation
and aroma of domesticated flowers. The idealized image of a man who
“had slain men with his own hand”, yet had a great “fondness for the
sight of fragrance of flowers” (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 32). Hawthorne
challenged the laurels of bloody battle and the image of “New England’s
most distinguished soldier” who also “seemed to have a young girl’s
appreciation of the floral tribe” (1850, pp. 23, 33). Hawthorne’s meta-
phor of “Old Ticonderoga” captured the complexity of Miller’s life in
a way that understood the aftermath of war and the complexities of
trauma in Miller’s memory. Hawthorne claimed that “Nature” did
not “adorn the human ruin with blossoms of new beauty, that have
their roots in the chinks and crevices of decay, as she sows wall-flowers
over the ruined fortress of Ticonderoga” (1850, p. 32). It is with this
recognition that Miller’s decline and longing for beauty stemmed from
the decay to his health brought on by his leadership during the War of
1812 that Hawthorne recognized how his life was forever enriched by
being “brought into the habits of companionship” of Miller.

Analysis of James Miller’s Case

Miller suffered from somatization of PTSD into an extreme form of

general adaptation disorder, when understood in terms of Jonathan
Shay’s research on PTSD. Shay argues that “simple combat PTSD is
best understood as the persistence into civilian life of valid adaptations
to combat” (Shay, 2002, p. 40). That is to say that in combat PTSD is

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 Human Landscape of War  93

useful: overuse of the process that manages the chemical cortisol, which
is usually understood as adrenaline that becomes less useful when the
same reactions are attached to other reminders of the traumatic experi-
ence (Ozzer & Weiss, 2004). The most common intrusive symptom
being similar environment, or climatological factors, so Miller’s and
his regiments continued high performance, but hatred of the frontier
are better understood as a result of traumatic emotional experiences.
The writings of Miller’s contemporaries confirm this as well. Walker
and the accounts he quoted used few words describing the injuries,
but he would describe the emotion of the violence on the frontier like
no second hand observer could.

To attempt a full and detailed account of this action, or portray to the

imagination of the reader the horrors attendant on this sanguinary conflict
far exceeds my powers of description. The awful yell of the savages, seeming
rather the shrieks of despair, than the shouts of triumph, the tremendous
roar of musketry, the agonizing screams of the wounded and dying, added
to shouts of the victors, mingling in tumultuous uproar, formed a scene that
can be better imagined than described. (Walker, 1816, pp. 24-25)

So in a time that preceded the language of emotional trauma soldiers

from New England were defying the period’s definition of traumatic
experience by favouring constitutional illness and emotionally draining
experience to physical injuries in their writing. An anonymous account
stated, “The wounded leaped at the idea that they would soon have
an opportunity of avenging their wrongs, and besought the surgeons
to report them fit for duty” (An Ohio Volunteer, 1812, p. 58). Yet,
they still fought and were highly embittered by General Hull’s sur-
render at the Battle of Detroit. Malaria does not make soldiers sick
and ­incapable in battle, but PTSD should precisely do that. So, in this
case, it is unwise to assume that all cases of fever were the fevers of the
20th century. The best evidence would come after the wars end, just
as Shay maintains today, and this is where Miller’s ideas about the
environment are most visible.
This association of a fever caused by the environment was also pres-
ent in a contemporary medical article by Dr Chambers. He described a
case of persistent fever that was also caused by climatological factors. In
patients who struggled with quinine overdose, ague symptoms recurred
again in consequence of an exposure to a cold breeze, while on a boating
excursion (Chambers, 1846). This also confirms the repeated research

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 94  Joseph Miller

projects of Harvard cultural psychologist Devon Hinton who has seen

malarial fits as masking PTSD as well as Cinchonism cause by Quinine-
sulfate overdoses subjects with unidentified PTSD in regions that share
malarial risk factors and a lack of awareness of PTSD (Hinton, Pham,
Chau, & Tran, 2003; Hinton, Pich, Chhean, & Pollack, 2004). This
illustrates how climate can come to personify the triggering symptoms
common in PTSD as well as providing a rationale for a culturally
accepted ailment caused by the forces of nature (DSM-5). It is not a
matter of coincidence that Miller happened to suffer from the same
fits of ague during a settlement of tribal warfare on the frontier, and
that Miller subsequently selected the summer months to retire to his
home in New England in order to avoid sickness. It is still common for
veterans to suffer their worst symptoms of PTSD in the anniversaries
of traumatic experiences (US Veterans Administration, 2013). The
Arkansas frontier in the summer shared climatological similarities with
Miller’s battles with the Shawnee on the Ohio frontier. Miller’s ague
and his fears of illness during a similar period represent the intrusive
triggering symptoms common in PTSD. His behaviour demonstrated,
“Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the traumatic event(s)”
present in cases of PTSD, and served as culturally accepted means for
men to express symptoms of mental illness during the early nineteenth
century (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Micale, 2008).
The dissonance, between Miller’s heroic military career, and his
governorship, was present in the writing of Ledbetter (1988). He
quotes the Arkansas Gazette that stated, “We regret to learn that the
health of our gallant and worthy Governor is still impaired but we can
hardly believe that it is owing to the unhealthy climate of Arkansas”
(Ledbetter, 1988, p. 110). It was certain to individuals in Arkansas that
fear of more fits of illness was causing Miller to avoid his responsibili-
ties despite Walker’s description of an officer who shared “the duties
of the common soldier”. Miller may have cited the climate of Arkansas
as his reason to seek election as a Connecticut Congressman, only to
reject the position in order to take over the role of an obscure custom
collector in Salem Massachusetts (Ledbetter, 1988, p. 111). His anxiety
about his health pushed him to fully withdraw from politics, yet it
never prevented him from being a leader who inspired his soldiers in
combat. For Miller, the frontier was a dangerous place, but only after
the war ended did such fears of his health influence his performance.
This illustrates how war’s effects usually are not visible until the danger

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 Human Landscape of War  95

subsides, and manifest themselves as something entirely different.

Freud would later call these precedence defense mechanisms to avoid
the actual sources of emotional trauma (Goodwin, 2011). For Miller, it
was the climate of the frontier in the summer months, largely because
the northern frontier only offered combat during the summer months.
Importantly, these apprehensions about the climate were only limiting
after the danger subsided because they verify the research of Jonathan
Shay (Shay, 2002). Miller’s regiment and Walker’s careful addition
of accounts of those that suffered wounds in battle make it apparent
that in this case PTSD’s intrusive spectrum of symptoms reinforced
cultural sensibilities of New Englanders. The frontier was an inherently
dangerous place.
Miller’s affinity to domesticated nature was oppositional to the wild
frontier that caused his illness. This desire to cultivate and understand
a nature that bore little resemblance to the source of violent acts wit-
nessed by Miller should be viewed in terms of its own unique set of
experiences [B = ƒ (P, E)], as well as the more common story of soldiers
struggling to redefine place following the experience of warfare. The
nature of Miller’s exposures to violence as well as the places, seasons
and climates during the exposures were significant influences of his
sense of place. Miller’s primary observers and every one of his biogra-
phers have recognized this opposition of the frontier: a point of view
certainly reinforced New England understandings of the wilderness,
but was also greatly shaped by the experience of combat.

Understanding Miller’s Contemporary Frontier

Governors in Context

Within a case study it is a fair criticism to note how one life might not
speak of a common story (though that seems less justified within a topic
that explores something like human physiology in relation to traumatic
emotional experience); so it is important to recognize other individuals
with similar experiences. Through a brief look at some of Miller’s peer
frontier Governors, it becomes apparent that others were shaped in
similar ways: accounting for the difference and idiosyncrasies of indi-
viduals. Briefly understanding of the failure of General and Michigan
Territorial Governor William Hull, the suicide of Meriwhether Lewis

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 96  Joseph Miller

and the death of William Henry Harrison strengthen the dialogue about
Miller’s life and provide better understanding of how violence on the
frontier affected individuals differently. It also casts a strong glimpse
about ideology relating to the wild and masculinity.
The ill advised speech made by William Henry Harrison without
the benefit of coat in his inauguration has been a comical, albeit actu-
ally very tragic, item of trivia pertaining to the American Presidency.
However, it should be understood in terms of medical ideology about a
person’s constitution. Unlike Harrison’s peer, and friend James Miller,
he had never succumbed to any persistent constitutional illness. For
Harrison, his life perfectly fit into the ideals of virile masculinity and
medical ideology about his constitution (Chambers, 1846; Hindle,
1843; Hunter, 1841). War and exposure on the frontier had not weak-
ened him but only made him stronger. During a time before germ
theory, a man who had largely escaped most of the age’s illness through
isolation on the frontier weakened his immune system by giving a long
speech in the cold without a jacket: a mistake that cost him his life. For
Harrison, violence made him confident with unrealistic expectations
of himself that he could be exposed to anything and come out stronger
and in a less forgiving time period he lost his life. If he had survived in
the wild how could he die in a city?
The still controversial suicide of Meriwhether Lewis, pertinent to
Lewis and Clark expedition, is perhaps the most dramatic example of
a frontier governor’s failure. After a political controversy and the loss
of his papers regarding his famous exploration, Lewis was described by
all first-hand accounts as psychotic and self-destructive. On his jour-
ney he brutally killed himself, at least according to everyone present.
Scholars have highlighted this in terms of mania, and the frustrations
of dealing with politics, yet they often overlook a key aspect of why
such a journey would be difficult. It was another journey through the
wilderness for a man that had expressed great anguish about rewrit-
ing his reports of his first expedition, and this is never interpreted as
something that triggered memories of one of the most perilous journeys
in the American history. The drunkenness and soul-loathing torrent
that occurred prior to his death could just as easily be explained as
self medicating through the avoidance spectrum of PTSD as it could
through mania: mania itself has strong comorbidity with PTSD. Lewis
was certainly armed like a man who dreaded such a journey, so it is
important to note that he was expressing the same sort of anxiety about
the wilderness expressed by Miller, but just through arming himself to

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 Human Landscape of War  97

the teeth and drinking himself into depression-laden stupors. Again,

the diagnosis is less useful than recognizing how danger on the fron-
tier was shaping the actions of these individuals, and the same kind
of aversion to a dangerous region could be expressed in very different
ways by different people. In all cases, we can see how violence shaped
the understanding of place (Guice & Buckley, 2007).
Last, it is important to discuss Miller’s commander, William Hull.
One because of the way that Miller’s criticism of Hull could have been
just as easily leveled against his own governorship, but also because of
the way that Hull expressed his own failure. William Hull presided over
an embarrassing failure by surrendering 2,500 soldiers to a force of 1,200
(Forbes, 1814). This contentious surrender is still a hotly debated histo-
riographical tradition with some scholars supporting Hull’s surrender.
The problem with this support is that it often supports Hull’s racist
logic for surrender, or at least fails to criticize it. For Hull, he had to
surrender his force because he felt that Native Americans could not con-
trol their bloodlust and that the civilians sheltering inside the fortress
would be slaughtered. In fact, he felt that tribes of North Amerindians
were the most ferocious force imaginable. In his explanation for his
surrender to the Secretary of War, he stated, “The bands of savages
which had joined the British force were numerous and beyond any
former example. Their numbers have since increased, and the history
of the Barbarians of North Europe does not furnish examples of more
greedy violence than these savages exhibited” (as cited in Hall, 1824).
Again, an individual’s understanding of the people of a hostile space,
being inhumanly vicious and unstoppable force, better represents the
tendency for veterans to view the world as an inherently and constantly
dangerous place than the cool calculated decision of a General who had,
in the Revolution, fought tribal opponents without the same ominous
over representation of their ability. Although this author (Miller, 2012)
has argued in the past that Hull’s failure is better explained by PTSD,
it is also important to note how the redefinition of oppositional space
following his service in the American Revolution influenced his aversion
to tribal opponents, as well as justifiably criticizing a school of thought
that supports Hull’s racist logic by highlighting the subsequent mas-
sacre at Raisin River without context and as if Hull was predisposed to
such foreknowledge (Gilpin, 1958). It is more important to note how
the intrusive spectrum of PTSD symptoms encouraged pre-existing
cultural prejudice by created grossly poor estimations of the capability
and savagery of tribal opponents.

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 98  Joseph Miller

Miller, like other frontier governors in the early national period

whose life and leadership were influenced by violence, each expressed
an aversion to the wild frontier differently. Miller consistently avoided
it at first through somatic manifestation of an illness that originally
occurred after battle, by retiring to an easier existence, and finally
through a redefined sense of space found in a child-like affinity to
flowers. Lewis became so overwhelmed on a journey that he drank
himself into unhealthy stupors and ultimately killed himself. William
Hull changed his views on the people of the frontier after the American
Revolution and subsequently surrendered to a force much smaller
than his own. Harrison perfectly expressed views about masculinity
that believed that danger and wilderness made men stronger, only to
tragically die in an outward expression of his vigorous nature. Each
man exhibited changed views about the frontier because of violence
they experienced on it.
The recognition of Miller’s and his peer soldier governors’ redefini-
tions of place and aversion to the frontier not only strengthened the
understandings of PTSD prior to the language of trauma, but has also
enabled better understanding how war has shaped the American land-
scape. Significant changes to the United States have occurred following
major conflicts. For years, the cultivation of crops was thought to be an
excellent place for soldiers to toil by turning their swords into plow-
shares. George Washington is perhaps the best arbiter of this trend, but
its climax occurred in the land grant institutions that shared military
training and agricultural education following the Civil War as well the
use of farming in veteran homes in order to help struggling veterans
return to civil life. Expats such as Ernest Hemingway’s rejection of his
nation almost entirely, and redefinition of values in eastern terms, is
a well-understood reaction to the trenches of the WWI (Hemingway,
1929; Maugham, 1946). Many scholars have pondered why suburbs
dominated the post Second World War (WWII) landscape because
there was nothing that predated it (Rome, 2001). This new space of
life could also be a generation’s similar expression of aversions to the
cities, towns and wilderness where they fought the largest conflict in
history. Vietnam veterans, like others in their generation, have sought
the open road through the freedom of powerful motorcycles and seek
a mechanized nomadic existence (Veterans of Vietnam MC, n.d.). Iraq
and Afghanistan war veterans have come to despise the roads that car-
ried improvised explosive attacks. Charities committed to trail running

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 Human Landscape of War  99

camps are growing larger everyday (Team Red White and Blue, n.d.).
With hope this generation’s aversion for urban combat may help surge
a new base of advocacy for conservation, and non-urban space.

The Human Landscape: Reshaping Mind,

Negotiating Site

Hans Selye and Kurt Lewin were two of the many scholars who tried
to understand human experience in relation to the theories of Charles
Darwin. It is no mystery how such theories are built on adaptations to
the environment. Still, Lewin’s complicated life space includes cultural
phenomenon into his psychological equation. By understanding a
singular phenomenon at its core, such as the difficult reintegration
of soldiers or PTSD in relation to both the environmental factors
that caused the condition and the cultural background of the soldiers
provides an excellent mechanism to understand culture and trauma.
There is often conflict between ideals for soldiers and the realities of
warfare’s aftermath, but this dissonance breaks down the ideas of an
age in a way that makes them more visible for scholars. Moreover,
when narrowing the search even further to how these conflicts occur in
relation to conceptualizations of nature it becomes apparent just how
significant something like PTSD or normative physiological and psy-
chological reactions to danger have made to the landscape of America.
The human body is also seen as a landscape that is both affected by
environmental factors as well an agent that impacts the environment.
Specifically, soldiers as the common arbiter or archetypes of masculine
ideals reshape ideas about landscape and the landscape itself as a result
of the common renegotiation of home and place that occurs after
sustained exposure to combat and danger. The wars themselves and
the way they are fought bring the greatest influence to these changed
beliefs about land in a Darwinist-adaptive drive to avoid images and
places that remind soldiers of danger that they have survived. In every
generation the veterans most emotionally affected by conflict reshape
their space or favor residence in spaces that bare the least resemblance
of the horrors of their burdensome memories of combat. The mind
itself is reshaped by war in ways that often reshape the land around it.

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 100  Joseph Miller

Conclusion

Combat trauma, often exchanged with PTSD, is not the legacy of World
Wars. Rather similar symptoms were reported even before World Wars
but unfortunately, they were either not recorded or were undermined
in the name of cowardice. Within today’s understanding of PTSD
as a master catch-all condition that explains all war-related mental
illnesses, cases of fever in relation to combat trauma help illustrate
what has initially been observed about the body’s physiological reac-
tions to stress in an era long before the proliferation of psychology as
an accepted scientific discipline. Presence of such symptoms signifies
the effect of war on its participants. War changes the perception of
landscapes for its soldiers. Examining Miller’s completely oppositional
temperament towards the environment explains how and why many
military heroes fail in civil life. War climate can subsequently trigger
symptoms common to PTSD which in turn insist the soldier to change
his perception about his landscape. Clearly, it signifies how mind
itself is reshaped by war in ways that often reshape the land around
it. Besides the ecological landscape, the human body can also be seen
as a landscape that is affected by both environmental factors and acts
like an agent that affects the environment. In a contemporary scenario,
anticipating these perceptual changes in soldiers before or after the
actual combat would strengthen their preparedness, as well as gear
them up for healthy reintegration with the environment. Obviously,
erstwhile significance of combat stress management stands in current
conflicts also and will be a requisite for future as well because it is the
soldier who pays a heavy price for all the conflicts he is engaged in.

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 5
Stereotype Threat and Marksmanship
Performance

Emerald M. Archer

Scholarship shows that negative stereotypes have the power to under-

mine the performance of various social groups in a myriad of contexts.
In an attempt to understand the impact of negative stereotypes about
female Marines on their military performance, a theoretical approach
is adopted here to illustrate that stereotype threat (ST) is both relevant
to women in the United States Marine Corps (USMC) context and may
have specific negative consequences on female Marines. This chapter
presents a possible model for the application of ST theory within the
military domain to explain women’s underperformance in tasks of
marksmanship. The power of contextual cues on USMC performance
is real and may have implications for the health of the American All
Volunteer Force (AVF).

ST Theory and its Relevance to

US Female Marines

ST is a phenomenon defined as a “social-psychological threat that arises

when one is in a situation or doing something for which a negative
stereotype about one’s group applies.” Claude Steele, the pioneer of
ST research, goes on to say:

This predicament threatens one with being negatively stereotyped, with

being judged or treated stereotypically, or with the prospect of conforming
to the stereotype. Called stereotype threat, it is the situational threat—a
threat in the air—that, in general form, can affect the members of any group
about whom a negative stereotype exists (e.g., skateboarders, older adults,

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 104  Emerald M. Archer

White men, gang members). Where bad stereotypes about these groups
apply, members of these groups can fear being reduced to that stereotype.
And for those who identify with the domain to which the stereotype is
relevant, this predicament can be threatening. (Steele, 1997, p. 614)

This definition highlights the fact that for a negative stereotype to be

threatening, it must be self-relevant. Steele details, as complementary
to his definition, three conditions that must be present in order for ST
to take place. First, there must be widespread awareness of the nega-
tive stereotype associated with one’s group. A second condition, an
individual’s identification with the relevant domain, must also exist.
Degree of individual identification, or how much an individual stakes
their self-image on particular task or ability, will render individuals
prone to or safe from ST. Research demonstrates that more highly
domain-identified individuals are most vulnerable to ST because their
self-regard is wrapped up in the successful completion of the task
(Aronson et al., 1999; Leyens et al., 2000; Stone, 2002; Stone et al.,
1999). Finally, ST will only occur when a negative stereotype is relevant
to the individual during a domain performance situation.
All conditions of ST are satisfied for female Marines within the
USMC domain. First, there is widespread awareness that service-
women are generally negatively stereotyped. Literature based on the
military context, for example, shows that men are perceived to be
more competent leaders than women. In a study including 288 West
Point cadets, Rice, Bender and Vitters (1980) constructed mixed male
and female problem-solving groups and measured the attitudes of
male cadets towards their female counterparts. In groups composed
of males who had progressive attitudes towards female leadership,
there was no difference between problem-solving group performance
and “follower satisfaction” between male and female-led groups
(Chemers, 1997). In groups that held traditional attitudes that were
hostile towards female military leadership, the groups led by females
performed less effectively than those led by male cadets. Males in
the latter groups were also dissatisfied with the leadership the female
cadets provided. Moreover, Boldry, Wood and Kashy (2001) inves-
tigated the perceptions of ROTC cadets regarding men and women.
Individual evaluations of ROTC cadets (men and women) show that
more men than women are believed to have the leadership qualities
for effective military performance. Women are also believed to have

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 Stereotype Threat and Marksmanship Performance  105

more feminine qualities that impair the effectiveness of military per-

formance. These investigations demonstrate that servicemen imagine
women as generally less competent military leaders, and as a conse-
quence, women’s service and membership within the community are
seen as less valuable.
Second, servicewomen are also likely to be highly identified with
their role in the Armed Forces since they have self-selected into the
community. The AVF, as the name suggests, accepts men and women
who meet the standards of a particular service branch. Women who
choose to join the USMC are certainly atypical. Generally, these women
are confident in their abilities, physically fit, opinionated and ready
to accept the challenge that the USMC can provide. Female Marines
cite many reasons for joining, but regardless of their reasoning, they
knowingly join a community that mandates their minority status and
promotes traditional gender roles. Women recognize these obstacles
before they join, and many of them are motivated to work hard to
overcome them. This prove ‘em wrong mentality may actually render
women more vulnerable to ST because every performance counts—
that is, in order to be fully accepted by male counterparts, they have
to continually raise the bar. This pressure, unique to servicewomen in
the Armed Forces, could be at the heart of their underperformance.
Finally, stereotypes impugning the competence of female Marines
apply to several domain performance situations within the Marine
Corps. Women in Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) that require
mechanical knowledge will have to perform their duties in the face of
stereotypes that suggest women know very little about automotive
and aeronautical mechanics. In deployed situations, servicewomen
may engage in firefights with the enemy. Here, two stereotypes may
be relevant: (a) that women are not physically and emotionally strong
enough to engage the enemy, and (b) women are not as skilled at
using firearms as their male counterparts. Negative stereotypes that
characterize women as incompetent Marines are often relevant to the
jobs and tasks women are responsible for completing. As a result, the
risk of confirming a stereotype as self-characteristic rises. Equally in
domains of marksmanship, the risk of confirming a negative stereotype
rises considerably for female Marines.

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 106  Emerald M. Archer

USMC Marksmanship Qualifications: A Possible

Domain of Underperformance?

Female Marines have been successful in both deployed and stateside

arenas. Although many women do excel in the “most masculine of
traditions” (Keegan, 1993), female Marines generally underperform
relative to their male counterparts while qualifying on a firearm.1
Every Marine, at the recruiting stage and as they progress through the
enlisted ranks, qualifies annually on an M-16 service rifle. Data from
Fiscal Year (FY) 1999 provided by Marine Corps Recruiting Depot-
West (MCRD-West) illustrates their underperformance.
Table 5.1 shows that a much higher percentage of females do not
pass their initial qualification as compared to male recruits during
boot camp. Said another way, the first time they qualify on the rifle
after learning marksmanship fundamentals, only 68 per cent of female
Marines pass the qualification. The “initial qualification” data account
for an argument that suggests women have less experience with firearms
than males do when they join the USMC. Having said that, female
recruits continue to underperform relative to their male counterparts
after completing 13 weeks of basic training. By the final qualification
during basic training, 97 per cent of female recruits pass the marks-
manship qualification. The remaining three per cent do not pass, and
are subsequently dropped from the programme. One hundred per
cent of males in FY 2009 graduated basic training. Furthermore, there
are more highly skilled males than females represented in Table 5.1.
More males than females are given the grade of expert and s­ harpshooter.
Meanwhile, over half of the female population received the grade of
marksman, which is the lowest scoring category.
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) data provided by the
Department of the Navy in 2008 corroborates the aforementioned
trends. Data analysis for 1000 Marines shows that for those ranked
Private, Private First-Class and Lance Corporal, the mean rifle score for
men is 207, whereas the mean rifle score for women is 195. However,

1Servicewomen generally underperform relative to their male counterparts on the Armed

Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) examination and tests of physical strength.

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 Stereotype Threat and Marksmanship Performance  107

Table 5.1
Marksmanship data

Men Women
(n = 35,000) (n = 3,000)
Initial Qualification (%) 88 68
Experts (%) 23 15
Sharpshooters (%) 28 17
Marksman (%) 49 65
Total (%) 100 97
Source: Marine Corp Recruiting Depot—Parris Island.

data received for male and female Non-Commissioned Officers

(NCOs) did not include actual marksmanship scores. Data were pro-
vided for each randomly selected NCO in the form of grades—marks-
man, sharpshooter and expert. In order to best assess average scoring,
marksman, sharpshooter and expert categories were rated as one, two
and three, respectively. When averages were calculated, female NCOs
had a mean rifle and pistol score of 2.28 and 1.81, respectively. Male
NCOs, on the other hand, have a mean rifle and pistol scores of 2.73
and 2.31, respectively. Even though actual qualification scores were not
provided in the data set, it is still obvious that women underperform
in marksmanship qualification. The 2008 FOIA data, along with the
marksmanship data provided by MCRD-West, illustrate that female
Marines generally underperform relative to their male counterparts
in tasks of marksmanship.
Despite what the data suggest, many scholars posit that women are,
in fact, better shooters than males. Laura Miller claims that the ‘actual
common knowledge is that women make better sharpshooters than
men do’. She states that women typically perform better than their male
counterparts because they take the time to aim carefully, and allow for
breathing adjustments. Men, on the other hand, “just want to blast
quickly over and over again” (Miller, 2008; personal communication).
Ben Dolan, a former Marine sniper, claims that

women can shoot better, by and large, and they’re easier to train because
they don’t have the inflated egos that a lot of men bring to [rifle range]…
Women will ask for help if they need it, and they will tell you what they
think. (as cited in Wan, 2006)

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 108  Emerald M. Archer

Overall, evidence from several sources shows that women underper-

form relative to their male counterparts in the domain of marksman-
ship. Marksmanship, the domain under discussion here, may render
female Marines vulnerable to ST because of gendered stereotypes
related to firearms and the understanding that Marines are riflemen
through and through.
Before one can assess whether or not the domain of marksmanship
is threatening to female Marines, it is important to note that some
Marines have noticed women’s underperformance in marksmanship
and have taken strides to improve their performance. Chief Warrant
Officer William Tinney, a Marine who directed a rifle range at Parris
Island, spoke about his personal project launched in December 2007:
the creation of a rifle range dedicated to female recruits. He emphasized
that by building a community of trainers for women, those “trainers on
the range can establish an understanding for how females think”. The
creation of an exclusively female rifle range entailed establishing a com-
munity of coaches trying to improve women’s scores and an increased
coach: recruit ratio so that recruits would have more individualized
instruction. Between December 2007 and May 2008, Tinney’s range
pushed through 1300 female recruits. More amazing than this is the
fact that the rate of passed initial qualifications increased by 20 per cent.
Before the range was created, only 59 per cent of female recruits passed
their rifle qualification (personal communication, 2009). In 2009, 79
per cent of the female recruits who took their initial qualification at
this particular range passed. Although this improvement does not meet
CWO Tinney’s expectations (his expectations are to have all male and
female recruits a 95 per cent pass rate), this is a vast improvement and
could be associated with decreased anxiety resulting from having no
male recruits around for comparison.

Is the Marksmanship Domain Threatening to

Female Marines?

Marines will repeatedly say, “Every Marine is a rifleman”. Regardless

of age, gender or MOS, all Marines are trained to operate the M16-A2
service rifle during boot camp. This phrase is perhaps the Marine
Corps’ most widely known edict. It illustrates, in the most simplistic
terms, the Corps’ desire to infuse into every Marine the fighting spirit

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 Stereotype Threat and Marksmanship Performance  109

and ethos upon which the organization has relied for more than 227
years (Milks, 2003).
Everything revolves around the rifleman. “Marine Aviation, Marine
Armor, Marine Artillery, and all supporting arms and war-fighting
assets exist to support the rifleman” (Struckly, 2001). The saliency
of the rifleman is understood by the fact that every recruit repeats,
memorizes and ultimately lives by the Rifleman’s Creed. Authored by
Master General William H. Rupertus after the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor, the creed is as follows:

This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. It is my life.
I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my rifle is useless.
Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot
straighter than the enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before
he shoots me. I will. My rifle and I know that what counts in war is not the
rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, or the smoke we make. We know
that it is the hits that count. We will hit.
My rifle is human, even as I am human, because it is my life. Thus, I will
learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its
accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even
as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other.
Before God I swear this creed. My rifle and I are the defenders of my country.
We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.
So be it, until victory is America’s and there is no enemy. (Sturkey, 2003)

Marksmanship, the most fundamental of Marine Corps skills, is inex-

tricably bound to the identity of the Marine. It is so important that
all Marines, spanning combat and non-combat MOSs, qualify on the
rifle annually to ensure that their marksmanship skills are continually
practiced and refreshed.2 Because the identity of a Marine is bound to
competent marksmanships skills, all Marines take annual qualifications
seriously because their self-image as a successful Marine is contingent
upon a high marksmanship qualification score.
The Rifleman’s Creed illustrates the importance of marksmanship
in the USMC. In the domain of marksmanship, women are extremely
vulnerable to underperformance. Most female Marines acknowledge
the statistics—specifically, they know that more men are awarded

2Note that all enlisted personnel (E1–E5) qualify on a rifle, whereas NCOs (E6 and above)
and officers are issued pistols to qualify on.

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 110  Emerald M. Archer

grades of expert and sharpshooter than women. Women also recognize

that they are an obvious minority, only making up six per cent of the
USMC. Environmental cues such as a skewed gender ratio may put
additional pressure on women. Anxiety may also develop from feel-
ing the obligation to continually overperform in certain domains as a
tribute to female Marines before them. When a female First Lieutenant
was asked for her opinion on origins of female underperformance in
terms of marksmanship, she stated:

Subject 10: I shoot expert on the rifle and I shoot sharpshooter on

pistol. In terms of the pistol, I think there is…more
pressure for me to shoot better because it’s my [Table of
Organization]3 weapon. [And this pressure] is totally self
imposed… I’ll shoot expert on the pistol all week [until
I get to qualification day]. Most times, when I qualify on
the pistol, I miss expert by, like, ten points. Had I gotten
one more round in the 10 I would’ve [gotten expert].
Archer: Really?
Subject 10: It’s totally self-imposed. It’s like a mental block for me,
like, and it’s totally personal. It has nothing to do with the
fact that I’m a woman or who I’m shooting next to.
Archer: Where does that come from? Where does that pressure
come from do you think?
Subject 10: Oh, for me I know exactly where it comes from. I have this
horrible innate fear of failure, so sometimes I feel like, well,
I don’t wanna try super hard because if I give it my all and
I still fail, then what, you know?

Although anecdotal, the feeling Subject 10 expresses here—fear of

­failure—is an issue that several Marines commented on throughout
formal interviews and informal conversations (Subject 2). Moreover,
a female Major also expressed feeling added pressure on the rifle range
because she did not want to be responsible for giving other female
Marines a bad name. Beyond all this, female Marines who want to
be taken as serious, competent Marines understand that they have
to excel in the face of stereotypes that depict women as incompetent
riflemen. The burden they bear—the stress that results from the need
to disconfirm a negative stereotype that pertains to them—could
negatively affect the scores of female Marines everywhere.

3Table of Organization (TO) refers to the USMC assigned weapon. USMC officers are
assigned a 9-mm pistol. Marine Sergeants and below are assigned a rifle.

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 Stereotype Threat and Marksmanship Performance  111

Overall, the literature on performance effects of negative stereotyping

is rich and related to both race and gender. Empirical support demon-
strates that ST can affect members of many stereotyped social groups
and has explained female academic underperformance relative to men
(Steele, Reisz, Williams, & Kawakami, 2007), African-American academic
underperformance relative to Caucasian students (Steele & Aronson,
1995), the underperformance of Caucasian men compared to Asian-
American men on math tests (Aronson et al., 1999), and the academic
underperformance of Hispanic students wherein analytical ability was
measured (Gonzales, Blanton, & Williams, 2002). Beyond academic
domains, ST is described as negatively affecting homosexual men in
childcare domains (Bosson, Haymovitz, & Pinel, 2004), Caucasian male
athletes with respect to natural athletic ability (Stone, Lynch, Sjomeling,
& Darley, 1999), women in negotiation (Kray, Galinksy, & Thompson,
2002), and women with respect to their driving skills (Yeung & von
Hippel, 2002). The ST literature demonstrates that negative stereotypes
have the power to undermine performance for various social groups,
contexts and disciplines. Moreover, specific ST consequences exist that
may impact the female Marine personally and professionally.

Consequences of ST

ST is associated with a variety of negative consequences. A number

of scholars have replicated Steele and Aronson’s (1995) finding that
invoking group memberships associated with stereotypes can harm
performance on tasks in which poor performance might confirm ste-
reotypes (Stroessner, Good, & Webster 2008). Although the pioneering
studies focused on written test performance, subsequent research has
been applied to a diverse set of tasks and has examined a variety of
consequences. The following four consequences of ST (beyond decre-
ments in performance) will be discussed: (a) self-handicapping, (b)
reactance, (c) distancing the self from the stereotyped group and (d)
altering professional aspirations.4

4This review of the consequences of ST is based on the website created by Steven Stroessner,
Catherine Good, and Lauren Webster. The website, reducingstereotypethreat.org, was
created as a tool to help individuals understand ST as a social psychological phenomenon.

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 112  Emerald M. Archer

Self-handicapping

Self-handicapping is thought to be a defensive strategy individuals use

to provide attributions for failure on a particular task. Some individuals
construct barriers that undermine performance, and when an individ-
ual underperforms on a task, they can blame the barriers for that per-
formance rather than deficiencies in ability. If an individual performed
well despite the existence of such barriers, an improved evaluation of
their performance can be made on the basis of the individual’s ability
to overcome obstacles to performance (Stroessner, Good, & Webster,
2008). Consistent with the above remarks, research demonstrates
that ST may lead individuals to adopt more self-handicapping behav-
iour. Keller (2002) demonstrates that girls who perform poorly on a
mathematics examination under ST are more likely to invoke stress
they experienced before taking the examination. Steele and Aronson
(1995) illustrated similar behaviour in African–American students—­
specifically, the students under ST are more inclined to produce excuses
for their possible failure. Overall, ST might cause individuals to reduce
preparation time for examinations and expend less effort on the task.

Reactance

Contrary to the chief consequence of ST, decrements in performance,

ST can sometimes increase the quality of performance for targeted
individuals. Although the literature on stereotype reactance is small
compared to the literature on ST, Kray, Galinsky and Thompson
(2001) clearly demonstrated the phenomenon of reactance in didactic
negotiations.

Informing negotiators that stereotypically masculine traits predict perfor-

mance at the bargaining table and that these traits differ by gender led to
a counterintuitive outcome: Female negotiators outperformed their male
counterparts. Thus, instead of confirming and validating the connection
between gender and negotiation ability, women vitiated the negative ste-
reotype by reacting against it. More specifically, women who were told that
it is men who have the upper hand at the bargaining table identified with
counterstereotypic traits and set higher and more aggressive goals. The

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 Stereotype Threat and Marksmanship Performance  113

ability to marshal empowering cognitions in the face of what might seem

to be the worst performance conditions is all the more surprising given
that under most conditions, men do outperform women at the bargaining
table. (Kray et al., 2004, pp. 399–400)

The aforementioned example clearly shows that ST does not consis-

tently result in assimilation effects, the hallmark of ST. In the same 2001
study, Kray and her colleagues noted that explicitly recognizing that
the association between “stereotypically masculine traits and effective
negotiating is linked to gender differences” can produce an advantage
for women at the bargaining table (p. 401). This blatant activation of
gender stereotype is believed to limit the female negotiators’ ability
to perform, and thus, evokes stereotype reactance. Said another way,
reactance is the tendency to behave and respond in ways that are con-
tradictory to the relevant stereotype.
The work of Kray and her colleagues leads one to conclude that
the way in which stereotypes are activated determines the outcome of
an interaction—that is, assimilation effects (ST) and divergent effects
(reactance). Based on the result of previous research (Kray et al., 2001),
blatant activation of gender stereotypes leads female negotiators to
act counter to the relevant stereotype. In essence, explicit masculine
stereotype activation leads to disidentification with stereotypically
feminine traits, and in turn, compels women to set higher aspirations
for themselves as compared to implicit stereotype activation. Overall,
research suggests that “reactance processes likely result from stereo-
typically disadvantaged negotiators’ awareness that the stereotypical
perception of their ability is invalid in the current context, that both
negotiators are actually on a level playing field or that they themselves
hold a power-based advantage” (p. 401). In terms of negotiation, power
can be as simple as having the ability to walk away from the negotiation
table. If individuals do not internalize the aforementioned qualities,
they will likely assimilate and fall prey to ST. Also, reactance becomes
more likely when individuals are high achievers and capable in terms
of the relevant task (Kray, Reb, Galinsky, & Thompson, 2004; Kray,
Thompson, & Galinsky, 2001; Oswald & Harvey, 2001). As female
Marines self-select into the USMC, the type of personality the USMC
draws might be one that defies gender roles/stereotypes. Studies that
investigate this consequence in civilian settings could be applied to
the military context to test claims that servicewomen sometimes

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 114  Emerald M. Archer

outperform their male counterparts in some military tasks (e.g., Laura

Miller’s assessment that women are often better marksman than ser-
vicemen). Thus, this research illustrates that underperformance under
conditions of ST does not apply to every individual and is not inevitable.

Distancing the Self from the Stigmatized Group

ST also affects the degree to which individuals identify with activities

associated with their social group. Steele and Aronson (1995) illustrated
that African–Americans who underperform relative to their Caucasian
counterparts express “weaker preferences for stereotypically African
American activities such as jazz, hip-hop, and basketball” (Stroessner,
Good, & Webster, 2008). Distancing oneself from the stigmatized group
may reflect the desire to be viewed through a different lens—one that
does not incorporate racial stereotyping.
Identity bifurcation, a process that distances the self from the stig-
matized group, has been demonstrated in the case of women. Identity
bifurcation refers to the choice of emphasizing an unthreatened identity
over a threatened one. Pronin, Steele and Ross (2004) expressed that
women under ST deny their feminine traits that are strongly related
to the stereotype of women’s mathematic aptitude. However, these
women do not disavow their feminine traits that are mildly associated
with the stereotype. Most interesting is the finding that only women
who highly identify themselves with mathematics bifurcate their
identities in response to ST in the domain of mathematics. Overall,
stereotyped individuals will sometimes distance themselves from a
portion of their social identity that “bears the burden” of a negative
stereotype in order to protect their identity as a competent person in a
given domain. Distancing oneself from a negatively stereotyped group
is a strategy many female Marines use to improve self-esteem and
performance. In personal interviews, many female Marines mentioned
that it was important for them to be the best Marine they could be for
the trail blazing female Marines before them, while simultaneously
disassociating themselves with other “piece of shit” female Marines
(Archer, 2013).

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 Stereotype Threat and Marksmanship Performance  115

Altered Professional Aspirations

The last consequence of ST reviewed here—altered professional aspira-

tions—is clearly demonstrated in the social psychological literature. ST
can redirect a stereotyped individual’s career path and alter their profes-
sional identity. The literature on women in non-traditional domains is
particularly interesting in terms of this investigation. Steele, James and
Barnett (2002) showed that undergraduate women in male-dominated
departments (e.g., engineering, mathematics) report higher levels of
discriminatory behaviour, and that these women are more likely to
consider changing their major compared to their female counterparts
in traditionally female-dominated departments.
ST may also lead to women withdrawing from discussions relevant
to their majors. Murphy, Steele and Gross (2007) found that women
mathematics and science majors who viewed a discussion of math-
ematics and science topics in which males were numerically dominant
showed lowered interest in participating in such a discussion in the
future (Stroessner, Good, & Webster, 2008). Consistent with these
findings, Gupta and Bhawe (2007) reported that women express less
interest in entering a field that emphasizes the importance of stereo-
typically masculine traits. Altered performance expectations also exist
for women in the military. Because women are stereotyped against in
this particular environment, the standards that exist for women differ
greatly than those for men. The lowered performance expectations that
come from peers could negatively affect morale, lead servicewomen
to question their self-worth and may even result in prompting service
women to leave their subscribed service branch.
Research illustrates that stereotypes can cause targeted individuals
enough discomfort that they will eventually drop out of their current
domain and redefine their career goals, aspirations and identities.
Where women are concerned, if they avoid domains such as mathemat-
ics and science, they ultimately lose any opportunity to enter careers in
domains of engineering and technology. The literature is based almost
entirely on civilian populations and domains. This research could be
easily extended to the context of the Armed Forces to see how improve-
ments in performance, retention and satisfaction could be achieved.

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 116  Emerald M. Archer

Conclusion and Future Directions

This chapter explores one particular application of ST theory to explain

whether negative stereotypes about female Marines are powerful
enough to weaken marksmanship performance. The model presented
here is tested in an on-site experiment, which suggests that the threat is
real: decrements in performance for women under ST conditions were
subtle, yet significant (Archer, 2014). Because ST may threaten female
Marines in domains of marksmanship, it might also permeate to other
areas of Marine Corps performance. Stereotypes must be studied and
managed to ensure that military performance in various contexts is
maximized. As policymakers and military leadership investigate which
combat roles to open to American servicewomen, they should be aware
that social cues endemic to the institution could mask the true perfor-
mance potential of servicewomen. This, in turn, could ultimately lead
to the poor utilization of the fighting force.
Similarly, other developing countries such as India that are spear-
heading towards the inclusion of females in combat roles can take
necessary cognizance of the phenomenon in order to build up the
military capital for their respective nations.

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Gupta, V. K., & Bhawe, N. M. (2007). The influence of proactive personality and stereotype
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Milks, K. A. (2003). Ensuring ‘Every marine a rifleman’ is more than just a catch phrase.
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Stone, J., Lynch, C. I., Sjomeling, M., & Darley, J. M. (1999). Stereotype threat effects on black
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 6
Misconduct Behaviours in Armed Forces

Pankaj Kumar Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan*

The inherent brutality of war cannot be denied—some of humankind’s

worst and most shameful chapters have been written in theatres of
combat. While nursing on the Black Sea in 1855, the famed English
nurse Florence Nightingale wrote to her family:

What the horrors of war are, no one can imagine. They are not wounds and
blood and fever, spotted and low, or dysentery, chronic and acute, cold and
heat and famine. They are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralisation
and disorder on the part of the inferior… jealousies, meanness, indifference,
selfish brutality on the part of the superior.
(as cited in Vicinus & Nergard, 1989.)

If a historical appraisal of many major misconduct behaviours is

performed, and the origins of many of them are used as a basis for
conjecture, it can be theorized that perhaps there are certain pecu-
liarities of military life which predispose towards actions fitting the
definition of misconduct behaviour. Misconduct usually takes place
when coping mechanisms are either flawed or inadequate. A degree of
understanding regarding this does pervade amongst military circles,
and it resulted in the adoption of the ‘stress management briefing’.
This chapter highlights certain shortcomings that such a briefing will
have in a military setup. Finally, several specific interventions to help
curb military misconduct are suggested. Specific emphasis is placed

*The authors would like to thank Martin L Freidland, University Professor and Professor
of Law Emeritus at the University of Toronto for his advice and guidance, and for kind
permission to source material from his landmark publication Controlling Misconduct in the
Military: A study prepared for the Commission of Inquiry into the Deployment of Canadian
Forces to Somalia.

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 120  Pankaj Kumar Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan

on the unique role a military leader commands in this regard, given

the degree of influence he is provided within the system.

Military Misconduct

One of only a handful social roles which is defined in superlatives is that

of a soldier—he is the bearer of the ‘ultimate liability’, a duty-bound pro-
fessional obligation to risk his own life. This vocational calling is unique
because its fundamental nature isolates the soldier from the very civil
society whose interests he is working to protect or further. The martial
society which he then has to inhabit is again strange in how its every piece
is a stringently defined evaluation. The average day is a rigid, un-malleable
system framed with innumerable lines, and no line is a fine line—doing
24 push-ups when 25 are asked for is just as futile as having done 20, and
will merit the same repercussions. Military society also makes an open
declaration of the great emphasis it places on moral fibre and strength of
character, qualities which even the most outspoken of war’s critics have not
been able to leave unappreciated in the individual soldier. In A Question
of Loyalties, Massie (1989) writes, “Do you know what a soldier is, young
man? He is the chap who makes it possible for civilised folk to despise war.”
With such clear yardsticks of definition in place, and with moral
and personal infallibility effectively being a job-requirement, it is no
surprise that misconduct in the military becomes an expansive term
which includes entities ranging from minor breaches of prevailing unit
orders to gross violations of law (DGAFMS, 2002). Save cosmetic dif-
ferences in the language used, an unmistakable consistency prevails in
definitions of misconduct formulated by armies across the world. The
following one is taken from the American Code of Federal Regulations
(United States Office of Federal Register, 1939), but almost all defini-
tions convey the same idea just as lucidly:
Misconduct is an act involving conscious wrongdoing or known
prohibited action. Wilful misconduct involves deliberate or intentional
wrongdoing with knowledge of or wanton and reckless disregard for
its probable consequences.
At the outset, most military frameworks enforce respect for the civil
penal code—for example, Chapter 4 of the Indian Army Act contains
all sections of the penal code. However, the nature of military action
requires that a framework of definition extending beyond these limits

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 Misconduct Behaviours in Armed Forces  121

be established. Serious misconduct behaviours in militaries world over

broadly fall under the following categories, and their legal ramifica-
tions are also similar.

Offences in Relation to the Enemy and

Punishable with Death

Active collusion with the enemy in times of war is universally deemed

the most dire and serious offence by all militaries. The maximum
punishment awardable for such offenses is death (Army Act, 1955).
In the United Kingdom, despite the death penalty for murder being
abolished in 1969, it was still in force for assisting the enemy until 1998.
In Indian Military law, this set of offenses includes actions such as:

1. Shameful abandonment of a post

2. Shamefully casting away arms
3. Treacherously holding communication with the enemy
4. Intentionally spreading false alarm
5. Voluntarily aiding the enemy if taken as a Prisoner of War
6. Directly or indirectly assisting the enemy
7. Sleeping or being intoxicated upon one’s post during times of
war or alarm.

Offences in Relation to the Enemy and Not

Punishable with Death

The distinction being made here is of the presence or absence of intent

to cause harm to one’s own country. These acts are performed either for
want of some precautions or without authority, or embody a general
laxity in duty performance (Ministry of Defence, 1961).
It includes offenses such as:

1. Holding correspondence with the enemy without due authority

2. Sending a flag of truce to the enemy without due authority
3. Being taken as a PoW by want of due precaution/neglect or
failing to rejoin when able.

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 122  Pankaj Kumar Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan

Mutiny

A strange disconnect exists between the lack of clarity regarding what

constitutes a mutiny today, and the unmistakable and forceful nature
of its punishments. Most military legal systems, such as The British
Military Service Act, the United States’ Uniform Code of Military
Justice and Indian Military Law, have all upheld the death sentence for
mutiny. Similar to assisting the enemy, the death penalty for mutiny
was in force in the UK until 1998, even though it had been abolished
for even murder in 1969. The Indian definition describes an act of
collective insubordination and includes persons who:

1. Begin/incite/conspire to cause mutiny

2. Join such a mutiny
3. Being present at such a mutiny do nothing to suppress the same
4. Knowingly withhold information of a mutiny from senior
authorities (Ministry of Defence, 1961).

However, the validity ascribed to reasons for this disobedience has,

with time gathered strength. In the wake of the Second World War
(WWII) Nuremberg trials, and further reinforced by the atrocities
committed by American troops in the Vietnam War at Mai Lai (an
American army company murdered close to 500 civilians on direct
order), the US Army today deems that every soldier must obey only a
lawful order. Disobedience of an unlawful order is a military service
obligation. Every soldier who has made this decision to disobey what
he deems an unlawful order will though almost certainly be court-
martialed to determine the nature of the order, and hence the justness
of the disobedience.

Threatening, Striking or Killing a Unit Leader

Military history is replete with incidents of troops resorting to mur-

dering a squad commander who is perceived to be (Director General
Armed Forces Medical Services, 2002):

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 Misconduct Behaviours in Armed Forces  123

1. Excessively eager to commit the unit to danger

2. Glaringly incompetent
3. Unfair in the sharing of risks.

‘Fragging’, the term used to describe the act is derived from how
fragmentation grenades were the instrument of choice because when
they were used it was near impossible to assign culpability using bal-
listic forensics or any other means. Although such incidents have
been documented since the 18th century, fragging was particularly
common in the Vietnam War—230 cases of American officers being
killed by their own troops are on record. Another 1400 officers died
in circumstances which ‘could not be explained’ (Hedges, 2003).  In
the Indian context, it is described under Section 40 of the Army Act,
which murder aside, includes the use of criminal force/assault, and the
use of threatening or insubordinate language. In times of active service,
it may even result in a punishment of up to 14 years.

Desertion

The manual of Indian Military Law astutely highlights that the essence
of desertion lies in the intention of the offender to not return to service,
differentiating it from the less serious offence of Absence without
Leave (AWL). Desertion during times of war or alarm is universally
recognized as one of the worst forms of military misconduct, and it
has always attracted severe penalty. Even today, as per Indian Military
Law, when committed during active service, desertion is punishable
by death.
During WWII, the German Army executed some 15,000 soldiers
found guilty of desertion (Hatlie, 2005). Joseph Stalin’s contempt for
desertion was well known—he issued orders for deserters to be shot
on sight, and to even see their families imprisoned. He also directed
that each Army theatre be buttressed by a set of ‘barrier troops’ whose
job would be to shoot deserting ‘cowards’ or panicking troops who
retreated. By the end of his reign, Stalin had directed the execution of
some 1,58,000 soldiers for desertion (Roberts, 2006).

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 124  Pankaj Kumar Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan

Rape and Looting

Virtually every known historical era has seen rape accompany warfare.
Even the Bible contains numerous references to wartime rape—“For
I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city
shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women raped….”
(Zechariah 14:2).
The manner and strategic ruthlessness with which it was carried out
in recent conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo even merited
rape to be considered as a military strategy, with its identified aims as:
increase in military morale, decrease the military morale of the enemy,
to offend the enemy, and to loot the maximum of an enemy’s belong-
ings (including women and children) (Rutagengwa, 2008). Numerous
statutes and resolutions exist condemning rape, the most sweeping being
the 2013 UN Resolution, demanding the complete and immediate end of
all acts of sexual violence by all parties to armed conflict. The resolution
noted that sexual violence can constitute a crime against humanity and
a contributing act to genocide, called for improved monitoring of sexual
violence in conflict, and urged the UN and donors to assist survivors.

Suicide

Although all militaries accord the utmost priority to preventing troop

suicides, all acts of self-harm, including suicide, are viewed as deviant
behaviour and qualify as chargeable offences in military jurisprudence.
The Indian Military Act describes the attempt to commit suicide under
Miscellaneous Offenses, covered under Section 64. The reason behind
this universal military intolerance for suicide becomes clear from a
2010 verdict delivered by a US Navy court against Private Lazzaric
Caldwell who attempted to slit his wrists while awaiting trial on charges
of stealing a belt.

Self-injury, whether it results in an intentional suicide or not, has the poten-

tial to cause tremendous prejudice to the good order and discipline within
a unit. If a convening authority feels it necessary to resort to court-martial
to address this type of a leadership challenge, he or she should be allowed
to do so…. (US Navy Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals, 2010)

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Intoxication

An individual is said to be intoxicated if, owing to the influence of

alcohol or any other drug, he is rendered unfit to be entrusted with his
designated duty, or any duty which he may be called on to perform.
Behaviour in a disorderly manner or which brings discredit to the
Army also constitutes intoxication, and as noted by the Army Act,
it is immaterial whether the individual is on duty at the time or not
(Ministry of Defence, 1961).

No Quarter—Taking No Prisoners

For all its inherent carnage, warfare is still considered by many to be an

art form which continues to evolve. Each major global act of war has
seen in its wake proceedings to reassess the rules governing warfare.
Attempts are made to ensure that the boundaries of any future conflicts
are better defined, so they have a lesser chance of disintegrating into acts
of crude barbarism. A landmark event in the evolution of warfare came
to being under Article 23 (d) of the 1907 Hague Convention IV—The
Laws and Customs of War on Land. The article declared that it was now
illegal for any fighting force to declare that ‘no quarter’ would be given
to the enemy (International Committee of the Red Cross, 1907). Giving
no quarter implies that no mercy would be shown to a vanquished
opponent, that lives would not be spared in return for unconditional
surrender, and all defeated enemies would be killed. The Nuremberg
trials following WW II further made it binding on all parties entering
an international armed conflict to explicitly prohibit any declarations
of no quarter being given (Lillian Goldman Law Library, 2008).
Numerous origins of the term ‘no quarter’ have been suggested—
one theory states that the term began with a declaration by the com-
mander of a victorious army that they “will not quarter (house)”
captured enemy soldiers, and hence all those defeated should be killed
(Oxford English Dictionary, 1997). Another possible origin is based
on an agreement between the Dutch and Spaniards during a conflict
in the 18th century, by which the ransom of an officer or private was
to be a quarter of his pay (Oxford English Dictionary, 1997).

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 126  Pankaj Kumar Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan

Mutilation of Dead Bodies

There is an unmistakable sense of duty owed to those who have died

on the battlefield, regardless of which side they fought for. Article 15 of
the First Geneva Convention provides that all parties entering a conflict
must “at all times, and particularly after an engagement… search for
the dead and prevent their being despoiled.” Any acts of mutilation
or desecration of enemy corpses, or the practice of taking body parts
as trophies, are indicative of a gross breakdown in the discipline and
restraint of a fighting force.
Earlier, such behaviour was almost dismissively attributed to the
extreme stresses of battle. However, during recent research funded
by the Economic and Social Research Council, it has been observed
that misconduct of this manner is usually carried out by soldiers who
view the enemy as racially different from (and usually inferior to)
themselves, often to a subhuman degree. They often describe their
actions as similar to a ‘hunt’ (Harrisson, 2012). For example, in WW
II, acts of corpse desecration and the taking of body parts as trophies
were almost unheard of on the European battlefront. However, it was
common for soldiers engaged in the Pacific theatre of operations to
take body parts of Japanese service personnel as trophies.

Malingering

The deliberate faking of a physical ailment, disablement or mental

illness (including PTSD) is again viewed as a serious military offense.
During the Vietnam War, numerous young Americans looking to
dodge conscription went to the degree of feigning homosexuality,
as the Pentagon deemed homosexuality a ‘moral defect’ rendering
someone unfit for service. Consistent problems have been faced
however, in identifying malingering. Together with feigning and
the production of disease of infirmity, malingering is covered under
Section 46 of the Indian Army Act under the broad heading of Certain
Forms of Disgraceful Conduct. Punishment awardable may extend
up to seven years.

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 Misconduct Behaviours in Armed Forces  127

Self-inflicted Wounds (SIWs)

The majority of SIWs occur in times of active combat. The idea behind
self-infliction is to have oneself removed from a hostile fighting theatre
to the safety of a hospital setting. The perfect SIW is termed a ‘million
dollar wound’—it is serious enough to get the soldier removed from
combat, but will not leave him permanently handicapped. Common
SIWs include gunshots to one’s non-dominant hand, arm or foot.
A deliberate neglect of health, for example, ‘forgetting’ foot-care in
damp conditions leading to a fungal infection qualifies as Self-inflicted
Injury. In the military, considering the premium on bravery, all SIWs
are viewed as acts of cowardice and qualify as serious military offenses.
For example, the penalty for SIWs in the British Army during WWI was
capital punishment, at the time death by firing squad (Duffy, 2009).
Most SIWs however escape notice.

Basis of Misconduct Behaviour

Most abnormal or improper behaviours observed in military set-

tings are not manifestations of psychiatric disorders. The majority
are what fall under the broad heading of ‘negative stress behaviours’,
and are a consequence of being exposed to the psychological effects
of combat per se or to environments surrounding or suggestive of
combat (Director General Armed Forces Medical Services, 2002). In
light of this fact, it becomes imperative to get a broad idea of what the
unique stressors affecting a soldier are (Director General Armed Forces
Medical Services, 2002).

Stressors during Training

1. Loss of emotional support from family and friends
2. Newfound rigid discipline framework
3. Demanding nature of physical training
4. Erosion of privacy

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5. Constant onus to compete and qualify for next stage

6. Inability to address problems at home due to preoccupation
with training.

Stressors during Peace Time

1. Improper or poor interpersonal relations

2. Domestic problems related to marital life
3. Health problems of family members
4. Insecurity of family members
5. Children’s education
6. Property disputes
7. Financial problems
8. Inadequate response by civil administration to the problems of
service personnel.

Stressors in Field

In addition to all the above:

1. Separation from family members

2. Adverse or demanding climatic conditions
3. Isolation
4. Long tenures
5. Unknown enemy in counter insurgency areas
6. Uncertainty of life
7. Difficult living conditions
8. Fatigue.

The life of a soldier is inherently tough, and the coming together

of these domestic and vocational pressures can easily become over-
whelming. Frustration at fighting losing battles on all fronts often
sees soldiers resorting to some of the negative coping strategies listed
previously.

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 Misconduct Behaviours in Armed Forces  129

Contributory Factors to Misconduct Behaviour

It is valid to argue that some of the above stressors are faced by all people
engaged in any difficult, physically demanding and remotely located
line of work. However, it is clear that there are some unique circum-
stantial and cultural factors which prevail in military service, which
seem to increase, and almost promote misconduct stress behaviours.

The Legal and Moral Grey Areas of War

Few workplaces are as morally and legally ambiguous settings as a

theatre of war. The total suspension of systems to enforce the civilian
law of the land means that with wrong enough intent and with weak
enough command, effectively anything can be gotten away with. Some
specific social peculiarities about war situations which are particularly
conducive to acts qualifying as misconduct behaviour are (United
States Army Headquarters, 1994):

1. Permissive attitudes towards, availability of and rampant use of

drugs/illicit substances by civilian populations in the vicinity of
garrisons or army bases.
2. Well-structured distribution networks of illicit substances usu-
ally thrive in such settings of legal ambiguity. The very price of
drugs is often lower in war theatres as costs which normally have
to be incurred by the drug industry to avoid the arm of the law
can be done away with.
3. The victorious pursuit of a vanquished enemy has been asso-
ciated with lower incidences of combat fatigue, but is usually
accompanied by the commission of criminal acts (rape, plun-
der) and a rise in substance use, unless command assumes a
tight moral control over the situation. A similar situation arises
during hasty and unplanned withdrawal—in this case, disillu-
sioned with the defeat of the cause, troops may either become
deserters, or they may again resort to criminal activities. The
psychological justification is that goods will anyway be taken

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 130  Pankaj Kumar Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan

over by the advancing enemy, so they might as well be taken.

Rape and other atrocities on civilians left behind may also be
committed using a similar justification.
4. Viewing and experiencing atrocities at the hands of the enemy:
providing instructions on moral conduct is well and good, but
most such directive frameworks sustain serious insult when
atrocities to comrades or friendlies are viewed first-hand by
soldiers.

Logistical and Hierarchical Factors

The results of having to operate within the structure of military

hierarchy, and the consequences of adhering to the behaviour this
structure deems proper and demands are open to varied inference. On
one hand, military life requires a rigid communication and discipline
channel which many deem inviolable. On the other hand, a failure to
communicate is often the root cause of the stress which ill-manifests
as misconduct behaviour. The very nature of life in a hostile area as
part of a fighting unit is besotted by its own set of unique problems
and stressors, all of which can accentuate misconduct behaviour. Some
such contributory factors are (United States Army Headquarters,
1994) as follows:

1. Racial and Ethnic Tensions: Although attempts are made to

form fighting units along racial lines, such tensions are bound
to arise in any large group of individuals. An even greater racial
divide (and hence a greater cause for enmity) is that between
troops and the local population—this is at times enough to
create an almost ‘dehumanising’ mentality.
2. Failure of Expected Support: Supplies, reinforcement and relief
often do not arrive at times when they are needed the most.
When soldiers who have been called upon to kill and die for a
cause face such basic, menial shortages, it is only natural for a
sense of abandonment to emerge. Soldiers may then resort to
illegal means to see their requirements fulfilled.
3. Interpersonal Resistance: High levels of interpersonal resistance,
especially vertically between commanders and men, can have
disastrous consequences with regard to the aggravation of stress.

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 Misconduct Behaviours in Armed Forces  131

A common negative behaviour used as a solution is the use of

a substance (commonly alcohol) as a ‘ticket’ for inclusion into
a social group.
4. Opposition to the War Effort at Home: In the absence of tan-
gible support from the home front, soldiers often find their
own belief in the validity of the war effort erodes. When they
no longer believe in what they are fighting for, many soldiers
often desert or openly refuse lawful orders. Others may carry
out orders, but display resentment by inflicting brutalities on
the local population or escaping through alcohol and drugs.

Aggression as a Job Requirement

The very nature of their vocation demands that soldiers be aggressive.

As Anthony Kellet notes, “If an army is to fulfil its mission in the battle-
field, it must be trained in aggression” (Kellet, 1987, p. 89). Military
training is broadly a repetition-to-perfection spectrum of aggressive
exercises. Several new conditioned reflexes are created which prime
the soldier’s response mechanisms for combative retaliation. Sadly,
this up-regulation persists even outside spheres of combat, Harrisson
and Laliberte (1994, p. 247) commented, “it is surprising that there
is not more spill over criminal activity by members of the military
than there is”. The situation becomes particularly problematic when
a unit trained for active combat is deployed in areas without much
actual fighting, or in peacekeeping roles, for example, in March 1993 a
young, unarmed Somali was tortured and beaten to death by members
of the Canadian Airborne Regiment in Somalia, deployed there in a
peacekeeping capacity (Crocker, 1995).

Total Absence of Social Support

Perhaps the single most significant characteristic of military life which

affects the risk of violence is the removal of the military family from the
social support system usually provided by the extended family, friends
and neighbours. They are instead provided limited social exposure to
a near-homogenous military society, whose uniformity consolidates

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 132  Pankaj Kumar Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan

stereotypes and weakens the ability to make social adjustments. An

author commented “frequently, military couples have to live in quar-
ters assigned according to rank. Their neighbours therefore are also
young people with little more experience than they have” (Schwabe &
Kaslow, 1984, p. 129). Some of the marital conflict risk factors which
get accentuated in this monotonous social atmosphere are:

1. Financial problems
2. New baby in the home
3. Differences in the level of commitment to the relationship
4. Sexual problems
5. Child discipline problems or disagreements
6. Different or unrealistic expectations of marriage
7. Cultural or religious and spiritual differences
8. Poor communication and problem-solving skills
9. Chronic unresolved life stressors
10. Dual career demands

The Silent Tradition of Sexual Assault

Susan Brownmiller, the author of Against Our Will: Men, Women and
Rape, was one of the first historians to attempt a longitudinal overview
of rape in war. Brownmiller theorized that:

the maleness of the military—the brute power of weaponry exclusive to

their hands, the spiritual bonding of men at arms, the manly discipline
of orders given and orders obeyed, the simple logic of the hierarchical
command—confirms for men what they long suspect—that women are
peripheral to the world that counts. (Brownmiller, 1975).

This objective devaluation allows rape to be viewed as an act which

is no longer morally abhorrent. When such moral leeway is provided
to “young males who are cut off from traditional informal controls
and faced with a situation of relative unavailability and inaccessibility
of females, they become prime candidates for sexual crimes” (Bryant,
1979). War rape was even once regarded as a tangible incentive to
soldiers who were otherwise paid irregularly (Askin, 1997). Attempts
to erase this deeply engrained aspect of the martial mind-set have
achieved only partial success.

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Out-of-Hand Alcohol Abuse

In June 2000, the American Forces Press Service released disturbing statis-
tics—alcohol abuse was costing the Department of Defence (DoD) more
than $600 million a year. The DoD was spending another $132 million a
year to care for babies of serving women with fetal alcohol syndrome (a
direct effect of their mothers’ heavy drinking during pregnancy) (Rhem,
2000). This is alarming especially when US policy under Order Number
1A categorically prohibits the consumption of alcohol by any US service
members stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan or Kuwait. That the use of alcohol
increases the incidence of violent behaviour is a fact recognized by military
hierarchy—a report published by the Major General Hewson inquiry of
1985 investigating criminal behaviour in the Canadian Army emphasized
that higher intake of alcohol reduces the threshold for potential violence
and acts of antisocial behaviour (Hewson, 1985). The fact that even in
the face of such damning evidence, militaries across the world have been
unable to reduce alcohol consumption in their troops (in 2000, 21% of
American service members admitted to drinking heavily, a figure identi-
cal to that found 20 years ago) gives some idea of the complexity of the
problem being dealt with. The reason is perhaps that alcohol has silently
included itself as an implicit part of military service. As Bryant suggested
that from the standpoint of the authorities, alcohol serves to help solve
the problem of morale and boredom, and helps prevent the build-up
of potentially disruptive frustrations (Bryant, 1979). The trouble is that
such stopgap morale-boosting arrangements soon backfire. In the 17th
century, when it was the world’s premier seafaring force, the Royal British
Navy used to issue half a pint of rum on a daily basis to sailors to keep
ship morale high. Sailors then began hoarding away their daily liquor
issues so they could get thoroughly drunk twice a week. Ship discipline
deteriorated to such a degree that soon the authorities had to pre-mix all
rationed rum with four parts water before issue (Barnett, 2006).

Wanting Selection Standards

With conscription no longer resorted to by most nations, the military

has effectively ceased to be an institution and is now an occupation.
Retired US Vice-Admiral J. B. Stockdale stated:

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 134  Pankaj Kumar Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan

With the closing down of obligatory military service, the armed forces lost
the strength of a cross-section of the nation’s youth. Now they must make
do with the least highly qualified segment of the nation’s young people.
They have to deal with illiteracy, drug abuse, alcoholism, as well as with an
increasing rate of desertion and criminality. (as cited in Gabriel, 1987, p. xv)

Foremost, such a compromised strata of society is already morally

suspect. Secondly, having joined mainly for financial reasons, such
soldiers neither have any natural affinity for nor deemed it necessary
to truly imbibe and embody the character qualities the military ideal
strives towards—it is, after all, just a job.
A common call is for the implementation of psychological tests to
aid selection during recruitment. However, two problems are faced:

1. As illustrated by the Hewson report (Hewson, 1985), the

institution of these tests could qualify as a possible human
rights violation and would also not be cost effective. The sheer
volume of tests, added screening procedures and increased staff
requirements would make added psychological fitness testing
of questionable value.
2. The present system of psychological testing can easily spot those
with serious mental illness, but persons with personality disorders
can manage to slip through undetected. Further, Hewson report
(1985) showed that although the incidence of serious mental
illness was lower in the military than in the general population,
the rate of personality disorders was significantly higher.

Question of Leadership

Military leadership is set apart from that of other organizations by it

having two opposing functional requirements—a strict maintenance
of discipline and control on the one hand, and the need to allow for
flexibility in the field on the other. The Canadian Forces Military
Training manual, Leadership in Land Combat, mentions that a military
commander is a commander by virtue of the legal authority he holds.
He becomes a leader when his men accept him as one. Good leadership
demands a willingness to lead by example, and it is common knowledge
that few things boost troop morale as directly as the extent to which an
officer is willing to risk his life in battle. For example, the Israeli Army

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 Misconduct Behaviours in Armed Forces  135

is particularly noted for the sacrifices made by its officers. In the 1967
Six Day War, almost half of the Israeli fatalities were officers. “There is
no doubt,” a study of the Israeli Army concluded, “that the fact that so
many commanders, proportionally, fell in battle had a salutary effect
on the morale of the troops…they were not being asked to give their
lives for something for which the commander would not give his own”
(Rolbant, 1970, p. 166). The Hewson report (1985) observed how the
relationship between men and their immediate leaders has been increas-
ingly eroded. One of the primary reasons for this in their view was the
temporary absence of personnel from the unit to undertake other tasks
or attend courses. In the absence of constant and effective leadership,
prolonged stress may lead to low morale and disciplinary infractions.
Good leadership also requires that clarity regarding the war effort
be transmitted through the ranks. A glaring example to the contrary is
the infamous taking of Hill 937 by US forces during the Vietnam War.
The hill was cynically dubbed ‘Hamburger Hill’ by troops as the high
casualty rate reminded many of a meat grinder. The operation lasted
for 10 days and comprised 10 assaults, and almost 100 Americans were
killed and 400 wounded with a staggering 70 per cent casualty rate
(Zaffiri, 1969). It later dawned that Hill 937 had no strategic impor-
tance, and was taken primarily as a diversionary tactic. Eight days after
its conquest, the hill was abandoned. This much publicized failure in
leadership crippled military morale, and effectively ended support for
America’s war effort.
There are few organizations in which a leader is provided this much
ability to improve not just the output, but the very lives of his men
where so much is at stake on his being able to do so.

The Dilemma of Youth

War has always been deemed a young man’s game, and is often viewed
as a rite of passage to manhood. Most armies have well-demarcated
age cut-offs for troop enrolment, and active combat is usually an
exclusive purview of an army’s youngest, freshest troops. However,
a study to identify the psychosocial predictors of military miscon-
duct showed results pointing towards a disturbing truth—the two
variables most strongly associated with misconduct-related discharge
from the military were receipt of a psychiatric diagnosis, and age at

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 136  Pankaj Kumar Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan

first combat deployment (Booth-Kewley, Highfill-McRoy, Larson,

& Garland, 2010). Troops deployed to a combat zone at a relatively
older age (22 years and above) were at significantly less risk of receiv-
ing a bad conduct discharge from service or a demotion compared to
younger troops (aged 19 or less) exposed to a theatre of war. The study
states emphasized that younger individuals may be less able to cope
effectively with the traumatic experiences and pressures associated
with being in a war zone, perhaps because they have less life and/or
military experience. Although very little can possibly be done about
the broad age-demography of combat soldiers, a realization of this
vulnerability could perhaps lead to interventions which could lessen
such unfortunate negative fallouts of active service.

Negative Stereotypes

Critics of war argue that viewed objectively, war is an act of murder on

a scale which would not be acceptable to anyone with a functioning
moral compass. Throughout history, this problem has been overcome
by skewing this compass through the propagation of negative, dehu-
manising stereotypes regarding the enemy. It is at times the only way
soldiers can be convinced to perform acts of the nature war demands,
and a nation’s people be convinced to support the war effort. The most
obvious example is, of course, the Nazi portrayal of Jews just prior to
and during the holocaust—anti-semitism was taught in public schools
through textbooks with racist themes. For example, a mathematics
problem taken from a textbook for school children during the reign of
the Third Reich stated, “The Jews are aliens in Germany—in 1933 there
were 66,060,000 inhabitants in the German Reich, of whom 499,682
were Jews. What is the per cent of aliens?” Jews were deemed evil and
wantonly corrupt, and an alternative history was fabricated which
held them responsible for all of Germany’s troubles. The US media
helped propagate a similar hatred for the Japanese during WWII, often
describing them as “yellow vermin” (Ferguson, 2007). An official US
Navy film went to the extent of describing Japanese troops as “living,
snarling rats”. Such use of negative stereotypes and the resultant ‘dehu-
manising’ of the enemy makes it far easier to perform acts of brutality
violating the martial code on them.

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 Misconduct Behaviours in Armed Forces  137

Why Just ‘Coping Training’ Isn’t Working?

At the centre of the majority of episode of misconduct behaviour in

the army is a soldier whose mental coping resources have been over-
whelmed by environmental demands. Coping training is a concept
excluded from most military training programmes, whose onus is
on relevant skill acquisition. Military training teaches usually by a
systemic process of ‘overlearning’ a task until it can be approached
with familiarity and confidence, and so interference from competing
responses can be blocked out (Thompson & McCreary, 2006). The
vagueness about the implicit psychological lessons means any learning
is at best implicit, and the individual is left to his own devices in learn-
ing to control thoughts and emotions. Yet, it is evident that emotions
and thoughts can affect behaviour and may be elements critical to the
acquisition of proficiency (ibid.). Individuals vary in their degree of
ability to teach themselves this control, which can at best delay military
skill acquisition, and at worst place them and their teammates in a
constant, impending danger.
In recognition of the adverse effects of ill-managed stress reac-
tions, militaries have begun to address the issue by use of the ‘stress
management briefing’. The normal template is one or a series of lec-
tures, usually mental-health professionals covering issues such as the
stress–strain relation, the general mechanisms of stress generation,
stressors specific to the military and information regarding good and
bad coping mechanisms (ibid.). The intent cannot be faulted, but the
effectiveness of these lectures seems limited as follows:

1. A strong stereotype exists that psychiatric illness reflects an

inherent character weakness. This will naturally be heightened
in military culture that places high premium on fitness, courage
and toughness.
2. Use of mental-health professionals to deliver these lectures may
further fortify the above natural resistance, as mental-health
professionals are seen as treating those already injured, not
providing training which may enhance operational efficiency.
Important lessons are likely to be rejected if not given by military
personnel who are perceived to have had applicable operational
experience.

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 138  Pankaj Kumar Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan

3. Soldiers’ response to the conventional lecture format has con-

sistently seen to be poor.
4. The lecture/briefing is usually limited to ‘a talk’ which does not
provide specific training on the techniques that could be put to
effective use during stressful situations. If any techniques are
featured, they are done so only as a ‘demonstration’. This limits
a person’s ability to generalize the practical techniques to any
real-world setting.

In light of all the above, perhaps the most important step which
can be taken to allow soldiers to better cope with the stressors
of hostile deployment is an integration of coping principles into
active military training curriculums, and seeing skill impartation
performed by trainers with recognized operational experience and
credibility. Stress management should not be seen as distinct from
‘normal’ military training.

Specific Interventions to Control Misconduct

Controlling Selection

It is imperative that the military at the outset makes clear to any pro-
spective applicants that its identity as an institution is paramount, and
that certain required standards of honour and morality are expected
from every soldier. It is commonly observed that persons with problem-
atic personality disorders will show visible resistance or indifference to
such concepts. The manner in which this is implemented may perhaps
be along the lines of the US Army’s ‘Soldier’s Rules’, an integral part
of basic US military training.

1. Soldiers fight only enemy combatants.

2. Soldiers do not harm enemies who surrender. Disarm them and
turn them over to your superior.
3. Soldiers do not kill or torture enemy prisoners of war.
4. Soldiers collect and care for the wounded, whether friend or foe.
5. Soldiers do not attack medical personnel, facilities or equipment.
6. Soldiers destroy no more than the mission requires.

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 Misconduct Behaviours in Armed Forces  139

7. Soldiers treat all civilians humanely.

8. Soldiers do not steal. Soldiers respect private property and pos-
sessions.
9. Soldiers should do their best to prevent violations of the law
of war. Soldiers report all violations of the law of war to their
superiors.

Establishing a Concrete Code of Ethics

Gabriel (1987) suggested that one needs a very clear statement of the
ethical obligations that one ought to observe if one is to be expected to
behave ethically. He suggests a one-page code of ethics which contains
provisions such as a soldier will never require his men to endure hard-
ships or suffer dangers to which he is unwilling to expose himself. Every
soldier must openly share the burden or risk and sacrifice to which
his fellow soldiers are exposed and no soldier will punish, allow the
punishment of or in any way harm or discriminate against a subordi-
nate or peer for telling the truth about any matter. Moral decisions are
marked by social or peer-group deterrence. Creating and then putting
up on clear display a legally protected environment in which moral
uprightness is protected and valued will encourage more soldiers to
take these difficult decisions correctly. Having a code brings the issues
of unethical behaviour to the forefront, and stimulates conversations
about right and wrong.

Early Identification of At-Risk Soldiers

It is quite possible using an objective assessment to identify the indi-

vidual soldier atrisk for misconduct behaviour. The main factors which
contribute to the likelihood of such behaviour are:

1. High levels of ambient stress

2. Poor coping mechanisms which lead to unresolved residual stress
3. A predisposition to resort to negative mechanisms as an outlet
for this stress.

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 140  Pankaj Kumar Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan

Following are the broad baseline set of unit factors, progressing to

individual risk factors which affect each soldier uniquely, and lastly
aberrant behaviour traits that can identify the at-risk combatant with a
significant degree of accuracy (United States Army Headquarters, 2009):

1. Unit Risk Factors

i. A high incidence of soldier and civilian deaths occurring in

the same area of operation and over a short period of time.
ii. A high operation tempo with little respite between
engagements.
iii. Rapid turnover of unit leaders.
iv. Manpower shortage.
v. When there is overly and unreasonably restrictive or
confusing set of rules of engagement.
vi. When there is an enemy that is indistinguishable from
innocent civilians.
vii. If there is a perception of lack of support from higher
command.

2. Individual Risk Factors Affecting Soldiers

i. Poor social support.

ii. Home front or unit problems.
iii. History of reacting impulsively in past.
iv. History of disciplinary actions and military disciplinary
proceedings.
v. Suffering a combat loss (friend or a team member who
was wounded in action or killed in action).
vi. Personally witnessing the injury or death or being involved
in the medical evacuation of friend/unit member.
vii. Witnessing a particularly gruesome or horrific loss of life.

3. Individual Behaviours of Soldiers At-Risk

i. Verbalization of thoughts about:

a. Anger toward or lack of support from higher

­command
b. Indiscriminate revenge.

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 Misconduct Behaviours in Armed Forces  141

ii. Appearance and/or behaviour changes which may

include:

a. Lax military dress/bearing,

b. Appearing on edge,
c. Being subject to angry outbursts,
d. Taking excessive and/or intentional risks,
e. Appearing to be depressed and having minimal or
no contact with others.

iii. Changes in sleep patterns and appetite.

iv. Alcohol use or substance abuse.

Knowledge of unit risk factors, individual risk factors and individual

behaviours of soldiers at risk can easily help the command and control
to identify and reach the soldier at risk. Same has been depicted in the
form of a pyramid (Figure 6.1).

Figure 6.1
Identifying and reaching the soldier at risk

At
Risk
Individual
Identified

Look for ‘at-risk’

behaviours

Check for ‘individual risk factors’

Baseline ‘risk factors’ prevailing in unit

Source: Authors.

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 142  Pankaj Kumar Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan

The Role of Leaders in Misconduct

Behaviour Control

A leading military encyclopaedia reflects that “the ‘secret’ of good

leadership continues to elude explanation” (Dupuy et al., 1993). The
qualities of good military leadership require little deliberation upon.
With regards to controlling misconduct behaviour, the following
specific interventions, especially when viewed in light of the degree of
influence a military leader commands, will certainly control miscon-
duct behaviours.

Creating Ethical Environment

It is imperative for a commander to create an environment in which

unethical behaviour is first clearly defined, then not just discouraged
but also dealt with according to established norms at face value. The
system of military jurisprudence has effectively sealed most gaps in
the definitions of unethical behaviour, and continues to evolve, for
example, rape and sexual crimes were even not prosecuted at the
Nuremberg Tribunals, but today rape is considered amongst the most
heinous of war crimes.
As highlighted, few organizations exist in as much of a legal grey-
area as military units involved in active combat. A commander will
be consummating his role if he ensures that the framework’s influ-
ence is allowed to reach forward areas, and to function there without
interference.

Practising Decisive and Fair Leadership

A military commander needs to be decisive and assertive; demonstrate

competence and fair leadership. Leadership in the military is entrusted
with the task of optimum utilization of available manpower for suc-
cessful execution of a stated common goal. Whether and how this is

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 Misconduct Behaviours in Armed Forces  143

achieved in the face of prevalent shortcomings and obstacles is, in

large part, the measure of leadership. However, a ruthless desire for
achievement despite wanting resources often sees men being overbur-
dened by responsibility. Pervasively, such task mismanagement erodes
confidence in a leader as he is viewed as a poor decision-maker. Feeling
poorly led, a unit’s morale can dip significantly, placing an entire mis-
sion in jeopardy. Thus, it is essential that the foremost thing to be done
is proper task allocation to maximize efficiency and minimize stress.
This proper allocation includes (Hewson, 1985):

1. Adequately assessing an individual’s talent, training and ability

for a particular task well to see that the right man is assigned
the right job.
2. Duplicating critical tasks—tasks requiring complete accuracy
and behavioural alertness are best assigned to two people at once.
Though working on the same project, it is seen they check each
other’s work by actually performing the same task independently.
3. Cross-training—save special technicians such as medics, ideally
in addition to his own duties, each soldier should also be trained
in the task profile of another, increasing available manpower
and creating a backup in times of exigency.
4. Using performance enhancers—the execution of critical tasks
during times of inattention can be simplified if SOPs, checklists
and guidelines are kept handy.

Honest Efforts and Concerted Actions

A leader must ensure that every effort is made to provide for the
soldiers’ welfare, such as (United States Army Headquarters, 2009):

1. Diet: An inadequate diet degrades performance and judgement,

reduces resistance to disease and hampers the ability to recuper-
ate from stress. For a successful mission, it is imperative that the
requisite calorific requirement be provided.
2. Sleep: While at times essential for operational excesses, it is
not possible for a deprivation of sleep to leave an individual

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 144  Pankaj Kumar Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan

unaffected. Although a sleep debt may be ‘paid off’ partially by

obtaining the same quantum of sleep later, prolonged depriva-
tion can even result in florid nervous breakdowns.
3. Avenues of Recreation: The military has always had high regard
for all forms of sport. This stems not just from a commonal-
ity between the principal tenets of sport and combat, but also
because organized games serve as an excellent releaser of stress
and promote cohesion in the unit.

Thoroughness in Training

Thoroughness in training (United States Army Headquarters, 2009)

is another requisite for commanders to follow. Unit leaders, having
experienced the stressors and hardships of field life and peacetime
activity beforehand, will recognize the need to impart training of a
relevant quality and of a sufficient toughness to optimize the sense
of readiness in their troops. Training of this manner serves many
benefits, such as:

1. Realistic training sensitizes and prepares soldiers to the stressors

of a combat theatre, and allows them to prepare beforehand
their own unique, positive coping mechanisms. This will not
just enhance performance, but also instil confidence as soldiers
first develop and then become aware of an inherent capacity to
deal with what active duty will offer.
2. Rigorous training reinforces the positive image that a soldier will
harbour about the general preparedness of his unit personnel
and equipment. Not only will this allay a considerable degree
of stress related to the combat experience, but will also add to
unit cohesion and espirit de corps.
3. It has been observed that when involved in the purpose they
believe ordained (i.e., training for active combat) soldiers are
far more receptive to information and directives regarding the
war effort at hand. Training is a wonderful opportunity to prime
troops about the capabilities of their enemy, and the limitations
which they will be hampered by when they go forth to meet him.
A clear and fair idea of where they stand and the honesty with

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 Misconduct Behaviours in Armed Forces  145

which this is conveyed is usually appreciated, and does away

with any misconceptions or senses of deception which a lack of
clarity can propagate.

Assistance in Personal and Familial Matters

Although it is an area which needs to be treaded on with caution, mili-

tary commanders should recognize that troops are often unaware of the
nature of preparations they should be making prior to active deployment.
The normal rigid nature of unit communication channels means that
they have no-one more experienced to actually turn to for this nature of
advice. A sense of leaving family and personal obligations unaddressed,
if persistent, can seriously hamper the focus of the soldier on the job at
hand. It is highly beneficial if unit leaders encourage soldiers to:

1. Generate or update wills

2. Update insurance policies timely
3. Finalize power of attorneys for spouses
4. Provide spouses staying alone with a specific list of people to con-
tact if faced with a specific problem (e.g., healthcare, m
­ echanics)
5. Ensure a means of transportation, if required is made available
6. Resolve major legal issues prior to deployment, for example,
property dealings, major purchases (United States Army
Headquarters, 2009).

Encouraging Social Support within the Unit

The encouragement of a ‘Joint Family Model’ within barracks can help

provide a degree of social support which separation from the normal
family structure takes away. In this setup, an elder/senior member of
the unit takes up a paternal role, and becomes instrumental in provid-
ing guidance to younger less experienced military couples. The model
is particularly useful because the problems experienced by troops are
unique, and a true understanding of them comes only with first-hand
experience. Following are some suggestions:

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 146  Pankaj Kumar Sharma, Ashutosh Ratnam and T. Madhusudhan

1. All personnel deployed in sensitive/stressful areas should be

granted regular and frequent spells of leave. Turnover/rotation
of duties should also be timely ensured.
2. The promotion of informal forums between unit hierarchy and
troops may be encouraged, where general domestic problems
can be brought out into the open, and where matters of general
benefit such as information regarding housing schemes, admis-
sions and scholarships for children of troops and awareness
regarding monetary benefits may be shared.
3. Senior members of the unit should actively be directed to mentor
and guide new recruits. These newcomers to the establishment
are less likely to become disillusioned if they are at the outset,
provided a realistic picture of what military life entails. They
should also be told clearly about the larger goals towards which
their actions will be directed.

Discouraging Substance Abuse

Few things can have as pervasive and detrimental an impact on the

general cohesiveness and efficiency of a unit as a lax attitude towards
substance abuse, or worse the promotion of substance abuse as a coping
mechanism. Alcoholism’s effects on the military has been well docu-
mented, and a leader needs to serve both by example and by making
examples of what is to be strived for and what cannot be tolerated with
regard to substance use.

Appreciation of the Larger Cause

Without proper reigning in, any large group can easily turn into a mob
and its behaviour can collectively become reckless or morally suspect.
The reinforcing to troops that their larger goal is to complete the mis-
sion on hand and leave with their moral integrity beyond reproach
should be a continuous activity. It is to be made very clear that acts
such as rape and plunder will be dealt with harshly, and are grounds
for ostracism from a cohesive unit.

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 Misconduct Behaviours in Armed Forces  147

Conclusion

There has always been a scope for great heroism and nobility in combat,
which implies that there is also a pure and true manner in which to
wage war—a combat ideal. Misconduct behaviours both find their
roots in, and by themselves become direct violations of this combat
ideal. However, they can be contained with little awareness at the
personal level and lot of concern at the unit level. Undoubtedly, unit
commander shoulders loads of responsibility for ensuring the same
at both the levels.

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 7
Psychological Operations in Warfare

Ron Schleifer

Looking at the emergent psychological warfare, this chapter examines

Iran’s client regime of Hamas in Gaza, specifically the way Hamas con-
ducted its Psychological Operations (PsyOps) campaign against Israel
in Operation Cast Lead (27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009). Israel
can anticipate that bombing Iran’s nuclear depots may result in Iran
retaliating by instructing its clients, Hamas and Hezbollah, to attack
Israel simultaneously (Hamas, Hezbollah Would Run Riot, 2012). A
growing element of the conflict revolves around persuasion, namely
PsyOps.1 Therefore, a look at how Israelis and Hamas have conducted
their PsyOps campaigns during battle may foretell an important aspect
of a future armed conflict in the region.
Since its foundation, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDFs) have not
invested substantial efforts in psychological warfare. In Operation
Cast Lead, however, an abrupt change occurred. For the first time in
its history, the IDF launched a military operation with a psychological
warfare strategy prepared in advance—devised by a specialized unit
and coordinated with its operational forces. The IDF’s operational unit
for psychological warfare is the Mercaz L’Mivtzaei Toda’a (MALAT,
The Center for Consciousness Operations), which is subordinate to the
army’s operational and intelligence branches. The earlier unit, known
as Lohamat Modi’in (LOM, Intelligence Warfare), was dismantled at
the end of the Second Intifada (2005) and then reassembled shortly
before the Second Lebanon War (2006) broke out (Harel, 2005).
This chapter describes the basic theoretical assumptions of military
PsyOps and its execution in the field in Operation Cast Lead, and seek
to extrapolate from this to the Israeli–Hamas PsyOps battle in the
scenario of a possible armed Israeli conflict with Iran.

1Current Pentagon terminology for PsyOps is ‘Military Information Support Operations’

(MISO), which attempts to dodge the tradition of propaganda insinuation, yet it is unlikely
to last long due to criticism from professional levels (Paddock, 2011).

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 150  Ron Schleifer

Theoretical Principles of PsyOps

Psychological warfare is a doctrine of warfare that aids an army in

achieving its objectives via essentially nonviolent persuasion (Taylor,
1998). The characterization of PsyOps has gone through several render-
ings over the years (Taylor, 1998). Since the First World War (WWI),
its techniques have been increasingly implemented; as the intensity of
physical warfare decreases, the use of psychological warfare increases.
Ironically, psychological warfare has developed a malicious image, as
if its main enterprise is the exploitation of lies and deception, and dis-
seminating paper leaflets from the air. This is a popular misconception.
Psychological warfare is an extremely advantageous battle technique,
particularly in clashes in the Arab–Israeli Conflict since 1982, when battle
against Israel took the form of unconventional warfare (Frisch, 2003).
Psychological warfare’s main objective is to transmit information
to designated groups during wartime in order to support military and
political objectives (United States Department of the Army, 1994 [This
was followed by Field Manual 3–13]). This has been particularly true
in recent decades, during which radical Islam has achieved political
victories against the armies of the industrialized West, such as in the
US withdrawal from Iraq and its gradual pullout from Afghanistan.
Consequently, there has been much effort to develop and implement
the doctrine in the armies of the United States, Great Britain and coun-
tries that comprise the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
(Tatham, 2008).
PsyOps messages transmitted during a war or conflict can be divided
into two main categories: persuasive messages and vital information
messages. Persuasion aimed at changing attitudes need to be carried out
long before any battles begin; once the first shot is fired, this stage of
PsyOps has ended. At this point, the initiator of psychological warfare
typically aspires to change the conduct and behaviour of the enemy’s
soldiers and/or civilians through transmitting vital information—
updates on the situation or news articles containing information that
their leaders would, of course, prefer to remain concealed.
As noted, paper leaflets containing a few lines of written text or
some relevant illustration are unfortunately the generally accepted
image of this type of warfare. Although this method has been proven

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 Psychological Operations in Warfare  151

to be the most practical over the last century, other transmission

methods—such as loudspeakers, electronic mail or the Internet—are
also used, as long as the enemy can receive the information during the
course of the conflict.
Traditional psychological warfare doctrine distinguishes between
two means of transmission (United States Department of the Army,
1994). One is traditional media, such as TV, radio and the press. The
second is alternative media—used by those with limited resources—
which includes leaflets, fax, graffiti, loudspeakers, rumors, etc. The
new-media age has blurred the distinction between these two types
of transmission, and the Internet is now an arena that integrates TV,
radio and the press, together with electronic mail, blogs, Twitter, and
the like, all at extremely low costs. Cell phones have turned each carrier
into a broadcast station, as well as an accessible way to receive informa-
tion through Short Message Service (SMS), texts and news video clips.
Nonetheless, even though a century has passed since armies first
exploited the massive use of leaflets dropped from the air into the
battlefield; this is still the most accessible medium for transmitting
messages during conventional warfare.

The Psychological Warfare: Operation Cast Lead

IDF’s PsyOps

Objectives
The following psychological warfare objectives of the IDF during
Operation Cast Lead can be identified by analysing the MALAT’s
messages and transmission methods:

1. To damage Hamas’s psychological warfare capability, its trans-

mission channels, and the credibility of its contents.
2. To damage the credibility of Hamas as a governing organization.
3. To amplify Israel’s achievements, in contrast to Hamas’s failures,
and to display the demoralization among Hamas’s activists and
its various supporters.

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 152  Ron Schleifer

Target Audiences
During the war, the MALAT was involved in imparting vital informa-
tion to three key groups: Hamas soldiers, Hamas’s civilian supporters
and Palestinian residents in Gaza.

Message Content
The messages to Hamas soldiers were of the standard demoralization
approach: “You who are dying in battle: You have no chance against
the IDF’s special units and their weapons. Your leaders are hiding. You
are alone in the battlefield”, and so forth (Friedman, 2013).
During the operation the press reported that the IDF had taken
control of the enemy’s tactical communications network, but Hamas
also managed to break into the IDF’s communications network (Feffer,
2012). Nonetheless, one may assume that the IDF’s direct commu-
nication with Hamas soldiers during battle gave Hamas soldiers the
disagreeable impression that there is nothing the enemy does not
know about them.
Messages to civilians mainly attacked their leadership: “Your lead-
ers have fled and abandoned Gaza’s civilians. They were completely
wrong about Israel’s response and are consequently unable to function.
Hamas exploits civilians as human shields and steals for itself the aid
designated for Gaza residents”. The concluding message was: “The IDF
is completely prepared to enter the Gaza Strip”.
Messages of this type were transmitted through leaflets. One of these
leaflets was entitled, Inform on Them. It called upon the residents of the
Gaza Strip to report (without compensation) hiding places used for
weapons or booby traps, thereby saving their own lives and those of
their families, as well as protecting their property. The notice included
a telephone number, which indeed received thousands of calls—most
of which were abusive (Ya’ari, 2009).
Hamas made numerous comments about these particular leaflets.
From this, one may infer that the matter was quite troubling to the
organization—they feared that those who did not support them in Gaza
would exploit the opportunity and indeed report information to Israel.
Consequently, this action on Israel’s part was considered a success; in
fact, it was a classic case of “driving a wedge”—one of many psycho-
logical warfare techniques also known as the Roman maxim of: divide
et impera (divide and rule) (Tzu, 1963). The objective in such a case
is to cause a division between various elements of the population—in

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 Psychological Operations in Warfare  153

this case between Hamas and Palestinian society in general—in an

attempt to challenge the legitimacy of Hamas’s rule.
The message regarding the IDF’s complete preparedness for a
ground invasion was aimed at undermining the feeling Hamas had
cultivated about having built a comprehensive booby-trap network
against Israeli soldiers, and that the population need not worry about
Israel possibly launching a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. Messages
such as these are abundant in the Iranian PsyOps campaign designed to
deter Israel from bombing Iran’s nuclear depots (`Iran Commander’,
2012; ‘Iran Says’, 2012).

Transmission Channels
In Operation Cast Lead, both sides exploited all transmission means
to an extent unprecedented in Israel’s previous wars. During the
operation, millions of leaflets were dropped on the Palestinians, even
though the conflict took place in the winter, when strong winds might
have carried the leaflets out of the targeted areas. To accommodate the
interests of the Israeli and foreign media with representatives concen-
trated on one of the local hills overlooking the Gaza Strip, they were
also included in the drop zone.
The media factor in what the US Army calls “Information Theater”,
is a most complex issue in democracies. The latest doctrinal document
of the US Army does its best to sidestep the sensitive issue of including
the media within a country’s PsyOps efforts. For instance, the manual
on handling the media is neutrally called Public Affairs (United States
Department of the Army, 2000).
Most of the leaflets were directives relating specifically to the
Palestinians’ behaviour. The IDF also transmitted humanitarian mes-
sages that dealt with when and where food would be distributed. In the
final analysis, the number of drops and the quantity of leaflets were
limited; presumably, this was in order not to diminish the dramatic
effect of information falling from the sky by diluting it, thus rendering
it commonplace.
In the electronic arena, the method of transmitting messages was
mainly through commandeering Hamas communications channels.
In as much as broadcasts of the Israel Broadcasting Authority are not
received in the Gaza Strip, the IDF broke into and took control of the
Palestinian broadcasting media, exploiting them to transmit messages
of the MALAT. In fact, since the start of the war the Palestinians had

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 154  Ron Schleifer

complained that the IDF had taken control of Hamas’s TV stations

and was broadcasting videos in Arabic (Israel Interrupts Its Broadcasts,
2009). Consequently, an alternative Hamas news programme was
­instituted on the radio, and video clips were broadcasted on Hamas TV.
On a tactical level, messages were broadcasted on Hamas’s internal
communications network, SMS messages were transmitted to the cell
phones of many Gaza Strip residents and recorded messages were
transmitted to their home phones.

Types of Media Employed

Every message transmitted to the enemy must cut across the psycho-
logical barrier of it being a message from their enemy, whose purpose is
to exert influence. Therefore, above all, the message must be perceived
as vital and relevant, and must also elicit interest. The format proven
effective in every war in the 20th century has been news reports, inso-
far as following the heat of battle the demand for information grows
exponentially. At the same time, as noted, humanitarian content is also
an effective means for eliciting consumers’ interests.
In most cases of transmitting messages to Palestinians, it is possible
to distinguish an unchanging line of penetration. The message is, in fact,
pushed into Palestinian space and consciousness, although this says
nothing about its reception. The printed leaflets occupy the physical
space, and the SMS messages also achieve certain penetration. Perhaps
this is because, following the initial irritation, the consumer becomes
accustomed to the method; this is also the case with recorded phone
calls to a person’s home.
However, when an unexpected frequency takes control of radio
broadcasts or one’s TV, the sense of one’s privacy being invaded is
overwhelming. Messages in the form of news broadcasts were transmit-
ted on TV, including an opening signal confirming that a broadcast
was about to begin. In order to increase the programme’s appeal, it
opened with vital information about humanitarian aid, and matter-
of-fact continued with reports on developments in various battles. The
printed announcements were written in spoken Arabic, and radio and
TV broadcasts were communicated in the local high language [The
Arab language consists of two distinct levels, the literary (al fusha)
and the colloquial (al amiyah). Speaking at the familiar level or dialect
would be a primary requirement].

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 Psychological Operations in Warfare  155

Hamas’s PsyOps

Hamas’s psychological warfare operated mainly before the fighting and

afterward, and less during the fighting itself. Before the outbreak of
hostilities, the organization formulated its deterrent, which was based
on the message that the Gaza Strip had been turned into a death trap
of hidden tunnels and explosive devices.
This technique very much resembles the Iraqi psychological
warfare tactics used in the First Gulf War, on account of which the
Americans deployed a force much larger than required to execute
the mission. This also applies to the IDF; the pressing need to send
IDF soldiers into harm’s way is a factor that comes from a long-range
perspective on future confrontations, and takes into account the
burden on Israeli society. This burden includes the amount of time
spent in reserve service, a decrease in the public’s readiness to enlist
and the economic cost involved in pushing back the confrontation
to the extent possible.
Hamas reserved the bulk of its psychological warfare effort for
the stage following the war, with the greatest political achievement
culminating in the Goldstone Report. This report was named for the
head of the UN Human Rights Council, Richard Goldstone, a jurist
who served as the prosecutor of the United Nations International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The Israeli
government abstained largely from assisting the delegation, taking
the position that the very title of ‘International Criminal Tribunal’ is
tantamount to a conviction. As expected, the report condemned Israel
for committing war crimes. Only months after, a closer inspection of
the testimonies revealed serious irregularities in the accusations. As
it turned out, most of the testimonies were arranged by a network of
hostile NGOs financed by EU and US sources. Although Goldstone
(unlike his tribunal colleagues) finally acknowledged he was misled
by the testimonies, by then the political damage had already been
achieved, and Israel was labeled as war-criminal state. During the
fighting itself, although Hamas’s efforts in the psychological warfare
front were limited due to its inferior manpower and technology, it
did apply itself to influence the local community—the Palestinian
­population—during the fighting.

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 156  Ron Schleifer

Target Audiences
Hamas’s priorities were different from those of Israel. Hamas’s highest
priority was to reach the local community—Palestinians—followed
by the West, and finally Israel. This stemmed from the gap in their
physical means relative to Israel, a gap that also influenced how mes-
sages were formulated.
Following Hamas’s taking control of Gaza and the violence with
which it established its rule there, Palestinian society split into a number
of segments whose loyalty to Hamas’s regime, especially in the face of
Israeli pressure, needed to be verified. Israel’s PsyOps efforts, it seemed,
were directed towards maintaining and even deepening that split.
The West, from the perspective of the conflict in question, was
essentially a neutral target audience that included powers not tied
directly to the conflict but whose influence could be advantageous
to either side. Hamas’s objective, then, was to urge Europe and the
United States to apply pressure on Israel to withdraw from Gaza and
halt the military force.
As mentioned, the Israeli population was of the lowest priority for
Hamas during the battles, although Hamas’s messages about inno-
cent Gazans suffering injury and property damage were directed at
the Israelis nevertheless. However, once the fighting stopped, Hamas
stepped up this campaign in order to direct a split within the Israeli
society after the level of wartime patriotism had declined and the aver-
age Israeli citizen was inclined to examine how the war had affected
his own life, the IDF and Israel’s position in the international arena.

Messages
Before the operation, Hamas transmitted two types of messages: those
that cultivated the image of the Gaza Strip as a giant death trap (with
respect to the IDF and Israeli society), and those that publicized the
damage from Israel’s siege on Gaza and, in particular, the siege’s del-
eterious effect on noncombatants (to the neutrals).
Once the shelling and ground operation had begun, Hamas moved
to assert its position on the Palestinian society so that its political
influence there would not falter. Its messages turned inwards and dealt
mainly with national unity and Israel’s offensive. At the conclusion
of the war, Hamas leaders hurriedly left their bunkers, and the battle
over the effect of victory started immediately. In Israel, this move was

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 Psychological Operations in Warfare  157

considered absurd, but this was not the case for Hamas, as perception
of victory is a psychological matter, not necessarily linked to the physi-
cal reality on the ground.

Transmission Channels
The media’s finest hour is during war. The craving for information is
extremely strong and therefore each side aspires to harness the media
to itself and its interests. Privately owned media outlets are generally
perceived as reliable and therefore sending messages through them is
a main objective for each side. In order to approach the Israeli public,
Hamas exploited Israel’s openness and fed Israeli and world media
through the phone and Internet, as Israel forbade journalists to enter
Gaza from its side. The approach to Israelis was mainly concerning the
theme of injustice being committed against noncombatant Palestinian
civilians. The messages were aimed at increasing the public’s concern
and feelings of guilt, with the anticipation that these feelings would
ultimately reach IDF soldiers, a technique already highly developed
during the First Intifada (Schiff & Ya’ari, 1990).
At first, Hamas operated a satellite TV station (Al Aqsa) and a
ground station (Al Quds), newspapers, radio stations and various
websites, such as http://www.aqsatv.ps and http://www.palestine-info.
info. A few of the websites are official sites that are at risk for breaches
by hackers (organized and voluntary); most of the Islamic sites are
not directly identified with the organization, but feed off its content
and disseminate its messages. Likewise, Hamas has in its possession
a public relations centre that serves as a clearinghouse for its psycho-
logical warfare programme and is headed by Fathi Hamad, a Hamas
member of parliament. A number of correspondents remained in the
Gaza Strip and broadcast photos of the IDF offensive to various news
agencies, such as Ramattan (http://www.ramattan.tv). After broad-
cast stations signals were hijacked by the IDF, websites, SMS and cell
phones remained, using interpersonal communications and broadcasts
at times when the Palestinians were able to do so without interference
(The dilemma in imposing a block on or breaking into an enemy chan-
nel is that the enemy will avoid using that channel for broadcasting
or receiving messages). It was impossible to deal with news websites,
blogs and social media that were fed by organization activists using
satellite phones, due to the large number of websites and their ease

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 158  Ron Schleifer

of connectivity. The IDF deduced several lessons following the war,

establishing a department within the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit for the
purpose of employing these social networks and supplying them with
information (Haaretz, 2009).
Hamas’s other communication methods were mostly meager, but
one should note that all of this activity was undertaken confronting a
military offensive of superior military strength. Yet, Hamas managed
to hijack the signal of the IDF Radio regional frequency and caused a
considerable communications disturbance for the Israelis. SMS mes-
sages were transmitted to cell phones of civilians in the southern region
(Balousha & O’Loughlin, 2009). Hamas used the medium of rumors
effectively. Some rumors were disseminated regarding the numbers
of the wounded, but the IDF spokesperson had a reliable reputation
in these matters, and no serious damage was caused following these
fabricated reports. In one case, Hamas took control of the situation and
managed to penetrate the Israeli psychological barrier when a rumor it
spread claimed that the abducted soldier held by Hamas, Gilad Shalit,
was wounded in a bombing (Yahav, 2008). This is a clear example of
how sophisticated equipment is not a prerequisite for engendering
significant psychological damage to the enemy.

Assessing the PsyOps’ Effectiveness

In conventional warfare, it is relatively easy to assess the influence of

the measures taken against the enemy and make needed subsequent
improvements. Regarding psychological warfare, however, this is far
more difficult. Few citizens—soldiers and officers alike—will acknowl-
edge (even to themselves) that they have been influenced by some
campaign or message. As is the case in commercial advertising, PsyOps
consumers may be aware of the enemy’s intent to influence opinion,
but the actual impact is often imperceptible to them. This means the
standard tools used to measure effectiveness, such as surveys and focus
groups, are naturally not applicable. Therefore, psychological warfare
is compelled to find indirect ways to evaluate its influence.
The first criterion in assessing PsyOps influence is looking at whether
the population followed directives, that is, modified their behaviour.
The general impression is that there was Palestinian compliance
with IDF orders. Out of the millions of printed leaflets that were

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 Psychological Operations in Warfare  159

disseminated, it is difficult to assess how many reached their targets

and were read by the population, and how many people viewed the
videos broadcast on the Hamas TV frequency hijacked by the IDF. But,
it is easier to monitor the prerecorded phone messages. In some cases,
the party receiving the call simply hung up, and in some cases he or
she stayed on the line and listened to the message. From Palestinian
complaints on blogs and websites, it appears there was a significant
percentage of Gazans who did indeed listen to the prerecorded message
(Major [ret.] M., personal communication, August 2010).
Tracking Hamas’s message content reveals the oft-repeated idea
that the Palestinian people supported the Hamas government. Another
claim, repeated day and night, was that Israeli psychological warfare
had no influence on Palestinians. This is an indirect indication that
Israel’s psychological warfare was possibly effectual, leading Hamas to
devise countermeasures.
Likewise, comparing messages sent by both sides reveals the dynam-
ics of a sort of indirect dialogue, in which Israel initiated and to which
Hamas responded. Each time the MALAT issued a statement, Hamas
messages were immediately broadcasted to the Palestinians for the
purpose of refuting the Israeli reports (Lt. Col. [retd.] Rami, personal
communication, December 2011). In his visit to his patron Khamenei
of Iran, Khaled Mashal, head of the Hamas political bureau, flattered
the Palestinian people for bravely withstanding the IDF’s divisions and
massive psychological warfare campaign (Khamenei, 2009). MALAT
staff may have taken his statements as a compliment, especially in light
of the wide gap between needs and allocated Israeli resources.

Israeli–Hamas PsyOps: Lessons to Learn

In general, although there were no surprises in the IDF campaign

during Operation Cast Lead, none were necessary. Psychological war-
fare operates according to fixed principles of self-empowerment while
wearing the enemy down: weakening him by encouraging desertion
and falling captive, cultivating apathy and disinterest, and lowering the
morale and motivation of the opposing army and its civilian support.
This is the general outline—there are endless details, of course, and
there is much room for creativity. The basic content of psychological
warfare messages has repeated itself throughout history. A conventional

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 160  Ron Schleifer

army will tell the enemy, “You don’t have a chance”. Relatively weak
armies or guerilla movements will stress their determination and will-
ingness to sacrifice, along the lines of “It isn’t the tank that wins…”.
What changes throughout the ages is primarily the means of trans-
mitting the messages. In the distant past, the means of transmission
were mere shouts and written notes. In our present Information
Age, means include Twitter, beepers, and lasers. In this area, the
IDF is making significant strides. The challenge faced in the current
Information Age is that the cost of using these media has dropped
significantly, thereby making them more accessible to terrorist and
guerilla organizations. They employ creativity and imagination while
doing so, and the themes that come up are not likely to be stalled at
any transition point by a long chain of command.
Based on Hamas’s reactions, the MALAT’s PsyOps execution was
admirable. Its messages managed to infiltrate every layer of the popula-
tion, sometimes including the leadership itself, diminishing their con-
fidence. The MALAT almost succeeded in creating the impression that
the Hamas regime in Gaza was collapsing, and this obligated Hamas
leadership to invest much effort in reestablishing its ruling author-
ity. There is as yet no clear indication whether the collapse of Hamas
rule was indeed in Israel’s interests, but it appears that this was not a
guiding objective of the MALAT. The unit was particularly focused on
stressing Israel’s humanitarian side, although under ideal conditions
this function may be more suitable for the IDF Spokeperson’s Unit,
were it to have the means to broadcast to the Arab public. Since Israel’s
High Court’s Tzoran ruling (in the wake of an environmental damage
suit, mandating the dismantling of a transmission antenna), however,
Israel has lost the ability to broadcast to the Arab public through radio,
particularly through the Voice of Israel Arabic Service.
Hamas, whether deliberately or under duress, in accordance with
rules of guerilla warfare, refrained from direct military confrontation
with the IDF, and its psychological warfare operated at low intensity.
In terms of physical fighting, the organization concentrated on enticing
IDF soldiers into traps and attempting to kidnap them.
Hamas’s psychological warfare was mainly reduced to responding
to the messages of the MALAT, reserving its main PsyOps efforts after
the war. In other words, it focused on the political battlefield, which,
according to the Clausewitzian maxim, is the principle battlefield in the
final analysis. Immediately following the fighting, Hamas began efforts

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 Psychological Operations in Warfare  161

to create a consciousness of victory—that of spirit over substance. It

fabricated a general demonization of the Israeli enemy (as a satanic
killer of children) and also stressed the irrefutable fact that the Hamas
regime was still firmly in control. Hamas’s victory speech was written in
advance and presented to the public at the first opportunity when there
was no imminent peril to the organization’s leaders. Of course, there
is no relationship between consciousness of victory as it was marketed
to the Palestinian public and the reality on the ground, and here Israel
failed in its understanding of the situation. Although in Israel photos
of the destruction in Gaza symbolized the IDF’s indisputable victory,
for Hamas this same destruction represented its victory.
The battle for awareness was on a relatively small scale. It focused
on the populations of Gaza and Judea and Samaria, and was targeted
mainly at Western audiences. This was due to Hamas’s perception that
Israel depends for its survival on the West’s mercy, and if the moral
and political support of the West is suspended, Israel’s military and
economic support will also be suspended, resulting in Israel’s total col-
lapse before the sword of Islam. The Goldstone Report and Hamas’s
successful conduct of the Shalit affair are examples of links in a long
chain of psychological warfare tactics orchestrated by Hamas.

Extrapolating PsyOps Programmes in

Future Conflicts

What would the PsyOps perspective of a future conflict look like?

If a coordinated attack took place, which included missiles from
Iran, Hezbollah in the north, Hamas in the south, and possibly the
Palestinian Authority (PA) in the centre, the Palestinians would have
to take a risk of enormous consequences.
If Israel survives the first strike from Iran and its accomplices, it
will respond with an armed entry into the Gaza Strip and Samaria
that could result in an unplanned 1948-type exodus into Egypt and
Jordan. In an armed invasion, Hamas is likely to repeat the essence of
its successful PsyOps campaign of 2009, such as stressing Israeli cruelty
against noncombatants. Its messages will highlight the devotion of the
Palestinian people to sacred values as opposed to Israeli brutality. The
methods of delivery are likely to remain the same, as there has been no

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 162  Ron Schleifer

substantial novel technological breakthrough that can be exploited. If

Hamas and its Iranian backer have acquired any lesson since 2009, they
will attempt to maintain an interruption-free TV channel and expand
the popular use of smartphones as an alternative medium, whose
reception and broadcast will be enhanced by satellite communication.
Following Hezbollah’s 2006 success in maintaining the activity of
the Al Manar TV station (through the preplanned use of alternative
transmission equipment in Lebanon), Hamas might do so, perhaps
in cooperation with Egypt (after a hurried reconciliation). The classic
paper leaflet droppings are most likely to continue as a delivery chan-
nel in a future conflict. As for message content, Hamas would require
strong visual images of noncombatant casualties in order to force Israel
to discontinue its attack. Again, based on the Hezbollah experience,
it will initiate rocketing Israel from Gaza residential areas, preferably
but not necessarily populated by Hamas opposition, and absorb a large
death toll despite Israel’s attempt at surgical-precision bombing. These
actions will produce PsyOps-worthy materials for Hamas. In case of a
prolonged military operation, civilians fleeing the battlefield can always
fall back on the successful sixty-five-year-long Palestinian refugee
campaign and provide enduring historical familiar images of suffering.
In a future conflict, the humanitarian message appeal is likely to be
minimal. Israel may try to use its counterattack/preemptive strike to
topple the Hamas regime entirely and help the PA regain control, or
fully strip the Gazans off the offensive weapons. Israeli messages are
likely to be more coercive, as Israel will be confronted in more than
one arena. The messages may direct the population to abandon their
own residential area for their safety and assemble on the rural southern
region of the Gaza Strip, to serve as an impediment to the entrance of
Egyptian regular or volunteer forces. Alternatively, residents may be
instructed to block Gaza City and demand protection from Hamas,
which apparently it would be unable to provide and thereby engender-
ing political havoc, which could then lead to Hamas’s downfall. At the
same time, Israel could continue its humane-focused efforts in order
to deliver one of the oldest messages in the practice of PsyOps: “We
don’t have anything against you; we only oppose your leadership”.
For those questioning how Hamas could plausibly initiate rocket
attacks against Israeli civilians and then blame Israel for barbarous acts,
Hamas’s PsyOps campaign throughout Operation Cast Lead, following
a five-year shelling campaign—provides the answer.

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 Psychological Operations in Warfare  163

As the balance of physical power is still against Hamas, it is quite

likely it will continue its use of psychological warfare in future con-
flicts with Israel. Based on its past successes, it will enhance its com-
munication capabilities in terms of delivery channels, such as satellite
communication (phone and Internet), journalists (local and foreign),
and PsyOps teams that will produce, at any cost, images of civilian suf-
fering. The Iranian input may include technical equipment to break
into Israeli cell phones for purposes of gathering standard intelligence
as well as data on population morale, and as a channel for prerecorded
phone messages to diminish it. Based on experience gathered during
Cast Lead, these means are relatively simple to operate and contribute
greatly to the most important phase of the war—the political one.

Conclusion

Detailed understanding of the HAMAS-Israeli PsyOps can provide

enough inputs for designing future campaigns in the event of non-
conventional warfare worldwide. Undoubtedly, such psychological
warfare shall become the reality of tomorrow, haunting every nation
while safeguarding its frontiers from internal and external aggression.
Lessons need be learnt to equip the forces well with the techniques of
psychological warfare to keep an edge over the opposing forces irre-
spective of its physical prowess.

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 8
Future Warfare and Mind Control

Swati Johar and Updesh Kumar

The perspective planning for the defense of the nation brings to focus
the issues of changing nature of warfare. Tremendous changes in
socio-economic milieu and geopolitical systems on gross or subtle
levels since the Second World War (WWII) have resulted in changing
nature of social order across the world. Short, high-tech wars along
with challenges of dealing with various low-intensity conflicts are
expected to change the nature of warfare in the future. The locations
of war might vary from deep sea to the expanse of the outer space. The
soldiers would be required not only to fight to protect their territorial
integrity, but are more likely to fight for peace building, peace keeping
and protecting the natural resources; most of the time operating as a
part of multinational coalition forces. Besides the traditional role of the
military, the soldiers can also be foreseen performing disaster mitiga-
tion and management, negotiating hostage situations and engaging
non-state enemy forces in non-traditional conflicts.
Research on psychological aspects of war started since the beginning
of modern psychology but it is yet a commonly overlooked aspect of
warfare. With the beginning of WWII began a new style of war. The
dropping of paper-filled bombs from bomber planes during WWII to
target the morale of the troops provides a perfect example of the power
of psychological warfare. For the first time, psychology was used to
deteriorate the motivation and sentiments of the enemy forces. In recent
times, the weaponry and violence of war itself has spread its influence to
such a large extent that the weapon of ‘psychological warfare’ has been
completely ignored. The focus on suffering rather than death makes this
concept more justifiable and provides answers to the following questions:

1. How the growing trend of technology and machines can be

arrested and diverted towards non-conventional systems?
2. What are the means by which fears can be manipulated?

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A vision for the future defence forces must include prospective

research areas that would enable the soldier for operations directed at
the enemy’s mind rather than his body. The significance of psychologi-
cal dimension of a conflict needs to be broadened in this information
technology (IT) age. Clearly, the British military analyst and historian
prophesied that

the so called traditional means of warfare might be replaced by purely psy-

chological warfare, wherein weapons are not used or battlefields sought…
but dimming of the human intellect, and the disintegration of the moral
and spiritual life of one nation by the influence of the will of another is
accomplished. (Fuller, 1920)

The overdependence on technological superiority has left insuffi-

cient attention on the importance of the study of enemy’s psychology.
Undermining enemy resistance by the planned use of communica-
tions is a long process. It influences human attitudes and behaviour
by deconstruction of the enemy and creates in target groups, behav-
iour, emotions and attitudes that support the attainment of national
objectives. The role of Psychological Operations (PsyOps) in shaping
the moral and intellectual environment of the battlefield and its use
as an influence weapon at tactical, strategic and operational levels in
manoeuvre warfare is known, but not well understood and imple-
mented. Post (2005) illustrates that terrorism is a war for hearts and
minds and cannot be won with smart bombs and missiles. It is a psy-
chological warfare waged through media and PsyOps should be the
primary weapon in the war against terrorism.
Given the widening difference between growth of technology and
physical limits of human capability, technology is likely to replace
and retard human capability. Therefore, any future perspective for
the defence forces must enable the soldier to effectively defend one-
self from techno-savvy attacks. Some options that come visible are,
for example, personality structuring for optimizing human resources
for creating militarily designed soldiers to fit in specified roles which
would involve predisposing the human mind. Penetrating the human
mind using technological tools in the form of cognitive hacking for
causing information paralysis, disruption and distortion might leave
the adversary in an ineffective state. Brain washing by using wireless
internal voice transmission, blocking thought streams using ultrasonic

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sound as carrier and controlling the mind by remotely altering brain-

wave technology would be another way of either aggressing the enemy
or as a defence against it. Mind-enabled tools, such as mind readers,
meta-cognitive tools and decision-making tools might prove to be
another option in shaping the future environment in which the soldiers
need to operate.
Need for developing special forces and evolving adaptability to
changing face of technology and changing nature of the theatre of war-
fare has necessitated the change of focus in Military Psychology from
retroactive management to proactive preparedness and restructuring
of the military endeavours of nations. The challenge before psychol-
ogy is to enhance the efficiency of new scientific and technological
advances, by ensuring effective application of the inevitable human
and psychological components. The explanation of how mind, the
brain, other biological systems of the body and human environment
interact to produce behaviour in the context of changing situational
variables and varied human capabilities moderated through the use of
technology needs to be broadened. Certain specific areas that pose a
challenge to the science of Military Psychology can be identified. Threat
detection systems, prediction and forecast models may be developed
to enhance capabilities for proactive preparedness. Advanced psyops
and psycho-social immunizations may be considered as potential
areas of research in the near future. Keeping this in mind along with
the urgency to handle and control the present world situation, it is
important to explore these aspects of warfare as it will aid not only in
matters of critical importance but also have far-reaching implications
for the civilian populace.

Information Age Opportunities

Advancements in information and communication technologies,

together with increased availability of information, have changed
the ways in which societies work. Today, more and more infor-
mation is available to people, thus creating a knowledge–based
society surrounded by high-tech global economy. This makes
the task of decision making even more challenging. Some of the

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information-age developments have contributed greatly and are

likely to influence future wars.

Fast Computing and Knowledge Processing

Computers have made the task of managing ever increasing amount of

information at a time simple. Computation speed has increased expo-
nentially over the past few decades. The proliferation of computers,
together with the miniaturization of machines, has made it possible
to solve complex problems in a matter of seconds. The information
is largely centralized making processing of data easier and faster.
Representation of knowledge and optimal searching of knowledge
base systems using artificial intelligence and simulation have given way
for development of automatic trackers and self-engaging weapons to
minimize human aspect. Human–computer interaction is an obvious
development that has taken place in this era. The intelligence and real-
time decision-making power of man is incorporated in the machine
to create a symbiotic relationship of man and computer in order to
facilitate formulative and intelligent thinking. Keeping in view these
emerging trends and innovative technologies, rationalization of Armed
Forces and effective utilization of unprecedented computing speed and
time would form the vital part of battle scenario. The time required for
precise decision making by the central authority will reduce to a few
seconds and automatic software development for real-time processing
will reshape future wars.

Networking

Networks have existed since people started interacting within

groups. Later, email and Internet led to the exchange of data between
­systems. The emergence of Internet and cyber space has transformed
the approach to handle information proliferation worldwide. The
­introduction of network as an organizational scheme in business,
government and society only recently found utility (Bowdish, 1999),
especially when the wars have gone global.

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Advanced Mass Media

Today, mass media comprising communication services ranging from

satellites, TV, radio to print media such as newspapers and magazines
envelops the entire globe. The technologically advanced mass media
has a great potential to influence future wars. The way information
is interpreted and transferred are the crucial aspects of media. The
ability of media to influence governments, society and military can
be seen in various instances of the past. During Operation Uphold
Democracy, radio and TV programming was used in carefully crafted
interagency campaign “to prepare Haitians for democracy restoration
and the imminent arrival of US forces”. The mission was a booming
success (Bowdish, 1999). In another instance, images brought war to
an entire society.
Due to the prevailing unstable global environment, it is difficult
to predict the nature of future wars. Mass media, specifically news
and radio, can assist in routine tracking of movements and unusual
happenings. It can act as the intermediary between the forces and the
public to act on the spur of the moment. The effect and effectiveness
of media plays a major role in formulating planned military opera-
tions. Squire (1995) illustrates application of mass media as a principle
of war and refers it as a high-stake player in military operation and
planning equation. It goes without doubt that media in the form of
miscommunication and propaganda can be used by the adversary
and can have a negative impact. Thus, when properly applied, it is a
potent tool against the enemy and if neglected, can easily be used by
the enemy to his advantage.

Impact of it on Future Wars:

Information Warfare

The world has transformed from the industrial age to the informa-
tion age. Persistent technology innovation, growth of worldwide
networks, escalation in the reach of mass media and ever-increasing
power of computers have all contributed in cyber revolution and
have tremendous impact on warfare. The effective utilization of

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technology in various phases of war will be a critical aspect in the

future due to the increasing dependence of military forces on IT. Due
to sweeping influence of technology, future wars will be characterized
by ambiguity and uncertainty owing to increasing lethality, stealth
and complexity.
Information refers to the data and events that are identified and
interpreted. It is a strategic resource which is now available gradually
more in a digital format. Information becomes a potent weapon and
extremely vulnerable when effectively managed and exploited by the
enemy. As a result, nations seek to obtain and protect information in
support of their objectives. This use of knowledge for destruction and
immobilization of the enemy forms the core of future wars. The pow-
erful impact of IT has opened gates for a completely new form of war
structure called information warfare which would require innovative
policies, skills and re-organization for its effective implementation.
Making use of enemy’s information to enhance our own capabilities,
while protecting our own, is not a novel approach. Information warfare
(InfoWar) can be defined as any action or class of techniques used to
destroy and exploit adversary’s information to the extent of degrad-
ing his will to fight, regardless of the means. More technically, it may
also be defined as actions taken to achieve information superiority by
affecting adversary information, information-based processes, infor-
mation systems and computer-based networks while defending one’s
own information, information-based processes, information systems
and computer-based networks (Bowdish, 1999). InfoWar builds a
battlefield environment in space and time combining the power of
land, sea and air. When IT is used to feed intelligence into the opera-
tion, it is called Intelligence-Based Warfare. Command and Control
Warfare attacks the central command of the enemy organization and
is considered most important. Warfare over the Internet is gaining
momentum these days due to expansion of Internet networks, and
this type of warfare forms the Cyber warfare. Psychological Warfare
is a non-lethal IW weapon system which directly affects the psyche of
soldier. The unstable and uncertain future battlefield is expected to be
too demanding on man, and psychological warfare seems to be the most
revolutionary to deal with the problems of this arena. Like traditional
warfare, information warfare has various weapons to debilitate the
targets without physically damaging it.

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Weapons of Information Warfare

To be involved in a war weapons as they are the backbone of any

war. Information Warfare also has its own weapons of information.
Information elicitation is the foremost requirement to know details
about the enemy. The greater the information, the higher is the advan-
tage of decisiveness over the adversary. It helps in better planning
against the enemy. Once the information is collected, it should be
transported securely to the destination through networks. Transporting
information in a timely manner is a weapon so that it becomes usable
against the enemy. In modern warfare, networks are not only used to
transmit information but also are the core to the entire command and
control structure.
In military, networks are used for intelligence operations. Any
network-based environment is characterized by the effective linking
and coordination of its elements. Network warfare is a new style of
fighting in the information age. Identified during the 1970s by US Air
Force strategist John Boyd, Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action
(OODA) is an abstraction which describes the sequence of events
which must take place in any military engagement. The opponent is
observed to gather information and the attacker must orient himself
to the situation or context, and then decide and act accordingly. The
OODA loop is thus fundamental to all military operations, from stra-
tegic down to individual combat.
Arquilla and Ronfeldt (2001) describe this phenomenon in
Networks and Netwars. Network Warfare is the “use of network
forms of organization, doctrine, strategy and technology attuned to
the information age”. While the Industrial Age favoured state-run
military hierarchies, the Information Age favours non-state actors in
social-networks. It consists of a shared awareness of the battle space
that can be exploited by various network-centric operations. Internet,
cell phones and fax machines are the common networks in use. A large
network is broken down into isolated clusters of dispersed forces which
are linked to each other through leaders. This structure provides the
benefits of evasion and asymmetry to the troops so that if one of the
clusters is destroyed the other remains safe from the adversary. Thus,
a mechanism to rapidly acquire and distribute target information will

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make the operations even more complex and protracted and focus
more on the human dimension.

Information Manipulation and Degradation

Another very important weapon that prevents the enemy from getting
correct information is information manipulation and degradation.
The data are altered so that reality is not presented to the opponent.
Use of guided virus into enemy’s information infrastructure, micro
robots may be used. An information-dependent environment can be
critically exploited if these weapons are engaged. But, at the same time,
all these weapons can be attacked by the enemies using various tech-
niques such as spoofing and jamming. Virus intrusion and semantic
attacks are other kinds of threats which hamper information integrity
and credibility.
To ensure that information that is reaching the user is true and
consistent, various encryption mechanisms, firewalls and antivirus
software are employed on the data. As the defence forces become more
technologically sophisticated, the greater is the challenge of adapting
it and dealing with threats they pose.

From Conventional to Non-Conventional

Warfare

Wars are witnessed since time immemorial; however, today’s war seems
to have integrated itself with the issues of the society. It has become a
part and parcel of life. The nature of warfare has been changing and
evolving over these years. It started with animal-based weapons in
which people were fighting. Then, machines took over in the era of
mechanized warfare and 21st century marks the beginning of automatic
warfare or non-conventional warfare wherein biological, chemical,
nuclear wars will be fought along with space warfare. This age has
already started and still in its nascent stage but considering the rapid
technological progress it will not be long when traditional warfare will

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be completely replaced by non-conventional warfare. Gone are the

times when infantry weapons such as tanks, guns and bombs formed
the basis of wars. Although the tremendous growth of science and
technology in the fields of communication, information, infrastruc-
ture and transportation has made life easier, but at the same time it
has made the task of national security a matter of great challenge and
effort. Future warfare will be a digital theater of war. There is a need to
revolutionize our technology management, transform strategies and
philosophies and reengineer our thoughts to face the changing nature
and tools of warfare.
The tremendous growth of science and technology has shrunken
the world. The increasing impact of technological changes has brought
revolution in world bringing critical elements of complexity, uncer-
tainty and swift decision making in the battleground. There has been
a gradual shift from physical to technological strength, and today
the time has come when psychological forces play an important role
in warfare. Changing socio-economic milieu, nuclear proliferation,
trans-national terrorism and cyberspace battle are threatening the
security balance of the country. The world has become a much more
dangerous place. As discussed above, the revolutionary developments
of net-centric warfare, human–computer symbiosis and robots have
enhanced our capabilities and we are progressing from a human-centric
warfare towards a technology-intensive environment.
Technology has not only altered the way of living but its employment
in warfare is also very crucial. Man in future warfare will have to be fully
proficient and self-contained. He will possess high decision-making
power and will continue to be at the centre stage, but his role as a sol-
dier will be minimized. The most important trend contributing to this
development is the rise of technologies such as artificial intelligence,
man–machine interaction and VR. The systems in the future will be
small and too fast creating a complex environment beyond the ability
of human’s reaction time. There will be information overload that will
make it practically impossible for humans to participate directly in
decision making. The weaponry would perhaps include bio-genetically
engineered systems producing physiological changes and affecting
emotional and psychological aspects of humans. Therefore, the focus
should shift towards human factor research and exploitation of human
potential, training system and leadership styles. As a Chinese saying

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 174  Swati Johar and Updesh Kumar

goes “If you are planning for one year, sow grain, if for two years, plant
trees, but if planning for a 100 years, grow men”. The future ideal of
Armed Forces should be an agile leader who can plan innovatively in
response to new challenges.

Future Warfare Technology

Advances in military technology driven by innovation and army have

managed to use technology in new and creative ways to gain an edge
over the enemy. Today, many agencies are working on programmes
and missions to tackle future battlefield. Lighter infantry equipment,
ultra-light and faster vehicles, crowd control weapons and swift and
efficient battlefield communication are some of the basic requirements
of future warfare that are being researched upon. It is clear from the
above discussion that achieving victory in modern high-tech warfare
should be the basis for war preparation and weapons that do not kill,
but temporarily incapacitate adversaries seem to be effective elements
of war in the given scenario.
Non-lethal weapons can range from rubber bullets and pepper spray
to lasers, high-powered speakers and lights that cause disorientation.
These can not only be used on the battlefield but also play a role in
evacuations and other control operations. Directed energy weapons
emitting laser, heat, etc., deliver enough power to destroy and burn
materials and enemy, thus distracting them. Similarly, a grenade hit-
ting the ground with a loud thud and producing flash can distract and
alert the enemy (Beidel, Erwin, & Magnuson, 2011). There will be a
need for high-speed continuous communication in the non-linear
battlefield. 4G spectrum will provide reliable network and would
facilitate the use of smart radios which make use of unused spectrum
automatically. Night-vision technology is a new dimension to facilitate
the need to identify targets at night and under poor visibility condi-
tions. Goggles, pocket viewers, gunner sights and anti-tank missile
guidance are some of the tools which make use of IR technology to
enhance night vision.
Future warfare scenario requires multiple functionality unmanned
technology with human intelligence interface (Chander, 2013). The
challenge is to move machines from tele-operated mode to self decision

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makers that can work automatically on their own. Since the brain can
adapt and function in dynamic environment, it is ideal for a rapidly
changing battlefield. Brain–computer interface (BCI) technology has
shifted the focus from imaginary fiction to scientific reality. Various
critical technologies such as sensors, robotics, advanced materials
and electronics are paving the way for development of unmanned
warfare systems. These unmanned systems perform human tasks by
mimicking the human brain. Unattended sensors, micro Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), robot sentry and autonomous underwater
vehicles are some of the unmanned systems under development.
These systems may include mobility, intelligence, scene awareness,
manipulation and friend–enemy identification capabilities. An agile
four-legged robot may be developed for carrying military gear over
long and high distances easily. These systems may be further refined
to recognize individuals and interpret visual and vocal commands for
more efficient performance.
Miniature robots called mesh worms (Sammon, 2012) are one
of the tiniest robots in development. It can move silently using its
artificial muscles to tiny, secret places and gather information such
as temperature and even record audio and video of the place. This
technology stealthily reports data and finds immense application in
surveillance and secret missions. Moreover, very small flying robots
are being built which can be sent on reconnaissance missions to areas
inapproachable by soldiers. A certain type of highly mobile robots
could also assist soldiers in reliable communication by autonomously
moving and acting as nodes in a wireless communication network.
Due to the existence of cyber space, satellites, radars, etc., the deploy-
ment is bound to be much more diverse and mobile. The battlefield will
be largely non-linear contrary to the old sequential field (Bhushan & Jain,
1999). There will not be a clear enemy and enemy forces will be small,
independent mobile units. In order to tackle this kind of situation, there
is an urgent need for a paradigm shift from hard killing to soft killing
environment. Lethal weapon systems and explosions would fail to serve
the purpose. The thrust needs to be more on incapacitating the enemy by
attacking his mind and making him ineffective. The 2050 battleground is
likely to remain largely non-lethal though highly technical in nature with
unique manpower requirements. In this kind of scenario, psychological
warfare or mind-controlled warfare is one strategy that may prove to be
a potential solution for the concerned issues.

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Psychological Warfare and Mind Control

The advancements in technology will present new opportunities and

risks for future combat. The trauma of war may be further heightened,
creating increased anxiety among the soldiers. The battlefield is bound
to be ever more demanding of human potential and will add new facets
in the methodology of warfare. The science of psychology to conduct
war is as old as war itself but its significance is not acknowledged. This
field has grown slowly and its application has still not been exploited.
Advent of technologies has made its application widespread and
necessary. Psychological Warfare is the oldest strategic and tactical
weapon system that may prove to be most useful in the given future
scenario. Even the great epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana involve
various illustrations of Psychological Warfare. The most famous
among them being the victory of Pandavas over Kauravas is an excel-
lent depiction of such kind of warfare. When the Pandavas were about
to face defeat against the Kauravas due to the fear that Dronacharya,
the commander-in-chief of the Kauravas, would deploy the weapon
of Brahmastra (a weapon created by Brahma) against them, Krishna
advised that somehow Dronacharya be made to leave the battlefield.
And, he also suggested that Drona would lay down his arms if told
that his son, Ashwatthama, has been killed (due to existential con-
cerns Dronacharya’s desire and will to fight would cease to exist). The
Pandavas carried out this propaganda by killing an elephant named
Ashwatthama and made a proclamation that Bhima, a Pandava, had
killed Ashwatthama. As anticipated, Drona was deeply hurt by this
announcement and sought confirmation from Yudhishthir, the eldest
Pandava, who was known for his moral uprightness. The Pandava said
that it was true but added an under breath rider that it could be either
a man or an elephant (Mahabharata, CLXL: 55).
WWII also has instances in which the psyche of men was being
attacked for attainment of objectives. The US instrument of choice for
producing strategic effects has been the air attack. During WWII and
the Korean, Vietnam and Persian Gulf conflicts, the US conducted air
attacks against strategic targets located within the enemy heartland to
degrade both the enemy’s physical capacity to wage war and his will
to do so. A major psychological objective common to these strategic

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attacks was to convince enemy leaders that they could expect to pay a
heavy price for their continued refusal to agree to allied peace terms. In
addition, the US also attempted to use strategic air attacks to demoral-
ize and frighten enemy civilian populations and thereby deny labour
to an enemy’s war industry (a primary objective of allied bombing in
WWII); foment indigenous opposition to an enemy government’s
war policies; and, in the case of Iraq, prompt an enemy government’s
overthrow by a coup or popular uprising (Hosmer, 1999).
Psychological Warfare is a technique that affects the psyche of
man influencing his emotions, attitudes and behaviour. According
to Paddock (1982), Psychological Warfare may be defined as the dis-
semination of propaganda designed to undermine the enemy’s will to
resist, demoralize his forces and to boost friendly morale. It is essentially
a non-violent, non-lethal type of warfare resulting in the surrender of
parties and not death. It is not confined to time and place. It is a con-
tinuous process that begins much before the actual war and continues
even after the last bullet is fired. Like any other warfare, psywar is also
designed for certain objectives. Mobilizing hatred against the enemy,
undermining enemy morale and sustaining fighting spirit are among
the major intentions and aims of psywar.
Propaganda is the most dominating element of psywar. It is any
kind of planned communication that affects the mind, emotions and
beliefs of other people to achieve a specific purpose. It is the content
that eventually affects the target. Military role of propaganda is not
obscure and has been used since World Wars against the enemies.
Paper bombs and leaflets were used to solve the problem of accuracy
in air defense. Thousands of leaflets carrying messages were stuffed in
a cylinder which when fused would release those bundles of paper and
the messages would scatter over large distances (Bhatt, 2006). Target
audience in denied areas can be informed using propaganda. Also, pro-
paganda enables overcoming illiteracy and disrupted communication.
A propagandist must be trained personnel and must think objectively
keeping his emotions and feelings covert. Propaganda is characterized
by its source, intention and selected target audience. It is generally
perceived as spreading of inaccurate and incomplete information to
deceive the target population. On the other hand, if used correctly it
acts as a strong weapon. The effectiveness of propaganda is determined
by its delivery medium. A propagandist must use a suitable media at

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the right time and place. A suitable media is the one which is available
timely and suits target conditions. Leaflets and pamphlets, for example,
are ineffective for those who cannot read. Propaganda may use means
of radio, TV, Internet, interpersonal communication, etc. It uses non-
violent means for persuasion.
In the absence of proper dissemination of information the propa-
ganda is futile. Thus, psywar needs experts in various fields for able
target analysis and planned execution. Propaganda may be defensive or
offensive depending on its proposition to sustain or interrupt a social
action respectively (Stranglove, 1998). Psychological warfare is a pro-
paganda used to convince the enemy. It reinforces existing attitudes,
making one believe and act under the propagandist control. Mind is
the central organ for carrying out psyops, and various mind-control
tools have been developed that direct an individual’s behaviour.

Mind-enabled Tools

The BCI technologies connect the human brain to devices and may
involuntarily penetrate and compel the mind. Brain is connected to
robotic systems for manipulating one’s thoughts or even actions.
Various technologies have been developed on the basis of this
paradigm. The most famous among these are the drones. Drones are
UAVs either controlled by pilots or fly autonomously following a
pre-programmed mechanism. These are increasingly used for remote
sensing and ultra-high speed aerial surveillance. It will not be long
when mind-controlled weaponized drones will enhance the power
and lethality of our soldiers. Another technology exploits the power
of microwaves to create loud sound discharge directly into a person’s
head leaving him practically inactive for a considerable period of time.
Ultrasonic brain wave clusters have been used by the Middle East
countries during the suicidal attack by Iraqi troops on the deserted
city of Al-Khafji (ITV News, 1991). According to reports, a new kind
of high-tech subliminal messages of ultra-high frequency was used
that were completely silent to the ear. The negative voice messages
placed on the tapes alongside the audible programming by psyops
psychologists were clearly perceived by the subconscious minds of the

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 Future Warfare and Mind Control  179

Iraqi soldiers and the silent messages completely demoralized them and
instilled a perpetual feeling of fear and hopelessness in their minds.
Thus, it can be seen that on one hand, BCI allows injured soldiers to
remain active and on the other hand it can manipulate soldier’s mind.
A disrupted BCI may be hacked by the enemy and force the victim to
behave indifferently. He may share secrets with the enemy voluntarily
or may introduce inaccuracies in his own computer system and exploits
the system from within.
The association of neuroscience with military systems has altered
the ways in which BCI functions, especially in the area of threat warn-
ing and detection. An innovative step towards threat warning systems
is the use of cognitive visual processing to monitor the subconscious
signals of a soldier’s brain. It enables detecting a threat a soldier has
perceived even before he is consciously aware of it. Nanoparticles that
can percolate through the brain and induce a desire in the enemy to
become calm is another area of research in the field of neuroscience.
Remote neural monitoring is another mind-control technol-
ogy having immense potential in future war settings. It is a form of
functional neuroimaging that employs satellite-delivered extra low-
frequency (ELF) waves to communicate voice to skull transmissions
producing schizophrenic symptoms. These frequencies can locate
a target anywhere on Earth and can penetrate water, rock, concrete
and other dense matter (Finney, n.d.). It allows access to a person’s
thoughts without his knowledge. This technique can track individu-
als in any location or country. Infrared detectors, X-ray viewers and
directed energy weapons are other more commonly used spying and
stalking weapons. Also, EMF waves are widely used in surveillance
operations. They can tap into computers wirelessly and can track
persons with electric currents in their bodies. It then becomes possible
to monitor suspects from a distance. Information is gathered through
electromagnetic waves.
These strategies affect the soldier in ways he may not realize con-
sciously. Thus, the battlefield of guns and bombs will slowly perish
away and digital or computer battlefield will take over. The gap between
technology supremacy and human competence will become so large
that future planning of defence forces must not only cater for defence
against tech-savvy attacks but psychological harassment as well. The
innovation gap needs to be shortened as far as possible.

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 180  Swati Johar and Updesh Kumar

Limitations of Psychological Warfare

Psychological Warfare is not liberated from factors restricting its effec-

tiveness. It is an old concept that has not been exploited to the fullest
and the lack of expertise, and knowledge of its application will become
a cause for its limited application to enhance military effectiveness in
the future. Much research in this field is required to be done. Dearth
of trained personnel and proper use of manpower in understanding
political and social conditions and devising innovative procedures
may reduce performance and output. Tactical psychological warfare
needs extensive planning and deployment time for execution. Existing
methods of mass communication and information dissemination for
propaganda might get in the way of security and some secret informa-
tion might be revealed to the enemy in the process. The credibility of
media is also a serious concern in order to carry out a successful PsyOp.
Political compulsions and legal hurdles usually come in way of
successful propaganda by restricting the reach of media, its means of
proper delivery and timely availability. Paucity of accurate, accessible
and complete information is a bottleneck for an effective operation.
Coordination malfunction between army units and civilian population
may open avenues for counterpropaganda and lead to severe reliability
concerns. We must continue to upgrade our skills and professional
knowledge in order to overcome the stated limitations and make psy-
chological warfare a valuable asset for future war scenario.

Conclusion

Wars shall continue in newer forms with emerging technologies. New

technologies including biological weapons, cyber weapons and mind
enabled tools which can affect several people in one attack are compel-
ling the forces to transform the techniques of war. Wars of the future
may be decided through manipulation of soldier’s behaviour and
countering enemy propaganda. New targets of brain may be recognized
for incapacitating the enemy. Operations would focus on affecting
the perceptions and attitude of the target. The battleground would

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 Future Warfare and Mind Control  181

envelop entire societies instead of a specific enemy group. Effective use

of such technologies will require sophisticated command and control
and rapid and close interaction between different systems. Although
direct human participation seems to be less likely, but human role will
be critical at certain levels of such a psychological battle.
In this state of affairs, collapsing the enemy’s will to fight and
inducing troops to surrender and abandon their equipment would
be considered a critical capability that must be employed. A fully
evolved model of warfare must be formulated to deal with situations
in which application of non-lethal force would be the tactical prefer-
ence. Thereby, issues surrounding information warfare, mind control
and behaviour modification need serious attention. However, the
potentials of technology in this new realm of intelligence gathering
and warfare may be constructive or destructive. On one side is the
idea of enhancing mental and physical performance but on the other
side the danger of misuse of this science by the creators themselves is
a grave possibility. Hence, research, development and application of
mind-invasive technologies must be promoted but with care.

References

Arquilla, J., & Ronfeldt, D. (2001). Networks and netwars: The future of terror, crime, and
militancy. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
Beidel, E., Erwin, S. I., & Magnuson, S. (2011, November). 10 technologies the U.S. mili-
tary will need for the next war. National Defence Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.
nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2011/November/Pages/10TechnologiestheUSMil
itaryWillNeedFortheNextWar.aspx
Bhatt, A. (2006). Psychological warfare and India. Delhi, India: Lancer Publishers &
Distributors.
Bhushan, N., & Jain, R. K. (1999). Mathematical and computer modeling of future battlefields.
In P. N. Chaudhary & W. Selvamurthy (Eds.), Battle scene in year 2020 (pp. 259–272).
Delhi, India: DESIDOC.
Bowdish, R. G. (1999). Information age psychological operations. Military Review, (Dec
98–Feb 99), 28–36. Retrieved from http://www.c4i.org/bowdish .pdf
Chander, A. (2013, July 08). Unmanned technology will be the focus of future warfare:
DRDO. The Economic Times. Retrieved from http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.
com/2013-07-08/news/40443738_1_warfare-chander-systems
Finney, D. (n.d.). Remote neural monitoring. Retrieved from http://www.greatdreams.com/
RNM.htm
Fuller, J. F. C. (1920). Tanks in the great war. London, UK: Murray.

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Hosmer, S. T. (1999). The information revolution and psychological effects. In Z. M. Khalilzad

& J. P. White (Eds.), Strategic appraisal: The changing role of information in warfare (pp.
217–251). Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
ITV News. (1991, March 23). Military use of ultrasonic brain wave clusters. ITV News Bureau
Ltd. Retrieved from http://whale.to/b/mc_brain.html
Paddock, A. H. (1982). US army special warfare: Its origins. Washington, DC: National
Defence Univeristy Press.
Post, J. M. (2005). Psychological operations and counterterrorism. Joint Force
Quarterly, 37. 105–110, Retrieved from http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Psychological
operationsandcounterterrorism.-a0141576784
Sammon, R. (2012, September 20). 9 amazing technologies of the future. Retrieved from
http://m.kiplinger.com/slideshow/business/T043-S001-9-amazing-military-technologies-
of-the-future/ index.html
Squire, L. (1995). Mass media: The tenth principle of war? Newport, RI: Naval War College.
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Propaganda101.pdf

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 SECTION II

Psychological
Interventions in
Military Context

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 9
The Secret Weapon of Optimism

Eyal Lewin

When armies struggle against all odds, the source of the soldiers’
motivation to fight remains an unsolved puzzle. According to scholarly
literature, comradeship and social cohesiveness are key factors in the
conduct of any struggle. However, persistent fighting and determined
resistance seem to occur also when soldiers are totally unacquainted
with each other. This phenomenon calls for another observation, recog-
nizing that social cohesion may not necessarily be the only explanation
for human persistence on the battlefield.

Doubting Some Common Knowledge

Why soldiers fight is a puzzle that bothers students of human behaviour

particularly when confronted with historical evidence of struggles in
which people have fought until the bitter end even when all, for them,
had been lost. Facing fatal casualties and overrun by overwhelming
military forces, one would expect soldiers belonging to disadvantaged
armies to give in. Yet as Somerset Maugham has taught us, passion
does not know the cost, and the heart has its reasons that reason takes
no account of (Maugham, 2000).
One common explanation for a continuous struggle even when
the chance of succeeding seems slim lies within the social bonds of
military units. Social cohesion as a human motivator has been exam-
ined time and again with numerous case studies of armies, starting
far back with the Spartan military tradition (Sekunda & Hook, 1998),
continuing through the poor but socially cohesive Confederate army
of the American Civil War (Frank, 1991) as well as accounts of the
Wehrmacht’s social community structure (Shils & Janowitz, 1948), and
concluding with records of current reserve units in the Israeli Defense

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 186  Eyal Lewin

Forces (IDFs) (Ben-Dor, Pedahzur, & Hasisi, 2002). On the other hand,
in contrast to common wisdom, there is evidence that sometimes
persistence in combat exists even when army units are destroyed and
reduced to individual soldiers who are not necessarily acquainted with
each other. The social capital theory of networks and group cohesion
fails to explain why troops continue to fight even when their units have
been dismantled and their comrades have all died.
Perhaps an extreme example of that is the phenomenon of the
Japanese holdouts. In the aftermath of Second World War (WWII),
tens of thousands of Imperial troops were bypassed by the advancing
American forces, and many of them were left stranded in isolated
islands in the pacific. Those Japanese soldiers went into hiding, wait-
ing for attacks that would never come and commands from military
authorities that no longer existed. Devastatingly short of supplies and
cut off from their homeland, thousands of them hid from the American
patrols in the thick jungles and mountains of the islands, scattered in
isolation and unaware that the war had ended. Like satellites that are
lost in space, remote and alone among the numerous islands of the
Philippines, Indonesia and the Chinese sea, many perished quietly
without their officers or comrades around them, alert for a battle
that would never take place. Even when eventually located and finally
persuaded that the war had long been over, their surrender proved
sometimes impossible to achieve without assistance from their former
long-ago commanders in Japan (Ononda, 1999).
Another possible explanation for people’s uncompromising struggle
might be the factor of collective fear. Collective fear results from a
threat perception according to which the community’s fate is in danger
and the social group is contested by a challenge that risks the social
order in such a way that the group might fail to recover (McCann,
1997). It is the collective fear that encourages one’s activity for the sake
of social survival even at the price of high personal costs (Higgins, 1999;
Stephan & Stephan, 2001). Under threat, the social group sees itself as
one under siege and becomes a community in which it is all for one and
one for all; social solidarity and patriotic feelings are bound to flourish
and prosper (Sherif & Sherif, 1969). This certainly has proved to be the
case of American citizens who immediately demonstrated pro-social
activity and volunteered to give aid right after the 9/11 events (Allen,
Sargeant, & Bradley, 2003). Supreme emergencies, during which the
very existence of a state is threatened from the outside, raise extreme

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 The Secret Weapon of Optimism  187

feelings of social solidarity and encourage patriotic actions, drawing

attention away from domestic disputes and thus contributing to the
consolidation of the political community (Canetti-Nisim, Arieli, &
Halperin, 2008; Evrigenis, 2008; Gordon & Arian, 2001; Kinder &
Sears, 1981; McConahay, 1982). This corresponds, of course, to the
rally-round-the-flag syndrome (Mueller, 1973).
However, these theories too fall somewhat short of enveloping
a comprehensive explanation to the behaviour of highly motivated
patriots risking their lives against all odds. In fact, one can find his-
torical proof for cases in which fear was rather a paralyzing factor that
prevented collective action. Such, for example, was the case of the
Czech president Edvard Benes who on 30 September 1938 decided
that fighting Germany was hopeless, and therefore submitted to the
Munich agreement, allowing Germany to annex the Sudetenland;
with this surrender, the Czech government practically put an end to
its country, since the incorporation of the industrial Sudetenland into
Nazi Germany left the rest of Czechoslovakia weak and powerless,
unable to resist any subsequent occupation. In March 1939, meeting
no resistance, the Wehrmacht crossed mainland Czechoslovakia and
marched into Prague, finally terminating the short-lived First Republic
of Czechoslovakia (Vital, 1967, 1971).
Proponents of the Czech leadership claim that the small country
that was betrayed by its Western patrons who preferred appeasing
Hitler stood no chance against the mighty Third Reich; a militant
reaction would have led, not only to useless bloodshed that would not
change the political outcome, but would also put the historical blame
on Czechoslovakia for having been the state that caused a World War
everyone had been so eager to prevent. By refraining from struggle the
Czech leaders saved the lives of their people, whose country had been
doomed to be conquered by powers far beyond its strength.
Yet historic accounts, particularly updated ones, reveal an altogether
different version. Military and strategic reports show that the balance
of forces in 1938 left the Germans with no advantage whatsoever.
Comparing the size and quality of armies, the highly protected Czech
defense lines, the Soviet alternative for foreign aid and the devastating
winter that would not enable an effective Luftwaffe activity—all these
considered, the Czech capitulation surprised even the German lead-
ership (Angelucci, Matricardi, & Pinto, 2008; Ben-Arie, 1990; Lewin,
2012; Lukes, 1993; Vital, 1966).

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 188  Eyal Lewin

What, then, led the Czech leadership to succumb? Why did they
concede to hostile demands and political pressure until finally com-
mitting an act of national suicide? One possible answer lies within the
effects of collective fear. In Czechoslovakia, just like in other countries,
the memories of First World War (WWI) boosted anxiety; the Western
political and military establishments were practically possessed with
the emotion that such a war should never again take place. Above all, a
widespread fear of an immediate fatal blow from the Luftwaffe greatly
affected Western foreign policy and has come to rule the customary
comprehension of Europe’s peoples (Showalter, 2003). This collec-
tive fear was produced through the outstanding implementation of
an extremely aggressive airfare doctrine of the German army during
its intervention in the Spanish Civil War. On 26 April 1937, in what
would later be known as the Guernica raid, the Luftwaffe led an aerial
attack on the Basque town of Guernica, destroying the city and kill-
ing hundreds of its inhabitants. The strategic weight of the devastated
city was marginal, and the whole event was taken out of its objective
historical proportions, but the tremendous psychological and political
impacts of the air assault went far beyond its local context. In Britain
and the United States, the major newspapers generated a common
shock from what was later to be named terror bombings; indignation
and dismay over the destruction of Guernica echoed around the world.
More importantly, the reports of the Guernica raid propelled a public
fear that in any coming war the air forces of the warring nations and
those of Germany in particular would be able to wipe whole cities off
the map. The cumulating shocking impression throughout the West
was that the Luftwaffe was an aggressive force whose violent activity
could not be blocked or restrained (Bialer, 1980; Patterson, 2007).
Other competing rationalizations of outstanding patriotic struggles
refer to ideology, particularly—national ideology, as the leading cause
for the people to fight stubbornly. The national ethos of a country is the
array of the particularistic shared values and traditions from which the
people’s image of its future and past is envisioned. The ethos integrates
the community into feeling a common mutual destiny and forms the
foundations for its unique identity as a distinctive social group. The
integrative ethos is also the moral source for the national community’s
informal social controls; it enforces commitments upon society and
drives its members into a largely voluntary social order. Thus, the ethos

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 The Secret Weapon of Optimism  189

of a nation holds, in fact, one of the most important keys for a people’s
ability to unite into a cohesive society (Etzioni, 2009).
The use of national ethos in political science goes back to the German
romanticism of the late 18th century with philosopher Johann Gottfried
Herder speaking about the cultural, ethical and political climate in
which a nation evolves and crystallizes (Barnard, 2003). These ideas
project a strong association between the ethos and the representations
of a long history that the nation claims for itself. The features of a com-
munity, some scholars claim, originated in the historical stages when
the mental maps of the people, their prevailing culture, norms and ideas
were cultivated (Rothstein, 2000). This attitude corresponds also to
the writings of sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, who spoke of a group
memory that was shared by its members, passed on, and constructed
by the social group. Rejecting Freudian and other purely psychological
approaches, Halbwachs (1992) claimed that it was impossible for an
individual to remember in any coherent and persistent fashion outside
his group contexts; memories were not preserved in one’s brain or
in one’s mind, they were rather external recollections controlled and
constructed by the group.
Whether judging nationalism and its ideologies as positive or
destructive factors of our society, decades after Halbwachs, the basic
understandings are that a social memory shapes images of the past and
draws, by doing so, the lines of political cultural profiles (Fentress &
Wickham, 1992; Olick & Levy, 1997). According to international stud-
ies theorist Benedict Anderson, the idea of a collective memory resides
deep in comprehension of the nation as an imagined community;
nationalism has a symbolic and constructed nature, and by utilizing
the communicative media it is capable of reaching dispersed popula-
tions (Anderson, 1983). The collective identity of a nation, as a unique
combination of a public that shares mutual values and beliefs, lies in
its common narratives, that is—its constructed collective memory,
and in the united role that its members believe that fate had destined
for them in this world.
There is no doubt that national ideology has the capacity to mobi-
lize people and to lead them to join forces and reach unachievable
accomplishments or endure unbearable hazards. Perhaps, the histori-
cal meeting point of the 20th century’s two colossal ideology-driven
forces is Stalingrad, where between 23 August 1942 and 2 February

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 190  Eyal Lewin

1943 over two million soldiers and civilians held one of the bloodiest
battles in human history. Neither the soldiers of the Nazi Wehrmacht
nor the Soviet troops of the Red Army or the men and women who
fought alongside with them were willing to give in; each party, in its
turn, suffered its painful disasters inflicted by close-quarters combat,
thirst and starvation, medicine shortage and eventually—the cruel
Russian winter.
First, the German offensive was supported by intensive air-raids that
reduced large parts of the city to rubble. But since the Soviet defenders
were willing to endure casualties and refused to leave their posts the
Wehrmacht was driven to door-to-door bayonet-range fighting. Even
when most of the city was eventually conquered, the Russian forces
clung tenaciously to the west bank of the Volga River, refusing to break
down. Three months into the campaign, the Red Army launched a
counter-attack and through heavy fighting managed to surround
the German 6th Army inside Stalingrad. The Nazi predator was now
encircled, trapped in a lethal enclave, cut off from any supply.
In an attempt to break the lock, the Luftwaffe launched an aerial
operation to supply what, to begin with, had never exceeded more
than a small portion of the daily 500 tons of food and ammunition
that the 6th Army needed for its survival. The result was that instead of
relieving the besieged army, as many as 500 German aircraft were lost
to bad weather, and to a sophisticated Soviet defense system combin-
ing rings of guns and ground-controlled fighters. The superior Soviet
forces were determined in their constant pressure on the ground, and
only a fraction of the required supplies made it to the doomed German
forces. Even at this point in time, desperately isolated and standing no
chance to win this hopeless battle, the German commander, Friedrich
Paulus, turned down Soviet offers to negotiate and refused to s­ urrender.
The battle, as well as the whole 6th Army of the Wehrmacht, was to
be entirely lost.
By January 1943, the Germans had already gone through months
of living on rations measured by dozens of grams, supplemented
irregularly by horsemeat and by occasional rats. Conditions in their
military hospitals were practically medieval. Thousands of kilometres
away from home, often, literally, freezing to death, with hardly any
ammunition, they were determined to choose bravery over life. In
the final assault, thousands of Soviet guns and mortars were firing in

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 The Secret Weapon of Optimism  191

every corner of the German pocket. Tanks and infantry were ruthlessly
advancing simultaneously in all sectors. Within a week, the German
remaining forces were reduced to half their size. Once again Paulus was
summoned to surrender; once again he refused. The German soldiers
fought back against all odds and, like their commander, refused to
submit. German die-hards fell back into the city’s ruins, using tactics
learned from the Russians several months before, to prolong the end
as ammunition ran out and men sought terms at bayonet point.
Even after Paulus was captured, fire did not cease, and German
resistance was active, literally, to the last bullet. In all, some 400,000
German soldiers were killed in this battle. In late summer 1942 Soviet
warriors driven by faithfulness to Mother Russia rejected any option of
collapsing even in the dark moments when all seemed to have been lost.
In the winter of early 1943, it was the German troops loyal to the Third
Reich who remained loyal to their mission, fighting literally until the
very end. Hungry, cold, sick and wounded with no treatment at hand,
they continued to lead a lost war, refusing to accept their fate (Beevor,
1999; Roberts, 2006). Yet, the inspiration of national ethos, performed
by Russians as well as by Germans, seemed to be far less effective when
speaking of other nationalities. It was no coincidence that the besieged
forces in Stalingrad were purely German; their allies, the Romanians,
Hungarians and Italians, who were also driven by highly inspiring
national spirits, surrendered almost immediately, not necessarily
facing any better fate than the German fighters. Surrender was, in
fact, the general trend amongst most European countries throughout
WWII, even though some of them maintained centuries-long national
­ideologies. In spite of their national traditions, when called to struggle
for their very existence, Denmark, Belgium, Norway and France, just
to name a few, demonstrated mainly defeatism (Lewin, 2012).
Hence, the enigma of the soldiers’ motivation remains, after
all, veiled and obscure. Notwithstanding the importance of social
bonds, what drives soldiers to exert their willpower when chances are
­negligible? What enables troops, even when isolated and remote from
their comrades, to fight stubbornly and to insist on changing reality
even when the probability of positive outcomes is clearly low? In quest
of an adequate answer, this chapter has taken the theoretical founda-
tions of positive psychology as an alternative explanation for soldiers’
persistence in fighting.

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 192  Eyal Lewin

Optimism

Optimism is a topic that belongs to a broad field of psychological

thought often referred to as positive psychology. Positive psychology is
an umbrella under which areas of concern such as happiness, talent
and personal empowerment are studied and the results implemented
(Peterson, 2006; Seligman, 2000; Snyder, 2000). Optimism relates to
the sense of control that resilient individuals demonstrate in times of
hardship. It is a constructive motivational state, relying on a sense of a
possible future success. Group solidarity and social cohesion are often
achieved through the influence of leaders who are capable of inspiring
positive shared interpretations of stressful events, of restoring a sense
of control and of holding up a vision of a positive future (Bartone,
Barry, & Armstrong, 2009; Bartone & Bartone, 2011; Ben-Dor, Canetti,
& Lewin, 2010).
Martin Seligman defines optimism as the tendency to interpret real-
ity in a manner that (a) considers the role of external factors in produc-
ing bad outcomes; (b) views the bad event as a one-time episode and
(c) confines the bad outcome to just one performance area (Seligman,
1991, 1994, 2002). Charles Snyder’s definition describes optimism as
goal-directed thinking in which people implement pathways think-
ing (i.e., their perceived capacity to find routes to the desired goals)
together with agency thinking (i.e., the necessary motivations to use
those routes). Pathways thinking, according to this point of view, is the
production of alternate paths once original ones have been blocked;
agency thinking is the positive emotional mindset that stimulates high
hopers to maximize their pathway thinking (Snyder & Lopez, 2007).
Optimism, then, is considered to be a personal human resource for
enabling one to achieve success. If one is an optimist, he can meet a
challenge successfully. He plans how to cope with it productively and
tell oneself that he can do it; upon an initial success his self-confidence
grows, he tries new approaches and finds improved pathways, gradually
recognizing oneself as a winner—as an individual who can make things
happen. Hence, the personal process of optimism is based on one’s
articulating his goals, identifying the routes he can use to achieve these
goals and finding the personal self that will encourage him to maintain
his efforts until he finally completes the required accomplishment. If

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 The Secret Weapon of Optimism  193

any of the stages in this process is lacking, optimism will no longer form
a human resource for change, but will rather remain wishful thinking,
daydreaming or even a form of escapism (Snyder, 2000).
In search of the applied outcomes of psychological theories, opti-
mism has been referred to as a possible purposely acquired trait, a
learned human pattern of thinking and certainly not a genetically
endowed one (Bandura, 1986; Barone, Maddux, & Snyder, 1997).
Indeed, some scholars of positive psychology have gone the extra mile
and translated their research into useful manuals on how to become
more optimistic. The very titles of some of their books convey the
concept that positive psychology is an attainable trait one does not
necessarily have to be born with—Making Hope Happen (Snyder,
1999), The Psychology of Hope: You Can Get There from Here (ibid.)
or The Great Book of Hope: Help your Children Achieve their Dreams
(McDermott & Snyder, 2000).
In this study, collective hope and optimism reflect the core ideas
of positive psychology: self encouragement, led by deep faith that
affirmative outcomes are achievable provided that the members of the
group maintain their belief in success. It is the profound belief that the
human spirit is capable of changing reality; the approach according to
which will-power is stronger than physical barriers.

The Weapon of Optimism: Case Study of

Arab–Israeli 1973 War

On 6 October 1973, in the middle of the Day of Atonement [Yom

Kippur], the most solemn and strictly observed holy day on the
Jewish calendar, Egypt launched a surprise attack on Israel in the Sinai
Peninsula, coordinated with a simultaneous assault by Syrian forces
in the Golan Heights. Because of the tremendous surprise effect that
characterized this attack, Israel failed to mobilize its army in time; as
a result, its defenses were fragile and inadequate.
The Egyptian army successfully crossed the Suez Canal, easily over-
running the 450 Israeli soldiers who manned the fortified waterline.
The Egyptian invasion, with 100,000 soldiers deployed, 1,400 tanks
and 2,000 heavy mortars, was met by a vastly outnumbered defense;

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 194  Eyal Lewin

in all of Sinai the Israeli army counted no more than 290 tanks; only
about a third of them were close to the canal when war broke out,
and the rest were scattered some 50 kilometres to the east. Masses of
advancing Egyptian soldiers carrying portable anti-tank missiles created
an overwhelming military formation that the Israeli strategists were
unaware of in advance. As early as 24 hours after the initial attack, two
thirds of the Israeli tanks had been lost and the remaining 90 tanks had
to cope with hundreds of Egyptian tanks that had already managed
to cross the canal.
The Israeli fortified points along the Suez Canal had been easily
bypassed; the soldiers in each small fortification were now under
siege. Within a few days some of them would surrender, of whom
several would be immediately executed by victorious Egyptian forces
who by now had regained the canal line. The Israeli air force’s supe-
riority that had proved so important for Israel’s victory six years
earlier was now eliminated by Soviet surface-to-air missile batter-
ies that the Egyptians had posted on the western bank of the Suez
Canal. Within a day’s fighting, over 40 Israeli airplanes had already
been shot down.
On the northern front, things were not any better for Israel. The
Syrians invaded the Golan Heights and were virtually threatening the
whole northern part of the country. The Syrian army consisted of
45,000 soldiers, 1,600 tanks and 950 heavy mortars, enormously out-
numbering the Israeli defenses that counted 4,000 soldiers, 177 tanks
and 44 cannons. Aside from the huge numerical advantage, Israel was
caught totally unprepared for this war, none of its units were properly
equipped and the reserve forces, the spinal cord of the IDF, were called
into action far too late.
With these unfortunate opening conditions, with the routes to main-
land Israel on the verge of being breached, Israeli reserve forces congre-
gated for a final struggle for their homeland. Shocked, and overwhelmed
by outnumbering forces and new Soviet technologies, the IDF fought
with its back to the wall. Against all odds, however, within a week of
fierce fighting and heavy losses, Israel recovered and launched counter-
offensives in the south and the north. Immense tank battles took place
in the Sinai as well as on the Golan heights, some even greater in scope
than the WWII desert battle of El Alamein. Starting on 15 October 1973,
the IDF organized a remarkably daring counterattack in the south. An
Israeli division broke through the enemy’s forces and crossed the Suez
Canal in order to advance towards Cairo; other IDF divisions cut off

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 The Secret Weapon of Optimism  195

and encircled the whole Egyptian 3rd Army that was now trapped in
the Sinai desert without water, food or ammunition supplies.
Three weeks into the war, when a ceasefire was achieved, Israel had
already recaptured almost all of the territory that it had lost in the first
few days of fighting. In the north, most of the Syrian tanks, along with
thousands of their vehicles and hundreds of guns, remained scattered in
the battlefields; the route to Damascus was almost open. In the south,
IDF troops gained power over a large stronghold on the western bank
of the Suez Canal, and a large portion of the Egyptian army was locked
in, urgently needing humanitarian supplies (Ezov, 2011).

Methodology: Inquiring Optimism

In order to establish the theory of positive psychology as a key to

understanding how and why people struggle, at times, against all odds,
the testimonies of several Israeli soldiers and officers who had experi-
enced the hardships of war and had coped with what might count as
unbearable situations were tested. This research is, therefore, based on
a qualitative analysis of testimonies relating to what is considered one
of Israel’s most traumatic war experiences, the 1973 war.
The testimonies in this research have been extracted from books and
pamphlets, in most cases within a military framework, as well as from
magazine sections of Israeli daily newspapers. The technique applied
in this study is the framework approach that was developed in the
1980s by policy researchers at the National Center for Social Research,
considered to be Britain’s largest independent social research agency,
as a method to manage and analyse qualitative data in applied policy
research. This method is particularly suited for cases in which content
and thematic analyses describe and interpret participants’ views and
opinions (Ritchie, Spencer, & O’Connor, 2003).
Producing themes from data is common in qualitative studies and
forms a widely used analytical method. Thematic analysis is an inter-
pretive process in which patterns are systematically searched within
the data and provide an illuminating description of the inquired
phenomenon (Tesch, 1990). The development of meaningful themes,
without necessarily generating any theory at this stage, provides rich
insights into complex observable occurrences and can be applied across
a range of theoretical approaches (Ritchie et al., 2003). In addition,

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 196  Eyal Lewin

the framework approach process is based on a series of interconnected

stages that enable the researcher to move back and forth across the
data until a coherent account emerges. Thus, a constant refinement
of themes is achieved, which eventually enables the development of a
conceptual framework (ibid.).
Because it is suited to analyse descriptive data and enables different
aspects of the investigated phenomenon to be captured, the framework
approach was chosen in this research. In addition, the researcher’s inter-
pretations of the testimonies’ contents can be kept transparent through
this approach. Three stages form the procedure in which the framework
approach is implemented. (a) Data management: becoming familiar with
the various texts through multiple readings; identifying central themes;
developing a coding matrix and assigning it to the themes. (b) Descriptive
accounts: refining initial themes in order to summarize and synthesize
the diversity of the data; identifying associations between the themes
so that more abstract concepts could be developed. (c) Explanatory
accounts: finding meanings, interpreting and explaining the concepts
and themes and searching for coherent concepts (Ritchie et al., 2003).
In this research, altogether 217 testimonies of soldiers and commanders
from the case study of the Arab–Israeli 1973 War have been reviewed.
Consequently, five themes were found to be the leading ones (Table 9.1):

1. Description of Military Movements: This theme can be found in

every one of the testimonies, which are naturally dedicated first
to reports about the advance or retreat of IDF and Arab forces.
These descriptions include accounts of the specific sceneries of
battlefields.
2. National Causes of the War: This theme was found in 11 testimo-
nies and refers mainly to the deep belief of soldiers that they were
practically forming a last-defense line that would save the whole

Table 9.1
Themes of the testimonies

Themes Mentioned in Testimony Number of Testimonies

Description of military movements 217
National causes of the war 11
Fear of death 8
Thoughts about home 5
Positive psychology 18
Source: Author.

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 The Secret Weapon of Optimism  197

country. References are made to the Holocaust and to the 1948

war, usually with a fundamental conviction that losing the battle
would put an end to the State of Israel and to the Jewish people.
3. Fear of Death: This theme was found in eight testimonies and
refers to one’s notion that the specific incident is the one which
he would not survive. In those testimonies soldiers testify that
they were sure that their death was very near.
4. Thoughts about Home: This theme was found in five of the
testimonies and refers to thoughts about home and particularly
letters that soldiers wrote to their loved ones, expressing deep
concerns not about the war that was going on but rather about
the personal future of those whom they may never meet again.
5. Positive Psychology: This theme was found in 18 of the testi-
monies and its reference to optimism and hope will further be
detailed. In fact, the testimonies that include this theme form a
new sample, or a sub-sample, that enables us to elaborate on a
specific theory, in this case—the theory of positive p ­ sychology.
This strategy of sub-sampling is common when developing
grounded theory, but is also frequently used in qualitative
investigations that are based on interpretation (Marshall, 1996).

Results: Interpreting Optimism

In order to provide a variety of cases, the examples that were chosen

here reflect the two major geographical fronts in which the IDF had
to cope with some devastating conditions: the Golan Heights, where
the Syrian army was on its way to conquer the northern part of Israel,
and the Sinai Peninsula, where the Egyptian army had to be stopped
from invading Israel from the south. Four illustrations are brought
here from every one of these large battles, representing perspectives
of commanders as well as soldiers.
The examples from the northern front include the following: (a)
Avigdor Kahalani, who with poorly armed 40 tanks led a successful
counter-offensive against an army of 500 Syrian tanks; (b) Ori Orr, the
Brigade Commander who personally convinced the tank crews that
they were going to win what at that point in time seemed to be a lost
war; (c) Zvika Greengold, who had only one tank under his command
but managed to fool the enemy into thinking that he was controlling a

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 198  Eyal Lewin

sizeable defense force; (d) Arad, who was a young soldier in an infantry
company that was left to fight on its own from the top of a hill against
thousands of Syrian troops.
The examples from the southern front include the following: (a)
General Ariel Sharon, who refused to admit failure and decided instead
that the IDF should cross the Suez Canal and head towards the Egyptian
capital of Cairo; (b) Division Commander Amnon Reshef, who was
determined to reflect confidence in his troops although outnumbered
they were fighting for their lives; (c) Eliashiv Shimshi, who, like his
commander, insisted on speaking calmly on the wireless even when
soldiers and officers were being killed in front of his very eyes; (d) Yoel
Nachshon, the Military Rabbi who inspired wounded soldiers with
optimism during some grave moments in the battlefield. In addition,
the testimony of Air Force Commander Benny Peled is brought here,
particularly because it became well-known and often quoted in the
form of a poem in Israeli national ceremonies.
These examples exhibit, each in its own way, the three major attri-
butes of optimism: (a) an articulation of goals; (b) an identification
of the routes to achieve these goals; (c) fostering of the self-perception
that would encourage the optimist to maintain his efforts.
Starting with examples taken from the northern front, the war
caught Battalion Commander Avigdor Kahalani in the Golan Heights,
where disjointed and overwhelmed Israeli troops were, during the
first day of the war, at a loss. Kahalani assembled groups of tanks
and crews from the dismantled and destroyed units, some of them
mentally shocked, and talked them into forming an armored unit.
Kahalani’s force counted no more than 40 tanks and soon they were
about to face 500 attacking Syrian tanks in a site that would later be
named the Valley of Tears [Emek HaBacha], in the Northern Golan
Heights. For four days Kahalani managed to hold back one assault
after another; each Syrian attack that was halted had its costs in dead
and wounded commanders and soldiers and damaged tanks. At one
point Kahalani’s forces decreased to about a dozen functioning tanks
that were constantly running out of ammunition. In fact, when at a
certain point in the battle one of his officers had to pull back in order
to reload his gun, Kahalani asked him to postpone his resupply and
to stick around for a while so that the Syrians would not notice how
few the Israeli forces were becoming. The Israeli forces managed to
maintain the struggle until the Syrians finally gave in and retreated.
When the Syrians at long last withdrew, the whole valley was littered

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 The Secret Weapon of Optimism  199

with hundreds of their burned tanks, and the Golan Heights were once
again under Israeli control.
One of the company commanders, Amy Planet, described the peak
of the final battle.

[…] At a certain point we [the commanders] started to shout “the Syrian

tanks are retreating! They are running away!” This was not true, though
perhaps some of them did turn away; but this cry boosted our forces with
sudden new energies. This was how we managed to overcome one of the
major breaking points. (As cited in Kahalani, 2004, p. 270)

As for Kahalani, who later received the Medal of Valor for his part
in the war, once he adopted the self-perception that he was going to
succeed, the possibility of being overrun by the enemy forces was
no longer an option. He was well aware of the fact that he remained
the last battalion commander alive in the northern part of the Golan
Heights, but he had the gut feeling that it was up to him to create the
change (ibid., 1992).
Another hero of the northern arena was Ori Orr, who was appointed
slightly before the war to command a newly formed reserve brigade.
Concentrating mainly on the southern and central parts of the Golan
Heights, his forces, still in the process of gathering and organizing their
equipment, fought against the superior Syrian forces. At the end of a
day’s struggle, Orr realized that in spite of heavy losses on his part,
the Syrians were only warming up; the next morning they would start
with the advantage of controlling the ridge, with the sun at their back.
The self-perception that encouraged Orr to maintain his efforts was
the decision that he was a winner. He ordered the troops to evacuate
injured and dead soldiers from all the armored vehicles and to form
new tank crews. He felt it was his duty to speak with each of the soldiers,
most of whom he had never met before, and to assure them that the
next morning they were going to win. He was certain that it is going to
happen, and he sensed that talking to the people would make it happen
(Orr, 2003). One of the soldiers recalled the night time meeting with his
formerly unknown brigade commander—Haim Sabato—who would
years later become a Rabbi and author, remembers:

We arrived at Naffach [an Israeli central military base attacked by the

Syrians]. Bombs lighted the darkness and we could see that tanks were on
flames everywhere. Wounded soldiers were scattered all over, lying on the
ground, shouting so that we would not accidentally run over them. On the

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 200  Eyal Lewin

tanks that had been hit we could notice injured and dead crewmen situated
in strange positions.
At around midnight someone signaled us to stop. A robust looking man
with a big face mounted the tank-turret and we all gathered around him.
He had a quiet and soft voice and he asked that we pay attention. We were
tired and shocked. He then silently caressed the hand of each of us and said:
“Hello, I am the division commander”.
We were astonished; we had never been addressed in such a manner by such
a high ranked officer. The division commander pulled out a chocolate pack,
and handed us the broken pieces. Then he said: “I know, it is very hard on
you, you are young. It is hard for me too. I have already fought one tough
war, but this one is different; totally different. The brigade has lost a lot of
tanks. The whole commanding chain has been crippled. You have lost your
regiment commander and your company commander. It is hard, very hard.
But I am entirely certain that we will win. Whoever holds on shall win. If we
do not let ourselves fall down we shall win. We will win because we have no
choice. We simply have to win. The whole Jewish people counts on us, so
we have to win… We shall reorganize the brigade from whatever we have
still got, and with dawn we shall attack […]”.
Before he left us he shook our hands and said again “Guys, I love you”;
then he approached another tank. That was how he spoke with every crew
in every tank that night. (Orr, 2003, p. 64)

Ori Orr’s optimism was turned into a collective one, the kind of
group hope that gives a sense of meaning and coherence to life. It
was this hope, transmitted through his direct contact with each crew
member, that encouraged the soldiers’ readiness for sacrifice, so crucial
for the upcoming events that were awaiting all of them.
Perhaps a unique example of a junior officer who changed the course
of the whole war is Zvika Greengold, a 21-year-old lieutenant who was
at home on leave when his story began. He was not attached to any
unit, but once he realized that war had broken out, he sensed deep in
his heart that it was up to him to play a major role in any war. Zvika
Greengold hitchhiked to the Golan Heights in search of any formal
duty he could fulfill. In the midst of chaos, he took command of two
tanks that had retreated after their crew members were either killed or
badly wounded. After having gathered new crews, Zvika headed with
the tanks to the Petroleum Road, a key route running along the Golan
Heights, where the Syrian invasion force was bound to pass sooner or
later. Transmitting through the communication military net, he was
coded by the name ‘Zvika Force’.

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 The Secret Weapon of Optimism  201

Arriving at the Petroleum Road, Greengold spotted Syrian tanks

that had broken through the Israeli crumbling defense lines and were
now advancing unopposed. In spite of his inferiority as a force of just
two tanks, he immediately engaged the enemy’s forces and destroyed
six of their tanks. As darkness fell, he lost contact with his other tank,
but more and more Syrian tanks were closing in. Zvika also realized
that the military radio network was being tapped, so he insisted on
calling himself ‘Zvika Force,’ deliberately forming the impression of a
large unit; even his superiors had no idea that the whole force consisted
eventually of one lonely tank. He would move and shoot constantly,
fooling the Syrians into thinking that they had run across a sizable
defense force, and throughout the night he succeeded in destroying
about a dozen of the enemy’s armored vehicles. Recalling that night
he would later say:

I had no choice. I was alone; there was nobody else who could defend the
whole area [so] I took responsibility over the mission of halting the Syrian
forces. […] I got the feeling that it was up to me to determine the fate of
my relatives, my family, and the fate of the whole Jewish people.
[…] It was clear to me that a scenario of failure was out of question, and
deep in my heart I silently repeated that over and over again.
[…] I knew that I had to dredge from the energies that I hardly possessed, to
dig in for personal physical as well as spiritual forces, or else I would not be
able to complete my mission. (as cited in Greengold, 2008, pp. 23-25, 116).

Zvika, one ought to remember, had no preliminary acquaintance

with any of the crew members, let alone any form of a committed
friendship with any of them; but he was led by an optimistic drive to
change the catastrophic situation. At dawn, the Syrian brigade com-
manders decided that it was too risky to encounter the strong Israeli
force by daylight and halted optimistically, waiting for further orders.
By the time their assault was renewed, larger Israeli forces that had
managed to organize in the meantime were already on their way to
fight them. Thus, had it not been for one junior officer, off duty, whose
attitude had led him to search for alternate routes, the results of the
whole campaign might have proved even more tragic (ibid., 2008;
Rabinovich, 2005).
On the Southern Golan Heights, near the Syrian-Israeli border,
stands a small but strategically positioned hill called Tel Saki. It was used
as a military reconnaissance post, and during the first three days of the

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 202  Eyal Lewin

war a handful of IDF soldiers who were posted there stood their ground,
fighting off thousands of Syrian assaulting troops. Outnumbered 100 to
1, short of weapons, ammunition, food and water, the Israeli fighters
of Tel Saki never surrendered. At a certain point in time, the Syrian
soldiers managed to mount the hill, and then—practically at the last
moment—IDF enforcement forces reached the place. In total, 35
out of 80 Israeli soldiers who fought in Tel Saki died, and practically
everyone else was wounded. Arad, one of the survivors, a twenty-year
old soldier, explains how victory was achieved at the battle of Tel Saki.

[…] It was all about making possible something that seemed to be simply
impossible. We knew that we were holding the place until the rest of the
[IDF] forces would get organized and join us. […] I sometimes ask myself
what made them [the Syrians] retreat. I think that the answer is that it is
like in Tug of War [rope-pulling game]; the two teams are locked, deter-
mined not be pulled for even one centimeter. Both sides are running out
of energy, but the winners are those who have this internal spiritual force
telling them all the time to hold on, reminding them that the other team is
not doing any better; and then it is just one more effort and you win! (as
cited in Laskov & Arad, 2003, pp. 144–145)

In the southern front things were certainly not any better than in the
north at the first day of the war. In spite of the buffer zone that the Sinai
Peninsula formed, a loss at the southern front was just as dangerous
for Israel’s existence as losing the Golan Heights. During the first two
days of the war, even the reserve troops that started a counter-offensive
failed to halt the massive Egyptian troops that now flooded the whole
western part of Sinai. When the high command of the IDF was occupied
with finding a way to stop the enemy from storming mainland Israel,
Ariel Sharon, by October 1973, a reserve general, decided that the IDF
should cross the Suez Canal and head towards the capital of Cairo.
Speaking of crossing the canal at that point was out of the question,
to say the least. It is true that thoughts of such an operation had been
brooded over before within the IDF’s command as theoretical options
for future wars, but the circumstances were now those of attempting
to survive an unprecedented attack in the face of a disaster. The IDF
had lost control of the western part of the Sinai, all of its forces were
either organizing for combat or under fire, and crossing the water was
something that had never been practiced. The high command of the
IDF totally rejected Sharon’s ideas.

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 The Secret Weapon of Optimism  203

Yet, Sharon was immovable; he sent out some patrolling units that
discovered there was a breach between the 2nd and the 3rd Egyptian
Armies. It was through this breach, leading to the town of Kantara on the
bank of the Suez Canal, that Sharon decided to instigate what would later
become one of the turning points of the war. He located the appropriate
crossing equipment and gave orders to take the equipment westward as
quickly as possible. Motorized large rafts were hence mobilized across
the war zones, and a cylinders bridge 200 metres long and weighing
400 tons was dragged by 24 tanks. The possibility that all this would
eventually work seemed at the time like a desperate wish for a miracle.
All this time, Sharon’s forces were engaged in some of the fiercest
battles of the whole campaign, but in addition to managing the battle-
field Sharon persuaded the high command that it was time to initiate
the operation. The major dispute was between most of the army leaders
who agreed that ensuring a clean corridor for Israeli forces to move
westward was vital before any crossover was implemented, and Ariel
Sharon who insisted on a plan that meant altering reality.
The arguments continued even once Sharon had managed to form
a bridgehead and to land a force of paratroopers and 24 tanks on
the Egyptian west bank of the Suez Canal. Those forces immediately
stormed a 25 kilometres long front, and with no losses at all caused
severe damage to the anti-aircraft Soviet missiles that had practically
paralyzed the Israeli air force during the first day of the war. The IDF’s
high command was disinclined to share Sharon’s optimism, and his
suggestion to expand the bridgehead was rejected for fear that the Israeli
forces on the Egyptian territory would be cut off. Although most of
the time Ariel Sharon was overruled by his superiors, his firm belief
in the optimistic scenario and his political shrewdness enabled him to
trick the high command step by step into what has eventually become
one of the brilliant operations in military history. Thus, it was due to
positive thinking, as well as personal stubbornness, that the war ended
with IDF forces on the western bank of the Suez, merely 101 kilometres
from Cairo (Ezov, 2011; Sharon & Chanoff, 2001).
In the testimonies, the most prevalent description of the combat
zones is one of chaotic situations. This is typical particularly concern-
ing the large desert landscapes of Sinai, where everywhere immense
numbers of Egyptian army forces were in motion. Whereas the IDF
deployed infantry and armored troops separately, the Soviet military
doctrine, in which the Egyptian army had been trained, combined the

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 204  Eyal Lewin

forces; infantry soldiers carrying Sagger anti-tank missiles were mingled

with the tanks and would move between them. Encountering those
massive amounts of manpower, the relatively few Israeli units that were
sent to halt the invaders would soon unwillingly split and often lose
any access to their necessary wireless communication (Asher, 2009).
On the very night when Sharon’s forces were getting organized for
the crossover, one of his tank divisions was sent to outflank 3 Egyptian
armored divisions. An unanticipated alignment of the enemy forces
caused the outnumbered Israeli division an additional disadvantage.
In the course of several hours, 54 out of 97 Israeli tanks were hit and
122 soldiers were dead. Almost dueling, Egyptian and Israeli tanks
were forming a field of dozens of large bonfires. Both Sharon and the
division commander, Amnon Reshef, were aware of the casualties,
they knew that their best officers were being killed by the minute; but
they spoke calmly on the wireless, lest they should startle their forces.
Reshef testifies, recalling that night:

You know exactly who got hit; sometimes it is a young officer whom you
have educated for years. You know them personally. In some cases you
are even acquainted with the family. And you have to speak on the radio
coolly, without even the slightest tone of hysteria. (Halochem [The Warrior]
October 6, 2007, pp. 21–26)

Gaining control over the situation by imposing calmness was indeed

a technique used by field officers of all ranks, from the commander
downwards and from the bottom rank to the top. Eliashiv Shimshi, a
company commander whose forces were on the verge of being over-
whelmed, recalls:

I did not report about the situation to the division commander because I
heard on the radio that he was himself occupied with enemy soldiers that
surrounded his tank. There was no point in distracting his mind now. I
also heard that a commander of one of the regiments was wounded and
I did not think it was necessary to burden the division commander with
additional worrying accounts. (Shimshi, 1986, p. 45)

It was, therefore, not just a manner of speaking or shallow flattery

when division commander Amnon Reshef told some of his soldiers,
moments before they went into battle, “[…] I had a chance to speak
with the Chief of Staff and with some of the Generals. I was strength-
ening their confidence in us. I could do so only after having seen you
in the battlefield” (Ezov, 2011, pp. 82-83).

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 The Secret Weapon of Optimism  205

It was during those battles in the South that Military Rabbi Yoel
Nachshon decided that his destiny was to pour optimism where for long
hours everything seemed to be lost. He was ranked a lieutenant, but
he had hardly any combat training and he was anything but a fighting
commander. He was the Military Rabbi of a mechanized division, and
his duties were therefore merely to provide religious services to soldiers.
Caught in the midst of the fierce battles, he joined the medical forces,
where he was expected to be occupied mainly with identifying the dead
in order to make sure that they were properly buried. However, he
soon volunteered to rescue wounded soldiers from armored vehicles
and to aid the doctor and the paramedics under fire. During one of
the Egyptian assaults, when shells were falling all over, he calmly went
from one injured soldier to another, confidently telling them that he
knew that they would survive.

I took every opportunity to sing happy songs. Sometimes soldiers would

join me [in singing], usually very shyly. […] I wanted to cheer them up, so
I kept speaking, often telling them things I had no information about. I told
them that I heard from the commanders that our forces were advancing in
all fronts; I informed those who were badly wounded that their situation
was not as bad as they thought and that they would soon be evacuated. […]
I simply boosted them with optimism because I knew it would be part of
their recovery. (As cited in Segal, 2007, pp. 287-289)

According to military historian Amiram Ezov who had been studying

the course of this war for years, the fate of the crossover of the Suez Canal
was not determined by fighting techniques, but rather by the determina-
tion of the fighters. Even when coping with obstacles that were virtu-
ally impenetrable, even when absorbing unexpectedly painful losses,
even when whole units were suddenly reduced and dismantled—the
IDF’s forces kept pouring westward. Hence, it is no wonder that Ezov
described the spirit of the Israeli field soldiers and officers with termi-
nology approximating that of collective positive thinking (Ezov, 2011).
Perhaps one of the commanders who best verbalized a deep sense
of positive psychology was General Benny Peled, who was the com-
mander of the Israeli air force in a situation when failure and loss was
evident. At the first 24 hours of fighting, 40 Israeli air planes were
already shot down; by the end of the war over 100 aircraft were lost
and 53 pilots were dead. When the Israeli 44 pilots who were prisoners
of war (POWs) were brought back home, Peled said in a ceremony
honoring their return:

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 206  Eyal Lewin

We are like a violin with a thousand strings. Once in a while one of the strings
is torn and we have to manage with one string less; and then another string
and another one… Some of the strings shall never return, and others could
be fixed. Overall, it is a melody that must never be stopped. […] There are
two ways to play the melody. One is with written notes. Sometimes there
are no notes and we still have to play, like we did this time. And although
we lost many strings, the melody was a good one, and it can be vividly
heard all over the region, and we shall keep playing it! (Peled, 2004, p. 417)

Peled’s words were transformed into a poem and then into a song
that is usually recited in independence day ceremonies, inspiring Israeli
citizens with the notion that they shall always win their wars.

Discussion and Implication:

Establishing Optimism

The data on which this research is based has from the start some basic
drawbacks that should be honestly mentioned. Autobiographical
accounts should not be automatically referred to as purely authentic,
but rather as speech acts that may not necessarily be genuinely true;
they often construct personal and collective experience, bound by social
conventions and aimed at justifying actions and evaluating other pro-
tagonists (Plummer, 1995; Scott & Lyman, 1968). One should bear in
mind that the testimonies were given publically and voluntarily (Berg,
2009); specifically in the case of former commanders or soldiers who
are telling their versions of the war, therefore, one can hardly expect, for
example, any evidence for cowardice, malfunction or personal failures.
In order to cope with some of these reliability issues, testimonies were
checked by means of triangulation and cross-examined in comparison
to other historical accounts. However, at the end of the day, to some
extent all of the testimonies should be taken with a grain of salt.
This being mentioned, the study proves how the importance of posi-
tive psychology as a component of resilience of an army unit originates
from some of its basic attributes. Optimism is considered to be based
on high cognitive processing that requires mental representations of
positively valued abstract future situations; it entails setting goals and
planning how to accomplish them; it also calls for a use of imagination
and creativity. In fact, optimism is a state of mind that prescribes a devel-
opment of new scripts and of programmes for future actions; it ordains

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 The Secret Weapon of Optimism  207

conviction about the not yet proved. Perhaps more than anything else
it forms the source of power to resist the temptation to compromise a
view of present reality for a better future (Breznitz, 1986; Clore, Schwarz,
& Conway, 1994; Isen, 1990; Lazarus, 1991; Snyder, 2000).
This calls, of course, for contemplation about the nature of a better
future. A particular disturbing scenario occurs when one strives for an
improved upcoming situation which he might never personally have
the chance to experience. Such state of affairs is typical, of course, for
altruistic deeds, but it is also characteristic, of course, for the case of
soldiers whose very fate is at stake in the theater of the battlefield. There
is rich evidence for the willingness of soldiers to demonstrate acts of
optimism wherein they have no chance to ever participate in the better
future that results from their action. For example, 54 of the 99 medals
awarded in the United States during the Vietnam War were presented to
the families of soldiers who had thrown themselves on hand grenades or
other explosives to prevent fellow soldiers from being killed or wounded
(Foley & Goudreau, 1996). These cases, in which soldiers enthusiasti-
cally sacrifice themselves, seem—on the face of it—to contradict the
positive psychology explanation for motivation that is suggested in this
study: how could optimism, for that matter, explain the motivation of
the Japanese Kamikaze who deliberately crashed their aircrafts, heavily
loaded with explosives, into American warships, knowing that they were
putting an end to their lives? How could positive psychology relate to the
incentives driving suicide bombers throughout centuries whose actions
would ultimately deprive them of better personal futures?
Bridging the gap, a partial answer might be found within the term
spirituality. The various definitions of spirituality spin around the idea
that the word describes an overall sense of belonging, of wholeness,
of connectedness and of openness to the infinite (Kelly, 1995). Ralph
Piedmont uses the term spiritual transcendence to describe the capacity
of people to step outside their immediate sense of time and place and
to view life from a larger perspective. According to this line of thought,
people experience—to one extent or another—a feeling that they are
a part of a larger human reality that cuts across generations and social
groups. Piedmont’s research demonstrates that spiritual transcendence
proves to be present in religious as well as in secular societies; it is a
general human trait across cultures and within differing spiritual tradi-
tions (Piedmont, 1999; Piedmont & Leach, 2003).
Once a social group has identified a spiritual goal as sacred, it will
strive to protect and preserve it; doing so lends deep significance to

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 208  Eyal Lewin

human existence. Thus, spiritual transcendence has a unique empower-

ing function and serves as a source of motivation for human action in
various areas of life (Pargament, 1997, 2002). The spiritual sacred goals
that stand far above daily life and sketch the landmarks of a desired
future are the framework of positive psychology. In the case of the 1973
war, Israeli soldiers at all fronts had the deep feeling that they were
fighting for the very existence of their country for future generations.
As mentioned earlier in the methodology clause of this study, one can
find within the various testimonies the theme of national causes for
the war, wherein the soldiers deeply believed that they were forming a
last-defense line that would save the State of Israel and prevent a second
Holocaust. Thus, the different themes are intertwined, with collective
hope and optimistic attitudes forming the major motivating factors.
When and how does positive psychology prevail? If it is not inherent
in one’s personality—as scholars claim may be the case—how can it
be encouraged? The good news is that under different names for the
same phenomenon and using a variety of terms that eventually refer
to the same behavioural occurrence, the idea of training for positive
psychology has in fact been studied. For example, based on field stud-
ies of army personnel, covering deployments ranging from the Gulf
War to Bosnia, military psychologist Paul Bartone recognized positive
psychology as a key factor in soldiers’ response to stressful conditions;
consequently, he called for developing training programmes in which
officers, as part of their military schooling, would be trained to build
up an ability to control or influence events (Bartone, 2006). Likewise,
during recent years, professional trainers of army units tend to foster
techniques for the acquisition of optimism just the way they do for
other military proficiencies (Maddi, 2007; Zach, Raviv, & Inbar, 2007).
Although the specific strategies for fostering positive psychology are
somewhat beyond the scope of this study, the recognition of the great
value of optimism is an important step forward.

Conclusion

Although comradeship has long been counted as a major motivating

factor for soldiers’ actions in combat, a thorough review of the tes-
timonies clearly points out how collective hope is a factor that must
not be ignored. Collective hope, stemming not only from the positive

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 The Secret Weapon of Optimism  209

psychology of the commander but also reflected by his officers and

soldiers, seems to be the tool with which a military leader can excite his
troops, as well as his superiors, into action. The comprehension that
hope leads to better performance under stress is bound to lead wise mili-
tary commanders to adopt the notion of optimism as an integral factor
in the training system. Realizing that optimism is controllable will turn
positive psychology into an important part of the professional military
preparations and will consequently equip the forces with the additional
significant weapon of optimism in the soldier’s arsenal of resilience.

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 10
Building Soldier Resilience

Michael D. Matthews

Unlike wars of the 20th century, modern warfare often involves an ill-
defined enemy, asymmetric strategies and no clearly defined temporal-
or even geospatial parameters. There are no lines behind which the
soldier may retreat to relative safety, and lethal threat is an ever-present
possibility. The recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are exemplars of
modern conflict, but there are many other conflicts across the globe,
affecting many nations, that are similar in nature.

Cost to Combat

A significant cost associated with modern war is a substantial increase

in stress-related maladaptive reactions. These include post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD), depression, conduct disorders and suicide
(Cornum, Matthews, & Seligman, 2011). For example, following nine
years of war, the US Army has seen its suicide rates nearly double, and
are now at historic highs (Kuehn, 2009). Coupled with high rates of
PTSD (Hoge et al., 2004) and other maladaptive behaviours, the cost
to individual soldiers and their families is high.
The cost to the military organizations for which the affected soldiers
serve is also very high. For instance, if 10 per cent of the soldiers in
the US Army are sufficiently impaired to compromise their combat
readiness, this would represent over 50,000 soldiers. The institutional
cost is both obvious and monumental—50,000 soldiers represent
approximately five infantry divisions. Moreover, the monetary cost of
treating stress-related disorders is substantial. Besides direct medical
costs, there are costs associated with lost productivity, training costs to
replace permanently disabled soldiers and added administrative costs in
dealing with affected soldiers and their families. In short, the high rates

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 214  Michael D. Matthews

of psychological disorders associated with persistent war are of suf-

ficient magnitude to adversely impact the combat readiness of armies.
The traditional response to dealing with combat-related stress disorders
is to hire more mental health professionals and improve diagnosis and
treatment. Although it is certainly necessary to diagnose and treat psycho-
logical disorders, this alone is not sufficient to reverse the costs described
above. In fact, more available and aggressive psychological screening may
amplify the problem by identifying even more soldiers in need of services
and actually exacerbate an already overburdened healthcare system.

Cost-Cutting: An Alternative Approach

An alternative approach is to develop proactive training and development

programmes to provide soldiers with the personal skills needed to display
a resilient—vice a maladaptive—response to combat stress. Recently,
the US army has implemented just such a programme. Comprehensive
Soldier Fitness (CSF) is a programme designed to improve resilience
skills in US army soldiers, their families and army civilians. Mandated
by the Chief of Staff of the Army (Casey, 2011), CSF is based largely on
positive psychology (e.g., Matthews, 2008). It includes ways of assessing
soldier resilience, identifies different types of resilience, explores the full
spectrum of responses to combat from pathology (such as post-traumatic
stress disorder, PTSD) to personal growth and provides multiple strate-
gies for improving resilience. The purpose of this chapter is to describe
CSF, and to explore ways that it may be exported to other services, the
militaries of other nations and to non-military settings.

History of CSF

Combat-related stress disorders date back to the very beginning of

­history. Stress and its pathologic consequences are thus an immutable
concomitant of war. A careful reading of The Iliad and the Odyssey reveals
various instances of combat-stress-related disorder (Shay, 1994). In the
military history of the United States, these combat stress reactions have
been referred to in various ways. During the Civil War, soldiers were said
to suffer from ‘soldier’s heart’. In the 20th century, the stress reactions

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 Building Soldier Resilience  215

were referred to as ‘combat shock’ or ‘battle fatigue’. It is also important

to recognize that not all—in fact, not even most—soldiers who are
exposed to combat display stress-related symptoms. These symptoms,
which include dissociation, memory disturbances, hyper-reactivity,
anxiety, depression and attention deficits, occur in at most about 30 per
cent of those exposed to combat. Constitutional and experiential factors
that predate combat exposure may be strong predisposing factors. Social
and familial factors may also influence susceptibility.
What is now known as PTSD, as a formal diagnostic psychiatric dis-
order, emerged following the Vietnam War. The constellation of symp-
toms described above was codified in the 1980 edition of the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. Once
reified with a formal diagnostic label, research into PTSD blossomed
and the disorder became almost a cultural icon associated with Vietnam
Veterans. Interestingly, despite widespread attention in both the science
and practice of psychology as well as the popular press, evidence sug-
gests that incidence rates of PTSD, at their very highest, did not exceed
30 percent during the Vietnam War (see Ritchie, Schneider, Bradley,
& Forsten, 2008 for a review of PTSD incidence rates).
Following the events of 11 September 2001 and the subsequent
involvement of the United States and many of its allies in the Global War
on Terror (GWOT), soldiers are once again being repeatedly exposed
to combat trauma. This has spurred another round of interest in PTSD
and related research with a concomitant explosion of research and press
coverage of PTSD and other maladaptive responses to combat. In the
past five years, for example, nearly 2,000 scientific studies of PTSD alone
have appeared in the psychological literature (Cornum et al., 2011).
With no end in sight to the GWOT, the strain of “long war” contin-
ues to take its toll on the military of the nations involved most directly
in the war. The remainder of this chapter will describe the US Army’s
approach to dealing with the institutional and social costs associated
with prolonged war.

CSF

The military response to any health problem has always been proactive
and systematic. As discussed by Cornum et al. (2011), malaria was a
major threat to military operations during the 19th century. The Union

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 216  Michael D. Matthews

Army suffered over one million cases and at least 10,000 deaths. A
purely reactive approach of diagnosis and treatment was not success-
ful in reducing the incidence of malaria. However, the Army Surgeon
General initiated proactive, prevention-related initiatives that ultimately
reduced the malaria threat dramatically. By the time of the building of
the Panama Canal, in a region rife with malaria, this approach reduced
the malaria incidence rate from 800 cases per 1000 workers to just 16
per 1000 workers (Ockenhouse, Magill, Smith, & Milhous, 2005).
General George Casey, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, in
consultation with leading psychologists and health-care specialists, led
the development of a parallel approach to dealing with the psychiatric
casualties of war (Casey, 2011). It was felt that a traditional, disease
model, reactive approach to dealing with large numbers of psychiatric
casualties could never be sufficient, in and of itself, to reduce the inci-
dence rates of PTSD and related disorders. Instead, CSF represents a
double-pronged strategy of (a) enhancing diagnoses and treatment,
and (b) developing proactive interventions and training strategies to
imbue soldiers with the personal skills needed to bolster their resilience,
and thus prevent the development of combat-related stress disorders
and/or reduce the seriousness of those developed.

Elements of CSF

Defining Resilience and Developing a Metric

“What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get done” is axiomatic in psy-

chology. Thus, the first step in CSF was to define the components of
resilience and to develop a metric to assess soldier resilience. Because
of the pressing nature of the problem, it was not possible to spend
years of basic research developing Army-specific measures. Instead,
a panel of psychologists from across the United States, led by former
American Psychology Association President Martin E. P. Seligman,
convened at the University of Pennsylvania for two days with the task
of developing both a conceptual model of resilience and identifying
existing psychological tests possessing good psychometric properties
that could be used to assess the various dimensions of resilience. Due

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 Building Soldier Resilience  217

to operational constraints, the metric would have to be relatively short

and be couched in language easily read by soldiers who might possess
limited verbal and reading skills.
After considerable discussion, the team specified five domains that
were thought to be critical to resilience in soldiers. These domains
were physical, emotional, social, family and spiritual. Since the original
­inception of CSF, a fifth ‘pillar’ of resilience—enhanced performance—
has been added. Because the Army already has well developed metrics for
tracking physical fitness and programmes in place to monitor, train and
enhance it, the remainder of the discussion focused on the other resilience
domains. Emotional resilience refers to the soldier’s personal cognitive and
affective skills and strategies needed to respond adaptively in the face of
personal challenge and adversity. Social resilience focuses on the soldier’s
network of friends and, especially in a military setting, his or her fellow
soldiers, and knowing how to rely on them to help face difficult challenges.
Family resilience is closely related to social resilience, but instead deals
with the soldier’s family situation. For young, unmarried soldiers, this
could be parents and siblings. For married soldiers, this would expand to
include spouse and children. In some instances, extended family members
including grandparents, aunts and uncles and others would also fall into
this category. Spiritual resilience was considered relevant for the soldiers
because they must deal with the possibility of their own death and/or
taking the lives of others. It is important to note that spiritual, while it
might include religiosity, is a broad concept. Perhaps it is best thought of
as “meaning and purpose” of life. Finally, enhanced performance involves
programme aimed to improve and enhance mental and emotional skills
that soldiers need to succeed in training, combat and their personal lives.
Examples include self-confidence, controlling attentional processes, goal
setting, energy maintenance and mental imagery skills.

Measuring Resilience

The group listed and discussed a large number of existing psychological

tests that tapped into the various resilience domains. Psychometrics,
availability, length and readability were all considered. In some cases,
items were written exclusively for the instrument, the Global Assessment
Tool (GAT). In the end, the following measures were included:

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 218  Michael D. Matthews

Emotional Fitness
1. The Brief Strengths Test: A 24-item short form of the Values-in-
Action–Inventory of Strengths (VIA–Is) (Peterson & Seligman,
2004).
2. Catastrophizing: 10 items adapted from existing tests or written
by Professors Christopher Peterson and Nansook Park of the
University of Michigan to measure emotional flexibility.
3. Good and Bad Coping: Eight items written by Peterson and Park.
4. Optimism: Four items adapted from the Life Orientation Test—
Revised (Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994).
5. Depression: 10 items adapted from the Patient Health
Questionnaire (Kroenke, Spitzer, & Williams, 2001).
6. Positive and Negative Affect: 21 items from the Positive and
Negative Affect Scale (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988).

Social Resilience
1. Friendship: 3-item scale, from the UCLA Loneliness Scale
(Russell, Peplau, & Cutrona, 1980).
2. Engagement: 4-item scale derived from the Works as a Calling
Scale (Wrzesniewski, McCauley, Rozin, & Schwartz, 1997) and
the Orientation to Happiness Scale (Peterson, Park, & Seligman,
2005).
3. Organizational Trust: 5-item scale derived from various orga-
nization trust metrics (see Peterson, Park, & Castro, 2011 for
specific sources).
4. Friendship: Seven additional items written by Peterson and Park
specifically for the GAT.

Family Fitness
1. Family Fitness: Two items written by Peterson and Park
­specifically for the GAT.
2. Family Fitness: Three items derived from the Military Family
Fitness Scale (derived from the Military Family Fitness Scale,
developed by the Directorate of Basic Combat Training’s
Experimentation and Analysis Element, Fort Jackson, for an
in-progress study).

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 Building Soldier Resilience  219

Spiritual Fitness
Spirituality: Five items from the Brief Multidimensional Measure of
Religiousness and Spirituality (Fetzer Institute, 1999).
These sum to 106 items at the time of this writing. But, it should
be noted that items and scales are subject to modification depend-
ing on how well they predict important outcome criteria. Thus, the
GAT represents a somewhat dynamic test and is still in the process of
development.
Peterson et al. (2011) note that the GAT is “notable for several
reasons”. It is a comprehensive inventory of psychological and social
fitness measured by a variety of measures. Importantly, it presents a
“common vocabulary” that may begin to build a culture of resilience
in the Army. The GAT is available to every soldier in the Army via
online testing, and it provides immediate feedback on each respon-
dent’s relative standing in the domains of emotional, social, family
and spiritual fitness. Since it is Army policy that all soldiers complete
the GAT, the stigma associated with taking “psychological” tests (his-
torically only taken if one has a “psychological problem”) is reduced.
Last, the feedback from the GAT includes suggestions for individu-
ally tailored programmes that the respondent may elect to employ to
improve psychological fitness in any one or more of the resilience/
fitness domains.
It is critical to point out that the scores of individual soldiers are
held absolutely confidential—only the soldier taking the GAT will
know his or her scores. This is necessary to preserve the integrity of
the testing protocol and to give soldiers the confidence that they can
answer questions honestly without concern about repercussions from
their chain of command or fellow soldiers. However, it is possible
to present commanders with unit-level indicators of resilience. For
instance, the commander of a combat brigade preparing to deploy
may look at the averaged scores of the units within his or her com-
mand and determine in what dimensions of resilience the brigade or
its constituent units are “green” (i.e., fit), “yellow” (perhaps requiring
some additional training) or “red” (seriously low in fitness, thus neces-
sitating additional unit level training). Thus, summed GAT feedback
can provide a useful command tool for assessing psychological combat
readiness at the unit level.

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 220  Michael D. Matthews

A full description of the GAT, how it is being used, and its utility
in predicting both resilient and pathologic responses to combat stress
are being the scope of the current chapter. The reader is referred to
Peterson et al. (2011) for a detailed description of the origin, use and
psychometric properties of the instrument. However, preliminary
results show that GAT is related to successful performance at the US
Military Academy (Kelly & Matthews, 2011). Currently, unpublished
results from GAT data on active duty US soldiers show that higher
GAT scores are associated with desirable institutional outcomes such
as retention, and low scores are associated with negative outcomes
including suicide, attrition and disciplinary problems.

Developing Interventions

A hallmark characteristic of CSF is that training protocols and interven-

tions designed to improve psychological fitness are not a ‘­one-size-fits-all’
approach. An analogy can be made to physical fitness. The Army Physical
Fitness Test (APFT) has three components: a two-mile run, sit-ups and
pull-ups. A soldier must score at a minimum level—based on age-related
standards—on each of the three component tests, and an overall score
is also generated which must exceed a minimum standard. If a soldier
fails a component of the APFT, he or she can turn to master physical
fitness instructors who are found in every Army organization for train-
ing programmes and advice on how to improve performance on the
failed component(s). For instance, if a soldier passes the pull-ups and
sit-ups tests, but fails to complete the two-mile run fast enough to meet
the minimum requirement, he or she will be placed into a programme
specifically tailored to improve running speed.
The resilience training, development and intervention strategy
adopted by CSF follows a parallel strategy. This includes a variety of
individualized and unit training. Some of it will be institutionalized
within the training component of the Army such that all soldiers
receive ‘schoolhouse’ education about resilience and the dimensions
of psychological fitness. Individualized training and interventions
may be suggested from personal feedback on the GAT. Other train-
ing and interventions may be driven, as discussed above, from unit
level feedback.
Specifically, the CSF involves three levels of training strategies.

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 Building Soldier Resilience  221

Universal Resilience Training

It begins at the entry of the soldier into the Army. This includes instruc-
tion on what resilience means, its importance to the individual soldier
and larger units and specific skills that soldiers can employ to improve
and maintain resilience. Small-unit leaders and trainers are taught spe-
cific strategies and tools for training and maintaining resilience. “This will
be continuous, progressive, and sequential sustained resilience training
of both enlisted soldiers and officers, given at every level of professional
military development” (Cornum et al., 2011). For example, officers will
receive resilience instruction during their pre-commissioning training
and at all subsequent officer development programmes beginning with
the officer basic course through the Army War College.

Individualized Training
It is the second level of training. Following the ‘one-size-does-not-fit-all’
approach, individualized training varies as a function of the needs of the
soldier taking the GAT. It may include self-development opportunities,
web-based interactive resilience modules or other protocols aimed at help-
ing each soldier build the personal and social tools needed to be resilient in
the face of adversity. Conceptual and initial approaches to individualized
training have been described in a special issue of the American Psychologist
(Seligman & Matthews, 2011). Emotional resilience is described by Algoe
and Fredrickson (2011), social resilience by Cacioppo, Reis and Zautra
(2011), family resilience by Gottman, Gottman and Atkins (2011) and
spiritual resilience by Pargament and Sweeney (2011). These approaches
are strictly evidence based and will evolve over time as it is learned which
techniques are and are not successful. Collectively, training in these areas
is offered to soldiers through comprehensive resilience modules (CRMs).
Offered online, there are currently 32 CRMs that aim to help soldiers build
and maintain strong personal relationships, learn how to use strength of
character to respond effectively under stress and challenge, build mental
toughness and strengthen emotional fitness.

Master Resilience Trainers (MRTs)

The third approach to training resilience under CSF is (MRTs). Just
as the Army for many years has had master physical fitness train-
ers ­embedded in all units, MRTs are now being developed. In the
­organizational structure of the Army, the senior non-commissioned

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 222  Michael D. Matthews

officer (NCO) has the most frequent and influential contact with sol-
diers. Thus, a training programme currently conducted in conjunction
with the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania
is putting senior NCOs through a 10-day protocol in order to train
MRTs. The programme is based on the Penn Resilience Program
(PRP), originally designed to imbue school children with workable
resilience skills including optimism, problem solving, self-efficacy,
self-regulation, emotional awareness, flexibility, empathy and strong
social relationships. The MRT course incorporates principle elements
and strategies of the PRP, and adds approaches emerging from posi-
tive psychology such as identifying and employing signature strengths
(Reivich, Seligman, & McBride, 2011). These strategies are grouped
into four modules; resilience, building mental toughness, identifying
character strengths and strengthening relationships. In order to bolster
face validity, nomenclature and course content have been “greened” to
be more familiar to soldiers and their experiences. After completing the
course, the NCOs are assigned a formal skill identifier that certifies them
as an MRT. They are then assigned back to operational units, provided
with training materials and protocols, and then serve to educate and
train fellow soldiers on resilience. Thus, knowledge about resilience
may be infused into the Army from the “bottom up,” rather than from
the “top down”. Feedback from certified MRTs has been exceptionally
positive (Reivich et al., 2011).

Other Elements of CSF

Besides assessing and training psychological resilience, there are several

other aspects to CSF that bear description. The programme is based
on the principles of positive psychology and thus focuses on what is
good and healthy about people and building on those capacities to
improve the quality of life. It also extends to the families of soldiers
as well as to Army civilian employees, who are subject to many of the
stressors encountered by soldiers. The following discussion describes
additional aspects of CSF that are important in understanding its
impact and implications for individual and collective adjustment, as
well as programme success.

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 Building Soldier Resilience  223

Post-traumatic Growth (PTG)

Most psychological studies of the effects of combat and stress on

adjustment focus on pathologic responses including PTSD, depression,
anxiety, suicide and other manifestations of personal and social mal-
adaptation. Based on these studies, extensive programmes to diagnose
and treat psychological problems emerge. But, this disease-based model
does not allow attention to be given to other possible consequences
of stress and adversity, which, especially within the military context,
remain virtually unexplored. One can imagine a normal curve that
describes the full spectrum of sequels to combat stress, ranging from
suicide and other extreme pathologic responses to resilience (i.e.,
remaining unchanged in the face of adversity) to psychological growth.
Tedeschi and McNally (2011) describe the phenomenon of PTG.
It is clear from their discussion that PTG may be as likely an outcome
stemming from trauma and stress as is PTSD. An extensive and growing
literature exists on the after effects of cancer, accidents and other trau-
matic experiences and suggests that people often—after facing mortal
circumstances—derive additional meaning in their lives. Tedeschi and
McNally review the PTG literature, and suggest training strategies for
increasing the likelihood of PTG occurring following combat. These
strategies include (a) educating soldiers about trauma and that it is a
possible precursor to PTG, (b) training in emotional regulation and
enhancement, (c) training in constructive self-disclosure, (d) creating
a trauma narrative that includes the possibility of PTG, not just PTSD
and other negative consequences and (e) developing life principles that
are robust to challenges.
The evidence is that PTSD is a less likely sequel to combat stress
than resilience and PTG. But given the amount and frequency of press
coverage of PTSD, it is very important to create an understanding in
soldiers that positive effects may also occur. Because unpleasant and
disturbing reactions to adversity (e.g., bad dreams, intrusive thoughts)
are common and normal immediate after effects of trauma, they
could easily be interpreted as “sick” by the individual affected who
may then self-label as PTSD. Thus, creating new trauma narratives
and expectations are critical. Yes, it is normal to have bad dreams and
other unpleasant reactions following exposure to combat, but these

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 224  Michael D. Matthews

will pass and may be replaced by a sense of accomplishment, greater

appreciation of family and perhaps enhanced appreciation for and
understanding of meaning and purpose in life. It is not proposed that
one seek to come down with cancer or get into a firefight in order to
improve their sense of well-being—that is absurd—but knowing that
positive things may ultimately follow is a vital part of building a robust
and resilient Army.

Extension to Army Families,

Children and Civilians

The psychological fitness of soldiers cannot be viewed in isolation

from their families, spouses and children. Therefore, CSF explicitly
includes programmes for military families, spouses and children. The
GAT has been adapted for use with these populations and training and
intervention programmes that parallel those developed for the service
member are being developed and institutionalized.
Gottman et al. (2011) underscore the importance of integrated
support and training programmes that involve the soldier and family
members. They maintain that the ‘signature event’ that precedes sui-
cidal ideation or actions in soldiers is some sort of turbulence in their
relationship with their domestic partner. Gottman et al. then describe
the application of a pilot programme based on the ‘Seven Principles
of Making Marriage Work’ (Gottman & Silver, 1999) wherein small
groups of soldiers are given social skills training. Gottman et al. suggest
that CSF develop further face-to-face and virtual training programmes
to meet the needs of all Army families.
Children are also an integral part of the Army family. Even in the
best of times, the children of US Army soldiers face challenges resulting
from frequent moves and absences from the soldier parent or parents
during deployments. In times of war, these challenges are multiplied
by the possibility that their parent(s) could be killed or wounded in
action. Although military children tend to be remarkably a­ daptable
and r­ esilient (Park, 2011), more systematic and evidence-based
­programmes are being developed under CSF to improve education,
training and services for military children.

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 Building Soldier Resilience  225

In contemporary war, civilians play an increasingly important

role in the Army. Modern combat systems are complex and some-
times require civilian experts to deploy with the weapon system to
keep it functioning. Civilian law enforcement experts are present in
large numbers in Afghanistan and Iraq as they train the police and
military forces of those countries how to conduct effective police
and security operations. Civilians who are not deployed experience
a heavy increase in workload and concern for military colleagues and
friends who deploy into harm’s way. Modifications are being made
to CSF programmes to extend them to Army civilians in response to
these concerns.

Programme Assessment

An important premise of CSF is that it will only use programmes

that are of proven effectiveness. Lester, McBride, Bliese and Adler
(2011) describe the programme evaluation efforts aimed to evaluate
the effectiveness of various CSF programmes. A large scale research
project is ongoing that tracks the impact of CSF on three broad classes
of indicators. Eight combat brigade teams (CBTs) were selected for
study. Employing a quasi-experimental design, the CBTs received
different combinations of interventions including two with no formal
resilience training. Three broad classes of outcome variables are being
studied. First, GAT scores are being tracked to see if units that received
training show an increase in overall resilience, or in any one or more
of the fitness domains (emotional, social, family or spiritual). Second,
institutional markers are being tracked. These include retention,
reenlistments, promotions, suicides, PTSD, crime, divorce and other
variables. All of these are conceptually linked to resilience. Finally,
physiological and neurobehavioural indicators are being developed.
These are intended to look at biological (e.g., stress hormones) and
behavioural markers (e.g., performance on cognitive tasks) that have
been linked to stress and resilience in past research.
Preliminary analyses suggest that CSF is achieving many of its objec-
tives. Lester et al. (2011) report about units that received CSF training
performed by certified MRT trainers:

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 226  Michael D. Matthews

1. Display significantly higher levels of resilience and psychological

health than units not receiving the training.
2. Tend to show higher rates of posttraumatic growth.
3. CSF training appears to be most effective among soldiers age 18–24.
4. Is more effective when the training is conducted in formal set-
tings, such as officially scheduled classes; when MRT trainers are
perceived as confident and competent and where the command
strongly supports the training.
5. Importantly, there is no evidence that the training results in
poorer resilience or psychological health.
6. The statistical effect sizes compare favourably to other successful
public health initiatives.

Collectively, this and related evaluations will allow CSF leaders to

build and enhance programme elements that work, and to eliminate
those that do not. Thus, CSF will continue to be an evolving approach
to improving soldier, family and civilian resilience.

Extension to Other Military Organizations

Within the US military, there is a perceived need and interest in

adopting CSF or a similar programme. The current need may be
greatest for combat elements that operate on the ground, notably
the Marine Corps. But, men and women who serve in the Navy and
the Air Force are also exposed to many of the same combat stresses
and challenges, and can benefit from institutional-wide efforts to
improve resilience skills.
The CSF programme may also be of interest to the military organiza-
tions of other nations. Throughout the world, nations are faced with
combating terrorism and other threats to their safety and sometimes
sovereignty. Especially for nations involved in protracted conflict,
CSF-like initiatives may improve combat readiness.
In the United States, for example, the Air Force is developing a
programme similar to CSF (Air Force Resilience Program Overview,
2011). This programme includes foundational training for new enlist-
ees and officers candidates, unit level training and mandatory and tar-
geted mental-health training. Also like CSF, the Air Force programme
includes family members.

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 Building Soldier Resilience  227

Extension to Non-Military Organizations

The US health-care system is based on the disease model. It has created

a huge industry aimed at diagnosing and treating diseases of all sorts,
but invests relatively little—other than occasional ‘lip-service’—to
the prevention of disease. The CSF programme represents a comple-
mentary approach that is health-based. In addition to identifying and
treating d­ isease, greater gains can be made from giving people the life
skills to prevent them. Therefore, CSF provides a model for national
healthcare systems.

Historical Significance of CSF to Psychology

The history of war and the history of psychology are closely intertwined
(Seligman & Fowler, 2011). The two World Wars of the 20th century
stimulated the development of mass psychological testing, an explosive
growth in clinical psychology and the origins of human factors engineer-
ing. Broadly speaking, Scales (2009) argues that each major war begin-
ning with First World War (WWI) leveraged paradigm shifts in science.
In his view, WWI was associated with rapid growth in chemistry, Second
World War (WWII) in physics and the “Cold” War (Korea and Vietnam,
notwithstanding) with information technology. Scales maintain that the
GWOT will drive rapid improvements in the behavioural and social sci-
ences because success or failure will depend more on winning “hearts and
minds” than killing enemy soldiers. The American experience in Iraq is
a good example. The Iraqi Army was quickly defeated, but US continues
to face huge challenges in establishing a functional and modern govern-
ment in place of the dictatorship that fell. The ability to do this depends
more on understanding the psychology and culture of Iraq than the
ability to demonstrate clear military superiority in the traditional sense.
Seligman and Fowler (2011) view CSF as an exemplar of the
importance of psychology to modern militaries and their nations. The
programmes developed under CSF will improve combat readiness, but
also provide a model for the shaping of more general public health
initiative outside the military context. The fact that the US Army would
turn to psychology to respond to its needs is historically unique. The
unique needs of today’s Army combine with the recent developments

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 228  Michael D. Matthews

of positive psychology to form a union that is especially well suited to

respond to the challenges faced by today’s Army.

Conclusion and Future Directions

Nearly two million US military personnel have served in Iraq or

Afghanistan since 2001. The US military is an all-volunteer force.
Unlike previous wars, it does not depend on conscripts who serve
relatively short tours and who are then quickly returned to civilian
society. As such, the professional US soldier continues to bear a great
burden in the long war against terrorism. Many have deployed several
times with no relief in sight. This provides the seedbed for significant
psychosocial problems. In the absence of large-scale and aggressive
programmes such as CSF, the adverse effects of the long war on soldier
adjustment could be devastating.
It is also true that all soldiers eventually return to civilian life.
Whether they serve a single four-year tour or retire after 30 years or
more of service, they will eventually re-integrate into civilian society. To
the extent they are psychologically and physically healthy and robust,
they will contribute positively to the nation’s economy and national
well-being. For those who suffer from physical and psychological
wounds, the costs to society can be very high. Thus, the payoff from
CSF will continue to be felt long after soldiers leave the Army. Even a
modest reduction in PTSD and related pathologies will, over the course
of scores of years, result in huge dividends to the US, both in terms of
“hard” economic indicators such as reduced health costs, but also in
less objective indicators, such as former soldiers who live meaningful
and productive lives. Therein may lie the biggest benefit of CSF.

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 11
Training Hardiness for Stress Resilience

Paul T. Bartone, Jarle Eid and Sigurd W. Hystad

The military occupation involves many risks and stressors to include

combat exposure, potential death and injury, witnessing others being
injured or killed, uncertainty, powerlessness, boredom, heavy workload
and dangerous training activities (Alford & Cuomo, 2009; Bartone,
Adler, & Vaitkus, 1999). In international operations, all of these stress
factors can come into play, as well as the sense of isolation associ-
ated with being distant from one’s own familiar culture, family and
friends. In training military personnel, it thus makes sense to invest
in programmes to better prepare personnel to cope positively, and be
resilient in the face of such stressors. This chapter describes various
ways that leaders can shape their organizations so as to generate more
positive or “hardy” and resilient stress responding in soldiers, and also
suggest some “self-help” steps to increase hardiness.

Resilience

The last decade has seen a rapid increase in studies that use the word
“resilience” (Layne, Warren, Watson, & Shalev, 2007). But, there is also a
multitude of definitions and meanings attached to the term “resilience”,
and the related concepts of vulnerability and stress resistance, leading to
considerable terminological inconsistency and confusion. Historically,
the term resilience was first applied in developmental psychopathology
to describe children who developed normally and adapted well despite
growing up in environments that put them at higher risk for psycho-
pathology and other poor outcomes (Garmezy, 1971; Garmezy, 1974;
Werner, Bierman, & French, 1971). Many of those working in the field
still define resilience as basically the absence of pathology following
stress exposure (Stroufe, 1997; see Witmer & Culver, 2001, for a review).

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 232  Paul T. Bartone, Jarle Eid and Sigurd W. Hystad

But, resilience is increasingly seen as involving positive processes

that are distinct from those associated with heightened vulnerability
(Carver, 1998; Friborg, Hjemdal, Martinussen, & Rosenvinge, 2009;
Werner & Smith, 2001). Even among those definitions that focus only
on positive features, there is a wide diversity of views as to what factors
constitute or contribute to resilience (Luthar, 2006). These range from
individual attributes such as intellectual ability, self control, flexibility,
calm demeanour, optimism, self-efficacy, spirituality and confidence,
to social factors such as support from family and friends, co-workers
and the broader socioeconomic environment (Layne et al., 2007).
A good example of a broad, generic view of resilience is provided
through the “Resilience Scale for Adults” (RSAs) by Friborg, Barlaug,
Martinussen, Rosenvinge and Hjemdal (2005). The RSA stipulates five
or six factors that span both individual (personal strength, social compe-
tence, structured style) and social (family cohesion and social resources)
dimensions of cohesion. Efforts such as this to identify the attributes of
people who adapt well (are resilient) in the face of stress are an important
step. But, as Layne et al. (2007) correctly observe, this information by
itself does not reveal what are the underlying processes or dynamics by
which some people are more stress resilient than others. Despite a lack
of scientific knowledge regarding resilience processes, recent years have
seen a flood of training programmes, web sites and self-help guides all
claiming to increase resilience “skills” or abilities (e.g., Reivich & Shatte,
2002; Siebert, 2005), mostly without empirical support for their efficacy
(Watson, Ritchie, Demer, Bartone, & Pfefferbaum, 2006). More good
theory and research are needed to shed light on resilience factors and
processes—what highly resilient people are actually doing that allows
them to cope so well with stress. For present purposes, resilience shall
be defined simply as bouncing back quickly from adversity or setbacks.
The resilient person finds ways to cope effectively with stress and is able
to continue functioning despite difficulties.

Resilience in Military Context

Although stress resiliency at the individual level is important and gets

the most attention, many factors outside of the individual can also
influence resilient (or non-resilient) responding. Although training
individuals to be more resilient may be valuable, efforts to increase

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 Training Hardiness for Stress Resilience  233

resilience need to go beyond the individual level to incorporate a

broad understanding of the multiple factors in life that can bear upon
resilient outcomes. Taking the military as an example, factors at several
levels can be seen to impact resilient responding to stress, including
(a) individual level, (b) organizational policy, procedures and culture
and (c) organizational structure (Bartone, Barry, & Armstrong, 2009).
At the individual level, factors that can influence resilience include
social background characteristics such as early family environment, per-
sonality (including psychopathology), previous work experience, educa-
tion, maturity, intelligence, physical fitness, diet, exercise and current
family circumstances. Organizational policies also can affect resilience
in terms of how the organization as a whole and its members respond to
challenging or stressful events. Such policies include higher-level agency
rules, regulations and directives, mission statements, deployment and
rotation policies and rules-of-engagement. At a lower organizational
level, resilience is influenced by leader directives and communications,
training schedules and policies, and unit Standard Operating Procedures
(SOPs). To be sure, lower-level organizational policies and procedures
are influenced by policies set at higher organizational levels, as for
example with rules-of-engagement or unit rotation policies. At the same
time, junior leaders can establish policies within their own units that
can foster greater resilience, within the bounds of broad organizational
standards. For example, junior leaders can implement various strategies,
such as “commander’s calls” to increase open information sharing and
situational awareness within their units. Junior leaders also often have
the latitude to set work schedules and time-off policies.
Structural factors also have an influence on how organizations
respond to challenges. In military organizations the size, type and con-
figuration of units may be more or less appropriate for the demands of
the environment at a particular time. Other structural considerations
include where units are based and how they are staffed or manned,
the ratio of leaders to troops, and the integration of reserve and civil-
ian contractor security forces, as well as joint and coalition forces
such as North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operations in
Afghanistan (Alford & Cuomo, 2009). For example, organizational
policies clearly influence (and in some cases determine) structures,
whereas existing structures, force levels and types also influence the
policies that are developed and implemented regarding the utilization
of forces. Structures and policies have an influence on individuals in
myriad ways, as for example when force structures and rotation policies

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 234  Paul T. Bartone, Jarle Eid and Sigurd W. Hystad

determine when and for how long personnel will be deployed away
from home. All of these factors—individual, organizational policies
and organizational structures—are affected by what resources are
available—or not.

Building Resilience

Programmes to increase resilience in high-stress occupations such

as the military are surely needed, but should be well-grounded both
theoretically and empirically. The discussion to this point leads to
some minimum criteria that should be met by any training approach
that seeks to increase stress resilience:

1. The training should be based upon a clear definition and theo-

retical formulation regarding the construct(s) that are presumed
to influence stress resilience. As previously discussed, the con-
struct of resilience by itself is now so general and ambiguous
that an essential first step is one of definition;
2. There should be empirical support in the form of studies, show-
ing that the resilience construct(s) under consideration actu-
ally distinguishes people who respond favourably (resiliently)
to stress, from those who do not. This also means that the
construct(s) should be found to moderate the effects of stress
on relevant outcome variables (i.e. interaction effects);
3. There needs to be a recognition that individual and group
differences may influence the training. This is to say that the
assumption of uniformity (that all people are alike and can
be expected to respond alike) is misplaced when it comes to
resiliency training. The training may need to be adjusted and
adapted to different groups, different contexts and different
times in order to be effective and;
4. There should be empirical support, showing that the training
is effective in increasing those qualities assumed to influence
resilient responding to stress.

In what follows, emphasis in this chapter is placed on an individual

level stress resilience construct that meets all of these criteria: psycho-
logical hardiness.

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 Training Hardiness for Stress Resilience  235

Hardiness as a Resilience Factor

The construct of hardiness has a clear theoretical background, and has

been proven empirically as a significant stress resistance resource in a
wide diversity of groups, including those involved in military and secu-
rity operations. Conceptually, psychological hardiness is an individual
disposition or style that develops early in life and is reasonably stable
over time, although amenable to change and trainable under certain
conditions (Kobasa, 1979; Maddi & Kobasa, 1984). Hardiness was
first described by Kobasa (1979) as a collection of related personality
qualities or traits that distinguished healthy executives under stress
from unhealthy ones. More recently, Maddi and Khoshaba (2005)
characterize hardiness as three related attitudes of commitment, control
and challenge or the “3 Cs”.
According to Bartone (2006), hardiness is more global and encom-
passing than a definition in terms of mere attitudes would imply. Rather,
it is a broad personal style or approach to life, a generalized mode of
functioning that incorporates commitment (conviction that life is inter-
esting and worth living), control (belief one can control or influence
outcomes) and challenge (adventurous, exploring approach to living)
perspectives. In addition, the “hardy-resilient style” person has a strong
future orientation, or tendency to look to the future while learning from
the past. The hardy-resilient person is also courageous in the face of new
experiences as well as disappointments, is action-oriented, competent
and has a sense of humour (Priest & Bartone, 2001).
Since Kobasa’s seminal article on hardiness in 1979, an extensive
body of research has accumulated showing that psychological hardi-
ness protects against the ill effects of stress on health and performance.
Research studies with a variety of occupational groups have found that
hardiness operates as a moderator or buffer of stress (e.g. Bartone,
1989; Contrada, 1989; Kobasa, Maddi, & Kahn, 1982; Roth, Wiebe,
Fillingim, & Shay, 1989; Wiebe, 1991). In military samples, hardiness
has been identified as a significant moderator of combat exposure
stress in US Gulf War soldiers (Bartone, 1993, 1999, 2000). Hardiness
operates as a stress buffer in other military groups as well, including
the following: US Army casualty assistance workers (Bartone, Ursano,
Wright, & Ingraham, 1989); peacekeeping soldiers (Bartone, 1996);
Israeli soldiers in combat training (Florian, Mikuluncer, & Taubman,
1995); Israeli officer c­ andidates (Westman, 1990) and Norwegian Navy

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 236  Paul T. Bartone, Jarle Eid and Sigurd W. Hystad

cadets (Bartone, Johnsen, Eid, Brun, & Laberg, 2002). High hardy
persons are not impervious to the ill-effects of stress, but they do not
suffer from the same level of symptoms and performance decrements
as low-hardy persons do under stressful conditions.
There is good evidence pointing to the cross-cultural validity of the
hardy-resilient style. In a review of relevant studies addressing the issue
of hardiness across cultures, Maddi and Harvey (2006) conclude that
available evidence shows little or no cultural differences in the role of
hardiness, and suggest that hardiness appears to be a factor in resilience
under stress across cultures. More recently, confirmatory factor analysis
in a large Norwegian sample found three facets (commitment, control
and challenge) nested beneath a superordinate hardiness construct,
lending support to the theoretical structure of hardiness (Hystad, Eid,
Johnsen, Laberg, & Bartone, 2010). Sinclair and Tetrick (2000) found
a similar structure in an American sample, using an older version of
the Dispositional Resilience Scale (DRS) (Bartone, 1995).

Hardiness Training Programmes

Programmes designed to train hardiness have ranged in complexity from

fairly simple self-paced learning modules, to more elaborate approaches
that include additional health-related factors. One of the first efforts
to train hardiness was reported by Maddi (1987). Using a small group
format with multiple “hardiness induction” sessions spaced over a
two- or three-month period, Maddi and colleagues were able to show
significant increases in hardiness levels following the training (Maddi,
Kahn, & Maddi, 1998). This training approach involves first of all teach-
ing clients about the concept of hardiness, and how hardiness “attitudes”
can influence positive coping strategies and ultimately continued good
health under stress. This is followed by some guided role play and practice
of effective coping strategies in response to real or imagined stressful
situations. The first step involves a detailed “situational reconstruction”
of a stressful situation that the person has recently experienced. After
describing the situation to the group, the person is asked to imagine some
ways in which the situation could be worse, and some ways it could be
better. The process of “focusing” (Gendlin, 1978) is sometimes used to
help clients work through any emotions that may be impeding them

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 Training Hardiness for Stress Resilience  237

from a close examination of the stressful situation and their own reac-
tions to it. This application of situational reconstruction and focusing
leads to a discussion of the person’s actual coping responses, as well as
other responses that might be possible. The hardiness trainer guides
the client to consider more proactive or “transformational” coping
behaviours, directly addressing the source of the stress (Maddi, Kahn,
& Maddi, 1998). A third technique used in hardiness induction training,
“compensatory self-improvement”, is based on Adler’s (1956) concept that
people strive to improve themselves as compensation against restrictions
and constraints commonly experienced in life. In hardiness induction
training, clients are encouraged to work on some self-improvement
activity whenever confronted by stressful conditions that cannot be
changed or readily controlled. This is believed to re-establish a sense of
control, a core feature of the hardiness response pattern.
Hardiness induction training has since been further elaborated by
Maddi and colleagues to include instruction regarding additional fac-
tors that can influence healthy and unhealthy reactions to stress, such
as nutrition, exercise, social support and constitutional background
(Khoshaba & Maddi, 2001; Maddi, 2002).

Empirical Support

Several studies have shown promising increases in hardiness and a

variety of health and performance benefits following such training
(Maddi, 1987; Maddi et al., 1998; Maddi, Harvey, Khoshaba, Fazel, &
Resurreccion, 2009; Maddi, Khoshaba, Jensen, Carter, Lu, and Harvey,
2002). Nevertheless, there remains some question regarding how per-
manent are the training effects. Maddi (1987) and also Rowe (1998)
suspect that periodic re-training is needed in order to maintain the
increases in hardiness that result from this kind of training.
A similar classroom-type approach to hardiness training was devel-
oped by Judkins and Ingram (2002). Their training programme, aimed
mainly at nurses and nurse managers, includes providing information
about hardiness, while also analysing case studies with an emphasis on
detecting threats and coping strategies. Results of the training showed
that levels of hardiness had increased by the time managers had finished
the training modules. Tierney and Lavelle (1997) also developed a

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 238  Paul T. Bartone, Jarle Eid and Sigurd W. Hystad

classroom-based hardiness training programme for staff nurses. Theirs

is a six-hour educational course that includes an introduction of key
hardiness concepts, identification of significant stressors, role playing
and group feedback. Results have also been positive, with significant
increases in hardiness observed following course completion (Tierney
& Lavelle, 1997). Similar results were reported in a study by Maddi et
al. (2009), in which college students took a special class on hardiness
concepts, and how to employ effective coping strategies. This train-
ing resulted in hardiness increases, and also was related to improved
academic performance as measured by course grades (GPA: Grade
Point Average).
Judkins, Reid and Furlow (2006) followed up on their earlier work
with a more refined programme to train hardiness in nurse managers.
The training includes basic information about hardiness, stress man-
agement concepts, positive communication strategies, adaptive coping,
conflict management and problem-focused resolution. Results have
been positive, with significant increases in hardiness that persisted up
to six months post-training. These hardiness increases were also related
to lower levels of turnover in this group of nurse managers, despite
high levels of organizational stress. But, these results must be viewed
as tentative due to the small number of research participants. Also, like
other approaches, considering that the training includes such varied
material and methods, it is difficult to ascertain which features of the
training are effective in increasing hardiness and improving outcomes,
and which are not effective.
On the whole then, direct hardiness training interventions have
shown modest success in increasing levels of hardiness and bringing
a range of health and performance benefits. But still some questions
remain. It is uncertain how effective these interventions are in produc-
ing lasting positive effects, and related to this, what type of reinforce-
ment may be needed to sustain increases in hardiness. Some of the
training programmes have assessed changes immediately following the
training, raising the possibility that the increases found are learning
effects that occur because of test familiarization. For example, Tierney
and Lavelle (1997) found that hardiness levels increased immediately
after the intervention, but returned to baseline levels six months
later. To produce lasting effects, this type of hardiness training may
need to include regular follow-ups and re-training over an extended
period of time.

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 Training Hardiness for Stress Resilience  239

Leader Influence on Group Hardiness

In contrast to direct training, another approach to increasing hardiness-

resilient responding takes advantage of the powerful influence that
leaders can have in groups. Leaders in organizations who themselves
are high in hardiness can exert a positive influence on how the entire
workforce responds to stress. This happens in multiple ways, but largely
through the example leaders set in responding to stressful circumstances
(Bartone, 2006). If leaders also have a basic understanding of the under-
lying dynamics of hardiness, they can be even more effective in influenc-
ing hardy responses to stress. Many authors have commented on how
social processes can influence the creation of meaning by individuals.
Examples include Berger and Luckmann (1967) on the “social construc-
tion of reality”, Janis (1972) on “groupthink”, and Weick (1995) on
the process of “sensemaking in organizations”. Gordon Allport (1937),
the distinguished personality psychologist, viewed individual meaning
as often largely the result of social influence processes.
A key aspect of the hardiness resiliency mechanism thus involves the
interpretation or meaning that people attach to events around them
and to their own place in the world. Recall that high hardy people
tend to interpret experience as (a) interesting and worthwhile, (b)
something they can exert control over and (c) challenging, providing
opportunities to learn and grow. If stressful or painful experiences can
be cognitively framed and made-sense-of within a broader perspective,
one who sees all of existence as essentially interesting, worthwhile, fun,
a matter of personal choice and providing chances to learn and grow,
then the stressful experience can actually have beneficial psychological
effects rather than harmful ones.
In organized work groups, including police and military organiza-
tions, this “meaning-making” process is something that leaders can
influence fairly directly. For example, military units by their nature are
group-oriented, hierarchical and highly interdependent. The same is
true for most police and security organizations. The typical tasks and
missions are group ones and the hierarchical authority structure enables
leaders to exercise considerable control and influence over subordinates.
Through the policies and priorities they set, the directives they give,
the advice and counsel they offer, the stories they tell and especially by
their own example, leaders can begin to shift the “mental models” of

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 240  Paul T. Bartone, Jarle Eid and Sigurd W. Hystad

their subordinates (Saus, Espevik, & Eid, 2010), and thus the manner
in which experience gets interpreted. The influence of hardy leaders is
likely even greater under high-stress conditions, when the group tends
to focus on leaders even more for guidance, and outcomes are critical. In
myriad ways, these leaders encourage subordinates to interpret stressful
events as interesting challenges which they are capable of meeting, and
in any case which they can learn and benefit from. This process results in
a shared understanding of the stressful event as something worthwhile
and beneficial, while incidentally generating higher group cohesion.
Several studies support the notion that leaders may influence
subordinates to think and behave in more hardy or resilient ways.
The idea that hardiness is linked to meaning-making is supported by
a study of US soldiers deployed to Bosnia (Britt, Adler, & Bartone,
2001), which found that hardiness levels influenced perceptions that
the deployment work was meaningful, and was also associated with
positive benefits. Along the same lines, McNeese-Smith (1997) found
that nurse managers who actively cultivated characteristics of hardi-
ness in their organizations had employees with significantly higher job
satisfaction, productivity and organizational commitment, and also
showed fewer stress-related problems.
Several leadership theories may help to understand how leaders who
are high in psychological hardiness may have positive influence on their
subordinates. Transformational leadership theory (Bass, 1998; Burns,
1978) emphasizes the importance of “inspirational motivation” for
stimulating extra effort and performance in work groups. According
to Bass and Avolio (1994, p. 3)

Transformational leaders behave in ways that motivate and inspire those

around them by providing meaning and challenge to their followers’ work.
Team spirit is aroused. Enthusiasm and optimism are displayed. The leader
gets followers involved in envisioning attractive future states. The leader
clearly communicates expectations that followers want to meet and also
demonstrates commitment to goals and the shared vision.

Thus, transformational leadership is believed to work in part through

some process, whereby leaders generate an increased sense of meaning,
commitment and challenge amongst their subordinates. The positive
meaning-making influence of high-hardy leaders corresponds closely
to the “inspirational motivation” aspect of transformational leadership.
In a relevant paper, Gal (1987) maintains that what makes trans-
formational leaders effective comes down to their ability to somehow

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 Training Hardiness for Stress Resilience  241

increase the overall commitment levels of their subordinates. The

research on hardiness and leader performance summarized above sug-
gests that leaders who are high in hardiness may be especially skilled
at building up this sense of commitment in subordinates, and further
suggests that how experiences get interpreted (interpretations shaped
by leaders) is a critical part of the process.
Increasing commitment and motivation is also an important
feature of “path-goal” leadership theory. Path-goal theory focuses
attention on how leaders influence the motivation of subordinates by
identifying significant goals, structuring situations so that subordi-
nates experience personal rewards for goal-attainment, and clarifying
the pathways for achieving these desired goals (House, 1971, 1996).
Leaders are said to demonstrate supportive, directive, participative
or achievement leadership depending upon their personal style and
preference, as well as the contingencies of particular situations or tasks
(House & Mitchell, 1974). Most relevant to the hypothesis of hardy
leaders exercising positive influence is the achievement leadership
orientation of path-goal theory. The achievement-oriented leader is
able to tap into and even increase followers’ motivation to surmount
obstacles and achieve goals, and to direct this motivation toward
achieving important group goals. This sounds very much like how
people high in hardiness react to unexpected or highly stressful situ-
ations; they tend to interpret these situations as challenges that must
be met head-on, and as opportunities to learn and grow. At the other
end of the spectrum is the low-hardy, low-achievement person who
sees changes more as threats or disruptions to be avoided. Path-goal
leadership theory thus provides a broader framework for understand-
ing how high-hardy leaders can influence the motivation, thinking
and behaviour of subordinates. More research is needed to explore
this possibility, as well as to test more directly in various groups and
conditions for the influence that high-hardy leaders may have on the
hardiness levels of subordinates.

Self-help Steps to Increase Hardiness

Just as leader actions and policies can lead to increases in hardy-

resilient response patterns, there are also things that soldiers can do
that over time may increase their own hardiness. Current hardiness

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 242  Paul T. Bartone, Jarle Eid and Sigurd W. Hystad

theory identifies three inter-related core features or facets of hardiness:

commitment, control and challenge.

Hardiness—Commitment
Commitment is all about active involvement and engagement in one’s
activities and the surrounding world, as well as a sense of competence
and self-worth. At the opposite pole of commitment is alienation, or
meaninglessness. Considering this, here are a few simple steps to help
build up hardiness—commitment:

1. Take some time to think about what is important and interesting

to you… your personal values and goals.
2. Work on increasing your skills and competence in some area
that is important to you.
3. Take pride in your past successes and achievements.
4. Remember the good things in your life… count your blessings!
5. Spend time with family, friends, people you care about.
6. Pay attention to what’s going on in the world around you, read,
observe.
7. Try out new things.

Hardiness—Control
Hardiness—control is the belief that you can control or influence what
is happening and what is going to happen. The opposite of control is
a sense of powerlessness or helplessness to do anything that will make
a difference. With this in mind, here are some steps to increase your
sense of control:

1. Focus your time and energy on things you can control or influence.
2. Work on tasks that are within your capabilities, moderately
difficult but not overwhelming.
3. For difficult jobs, break them up into manageable pieces so you
can see the progress.
4. Plan ahead, and gather up the right tools and resources for the task
5. Ask for help when you need it.
6. Recognize your successes.
7. When you just cannot solve a problem…. Turn your attention
to other things you can control!

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 Training Hardiness for Stress Resilience  243

Hardiness—Challenge
Hardiness—challenge is a positive perspective on change and variety in
life. People high in challenge tend to take changes in stride, see variety
as part of the richness of life, and are optimistic about the future. On
the opposite pole, people low in challenge are always seeking security,
want everything to be simple and predictable and are fearful of the
future. Considering this, here are some steps to build challenge:

1. Remind yourself that no matter what happens, change is always

an opportunity to learn and get better.
2. Do not live every day by a rigid schedule… allow for variation
and surprises.
3. Be willing to change your plans to meet changing conditions.
4. Whenever you do fail at something, ask: what can I learn from
this?
5. Try out new things, take reasonable risks.
6. Use your imagination to think about future positive outcomes.
7. Do not dwell on past disappointments…. learn, forgive and look
ahead.

These self-help steps for increasing one’s hardiness sound simple, and
in some ways they are. There is nothing complicated about it. The dif-
ficulty really comes in breaking down old habits and ways of looking at
the world and oneself, mind sets that leave a person more vulnerable
to stress. When the attitudes of commitment, control and challenge
are strong, individuals tend to see stressful situations as manageable,
and so less stressful. They look for solutions, take actions where they
can to cope positively with problems, and accept setbacks as a normal
part of living. In other words, they are more resilient. For the soldier
who wants to be more resilient, it is believed that the above self-help
steps for increased hardiness can help.

Future Directions in Hardiness Training

Based on this brief review, training soldiers to be more resilient under

stress would seem to be possible, but is not likely quick and easy. For
most soldiers, by the time they join services they have well-established

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 244  Paul T. Bartone, Jarle Eid and Sigurd W. Hystad

patterns for responding to stressful or changing conditions in life.

Learning new and different response patterns is not just a matter
of acquiring new knowledge about how to respond in more healthy
ways. Instead, developing resilience involves the more difficult task of
replacing entrenched, characteristic response patterns or habits with
new ones. So any training for resilience that focuses just on content—
information is not likely to have much impact.
There is now reasonably good evidence that direct training and edu-
cation programmes work to increase individual hardiness. A key feature
of the hardiness resiliency mechanism involves the interpretation and
the meaning that gets attached to events. High-hardy people typically
interpret experience as follows: overall interesting and worthwhile
(commitment), something they can exert control over (control) and
challenging opportunities to learn and grow (challenge). Thus, the
key to creating and sustaining increases in hardiness is to help soldiers
change their “mental models” or lenses through which they see the
world, to develop a broader perspective of stressful circumstances and
find other ways of understanding themselves and their experience. So
training programmes need to find effective ways to accomplish this.
Another approach to increasing hardiness involves shaping or
structuring the organizational environment in ways that encourage
hardy responses in the workforce. As previously discussed, leaders who
themselves are high in hardiness can have positive influence on their
followers. Leaders can have a dual role in that they lead by example
and act as mentors, and at the same time implement policies that will
enhance and maintain hardiness in their subordinates.
Finally, a promising avenue for future development involves incor-
porating knowledge and ideas from the hardiness framework into exist-
ing selection and training programmes for security and police forces.
In one relevant study, Zach, Raviv and Inbar (2007) examined military
officers undergoing a rigorous selection and training programme for
Special Forces security officers. The training course lasted nine weeks
and included training and simulation of real-life events under gradu-
ally increasing stressful conditions (e.g., running an obstacle course,
overpowering terrorists and hostage-taking incidents). The results
showed that individual hardiness levels increased as a result of the
training course. Similarly, Norwegian officer candidates were seen to
increase in hardiness over the time period of the stressful selection
and training course, even though increasing hardiness was not a goal
of the course (Eid, personal communication). Later interviews with

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 Training Hardiness for Stress Resilience  245

trainers in the officer candidate course confirmed that on an implicit

level, the qualities of hardiness are valued in candidates and there is
some effort to boost these during training. These studies suggest that
a potentially fruitful approach to hardiness training would involve
adjusting existing training programmes in ways that emphasize more
explicitly the qualities associated with hardiness.

Conclusion

The military is a high-stress, high-risk occupation. As such, it is impor-

tant to select and train resilient people who can continue to function
effectively and remain healthy under stress. Psychological hardiness
presents one promising pathway to resilience, and there is evidence
that it can be trained and also increased through leadership and orga-
nizational policies. It remains now for researchers, practitioners and
leaders to apply what is known about resilient, hardy responding to
stress; to the design of enhanced training programmes and organiza-
tional policies for various groups and environments.

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 12
Promoting Psychosocial Health of
Disaster First Responders

Sujata Satapathy

Disaster response is amongst the prime functions conducted by mili-

tary and paramilitary forces under the category of Military Operations
Other Than War (MOOTW). One of the crucial yardsticks for assessing
the success of disaster management is the quick and effective rescue
and response operations immediately after any disaster. Trained, skilled
and experienced professionals during this period play a critical role in
disaster preparedness and management, especially in limiting the death
toll and injury profile. The broad and diverse category of disaster work-
ers (DWs) work from an early phase till the rehabilitation phase of the
disaster management. And within this broad category, a specific group
referred to as disaster first responders (DFRs) render their services
during the immediate or early phase of the disaster management. DFRs
are the individuals who provide services in the immediate aftermath
of a disaster and may include primarily firefighters, search and rescue
teams, ambulance drivers, medical personnel, local community and
the local administration. Both represent a variety of disciplines and
are generally used interchangeably in the literature. Both the groups
face the possibility of physical harm from environmental and other
exposures during performing various job tasks, but the DFRs are
generally at higher risks due to rescue and evacuation operations in
dangerous circumstances.
This chapter focuses on promoting the psychosocial health of pro-
fessionals, especially service personnel from military and paramilitary
forces who provide services during various disasters and developmental
activities.

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 250  Sujata Satapathy

Indian Scenario

In India, the Disaster Management Act (DM Act, 2005) has made the
statutory provisions for constitution of National Disaster Response
Force (NDRF) for the purpose of specialized response to natural and
man-made disasters. Accordingly, in 2006, NDRF was constituted with
08 battalions and currently, is having strength of 10 battalions and
each consists of 1,149 personnel. Along with NDRF, the group of DFR
also comprises people from Civil Defence (the Civil Defence Act was
suitably amended to include the disaster management as an additional
role for the Corps), Home Guards (the key role of Home Guards is to
serve as an auxiliary to the police in maintenance of internal security,
help the community in any kind of emergency such as an air-raid,
fire, cyclone, earthquake and epidemic), fire safety officers, emergency
health professionals, mental health workers, local communities and
government. The NDRF battalions have been involved in many crucial
disaster events such as cyclone, floods/flash floods, cloud burst, earth-
quakes, train and bus accidents, boat capsize and collapsed structures
in the last few years. The media and various organizations repeatedly
reported the successful rescue and response operation carried out by
the deployed teams, which reflected their physical fitness to withstand
the climatic variation and task difficulty, skills in task operation, com-
mitment and dedication to the people and skills to use technological
support in rescue and response.
A glimpse about the work profile of the DFRs in India can be
obtained from the brief case studies in Box 12.1.

Work Profile of DFRs

The work profile of the DFRs generally includes undertaking rescue

and evacuation operation, retrieving dead bodies from debris, cutting
trees and removing electric poles, managing dangerous chemicals,
constructing make-shift roads, providing medical care and essential
services in the immediate aftermath of disasters. They generally remain
in the disaster-affected area for weeks or months, often have to work
long hours under stressful conditions and witness death, serious
physical injuries, physical destruction and psychological devastation

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 Promoting Psychosocial Health of Disaster First Responders  251

Box 12.1
Brief case studies of DFRs in India

Uttarakhand Flash Flood, 2013

Due to heavy rain in Kedarnath valley and resulting severe flash floods on 16 June
2013, there was massive flash flood in the state of Uttarakhand in the northern
part of India. Immediately 14 SAR teams (10 SAR teams of 08 NDRF and 04 SAR
teams of 07 NDRF battalion) were rushed to various affected areas, viz., for rescue
operation. NDRF teams did commendable job in adverse weather conditions and
rescued about 9,657 people and retrieved 306 dead bodies, apart from providing
medical aid to 920 needy persons and other essential assistance to the thousands
of stranded people. They also recovered INR.1,16,37,683.50, and valuable objects
from plunderers and handed over to state authorities.

Building Collapse in 2013

After the collapse of a seven-storey building at Shil Mumbra, District, Thane,
Maharashtra, a joint operation was conducted by NDRF with other agencies with
effect from 4 April 2013 to 6 April 2013 under the supervision of the Commandant,
05 Bn NDRF and rescued 62 live victims and retrieved 72 dead bodies from the
debris.
During the year 2013, many incidents of building collapse took place in Andhra
Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat. NDRF rescued total 154 precious
lives and retrieved 181 dead bodies during rescue operations.

Chemical Disaster, 2013

Team of NDRF was deployed with effect from 11 February 2013 to 12 February
2013 to respond to Leakage of Gas at Kolar, Karnataka where explosion in a load
carrier carrying liquid carbon dioxide gas cylinders took place on Kolar-Chennai
Highway. Further, another team was deployed with effect from 18 February 2013
to 19 February 2013 at Indira colony, Barakpore (WB) in c/w gas leakage incident
where during operation team detected hot water vapour coming out from under-
ground water supply pipe due to electric short circuit. Also 01 NDRF Team was
deployed with effect from 21 April 2013 to 22 April 2013 to Eluru, district West
Godavari, Andhra Pradesh, in c/w accident of a tanker truck containing Amonia
liquid gas. Team neutralized Ammonia Gas.
Source: ndrfandcd.gov.in, accessed on 3 March 2014.

that can follow the disaster (DeWolfe, 2000). In addition, they may
experience physical injuries or fatigue or psychological trauma due
to the nature of their work. Pre-existing physical and mental health
conditions may be exacerbated and new health conditions may arise
due to extremely stressful working conditions that are physically and
emotionally taxing. Research has highlighted on the possible effect

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 252  Sujata Satapathy

of environmental exposures and other risk factors, such as structural

instabilities within the built environment, on physical health of the
first responders (Wheeler et al., 2007).

Psychosocial Health of DFRs

Disasters always do not have negative impacts on mental health of the

DFRs. Some studies on the DFRs revealed that they find their work
rewarding (Shih et al., 2002; Thoresen et al., 2009). Another study
revealed that the Norwegian aid workers found their experiences after
the Tsunami in 2004 a meaningful, successful and valuable personal
experience (Thoresen et al., 2009).
However, disasters have also been defined as situations of massive,
collective stress (Burkle, 1996). Case Study 12.2 enlists major psychoso-
cial stresses related to disaster at operational, personal, organizational
and sensation levels. The nature of job can expose them to the most
gruesome sights and smells in the disaster-affected area. Even though
they are trained as policemen, fire fighters, ambulance drivers, NDRF,
home guards, health professionals, district administrators, etc., the
impact of coming in contact with painful experiences (when this is
multiplied by 100s or 1000s of bodies that have to be disposed of)
could be severe. In addition, factors such as fatigue, intense dedica-
tion to the task, reluctance to be relieved from duty or taking a short
break (Cohen, 2002) should be considered. Some specific situations
such as overwhelming volume of task and demands, suicide/nervous
breakdown/death of/injury to a co-worker (e.g., death of co-workers
following a chopper crash during rescue operation during Uttarakhand
floods in 2013), witnessing death, distress and injury all around, lack
of logistic support, etc., may increase the vulnerability of first respond-
ers to traumatic stress-related mental health conditions. The presence
of mental health conditions may significantly affect first responders’
ability to function (Benedek et al., 2007) either during the disaster
operation or subsequently after completion of disaster task operation.
Therefore, highlighting the sources of stress for the DWs would help in
planning appropriate capacity building and preventive mental health
programmes (Box 12.2).

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 Promoting Psychosocial Health of Disaster First Responders  253

Box 12.2
Sources of stress for disaster and emergency first responders

Operational Personal
• Long working hours, over worked/ • Personal safety, family concerns
overwhelming responsibilities • Lack of adequate sleep/rest or time to
• Lack of a clear job description/lack of have food
understanding about the work • Impending or existing health issues
• Lack of prior experience or inadequate • Compassion fatigue
skills to perform optimally • Not being able to share the over-
• Poor communication with manage- whelming experiences/emotions with
ment others
• Working in unsafe and insecure areas • Lack of relaxation activities
• Environment/weather is rough and
demanding
Organizational Sensation
• At times moral and ethical dilemmas • Witnessing or even directly experienc-
• Feeling frustrated with the ongoing ing terrible things, such as destruction,
situations or decisions by others injury, death or violence. They may
• Team conflicts also hear stories of other people’s/
• Feeling helpless looking at the huge co-worker pain and suffering
needs • Horrific and ghastly images and smell
• Being scolded by seniors or ridiculed • Trapped in the disaster itself
by the colleagues
Source: Adapted from Centre for Mental Health Services (CMHS), 2005.

Trauma and Traumatic Stress

As per the American Psychiatric Association (APA, 2000), DSM-IV, a

traumatic event, is defined as experiencing a threat (actual or perceived)
of death or serious injury to self or others, with a response of “intense
fear, helplessness or horror”. However, it is not the event itself, but
the perception and meaning attached to it that makes it traumatic. In
traumatic situations, individual experiences an immediate threat to
oneself or to others, often followed by serious injury or harm. A range of
reactions, such as anxiety, fatigue, irritability, hyper-alertness, increased
emotionality, disturbed sleep, change in appetite, feeling overwhelmed,
sadness, reduced social interaction, may be experienced after a disaster
or any other traumatic event. These powerful, distressing emotions go

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 254  Sujata Satapathy

along with strong even frightening physical reactions, such as rapid

heartbeat, trembling and stomach dipping.
For reasons that are basic to survival, traumatic experiences, long
after they are over, continue to take priority in our thoughts, emotions
and behaviour. Intense fears and other strong emotions, intense physical
reactions and the new way of looking at dangers in the world may recede
into the background, but events and reminders may bring them to mind
again. Thus, feeling intensely threatened by the traumatic event a person
experienced or witnessed, then that event is called a trauma and the
reactions described above are referred to as traumatic stress reactions.
During and up to four weeks of the disaster, they may exhibit the
symptoms of acute stress reactions. Within two to six months of the
disaster operation, they may suffer from depression, anxiety and
adjustment disorders and after six months, there could be delayed
manifestations of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (symptoms of
acute stress reaction lasting for more than one month). As an effect of
psychological trauma, PTSD is less frequent and more enduring than
the more commonly seen acute stress disorders. Studies have demon-
strated that, after participating in disaster responses, first responders
experience elevated rates of depression, stress disorders and PTSD for
months and sometimes years (Stellman et al., 2008). Those without
disaster response training face a greater risk of receiving a PTSD diag-
nosis after the response concludes (Perrin et al., 2007).
The study on the effect of an explosion of fireworks depot in the
Netherlands on the rescue workers revealed that sick leave among the
workers increased substantially during 18 months after the explosion
(Morren et al., 2007). Another study revealed 27 per cent of profession-
als who work with traumatized victims experienced extreme distress
(Meldrum et al., 2002). The prevalence of PTSD among fire fighters
exposed to the 11 Sepember disaster was 9.8 per cent in the first year
after the disaster and this prevalence increased to 10.6 per cent in the
fourth year after the disaster (Berninger et al., 2010).

Theoretical Models: Care-Givers’ Trauma

Intensely traumatic events can lead to acute and long-term mental-

health consequences among the DFRs, if not timely addressed.

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 Promoting Psychosocial Health of Disaster First Responders  255

This can range from secondary traumatic stress or compassion

fatigue to VT to burnout. Many researchers in the past two decades
­accentuated on the linkages of exposure to pain, suffering and trauma
with the physical and mental health of professionals providing care,­
especially nurses (Abendroth & Flannery, 2006; Adams et al., 2006;
Sabo, 2006).
Thus, research works revealed that due to the impact of overtaxing
work done especially in the first few days or even in the first phase of
a mega disaster, the FRs and the survivors exhibit similar symptoms.
The list of signs and symptoms enumerated here is not exhaustive but
an indicative one:

1. Difficulty in concentrating
2. Intrusive imagery
3. Lack of interest, hopelessness
4. Exhaustion
5. Irritability and anger with trivial issues
6. Diminished sense of personal accomplishment
7. Overly high expectations of self or others
8. Inability to maintain balance of empathy and objectivity
9. Decreased ability to feel happy
10. Never taking time off for own self
11. Blaming behaviour
12. Psychosomatic symptoms of stress
13. Using/abusing drugs, alcohol and other substances
14. High attrition (changing the profession/ the field).

However, the adaptive or maladaptive bio-psycho-social reactions

exhibited by DFRs vary in number, intensity, severity and duration,
essentially because of three key factors, viz., disaster (type, magnitude,
severity, impact), personal (age, sex, physical and mental-health condi-
tion, personality, coping skills) and external (organizational support
and support received from the local community). Research works
in this field revealed proximity, duration and intensity of exposure
(Benedek et al., 2007), and negative outcomes of such events such
as traumatic stress symptoms (Marmar et al., 1999), secondary trau-
matic stress or compassion fatigue (Figley, 1995; 1999) and burnout
(Alexander & Klein, 2001, 2009) as the most significant predictors of
mental health.

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 256  Sujata Satapathy

Secondary Traumatic Stress

Secondary traumatic stress is the experience of trauma symptoms

(acute or post-traumatic) in mental-health workers as a result of and
in relationship to their exposure to the trauma material of ­survivors.
Raised arousal level, frequent nightmares, intrusive thoughts,
­distressing images and feelings, avoiding talking about the incident
or experience are few of the key signs of secondary traumatic stress.

Compassion Fatigue (CF)

CF is described as the profound effect of intense care giving professions

on the mental-health conditions of the caregivers (Figley, 1995). This
dominant theoretical model postulating the emergence of compassion
fatigue is based on a stress-process framework (Adams et al., 2006).
CF refers to the profound emotional and physical erosion that takes
place when helpers are unable to refuel and regenerate. They can be
affected either directly through exposure to traumatic events (e.g.,
working as an ambulance driver, police officer, a doctor, a mental-
health worker); or indirectly through secondary exposure (hearing
survivors talk about trauma they have experienced, helping people who
have just been victimized, working with child survivors, working with
survivors who are chronically in despair, witnessing people’s inability
to improve their difficult life circumstances/feeling helpless in the face
of poverty and encountering emotional anguish in the survivors). A
DFR rescuing people from the severe flash floods may feel incredibly
drained out, fatigued, exhausted, unable to serve with compassion.
Despite very high job satisfaction, the direct encounter with tough
and dreadful circumstance may result in reliving the scenes again and
again after the task completion.

Vicarious Trauma (VT)

VT refers to the profound shift that workers experience in their world

view when they work with disaster survivors who have experienced
trauma. Helpers notice that their fundamental beliefs about the world

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 Promoting Psychosocial Health of Disaster First Responders  257

are altered and possibly damaged by being repeatedly exposed to

traumatic material. For example, a social worker working with child
trafficking or child sexual abuse may be secondarily traumatized and
deeply disturbed by the pathetic background and emotional turmoil
of the children. This may, in turn, affect his/her sex life, or feelings
of safety for own children or interests in pleasurable activities at
home. The worker may not, however, feel too exhausted to interact
with people at home or office, but repeated thoughts may disturb the
worker’s efficiency in performing various tasks.
DFRs can simultaneously experience compassion fatigue and VT.
The concept of VT has precisely outlined the key issues of identifying
the experience and manifestation of VT. According to this theory, the
five components of self, namely, frame of reference, ego resources, psy-
chological needs and cognitive schemas, memory and perception, can
be potentially affected by exposure to traumatic experiences or materi-
als. These experiences and reactions, if not addressed timely, adequately
and appropriately can lead to serious mental-health problems.

Burnout

The term burnout refers to the physical and emotional exhaustion that
workers can experience when they have low job satisfaction and feel
powerless and overwhelmed at work. Burnout does not necessarily
mean that our view of the world has been damaged, or that we have
lost the ability to feel compassion for others. Most importantly, unlike
compassion fatigue and VT, burnout can be resolved with reasonably
less difficulty, for example, changing jobs, taking long leave, pursuing
with the authority in confidence, etc.

Resilience

Several protective factors reported against the development of

­traumatic stress-related mental-health conditions are receiving
­training to deal with situations first responders may encounter
(Thoresen et al., 2009), being married (Fullerton Ursano, & Wang,
2004), self-efficacy, ­c ollective efficacy, a sense of community

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 258  Sujata Satapathy

(Pietrantoni & Prati, 2008), social support (Marmar et al., 2006) and
resilience (Avey et al., 2009; Gupta et al., 2012; Mansfield et al., 2012;
Pipe et al., 2012; Van Breda, 2011).

Planning of Preventive and Promotive

Psychosocial and Mental Health Services

It is mostly conclusive that the nature of duties and tasks first respond-
ers carry out in many disasters can make them susceptible to the
development or exacerbation of various mental-health conditions,
especially trauma-related conditions.
This necessitates the need for the planning for any protective, pre-
ventive and promotive mental health package, which has two objectives,
first, to prevent long-term mental-health impacts of disasters on the
responders, and second, to promote positive mental health among
them. This planning is a part of disaster mental health preparedness
and hence requires intentional and comprehensive efforts.
Although psychosocial health promotion programmes are more
generic in nature with the objective to emphasize on the effective manage-
ment of stress and enhancing positive coping; the preventive mental health
is more of early diagnosis and management of mental disorders. Both
types of services aim to enhance person’s bio-psycho-social, ­occupational
and daily life functioning so as to bring it back to the pre-disaster time
period or even making it better than that. These types of services are highly
linked to each other, and hence should be planned as a continuum of
service provision rather than separate entities. The psychosocial health
promotion activities can be conducted mainly before the team deputation
to the disaster-affected area or even during the operation; the mental-
health programmes can be conducted after the response and relief phase,
upon the task completion for the purpose of early diagnosis and treatment.
Prevention and intervention efforts should occur across three
dimensions: well-being (personal process of self and task management),
organizational (organizational process to facilitate task performance),
psycho-education (ongoing supervision of work stress and quality of
work, educating them for early identification of mental-health condi-
tions easier and sooner).

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 Promoting Psychosocial Health of Disaster First Responders  259

Preventive and Curative Mental Health

The purpose of preventive and curative mental health is primarily to

provide medical care for people with mental illnesses (PWML existing
prior to disaster and those developed mental illness after the disaster).
The programmes could begin in a group or individual mode depend-
ing upon the needs.

1. Assessment of mental health status and psychopathology.

2. Diagnostic assessment of personality, etc.
3. Assessment of compassion fatigue and VT.
4. Checking possible alcohol and substance abuse indicators.
5. Curative medical treatment by psychiatrists with regular
­follow-up, if needed.
6. Curative psychological therapies with regular follow-up and
linkages with the psychiatrists for identified people.

Cognitive-behavioural therapies have proven effective in helping chil-

dren suffering from traumatic stress. These therapies generally include
the features such as teaching stress management and relaxation skills,
correcting untrue or distorted cognitions about what happened and
why changing unhealthy and wrong views that have resulted from the
trauma, involving employer in creating optimal recovery, assessing
and enhancing coping skills, etc.

1. Accessible referral mechanism.

2. Follow-up mechanism.

This should be done by a professional team comprising clinical psy-

chologists and psychiatrists. This can be carried out even long after the
disaster happened for early diagnosis and management.

Psychosocial Health Promotion

The psychosocial health promotion should be done at two levels: (a)

for the first responders, and (b) for their employers.

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 260  Sujata Satapathy

For the First Responders

Disaster-oriented education and training programmes on stress man-
agement specially tailored to cater to the needs of the first responders
and DWs should be developed. The various components of the train-
ing/education programme meant for the first responders and DWs
are as follows:

1. Assessing stressors associated with disasters.

2. Assessing know-how of self-care (personal, professional and
coping).

i.  Self-care: Self-recognition (when do I get stressed?),

self-awareness (what works for me to reduce stress?), self-
regulation (how do I manage it in between the disaster
operation?), self-realization (do I know when I become
okay?)
ii. Professional care: Peer support, organizational support
and professional support.
iii. 
Coping skills: (Positive vs. negative coping, problem
focused vs. emotion focused coping, predominant coping
strategies, etc.)

3. Educating on disaster trauma and stress manifestations:

i. Understanding body and mind coordination

ii. Signs and symptoms
iii. Stress buster factors.

4. Self-care (reworking on previous ones or development of new

basic care techniques) and care of co-workers.

Developing a “buddy system” among group members to provide

constant support (Myers & Wee, 2005), increasing exercise/activity
levels and taking time for yourself (Dutton & Rubenstein, 1995), doing
meditation/yoga (Politsky, 2007) and appropriate use of humour
(Moran, 2002) are highlighted for better self-care among the DFRs.

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 Promoting Psychosocial Health of Disaster First Responders  261

For Employers of First Responders

Promotional activities should also be conducted for the employers or
the deploying authority for such a group of workers; however, the dura-
tion, content and mode of information dissemination could be different
for different target groups. The duration of such programmes could
vary between two and four days depending upon the resources available
and time in hand. Programmes or activities meant for the employers
or the deploying authority should be more specific in terms of:

1. Providing first-hand information on team selection, date and

mode of departure, enquiring unwillingness for deployment
(establishing genuineness of problems, if raised to cancel a
deputation/duty posting, is also a core aspect of this).
2. Debriefing on the current situation in the affected area, quan-
tity of damage and loss, possible stressors to be encountered by
them, etc., (creation of a buddy system, nurturing team spirit,
clear chain of command, clear instruction for clarity of roles
and functions, disseminating updated information, establishing
linkages of workers with family members, etc.).
3. Cautioning against sending same persons again and again if
there are sufficient number of rescue and response workers.
4. Emphasizing on learning from past experiences (Do’s and don’ts).
5. Instructions on seeking professional help and self-care, if emo-
tional problem become overwhelming and cannot be controlled
by them.

Reissman and Howard (2008) highlighted worker safety and health

preparedness and leadership as essential for protecting DWs and pro-
moting resiliency. Bilal et al. (2007) suggested the followings points to
be considered while planning for mental health of DFRs:

1. Timely rotation of care providers at regular intervals;

2. Proper logistic support must be ensured;
3. A debriefing of the individual care provider and the whole team;
4. A break or time off for the care provider;
5. Expressions of appreciation from the management and judicious
granting of rewards.

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 262  Sujata Satapathy

Model IEC Materials for Protection and

Promotion of Mental Health

Information, Education and Communication (IEC) materials can be

specifically developed, for the workers and employers separately, in
the form of key checklists before and after deployment. Model IEC
materials (Boxes 12.3, 12.4 and 12.5) could be prepared with colourful

Box 12.3
IEC material on self-care and coping

Positive Coping Abilities and Life Style

1. Sharing the problems/experiences
2. Try to take time to eat, rest and relax, even for short periods
3. Reading books, visiting temple, watching TV, etc.
4. Relaxation
5. Talking to family and friends
6. Seeking and providing support in difficulties
7. If needed, seeks professional help

Negative Coping and Life Style

1. Take alcohol or starts excessive smoking
2. Pick up fights
3. Less interactive become lonely
4. Over eating and sleeping
5. Disobeying others and supervisors
Source: Adapted from SAMHSA, 2005.

Box 12.4
IEC material on stress management during a disaster management operation

How to Manage a Stress during a Disaster Operation?

1. Provide and seek guidance and support
2. Encourage supportive peer relationship
3. Respect confidentiality as people can feel safe and seek responsibilities
4. Take break when you feel your tolerance level is diminishing
5. Have de-brief session regularly
6. Encourage the community volunteers to participate in disaster response
7. Involve the local communities
8. Effective use of the Government and Non-Government structure
9. Minimize intake of alcohol
Source: Adapted from SAMHSA, 2005.

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 Promoting Psychosocial Health of Disaster First Responders  263

Box 12.5
IEC material on seeking support

Seek support from someone you trust when you….

1. Have upsetting thoughts or memories about the crisis event
2. Feel very nervous or extremely sad
3. Have trouble sleeping
4. Frequent nightmares
5. Regular daily schedule is upset
6. Interest, attention and concentration are decreased
7. Drink a lot of alcohol or take drugs to cope with your experience
8. Consult a professional if these difficulties persist more than one month

Prevention of illness is definitely the best for you, your family and your
employer: Timely psychosocial evaluation by professionals and appropriate
referral for treatment is definitely effective and receiving treatment is your
fundamental right Recovery and leading a normal qualitative life is assured
with timely professional help
Source: Adapted from SAMHSA, 2005.

illustrations on a single page so that they become user friendly and

handy to carry along whenever DFRs are deputed to the disaster
affected area.

Conclusion

Working in MOOTW like disaster rescue and evacuation operation

can be inevitably stressful for service personnel. Long working hours,
volume of emotionally taxing survivors’ needs and demands, ambigu-
ous roles and exposure to human suffering can affect even the most
experienced personnel. Although such operations can be personally
rewarding and challenging, they also have the potential to affect the
personnel in adverse ways. Thereby, both preventive and promotive
mental health care is required for optimal stress management and
effective functioning of personnel involved as DFRs. Preventive stress
management focuses on two critical contexts: the organizational and
the individual during pre- and post-deployment to disaster-affected
areas. The main objective is to increase resilience among them and
reduce the risk of any long-term psychological disorder. Development

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 264  Sujata Satapathy

of IEC materials and disseminating these among the teams before

deployment to the field could be a powerful mental-health prepared-
ness tool. Conclusively, adopting a protective, preventive and promo-
tive psychosocial health perspective allows both personnel and policy
makers to anticipate stressors and to shape crises rather than simply
reacting to them.

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 13
Value-based Leadership

Vidushi Pathak, Anju Rani and Sneha Goswami

Breach of ethics and values in military is a rampant issue now-a-days.

Problems such as these, however, are essentially little more than ‘abuse
of power’. It has been well-documented throughout the history of the
world that power corrupts, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely
(Lloyd, 2010). In the Armed Forces, individuals exercise immense
powers and responsibilities. Effective balance between power and
responsibilities is at the core of what is meant by values in practice.
Therefore, a clear understanding of values is required. Many feel that
this dimming of value perspective is the primary reason why cases of
misconduct are still occurring in the Armed Forces. A job well done,
backed by values, is superior to the one done just to follow an order.

Changing Faces of Military as an Organization

Military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal

force, including weapons, in defending its country by combating actual
or perceived threats. The primary reason for the existence of the mili-
tary is to engage in combat, should it be required to do so to protect
the country and to win. This represents the organizational goal of any
army, and the primary focus for army thought. Profession of soldiering
in the Armed Forces is older than recorded history itself. The Battle of
Kadesh in 1274 BC was one of the defining points of Pharaoh Ramesses
II’s reign and is celebrated on his monuments. A thousand years later
the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shi Huang, was so determined
to impress the Gods with his military might that he was buried with
an army of terracotta soldiers. The Romans were dedicated to military
matters, leaving behind many treatises and writings as well as a large

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 268  Vidushi Pathak, Anju Rani and Sneha Goswami

number of lavishly carved triumphal arches and victory columns. All

these accounts reflect the importance given to war and armies.
What distinguishes modern military organizations from the previ-
ous ones is not their willingness to prevail in conflict by any method,
but rather the technological variety of tools and methods available
to modern battlefield commanders, from submarines to satellites,
from knives to nuclear warheads. Also, the nature of war and the
enemy has changed drastically. Today, soldiers have to be prepared
to be a global soldier, fight wars in foreign lands and participate in
peace-keeping missions. With globalization of military operations,
more integrative and cooperative defense efforts are required. Armed
Forces across nations today appear to share common military codes,
ethics and values; culturally, however, they differ. A fundamental
understanding of values in relation to culture which guide people’s
lives in different parts of the world has become particularly relevant
to military life today.

Core Military Values

Core values are the precisely stated values preferred by an organiza-

tion. These are the organization’s most essential and enduring tenets
(Collins & Porras, 1996). They describe what the organization is
about and give meaning to all its members. A small set of timeless
guiding principles that require no external justification; they have
intrinsic value and importance to those within the organization
(ibid.). Values must be well differentiated from the objectives of the
organization in order to be better understood as desirable behaviours.
They define objectives and point to the actions necessary to achieve
them. Objectives can be flexible at a given point in time, but values
are immutable. They are like the columns supporting a building.
Inside, one can make all the changes required, but we never move
its foundations (Jackson, 2001). Certain values have been the central
focus of military leadership also. Military tradition of duty, honor and
selfless service to the country has been the core values followed by
most armies. Sanwal (2011) has stated loyalty, integrity, respect and
courage as core Indian Army values. The Soviet soldier is influenced
by the communist values held by his countrymen. From their earliest

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 Value-based Leadership  269

days, Soviet children in school itself were taught about the glories of
Russian and Soviet feats of arms. Although in most other societies the
Army is separate from the civilian society, in Israel no such division
exists because the Army is a civilian army. An established tradition
of compulsory military service to army makes it both a duty and
privilege for the people of Israel to serve in the forces. In case of the
British Armed Forces, it is seen that besides the common factors of
command and management skills, there is a large extent of personal
responsibility and relationship among officers.
US Army doctrine, as expressed in Field Manual 22-100, explic-
itly names seven core values of overriding importance in leadership:
Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity and Personal
Courage (LDRSHIP; Department of the US Army, 1999, p. B-2).

Loyalty

Abide true faith and adherence to the National Constitution, the Army,
unit and other soldiers. Loyalty is first to the organization, its values and
principles and not to the individual. The other values closely associ-
ated with loyalty are unity, justice, altruism, respect for authority and
courage of conviction.

Duty

Fulfill one’s obligations.

Respect

Treat people as they should be treated. A good leader must always

respect individuals, whether senior or junior. He must honor their
status, value their opinion and accept inputs humbly. Individuality
and self-esteem must be respected, as they will foster mutual respect,
something that is imperative for value-based teamwork.

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 270  Vidushi Pathak, Anju Rani and Sneha Goswami

Selfless Service

Put the welfare of the nation, the Army and subordinates before one’s
own.

Honor

Live up to all the Army values.

Integrity

This implies honourable intentions and principles in thought, deed

and actions, and demands the highest level of commitment. Broadly
speaking, it means adherence to moral and ethical standards. Integrity
is all encompassing and includes straightforwardness, selflessness, self-
discipline, self-denial, honesty and propriety.

Personal Courage

Face fear, danger or adversity (physical or moral). Moral and physical

courage are products of character-forming process for development of
self-control, self-discipline, physical and mental robustness, knowledge
of one’s job and therefore, building up of self-confidence. Physical
courage is a virtue that makes a man intrepid in the face of danger.
Moral courage is the ability to discriminate between right and wrong as
also stating it unequivocally. It also involves owning up one’s mistake
and standing by the subordinate.

Soldier’s Dilemma: Personal vs Military Values

Soldiers hold two sets of values: personal values and military or orga-
nizational values. Are organizational values fundamentally different
from personal values? Ideally, these are not! Often both sets are the

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 Value-based Leadership  271

same, but not always. The Armed Forces value selfless service to the
nation. Youth entering the forces are assessed for integrity, not values.
This can lead to disappointment as a gap emerges between personal
and organizational values leading to job dissatisfaction and lesser effort
input by the individual.
As the value system of the society changes, the Armed Forces too have
been caught in this change process. Increased material aspirations, need
for fame and recognition, intense competition for promotion in a pyra-
mid structured organization, various external pressures and increased
tendency to opt for short cut are causing decay of age-old traditions
and values. Coupled with these, the changing nature of warfare and the
enemy is also challenging the traditional values held. Similar views have
been expressed by Sanwal (2010), wherein he believes that recent media
reports of scams in various arenas by the Armed Forces officials, staged
encounters, confidential reports being leaked, spying, misappropriation
of funds, etc., are indications of the broader decline in the value system.
In a study conducted by Heinecken (2009), it was found that over 64 per
cent of UK, Canadian and South African and 55 per cent of German offi-
cers agree that there has been a breakdown in the traditional value system
based on selfless service in the forces. Over half of the respondents felt
that there was no longer a reciprocal sense of loyalty, thereby upholding
the views that military leadership’s responsibility towards subordinates
has declined. The study confirms the general perceptions held by the
public regarding the decline in the value aspect of the forces, globally.
There may be several external as well as internal factors responsible
for the decline in values in the forces. Rapidly changing economic sce-
nario resulting in changed societal dynamics, changing nature of war
leading to more and more interaction between civilians and the Armed
Forces, various forms of corruption, greater media infiltration in all
field of society, more demanding professional commitments in com-
parison to civilian jobs, changing definitions of relationship between
men and women coupled with more and more women entering the
forces, changed priorities of the younger generation, paucity of enough
role models at the top level might be some of the external factors that
are responsible for the decline. Sanwal (2010) in his paper notes that
other factors such as changing battlefield environment, failure on the
part of the senior leadership to devote enough attention in building
focused leadership, lack of transparency in many areas of working, an
apparent gap between ideal work environment and reality are some of
the internal factors that are contributing to the decay as well.

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 272  Vidushi Pathak, Anju Rani and Sneha Goswami

When personal and organizational values conflict, ethical dilem-

mas arise and the culture of the organization starts to wane and its
members begin to disperse. Subsequently, a strong need of alignment
of personal and organizational values has been felt. Alignment refers
to the ‘shared’ aspect of definition. In other words, this means that the
employees value the same things that the organization does. Shared
values underpin common assumptions about what is desired or good
and help soldiers learn how things are done in Armed Forces. Shared
values also translate into the behaviours the military requires in order
to achieve its objectives and to sustain high ethical standards. Jimenez
(2009) also asserted that values must serve as more than just window
dressing. Therefore, the credibility of Armed Forces depends on con-
gruency between personal values and organizational values.

Cultivating Shared Values: Personal and Military

It is an important requisite for the organization to achieve the desired

fit between the person and the job. Therefore, the organization must
pay attention to individual differences in soldiers during planning and
implementing strategies. Same ideas have been submitted by different
researchers (Balachandran, 2012; Green, 2012; Hill & Jones, 2002;
Jackson, 2001; Jimenez, 2009; Kerns, 2003) on different platforms
regarding alignment of personal values with organizational values.
Jimenez (2010) reported that personal values are so diverse and omni-
present in people that organizations have difficulty in bringing a large
number of people from different strata of society into one common
umbrella of organizational values.
If we look at core values of Armed Forces, that is, Loyalty, Duty,
Selfless Service, Personal Courage, etc., which although sound great but
means nothing if not captured clearly. This is where most organiza-
tions fail. After listing down the core values in military doctrine as it
has already been done, it is also important to articulate them further
into measurable actions and behaviours which can be used by leaders
and managers to drive employee performance. Leaders also need to
articulate how these values present the organization to the external
world (Balachandran, 2012). Thus, military leadership and organiza-
tion need to take the following measures at various levels to ensure
value-based person-job fit.

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 Value-based Leadership  273

Selection Process

Alignment between personal and organizational values has to start right

from the time of selection of a soldier. Other than the qualifications
and skill sets needed for the job profile, the prospective employees’ fit
with the organization’s core values needs to be given due importance
in the overall selection decision itself (Balachandran, 2012). If the
organization selects someone whose values are mismatched to those
of the organization, it will be hard to shift the course of their thinking
and it will ultimately prove to be difficult to retain them. The smartest
organizations tend to acknowledge the importance of both personality
and value characteristics, and consider this duality in every action.
Values are the unseen magnets that steer the course of one’s action
through the choices made. If the two values sets, individual and organi-
zational, are not in the same direction, it may lead to a lot of dissonance
at all levels and will create problem in retaining such an individual for
long in the organization. Armed Forces need to be selective in whom
it selects and should adopt a duality approach. Currently, some of the
core values are assessed by selectors but not all. Thus, the need of the
hour is to assess the whole value system of individuals.

Induction Process

Merely having core values alone is not enough for Armed Forces to
reap the benefits of a strong set of core values. These values must truly
resonate with each individual, which requires the Armed Forces to be
expert at articulating and communicating them efficiently. Armed
Forces must state and clarify the values respected by its organization.
Kerns (2003) also laid emphasis on the induction process as one step
towards alignment of personal and organizational values. As sug-
gested by Jimenez (2009), this can be accomplished through formal
orientation programmes. Every attempt should be made to expose
new soldiers to the correct values and expectations and to teach them
the way things are done in the organization. Leaders must ensure their
soldiers understand those values, so they can always do the right things
in difficult or stressful peacetime or wartime situations. Hence, new
soldiers need to be oriented and immersed in values and traditions of

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 274  Vidushi Pathak, Anju Rani and Sneha Goswami

the forces so that they become active organizational disciples. Leaders

must also be engaged in dialogues with soldiers informally about what
is important to them and explain what is important to the organization
and work to bring about a balance between the two.

Rewards and Reinforcement

The most efficient way to foster values is to reinforce good practices

and behaviours that better reflect the desired organizational values
(Jimenez, 2009). Soldiers can be motivated to assume principles with
conviction through this established and effective way. Intimidation
and punishment in the best of cases generate only fear, not convic-
tion. Thus, rewards can strengthen individual values and maintain
enthusiasm in support of key organizational values that are considered
vital to organizational success. Soldiers cannot be forced to do well
what they do not want to do. It does not mean that mistakes should go
unnoticed or that leaders must be lenient. But positive reinforcement
is much more than a pat in the back (ibid.). This technique can work
best when soldiers receive commendation immediately for a specific
behaviour, and leaders express the positive feeling that implementing
the value entail. If this method is practiced methodically, the organi-
zational environment works as a virtuous cycle of value reproduction.

Training and Development

When ethical dilemma arises, military members should be prepared

to handle it. Hence, value development should be a primary focus for
military education and training, not merely a strategic goal. Value
inculcation must be the cognizant objective in all trainings. Armed
Forces may train values intentionally and non-intentionally or inci-
dentally. In intentional values training, leaders consciously and delib-
erately train the new cadets the desired values formally or informally,
but it is never accidental. Unintentional or incidental values training
occurs when military members form a value conclusion based on their
observation of their leader’s unintentional example. Most often this
example is incidental to some other situational priority (Jackson, 2001).

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 Value-based Leadership  275

Leaders must always exhibit military values and must ensure their
soldiers understand those values so that they can always do the right
things in difficult or stressful peace time or wartime situations. The
existing system of training and development of future military leaders
revolves around operational assignments, that is, both command and
staff, and self structured at various levels. This type of training needs
to be complimented through structured training; more importantly,
through self-development in terms of lateral and broad-based com-
petencies (Sanwal, 2011).

Promoting an Ethical Culture

Ethical or unethical practices usually reflect the values, attitudes, beliefs

and behaviour patterns of the organization’s culture (Rao, 2010).
So, time and effort must be devoted to promote a culture based on
shared values that are expressed through the everyday behaviour of its
members. The coherence and consistency between what members of
organization say and do strengthens its culture. This leads to high level
of harmony and performance of the organization. An organization’s
values should be reflected in the specific behaviours of its members,
and not just in its mission statement. To convey its core value to new
members, one must possess it and implement it through; its credibility
depends on it (Jimenez, 2009). The individuals internalize and learn
the norms and values of the culture through socialization and adopting
organizational membership. Culture is a powerful tool because once
these values have been internalized the culture becomes a part of the
individual’s values and the individual follows organizational values
without thinking about them (Hill & Jones, 2002).

Authentic Leadership

General Donald Campbell emphasized:

You can’t hit every decision that they’ll face on the battlefield. But you try
to instill in them values, standards that are common to the military and
our profession, which is about leadership, duty, honor and integrity. And if

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 276  Vidushi Pathak, Anju Rani and Sneha Goswami

you do that, 99.9 percent of our soldiers will go to 100 percent, and they’ll
all do the right thing. (as cited in Knickmeyer, 2006, p. A10)

In military leadership, leaders cannot just lead through their position

of authority; they will instead have to lead by example. When people
operate from this highest level of development they focus on the needs
of followers and on encouraging others to think for themselves and to
engage in higher levels of moral reasoning and will make ethical deci-
sions whatever the organization consequences are for them (Rao, 2010).
This is the crux of value-based leadership that is called the Authentic
Leadership. Authentic leaders are deeply aware of their values and
beliefs, they are self-confident, genuine, reliable and trustworthy and
they focus on building followers’ strengths, broadening their thinking
and creating a positive and engaging organizational context (Avolio &
Gardner, 2005; Gardner, Avolio, Luthans, May, & Walumbwa, 2005).
The four important components of Authentic Leadership, which by
and large have been accepted, are Self Awareness, Balanced Processing,
Internalised Moral Perspective and Relational Transparency.

Self Awareness
Self awareness refers to one’s awareness of, and trust in, one’s own
personal characteristics, values, motives, feelings and cognitions. It
includes knowledge of one’s inherent contradictory self-aspects and
the role of these contradictions in influencing one’s thoughts, feelings,
actions and behaviours (May, Chan, Hodges, & Avolio, 2003). Being
self aware means knowing who you are, what you believe in and what
you stand for. For a leader being aware of who he is, is important as
it anchors him and help him in understanding and making decisions.

Balanced Processing
It refers to taking everyone’s viewpoints in consideration and objec-
tively analysing these views before coming to a decision. Other view-
points may not match with a person’s viewpoint, but by asking for
others’ views a different perspective might emerge which can help in
decision making (Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing, & Peterson,
2008). Another important aspect of balanced processing focuses on
processing the information without having any bias. Unbiased process-
ing has been described as ‘the heart of personal integrity and charac-
ter’, thereby significantly influencing a leader’s decision making and

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 Value-based Leadership  277

strategic actions (Ilies, Morgeson, & Nahrgang, 2005). Thus, for a leader
to be authentic he needs to have a high level of integrity and character.

Internalized Moral Perspective

Internalized moral perspective means to regulate behaviour so that
the behaviour aligns with the individual’s moral standards. Having an
internalized moral compass helps an individual to guide his behaviour
in times when it becomes difficult to do so. Many researchers believe
this aspect to be central to authentic leadership (Gardner et al., 2005;
Ilies et al., 2005; Luthans & Avolio, 2003; May et al., 2003; Walumbwa
et al., 2008). In case of military leadership, it is all about following
the chain of command. What the leader orders, the follower follows.
This attitude of deference is something which is an integral part of
the military.

Relational Transparency
Relational transparency refers to presenting one’s true self to others.
This means being honest, transparent and true when dealing with
others. Trusting relationships are built on the basis of the authentic
leader’s expressing true feelings to their subordinates. Disclosing one’s
true self to one’s followers builds trust and intimacy, fostering team-
work and cooperation (Gardner et al., 2005) and feelings of stability
and predictability (Chan, Hannah, & Gardner, 2005). It is important
that leaders share their vision with their subordinates and let them
know what they expect from them. This will help to win the loyalty
and trust of their subordinates.

Indian Military Values

Globally, Armed Forces have played crucial role in building the history
of civilizations. In India also the value and importance of army was
realized very early. This led to the maintenance of a permanent militia
to fight opponents. War or no war, the army was to be maintained to
meet any unexpected contingency. This gave rise to the Kshatriya or
warrior caste, and the kshatramdharman came to mean the primary
duty of war. To serve the country by participating in war became the
svadharma of this warrior community. In case of the Indian Armed

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 278  Vidushi Pathak, Anju Rani and Sneha Goswami

force’s core value system, it is seen that a lot of it is based on its cul-
tural history. Indian forces place a lot of emphasis on the conduct of
its men during any conflict situation. It treats its opponent with due
respect and does not violate basic human rights. The ancient scriptures
have also laid a lot of emphasis on the science of warfare and even
today the Force tries to emulate those values as much as possible. The
ancient law-givers, the reputed authors of the Dharmasutras and the
Dharmasastras, codified the then-existing customs and usages for the
betterment of mankind. Thus, the law books and the epics contain
special sections on royal duties and the duties of common warriors.
Some of them are mentioned in the succeeding text.

sva-dharmam api cāveks.ya

na vikampitum arhasi
dharmyād dhi yuddhācchreyo ’nyat
ks.atriyasya na vidyate

(Srimad Bhagvad Gita 2.31)

Translation: Considering your specific duty as a warrior (ks.hatriya),

you should know that there is no better engagement for you than
fighting on religious principles; and so there is no need for hesitation.

ks.atriyo hi prajā raks.an

śastra-pān.ih. pradan.d.ayan
nirjitya para-sainyādi
ks.itiḿ dharmen.a pālayet

(Srimad Bhagvad Gita 2.32)

Translation: The warrior’s duty is to protect the citizens from all

kinds of difficulties, and for that reason he has to apply violence in
suitable cases for law and order. Therefore, he has to conquer the sol-
diers of inimical kings, and thus, with religious principles, he should
rule over the world.

atha cet tvam imaḿ dharmyaḿ

sańgrāmaḿ na karis.yasi
tatah. sva-dharmaḿ kı̄rtiḿ ca
hitvā pāpam avāpsyasi

(Srimad Bhagvad Gita 2.33)

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 Value-based Leadership  279

Translation: If, however, you do not perform your religious duty of

fighting, then you will certainly incur sins for neglecting your duties
and thus lose your reputation as a fighter. Conclusively, The Bhagavad
Gita’s great message that:

Violence is sometimes necessary,

if it flows from Dharma
For a warrior, nothing is higher than a war against evil.
The warrior confronted with such a war should be pleased,
Arjuna, for it comes as an
Open gate to heaven.
But if you do not participate in this battle against evil, you will incur sin,
violating your dharma and your honor….

(Srimad Bhagvad Gita 2.31-33)

Indian military science recognizes two kinds of warfare– the

Dharmayuddha and the Kutayuddha. Dharmayuddha was carried on
the principles of dharma, meaning that the Kshatriyadharma or the
law of Kings and Warriors was a just and righteous war which had the
approval of society. Kutayuddha, on the other hand, was unrighteous
war, a crafty fight carried on in secret. The Hindu science of warfare
values both ‘niti’ and ‘shaurya’, that is, ethical principles and valor. The
principles regulating the two kinds of warfare are elaborately described
in the Dharmasutras and Dharmashastras, the epics (Ramayana and
Mahabharata), the Arthashastra treatises of Kautilya, Kamandaka and
Shukra. It was therefore realized that the waging of war without regard
to moral standards degraded the institution into mere animal ferocity.
Chivalry, individual heroism, qualities of mercy and nobility of
­outlook even in the grimmest of struggles were not unknown to the
soldiers of ancient India. Thus among the laws of war, it can be found
that (a) a warrior (Kshatriya) in armor must not fight with one not
so clad (b) one should fight only one enemy and cease fighting if the
opponent is disabled, (c) aged men, women and children, the retreating,
or one who held a straw in his lips as a sign of unconditional surrender
should not be killed. As early as the 4th century B.C., Megasthenes
noticed a peculiar trait of Indian warfare which he later mentioned in
his book Indika.

Whereas among other nations it is usual, in the contests of war, to ravage

the soil and thus to reduce it to an uncultivated waste, among the Indians,

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 280  Vidushi Pathak, Anju Rani and Sneha Goswami

on the contrary, by whom husbandmen are regarded as a class that is sacred

and inviolable, the tillers of the soil, even when battle is raging in their
neighborhood, are undisturbed by any sense of danger, for the combatants
on either side in waging the conflict make carnage of each other, but allow
those engaged in husbandry to remain quite unmolested. Besides, they never
ravage an enemy’s land with fire, nor cut down its trees.

When a conqueror felt that he was in a position to invade the for-

eigner’s country, he sent an ambassador with the message: ‘Fight or
submit.’ More than 5,000 years ago, India recognized that the person
or the ambassador was inviolable. This was a great service that ancient
Hinduism rendered to the cause of international law. It was the reli-
gious force that invested the person of the herald or ambassador with
an inviolable sanctity in the ancient world. The Mahabharata rules that
the king who killed an envoy would sink into hell with all his ministers.
Although each ruler brought with him a distinct set of values, in
general, it can be observed that the basic values formed during the early
Vedic period constituted the crux of armies in India across centuries till
foreign invasions started becoming common. Foreign invaders generally
brought their own armies to conquer but once the conquest was won
and they settled, they started recruiting from the natives. As a result, the
natives had to abide by their values which was not without clashes and
uprisings. With the advent of Britishers, there was a shift. The employed
Indian soldiers held on to their Indian value systems and did not embrace
the values of the British Armed Forces. Although there were simmering
discomforts because of basic clashes in values, the high point reached
with the First War of Independence. The Mutiny was a result of various
grievances. However, the flashpoint was reached when the soldiers were
asked to bite off the paper cartridges for their rifles which they believed
were greased with animal fat, namely beef and pork. This was, and is,
against the religious beliefs of Hindus and Muslims, respectively. So the
soldiers fought for their values. Thus, it can be said that the Indian Armed
Forces have followed the traditional values inspired by its larger society
and have always tried to maintain its values down the ages.

Conclusion

Armed Forces have benchmarked very high moral and ethical standards
for its men to follow. However, in saying this, it cannot be denied that

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 Value-based Leadership  281

though the forces strive to achieve such high standards from its men
in reality this often fails. The changing sociocultural and economic
environment is having an impact on the very foundations of value
held deeply by the Forces. Armed Forces need leaders who apart from
having skills of high level and of new kinds, ought to be necessarily
value based. Value-based soldiering and leadership is mandatory for
ethical conduct in warfare as use of more brute force cannot breed a
peaceful internal as well as external environment. Emphasis must be
on fostering a culture of shared values.

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 14
Familial Pathways to Soldier
Effectiveness

Archana and Updesh Kumar

The effectiveness of military organization depends upon the physical

and mental fitness of its soldiers, who are confronted with arduous
operational demands that not only affect their own well-being but
also disrupt the well-being of their family members. In order to attain
effectiveness, a soldier and his family must be able to adapt to the envi-
ronmental demands placed on him that varies from time to time and
place to place. Thereby, it is pertinent to understand the factors that
facilitate soldier’s familial well-being and quality of life for enhancing
his effectiveness.

Well-being, Quality of Life and Military

Families

Well-being is a subjective evaluation of one’s current status in the

world and an individual’s appraisal of his own life captures the essence
of well-being (Diener, 1984). It comprises three components, namely
emotional, social and psychological (Keyes & Lopez, 2002). Emotional
well-being consists of perceptions of avowed happiness and satisfac-
tion with life, along with the balance of positive and negative affects.
The coupling of satisfaction and affect serves as a meaningful and
measurable conceptualization of emotional well-being. And social
well-being covers the dimensions of coherence, integration, actual-
ization, contribution and acceptance. While psychological well-being
involves the components of self-acceptance, personal growth, purpose
in life, environmental mastery, autonomy and positive relations with

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 284  Archana and Updesh Kumar

others. These researchers also suggest that the complete mental health
is conceptualized through combinations of high levels of emotional,
social and psychological well-being.
Well-being is closely related to the concept of quality of life.
Different perspectives were put forth about the quality of life. For
example, economists focused on an individual’s socio-economic
status; a medical researcher was concerned with how an individual
assesses his own physical and psychological well-being and social
scientists were interested in looking into the interaction between
the person and his environment (Cummins, 2000). Quality of life
is a dynamic term suggesting that the same circumstances may not
affect different people in the same way, nor may the same individual
always react in a consistent manner over time (Carr, Gibson, &
Robinson, 2001).
Quality of life for military families largely resides in their ability
to adjust to the multiple demands of the military life. Every soldier
deserves a quality of life equal to his service (WRAL Raleigh, 2008).
Military personnel have a better health and quality of life than the civil
population, despite their repeated exposure to considerable hazards
and a stressful work environment (Mageroy, Riise, & Johnsen, 2007).
Segal (1986) identifies both the military and the family as ‘greedy’
institutions that place significant demands on an individual in terms
of loyalty, time and energy. Hence, the conflict between the two is
inevitable. Family issues affect retention more than readiness, includ-
ing perception of unit morale, confidence in other unit members and
overall preparedness for combat. The greatest predictor of a soldier’s
commitment to the military is the spouse’s commitments to the same.
In a research carried out by Bourg and Segal (1999), it was found that
spouse satisfaction was significantly affected by perceived military
interference with family needs. Younger spouses reported the most
work–family conflict, reflecting a lack of experience or expectation
management. Assignment to a combat unit and the presence of chil-
dren were also factors that increased reported military–family conflict.
LaGrone (1978) has put forth the concept of ‘military family
­syndrome’, suggesting that military families suffer from greater psycho-
social difficulties than the general population. The frequent moves of
military personnel create stress for their families, and it becomes more
challenging when skills and abilities of military families fail to meet the

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 Familial Pathways to Soldier Effectiveness  285

demands of military life. Often military families are acquainted with the
nature of stressors they encounter in such life due to their past experi-
ences associated with such life style. But at times when the intervals
between stressors are small and coping resources are inadequate, then
these experiences constitute an accumulation of stressors that serves
as a risk factor in adapting to military life. And during such time prior
experiences with stressors, instead of being helpful, may contribute to
pile-up due to insufficient time for recovery.

Challenges for Military Families

Adapting to the demands of military lifestyle not only creates stress

but also leads to negative outcomes for family members. Prominent
among these are geographic mobility, periodic separations from family,
long and unpredictable duty hours, pressures for military families
to conform to accepted standards of behaviour, sole parenting and
deployment (Booth, Segal, & Bell, 2007). Not everyone in the military
experiences all of these demands at once. The stressors associated with
the challenges of maintaining a military career and a stable household
put a strain on all family members. The stressors that military spouses
face are unmatched in the civilian world and some of these challenges
are discussed in the succeeding text.

Recurrent Relocation

Military is a structured organization, in which military personnel and

their families are often required to relocate. Frequent relocation often
disrupts family life and affects their supportive relationships in the
society. Members of the military cannot refuse to relocate as these fami-
lies have limited decision-making power (Hosek, Asch, Fair, Martin,
& Mattock, 2002). Due to continuous change of stations, military
spouses and their children face difficulty in adapting to new locations.
Children’s adjustment to a move depends on their age. For example,
adolescents experience social rejection, which often breaks them down

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 286  Archana and Updesh Kumar

emotionally; particularly girls seem to have more difficulty adjusting

than boys, since they place more importance on social relationships
(Brown & Orthner, 1990).
Constant relocation also deters military spouses from having a
career. Some women seek contentment by engaging themselves in
household activities and by taking care of their family, whereas those
with career find it difficult to bring a balance between the work–family
interfaces. Regardless of employment status, many women whose
husbands are absent for extended periods find themselves working
twice as hard at home (Zvonkovic, Solomon, Humble, & Manoogian,
2005). However, it is not necessary that every relocation brings stress;
some families feel that moving can have a positive experience also.
For example, for some children this relocation helps in enhancing
their academic performance, if a new environment provides a better
educational system and offers more valuable connections with t­ eachers
(Cornille, 1993). Researchers suggest that relocation is related to
lower psychological well-being and marital happiness (Jensen, Lewis,
& Xenakis, 1986).

Separation from Family Members

Frequent separations place additional demands on family members

in terms of managing the household and taking on the role of single
parent. Even separation for a short duration affects family’s life and
creates emotional turmoil for many of its members. When one parent
is deployed, the other parent is likely to encounter separation strain,
loneliness, role overload, role shifts, financial concerns, changes in
community support and increased parenting demands (Vormbrock,
1993). In marital relationship, the quality of intimacy and the commu-
nication between couples is highly effective and influential in maintain-
ing their relations. Separation accompanied by lack of communication
often reduces the intimacy of couples and military spouses consider
separation as one of the major sources of dissatisfaction with military
life. Importantly, Andres, Moelker and Soeters (2012) reflected that it
is the quality of seperation rather than the quantity that matters and
beyond the frequency of communications, the degree to which service

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 Familial Pathways to Soldier Effectiveness  287

members and partners engage in active interactions (e.g., keeping each

other informed and involved, inquiring how the other feels, expressing
affection) helps in maintaining intimate bond. The spouses of military
personnel express their failure to handle the separation period as it
is negatively related to well-being and often results in the feelings of
loneliness, anxiety and depression for some women (Orthner, 2002).
This period also affects the children’s ability to adjust to the existing
circumstances. During separation, children in military families often
display minor to serious behaviour problems, including anxiety,
sleep disturbances, phobias and increase in physical ailments (Kelley,
1994). Children’s responses also reflect their mother’s reactions. If the
mother’s reaction to her spouse’s deployment is depression, then the
children may mirror her depressive symptoms or behaviours, espe-
cially if they manifest as parental inattentiveness and unresponsiveness
(Riggs, 1990). The adjustment problem is more prominent in younger
children as compared to the infants, as the infants are too young to
notice the absence of parent.
During the initial stage of separation, military families experience
mixed emotions and feel anxious about their ability to cope with the
demands of military life style. After this transitional period most fami-
lies adjust to separation, adapting to their circumstances and establish-
ing routines and new sources of support, both formal and informal.
Many establish mutually supportive relationships with fellow military
spouses. For those who work, co-workers are often a source of social
support, although some spouses find their expanded responsibilities
at home require them to reduce their work hours or cease to work
altogether (Hosek, Kavanagh, & Miller, 2006).

Frequent Deployments

Deployments are a pivotal part of military life that creates a unique

challenge to the basic structural integrity of the family. Due to the
increased demands of being a military family, it becomes crucial for
the spouses and their children to cope with deployment of service
personnel. Deployment length and the extent to which the duration
exceeds families’ expectations are two important factors that are found

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 288  Archana and Updesh Kumar

to be negatively associated with the family’s ability to cope with the

situation and their level of satisfaction with military life (Chandran,
Lara-Cinisomo, & Jaycox, 2009). When the husband is deployed, the
entire family experiences the absence as a major stressor. Spouses
who perceive military life as stressful show reduction in psychologi-
cal well-being, express feelings of loneliness, role overload, financial
difficulties, child-related issues, worry over long-distance relation-
ship maintenance and separation anxiety (Burrell, Adams, Durand,
& Castro, 2006).
Several researchers have examined children’s responses to parental
absence because of military deployment. Many of them have reported
adverse effects including sadness and being very emotional, sleeping
problems, aggressiveness, irritability, depression and decreased school
performance (Booth et al., 2007). Empirical research has shown that
separation not only causes maladjustment but also can elicit positive
effects such as children acting more maturely and being self-suffi-
cient, cooperative and more responsible at home (Jensen, Martin, &
Watanabe, 1996). Research suggests that the effects of deployment
indirectly affect child outcomes through parental stress and pathology.
The heightened stress of one parent coupled with the absence of the
other parent is likely to negatively affect child outcomes (Palmer, 2008).

Parenting Stress

Parenting stress results due to decreased satisfaction with the parent-

ing role and a reduced quality of parent–child interaction (Berry &
Jones, 1997). The bond and strength of couple relationship plays a
very important role in buffering the effects of parenting stress. The
stress within the household is mediated by several factors, including
the overall strength of the couple relationship, the perceived amount
of co-parenting and the household division of labour (Belsky & Hsieh,
1998). The mothers’ social support systems and relationship with
husband influence how children cope with and adjust to their father’s
absence. Andres and Moelker (2011) suggest that maternal well-being
predicts children’s adjustment difficulties in the course of paternal

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 Familial Pathways to Soldier Effectiveness  289

deployment. Higher levels of mother’s parenting stress were found to

be associated with higher levels of children’s adjustment ­difficulties
during the deployment.

Abrupt Reunion

Reunion can be stressful and can elicit ambivalent emotions and feel-
ings of estrangement. Military families often experience difficulties with
reunion of service members into the family system after their return
from deployment, since they have already adapted to the absence of
military personnel. The difficulty with reunion results in feelings of
estrangement among family members who have been functioning
without the service member during the separation time frame, and this
often results in a great deal of distress (Peebles-Kleiger & Kleiger, 1994).
Reunion is assumed to be more difficult for children who experienced
higher levels of distress during the separation or who emotionally
detached themselves to a higher degree from the absent parent. These
children may either reject or become anxious in the presence of par-
ents. Since military parents may leave behind an infant and return to
a child who has changed significantly and no longer recognizes them.
On the other hand, others may return to infants they have never seen
and become frustrated by the strict household regime necessary to
accommodate the child (Vormbrock, 1993).
Reunion may also create difficulty for the returning spouses. For
example, returning spouses may feel superfluous or excluded from their
family if they are impeded in reassuming their previous functions. They
may experience jealousy and get frustrated because their wives have
less time for them. Also, they feel an intense need to normalize their
lives but realize that they are unfamiliar with the new management of
the household. These feelings of unfamiliarity may increase tensions
between the couple to such an extent that subsequent deployments are
welcomed as a source of relief from conflict (ibid.). Although some
findings suggest that reunion is a joyous experience felt by both the
partners and it is accompanied by greater family ­cohesiveness and may
result in quick readjustment (Kelley, 1994).

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 290  Archana and Updesh Kumar

Parental Absence

Prolonged parental absence is a major concern for military children.

Parenting with a balance of warmth and appropriate control helps
in enhancing the well-being and quality of life in military children.
Military children are more likely to display a good quality of life when
their parents model a positive attitude and show more flexibility in
adapting to the challenges of military life (Walsh, 2007).
Thus, it is well understood that the relocation, deployment,
­separation from family and parenting stress are some of the challenges
of military families. And, achieving balance within and between the
demands of the family and organization shall help in strengthening
the forces.

Strengthening the Forces

Military life is stressful, as it affects the well-being of a soldier in mul-

titude of ways. However, each individual possesses different levels of
coping ability as well as different perceptions and definitions of stressful
events, based upon their previous attempts at adaptation (McCubbin
& McCubbin, 1989). According to the model of stress and coping
as proposed by Lazarus and Folkman (1984), how one responds to
stress depends on one’s appraisal of the stressor, the interpretation
of the stressor and the coping behaviours that are then implemented.
Following this appraisal process, an individual may choose basically
one of two methods of coping with a stressor. One method is known as
‘emotion-focused coping’ and reflects attempts to manage emotional
responses during or after experiencing a stressor. A second method of
coping is known as ‘problem-focused coping’, which is a direct attempt
to solve the problem rather than focusing on the emotional aspects of
the situation. Generally, problem-focused coping has been related to
positive outcomes; however, emotion-focused coping may be better for
situations in which the stressors cannot be changed. Military spouses
use both these strategies in dealing with their stressful experiences
(Carver, 1997). Some of the strategies that help in strengthening the
forces through the familial pathways are discussed below.

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 Familial Pathways to Soldier Effectiveness  291

Consolidating Social Support

Social support contributes to an individual’s health independent of his

or her level of stress. People involved in close, caring relationships are
generally happier and healthier (because of their supportive relation-
ships), and enjoy better health and more personal happiness than those
who lack such a network. Therefore, lack of social ties, involvement in
conflicting relationships or loss of a significant relationship contributes
to loneliness, depression, personal distress and unhappiness (Berscheid,
2003). Having a strong social support helps in dealing with stressors.
Social support has both structural and functional properties that are
tied to mental and physical health outcomes. Structural support refers
to variables such as size of the support network, the sources of sup-
port and type of support, whereas functional properties refer to the
perception of whether or not support exists, and if it does, the degree
of its usefulness (Cohen, 1988).
Adequate social support networks are crucial for military families.
Military families need social support to cope with separation stressors.
Social support systems, including friends, children, relatives, work col-
leagues and support groups, have been positively linked to separation
adjustment for military families (Wood, Scarville, & Gravino, 1995).
Women have specially identified children, employment, close friends
and family as their main sources of support when separated from their
military husbands (Vormbrock, 1993). Fellow military families serve as
one of the most valuable sources for social support; they are the ones
who precisely know what a deployment means to a family. The positive
military environment fosters social support and helps individuals cope
with stressors, thus improving their quality of life (Andres, Moelker,
& Soeters, 2012).

Sensitizing Leadership

The military unit directly impacts the quality of life of both soldiers
and their families. A unit’s leadership is directly responsible for the
­‘command climate’ and the positive unit environment fosters social
support to help soldiers and their families cope with stressors and

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 292  Archana and Updesh Kumar

contribute to an improved quality of life. Researchers suggest that

higher levels of unit cohesion and quality of leadership are related to
service members’ well-being and ability to cope with deployment. Also
families’ ability to cope during separation is positively related to length
of marriage, predeployment preparedness and employer support (Jones,
2003). Strong unit cohesion has been positively correlated not only
with readiness and individual and group performance, but also with
personal well-being (Griffith, 2002). Therefore, high-quality leadership
and unit support can enhance the well-being and quality of a soldier.

Increasing Positivity

Emotions come in two basic forms, namely positive and negative affect.
Positive affect refers to emotions such as cheerfulness, joy, contentment
and happiness and negative affect refers to emotions such as anger,
fear, sadness, guilt, contempt and disgust. Positive and negative affects
form a basic, underlying structure for people’s emotional lives and
are significantly related to the measures of personality and well-being
(Watson, 2002).
Fredrickson’s (2001) broaden-and-build theory of positive emo-
tions describes how positive emotions open up one’s thinking and
actions to new possibilities and how this expansion can help build
physical, psychological and social resources that promote well-being.
Positive emotion broadens the outlook, offsets negative emotions,
enhances resilience and improves one’s emotional well-being that
are important in dealing with nearly all life challenges. Positive emo-
tions are more psychological in nature and depend on the appraisal
and meaning of events in people’s lives rather than just physical
stimulation of the body. Both positive and negative emotions are
incompatible with each other in the sense that it is hard to imagine
experiencing both at the same time. Combinations of emotional feel-
ings are certainly possible, but the simultaneous experience of both
intense positive and intense negative emotions seems unlikely. Equally,
Fredrickson and Losada (2005) hypothesized that the ratio of positive-
to-negative emotions and behaviours that people experience during
a given time period might be an index of the flourishing-languishing
dimension. Flourishing is a state of optimal human functioning that

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 Familial Pathways to Soldier Effectiveness  293

is at the opposite end of the continuum from mental illness. In other

words, flourishing is complete mental health. Languishing is a state
that divides mental health from mental illness and is characterized
by a feeling of emptiness, hollowness or what people used to call
­melancholy. Languishing individuals have few symptoms of mental
illness, but they also have few symptoms of mental health. In other
words, there is no serious pathology, but there is little purpose,
­meaning or zest for life either.
Military spouses are consistently exposed to numerous stressors
due to military demands. Fredrickson’s broaden and build theory of
positive emotions shows the relationships among stress, positivity
and depressive symptoms in military spouses during deployment.
According to them, positive emotions down regulate the nega-
tive effects of stress. This interaction between stress and positivity
revealed that higher levels of positivity protect military spouses from
developing depressive symptoms at both low and high levels of stress
(Fredrickson, 2001).

Building Family Resilience

Resilience is the capacity to adapt successfully in the presence of risk

and adversity. It is a process that involves interaction between an indi-
vidual, his past experiences and current life context. It is important
for the military community with regard to keeping personnel fit for
duty and promoting their health and well-being (Wiens & Boss, 2006).
Similarly, it is important to build family resilience.
Family resilience has been defined as the characteristics, dimensions
and properties of families which help them to be resilient to disrup-
tion in the face of change and adaptive in the face of crisis situations
(McCubbin & McCubbin, 1989). Resilient families have the capacity
to analyze and contextualize obstacles and possess a ‘can do’ spirit
that supports initiative-taking and perseverance. By focusing on their
strengths and potential for effectiveness, resilient groups nurture
confidence in their member’s abilities to overcome the odds (Walsh,
2002). When families approach challenges with a sense of optimism,
confidence or hope and a positive emotional atmosphere, the evidence
suggests that families are likely to do better (ibid.). Families are more

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 294  Archana and Updesh Kumar

likely to be resilient when they have clear allocations of roles, but are
also able to adjust those allocations when challenging circumstances
require it. Resilient families are also more likely to communicate and
manage behaviour and relationships effectively. Specifically, they
are able to share information, solve problems together and manage
behaviour with appropriate use of warmth and limit setting (Black &
Lobo, 2008). Thereby, building resilient families itself promotes the
individual resilience in soldiers.

Striking Work–Family Balance

In order to adapt to the military lifestyle, it is essential to have a balance

between the work and family life. Work and family domains are inter-
dependent and complementary to each other. The imbalance exists
when demands in one life domain (family/work) limit one’s ability to
complete required duties in other domains (family/work). Therefore,
it becomes important to focus on how family and work domain can
enhance one another. This mutual enhancement emphasizes on work–
family facilitation which is based on the notion that synergy exists
between the work and family roles. Work–family facilitation is defined
as the extent to which experiences in one role improve the quality of
life in another role (Frone, 2003). That is how involvement in one
role positively influences another role. Facilitation is associated with
various positive outcomes such as commitment, physical and mental
health and contributes to the understanding of work–family dynamics
above and beyond the conflict. Work-to-family and family-to-work
facilitation involves psychological spill-over, a transitory phenom-
enon, which includes the ways in which family (work) life affects an
individual’s energy level, attention span and mood, which in turn are
brought into the work (family) setting by the individual (Crouter,
1984). Both directions of work–family facilitation are significantly
and positively related to global outcomes such as mental health and
life satisfaction. Work-to-family facilitation is characterized by ‘one’s
involvement in work that provides skills and behaviours, which posi-
tively influence the family, while family-to-work facilitation refers to
one’s involvement in family that results in positive moods, support
and sense of accomplishment which help an individual to cope better,

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 Familial Pathways to Soldier Effectiveness  295

work harder and feel more confident for one’s role at work (Wayne,
Musisca, & Fleeson, 2004).

Conclusion

Understanding the concerns of military families has become a necessity.

Military spouses are consistently exposed to numerous stressors and
coping with these stressors requires skills. Therefore, there is a need
to develop strategies to maximize the development of skills that are a
good match to these stressors in order to promote the well-being of
soldier and his family. It is equally essential for the military organiza-
tion to improvise tools and improve access to support systems in the
course of military-induced separations in order to keep feelings of
isolation to a minimum. Identifying factors that strengthen resilience
in military spouses, children and service members will serve as one of
the most effective tools and techniques for promoting and sustaining
well-being. Also, following the principles of positive psychology in
military organization will help in promoting successful adaptation
and achieving optimal functioning during times of stress, thereby
enhancing not only the well-being of military families but also soldier’s
retention, readiness and effectiveness in the Armed Forces.

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Zvonkovic, A. M., Solomon, C. R., Humble, A. M., & Manoogian, M. (2005). Family
work and relationships: Lessons from families of men whose jobs require travel. Family
Relations, 54, 411–422.

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 15
Countering Terrorism: Interrogating
Communication Oversight

James Okolie-Osemene

The emergence of Boko Haram terrorism marked a watershed in

Nigeria’s political, social and economic milieu. There is no doubt about
the truism that it took the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) many
years to grasp the recruitment, membership and factors that sustain
operational efficiency of the Islamist sect. The problematic aspect of the
Boko Haram monster is the inability of the FGN to tame the sources
of Boko Haram’s funding and failure of security forces to contain the
sources of arms despite their heavy deployment, aerial bombardment
and discovery of some Boko Haram camps and bomb factories in
Northeastern enclave. Borno State is located in Northeastern part of
Nigeria and shares boundary with Cameroon, Lake Chad and Niger
Republic. Various scholars of trans-border studies and practitioners in
the security sector hold the view that porous borders in most communi-
ties contribute to the complexities of counterterrorism. This problem
is as a result of unmanned borders and topography of the Northeast.
Nigeria’s Armed Forces consist of the Army, Navy and Air Force who
are trained to protect the nation’s territorial integrity. More so, upsurge
in violence in recent months makes Borno State the hotbed of Boko
Haram terrorism which is at the detriment of rural people and those in
the state capital, Maiduguri. It is obvious that Boko Haram members
live with the people, attend the same mosques, visit same markets and
even enter taxis/buses with residents of Borno, they are neither spirits
or faceless as politicians want us to believe.
Terrorist financing is linked with money laundering (Golwa, 2010),
terrorism remains a threat that haunts the continent of Africa (Luz,
2013), whereas most countries consistently embark on security sector
reforms to meet up with the challenges posed by this global monster
that threatens stability of states, especially now that Somali militia

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 Countering Terrorism: Interrogating Communication Oversight  299

groups operate in Kenya’s remote and arid North-eastern Province,

an area that borders southern Somalia—a former stronghold of the
extremist group Al-Shabaab (Gathigah, 2013). It is noteworthy that
Al-Shabaab (which means youth in Arabic) was born in Somalia in
2004, as a result of the defeat of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) during
the war in Somalia (2006–2009). The group’s responsibility of the 21
September 2013 attack that left more than 70 dead and 170 injured
in a mall in Nairobi, Kenya, showed its strength and source of worry
to leaders within Africa and other parts of the world (Luz, 2013). Just
like Al-Shabaab attacks, foreigners also suffer the activities of the Boko
Haram group in Nigeria with grave human insecurity situation. Also,
recent incidents showed that just like Kenya which is caught up in
the crosshairs of global terrorism mainly due to its association with
Western countries and presence of their installations in the country
(Kagwanja, 2012), Nigeria and other African nations have also become
targets and destinations for those groups that use terror as weapon to
punish perceived groups with rival ideologies.
The name ‘Boko Haram’ is no longer new in many Nigerian homes,
media and the entire political landscape of the nation. Many authors
have written a lot about the Islamist group Boko Haram. They include
the following: Danjibo (2009), Aleyomi (2012), Bamidele (2012),
Marc-Antoine (2012), Pham (2012), Amaraegbu (2013), Adeyeye
(2013), Barkindo (2013), Newman (2013), Fayeye (2013), Chikwem
(2013), Sodipo (2013), amongst others. The list, however, shows
that not much scholarly work has been written to accommodate the
activities of the Multi National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) which
presently battles with Boko Haram in their Borno strongholds. The
trouble with Boko Haram sect is gross intransigence and unnecessary
violation of fundamental human rights.
The Islamist sect Jama’atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda’Awati Wal Jihad
is globally known as Boko Haram which remains unacceptable to the
group. It is worthy of note that the word ‘boko’ is often mistaken as
book. According to Muhammad, something that involves any form of
deception (as cited in Newman, 2013). In his work on the etymology
of Hausa Boko, Newman (ibid., p.11) opines that ‘boko’ is a native
Hausa word, originally meaning sham, fraud, inauthenticity, education
of sham/unimportance). And that it has nothing to do with ‘book’. In
essence, Boko Haram is a violent non-state armed group which does

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not have a specific grievance. It rather wants a radical structural change

at the detriment of Nigerian state and intergroup relations. It is obvi-
ous that Boko Haram means different things to different people. To
some, it is anti-Western and anti-government group; some Nigerians
see the group as mirror effect of decades of deprivation, economic
marginalization or exclusion, whereas to others it remains a group that
upholds the principles of Islam (Okolie-Osemene, 2013).
In his study on Six Lessons of Suicide Bombers, Brym (2010) listed
only nine countries where most suicide/terrorist attacks were concen-
trated: Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Israel, Turkey, India (Kashmir), Russia
(Chechnya), Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. The author did not include
Nigeria at that time, given that the intensity of Boko Haram terrorism
and level of the group’s radicalization was low until after Nigeria’s
independence anniversary of 2010 and 2011 general elections when
the group became more radicalized and sophisticated both in terms of
weaponry, attacks and membership. It should therefore be noted that
Northern Nigeria of today, especially Borno State, is not different from
all the nine countries listed above, especially when talk is about negative
peace, human security and stability due to activities of terrorists who
operate as armed gangs, assassins, kidnappers and suicide bombers.
There is hardly any day that passes without reports of one incident or
another in the area. According to Nwozor (2013), Boko Haram has
carved a niche for itself as a ruthless terrorist organization. Pham (2012,
p.1) says about the intensity of Boko Haram imbroglio, “Since late 2010,
the organization has been responsible for a brutal campaign of attacks
targeting public officials and institutions and, increasingly, ordinary
men, women, and children, wreaking havoc across northern Nigeria.”
Terrorism makes the entire North-eastern Nigeria one of the most
dangerous places in the Global South. Boko Haram also carries out
activities that relate to what Dzurgba (2006) refers to as ‘local terror-
ists’ through their kidnapping profession, maiming, assassination of
innocent people in Borno State and neighbouring states. Although
some people argue that terrorism is a global phenomenon, given the
potency of well organized multinational networks spanning beyond
Africa, others have the view that terrorism in Africa is Africa made.
Nigeria is at the forefront of counterterrorism action in West Africa
because of her diplomatic and political influence in the sub-region
(Imohe, 2010). It is not disputable that Nigeria has outstripped other

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 Countering Terrorism: Interrogating Communication Oversight  301

countries in Africa such as Morocco, Libya, Egypt and Somalia, Kenya

in the terrorism casualty index due to daily attacks targeted at secu-
rity forces, residential areas and religious institutions, especially in
Northeast where Borno State is located.

Defining Terrorism

Terrorism is as old as humanity and not a new phenomenon but

the intensity of terror has increased over the years (Ashara, 2013;
Oshanugor, 2004; Shaw, 1997). It is an elaborate phenomenon which
has global dimension and attracts responses from various quarters.
In her work on ‘Disciplining Terror’, Stampnitzky (2013) links the
historical antecedent of terrorism to political violence, a transforma-
tion that eventually led to the war on terror. Ojakorotu (2011, p. 97)
notes that, “terrorism has been one of the most malignant features of
domestic and international politics for centuries”.
Article 1 of European Convention on Suppression of Terrorism,
adopted by Council of Europe on 27 January 1977, describes ter-
rorism as follows: a serious offence involving an attack against the
life, physical integrity or liberty of internationally protected persons,
including diplomatic agents; an offence involving kidnapping,
the taking of a hostage or serious unlawful detention; an offence
involving the use of a bomb, grenade, rocket, automatic firearm or
letter or parcel bomb if this use endangers persons, amongst others.
Oshanugor (2004, pp. 4–5) states that

while acts that convey terrorist impressions are often viewed from differ-
ent perspectives as those considered terrorists by one group of people or
government of a state may be regarded as heroes or freedom fighters by
others, some members of society who are bored and/or sadistic may terrorise
others to express their frustrations; vent their rage, or engage in symbolic
acts of protest against society.

For instance, many governments use assassinations, massacres and

other forms of cruelty to sustain power or gain territory (Ashara,
2013, p. 3). Notable examples of such violence were recorded during
the Nigerian-Biafran between 1967 and 1970, Libyan crisis of 2011

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that later led to the death of Muammar Gaddafi on 20 October 2011,

the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the 2011 Ivorian crisis and political
instability which culminated in the arrest of then President Laurent
Gbagbo, as well as the war in Sudan which gave birth to the Darfur
Peace Agreement signed in July 2011 between the Government of Sudan
and Liberation and Justice Movement with the aim of establishing
compensation for victims.
The forgoing case studies make people to refer terrorism as indis-
criminate killing of people for political goal; and containing terror
demands that policy makers understand the psychic of the terrorists
and find ways of dealing with them (Kwesi, 2013). Various scholars
point to the fact that the ambiguity in giving a specific definition to
term terrorism led to the cliché that ‘one man’s terrorist is another
man’s freedom fighter (Ashara, 2013; Oshanugor, 2004). This is cor-
roborated by the truism that the term ‘terrorist’ is viewed according
to the side of the fence one is sitting and defined according to the
methods used in achieving the objectives (Momoh, 1994). In essence,
the socio-political positions of actors involved and strategies adopted
are critical to explaining terrorism. What scholars and practitioners
agree is that terrorism is associated with mass violence and fatalities.
The Jonathan Netanyahu Institute in Israel defines terrorism as the
systematic murder, maiming and menacing of the innocent in order to
instil fear for political ends; it involves the use of violence to intimidate
innocent population for political ends (Momah, 1994). Imohe (2010)
describes terrorism as transnational phenomenon which increases
threat to human life, state stability and international security. Some
notable acts of terror include night/day assassinations at residential
areas or public places (including motor parks, markets, airports),
suicide bombing, hostage-taking, kidnapping, sabotage of economic
infrastructures such as oil pipelines, attack on religious institutions
during worship among others.
Boko Haram terrorism raised question on whether the imbroglio
is a religious uprising or a political contest for power (Marc-Antoine,
2012). Although Boko Haram advocates for the reformation of Islam
and the implementation of Islamic law as the only valuable option for
social justice and prosperity (Barkindo, 2013), Capell and Sahliyeh
(2007, p. 267) stated that

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 Countering Terrorism: Interrogating Communication Oversight  303

in an effort to understand modern terrorism’s increased lethality, we pro-

pose that scholars need to look further than religion as a motive and take
into account modern terrorists’ willingness to use ‘suicide terror’ as their
primary modus operandi. In addition to the role of religion, the tactic of
suicide terrorism, which has become popular with many groups active
today, accounts for terrorism’s new lethality.

This makes Brym (2010) argue that those actively involved in suicide
attacks are not crazy and not motivated principally by religious zeal.
However, terrorism differs from country to country depending on
the ideologies of the groups involved and political structure of the
nation affected. Notably, terrorists consistently devise new ways of
carrying out their nefarious activities which they sometimes justify
on the basis of perceived grievances or marginalization. Oshanugor
(2004) sees the period 1995–1998 as Nigeria’s years of terror due to
sporadic bomb explosions, unexplained deaths and disappearances,
the allegations and counter allegations targeted at Abacha’s military
regime and also groups that wanted the end of the regime. It should
be pointed out that those threats which were more political than eco-
nomic or social are in no way comparable with the intensity of Boko
Haram terrorism which has recorded fatalities more than most terror
incidents in other countries.
This chapter defines terrorism as an act that inflicts sorrow on
victims with the aim of disintegration. One notable attribute of terror-
ism is that it undermines social order leading and creates atmosphere
of instability due to destructive manifestations that accompany it.
Terrorists are individuals or groups whose actions are not only inju-
rious to public interest but inimical to social order and intergroup
relations. There is hardly any terrorist act that is not associated with
violence and sorrow. The costs of such actions have debilitating social,
psychological and physical implications. In terms of Boko Haram
context, terrorists are groups who hardly go to government but send
warnings to the public, government officials and media, notifying them
of imminent attack and be mindful of their utterances. They launch
attacks at strategic places, and capitalize on media propaganda before
or after attacks. Terrorists just like armed gangs make governments
embark on security sector reforms as well as strengthening of early
warning system across the nation.

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 304  James Okolie-Osemene

The Boko Haram Threat

According to Nwozor (2013), distinguishing feature of insecurity in

Nigeria is the ubiquity of violence unleashed by ethno-religious con-
flagration, hostage-taking and kidnap-for-ransom and terrorism. But,
Sodipo (2013) maintains that Northern Nigeria has been the locus of
an upsurge in youth radicalization and virulent militant Islamist groups
in Nigeria since 2009. The 2012 Global Terrorism Index shows that
Nigeria’s ranking on the Global Terrorism Index rose from 16th out
of 158 countries in 2008 to 6th (tied with Somalia) by the end of 2011
(ibid.). It should be pointed out that the value placed on peace and
human security, as well as the need to curtail Boko Haram’s threat to
national security, made the government embark on counterterrorism
against Boko Haram sect in Borno state through the MNJTF. According
to Nwolise (2009), security is important to individuals, groups, nations
and the world because without security, all things else are meaningless;
it ensures the preservation of life, liberties and states; it is a prerequisite
for any meaningful development, sustainable order, peace and social
harmony; it ensures the smooth running of strategic installations such
as electricity, military, aviation and shipping. In addition, Nwolise
(2009) also highlights some consequences of the absence of national
security; thus, lives are lost unnecessarily, property and infrastructure
are vandalized, looted, destroyed or stolen; citizens take to self-help;
funds are spent unnecessarily on personal security; ethnic groups raise
ethnic militias to defend group interests; law enforcement agents attract
bad labels of professional ineptitude, incompetence and ineffectiveness;
people lose confidence in the ability of government to protect them.
From the above assertions, it could be adduced that security is very
paramount for social order, cohesion and actualization of effective
development plans. For instance, many months of terrorist attacks in
Borno took the states many years backwards due to the economic costs
of bomb blasts and attendant atmosphere of fear/hot peace.
Theoretically, Animasawun and Luqman (2013) avers that the
government responds to the activities of Boko Haram with ortho-
dox approach to terrorism theory premised on the legitimacy/ille-
gitimacy dualism which constructs non-state violence as terror while
state violence as legitimate. Terrorism is, therefore, illegitimate and

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 Countering Terrorism: Interrogating Communication Oversight  305

unacceptable to the state. This made President Jonathan to declare

on 1 October 2013 that the Federal Government will spare no cost
and that no idea will be ignored. He also assured the nation that Boko
Haram would not succeed because Nigerians must never lose sight of
their freedom and values.

Containing The Terror

For containing the terror, Crime Control Model as identified by Brewer

et al. (1996) can be adopted. It emphasizes upon assertive patrol ­activity,
a prominent street-level police presence, abstractive street contact
caused by an extensive use of stop and search powers and a some-
what attitude to civil rights. The Control Balance–Deviance Theory
is premised on the amount of control people are subjected to, and
exercise that influences their type of deviant behaviour (Tittle, 1995).
For instance, Animasawun and Luqman (2013) vividly explains that
stop and search operations, door-to-door security searches of weapons
and sometimes killing of suspected terrorists, issuance of ultimatum,
placement of price tags for notorious members of the sect are some
of the approaches adopted by the Joint Task Force (JTF) which have
had favourable psychological effects on the people in the northern
enclave. In the past, the Federal Government had fixed different price
tags for relevant information from residents of northern region that
could facilitate the arrest of Boko Haram leaders declared wanted. In
2012 for instance, the Federal Government declared a bounty each of
N25 million on the head of the deputy leader of Boko Haram Momodu
Bama and N10 million on Zakariyya Yau. Consecutively, Momodu
Bama (also called Abusaa), Zakariyya and Zakariyya’s father, Abatcha
Flatari were killed on 14 August 2013 by security forces in Mubi.
Nigeria’s Scholar and Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, believes
that Boko Haram members have limited knowledge of Islam and need
to be retrained on the content of Islam (as cited in Ajetunmobi, 2013).
This is premised on the assertion that Islam is a religion of peace. Even
Nigeria’s President Jonathan on 15 October 2013, during Eid-el-Kabir
message, stated that the Boko Haram imbroglio does not have links
with religion and ethnicity, and called on insurgents to embrace peace.

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 306  James Okolie-Osemene

Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF)

Joint security operation is one of the strategies adopted by governments

in most parts of the world to contain all forms of internal aggressions,
especially when terrorism or insurgency is concerned. Such security
operation strengthens the state’s instrument of violence, because most
times non-state armed groups attempt to usurp states’ monopoly of vio-
lence by launching simultaneous attacks that often overwhelm security
forces. For instance, the entry of the Kenyan Defence Forces (KDFs)
into Somalia marked the beginning of military expedition to prevent
the spread of terror attacks and influence of al-Shabaab Islamists in
Somalia which resulted in weakening of the group’s nerve (Kagwanja,
2012). The FGN also formed JTF saddled with the responsibility of
containing Boko Haram insurrections, with notable confrontational
approach in 2003 in Kanama and Geidam as well as other expedi-
tions in Gwoza hills in Borno State which led to the death of 27 Boko
Haram members (Animasawun & Luqman, 2013). Such confrontation
contributed to the arrest of former Boko Haram leader, Mohammed
Yusuf, who died in police custody in 2009 which scholars and political
analysts described as extra-judicial killing. According to the Ministry of
Defence, the Operation Restore Order was established to cut down on
the activities and intensity of the Boko Haram Sect in the North East
zone where Borno State is located. The MNJTF is made up of security
forces Armed Forces from Chad, Niger and Nigeria, with Nigeria
­playing a prominent role in the multinational stability operation.
The historical antecedent of MNJTF is traceable to its m
­ etamorphosis
from a military-led JTF, code-named Operation Restore Order com-
prising personnel from the Nigerian Armed Forces, Nigeria Police
Force (NPF), the Department of State Security (DSS), Nigerian
Customs Service (NCS), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and the
Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), that was earlier deployed on 12
June 2011 for operations in Borno and Yobe States. The mandate of
MNJTF to cover counterterrorism operations was extended from
arms proliferation to management of trans-border crimes in April
2012 (The National Human Rights Commission, 2013). Over 8,000
troops are involved in the counterterrorism in the area. The emergence
of MNJTF was occasioned by a series of coordinated bomb blasts,

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 Countering Terrorism: Interrogating Communication Oversight  307

armed attacks and abduction of ordinary citizens and political elites

by terrorists which culminated in a total breakdown of law and order
in Borno State.
Some political analysts and scholars hold the view that any security
arrangement that involves JTF has some shortcomings. According to
Nwozor (2013, p. 23)

The setting up of Joint Task Forces is a de facto declaration of a state of

emergency. Joint Task Forces have different rules of engagement, which
are outside the normal operational boundaries of regular security agencies.
Their mandate is a quasi-empowerment to engage in war. The code names
often associated with specific Joint Task Force operations underscore its
direction and strategy. Generally, the strategies of Joint Task Forces are
anchored in their ad hoc composition and non-allegiance to any specific
security agency. Their driving philosophy is shaped by the mindset that
only superior force can tackle insecurity.

The mandate of MNJTF is premised on the need to restore public

order, prevent internal aggression and protect Nigeria’s territorial
integrity. It should be noted, however, that only the police have con-
stitutional responsibility to forestall breakdown of law and order in
the polity, but the escalation of Boko Haram imbroglio demanded
military involvement to contain the spate of radicalization which
subjected residents to humanitarian crisis and downplayed human
security in Northeast.

Military and Human Rights Imbroglio

The involvement of military in managing or confronting radicalized

groups, provides opportunity for large-scale human rights violations,
just like in Rivers State where the JTF further aggravated the security
situation in high-density neighbourhood at Marine Base and Port
Harcourt city due to the lack of previous training in policing or human
rights as the team became a catalyst for violations (Ugwu, 2008). The
situation is not different from that of present-day Borno state where
there have been conflicting reports on the military’s involvement in
human rights violations. For instance, there is argument that violation

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 308  James Okolie-Osemene

of human rights is always in response to security situation, because

security forces are usually the targets of attacks and not adequately
compensated (Animasawun & Luqman, 2013). Such volatile situation
exposes lives of security forces and civilians to danger because it is not
always easy to identify terrorists in civilian populated areas when they
are not armed. Some residents still believe that though MNJTF are
capable of countering the activities of terrorists, majority of civilians
still suffer the consequences of the seemingly hot peace, with increased
Boko Haram attacks mostly at nights.
It was also gathered that Nigerien soldiers in the Multinational
JTF killed an unspecified number of Boko Haram members on some
island communities near Lake Chad on Sunday, 6 October 2013,
whereas an offensive launched against the Boko Haram fundamen-
talist Islamist group by Cameroonian soldiers on Tuesday, 8 October
2013, led to the killing of over 180 members around a Nigerian border
with Cameroon. The wounded insurgents were reported to have been
arrested, whereas the soldiers recovered over 200 rifles, 70 machine
guns and heavy military hardware from the terrorists (Soriwei,
2013). The Director of Defence Information, Brigadier General Chris
Olukolade, stated that

Nigeria’s neighbouring countries, either through the instrumentality of the

Multi National Joint Task Force or through their security instruments, are
involved in operations to complement what Nigeria is doing against terror-
ism; that the MNJTF and Nigerian security agencies are combing everywhere
for any strange movement in our territory. (as cited in Soriwei, 2013)

Stakeholders involved in counterterrorism are as follows: Defence

Ministry, Chief of Army Staff, Security forces from Chad, Niger,
Nigeria and their Defence Ministers, The Director of Defence
Information, Director Army Public Relations, Unit Commanders,
JTF Spokesman, Lt. Colonel Sagir Musa, Borno State Government,
Traditional Rulers and Civilian JTF formed by Vigilante Youths.
They work to enhance the effectiveness of Baga-based MNJTF and
Maiduguri-based JTF.
After Boko Haram utilized Thuraya phones to coordinate assas-
sination of some Imams and civilians in schools between May and
June 2013, the MNJTF coordinated offensive that enabled them to
wrest back control of the remote northeast from Boko Haram, thereby

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 Countering Terrorism: Interrogating Communication Oversight  309

destroying their bases and arrested hundreds of suspected terrorists

(Opara, 2013). It is unfortunate that MNJTF’s information and com-
munication management by ordering the disconnection of mobile
phone networks greatly impeded early response by civilians during
emergencies and situations in which they needed to report suspicious
movements. MNJTF operations are anchored on Defence policy objec-
tives which aim to protect Nigeria’s interest under the ambit of the con-
stitution, including the following: protection of Nigeria’s sovereignty
against internal and external threats, provision of strategic advice and
information to government, promotion of security consciousness of
Nigerians among others. The above objectives motivated the deploy-
ment of armoured personnel carriers, armoured fighting vehicles, to
contain the sophistication of Boko Haram.
Meisels (2008) identified various issues that are also relevant to
any discourse on Boko Haram: expression of sympathy, justification
for Islamists and reduction in civil liberties in exchange for greater
security. From the above issues raised by Meisels (2008) in what could
be described as security and liberty tension in a period of terror, the
MNJTF ordered the disconnection of mobile telephone services,
followed by stop and search operations in Borno State. The need to
curb terror network in Borno State occasioned the disconnection of
mobile phone services to strengthen MNJTF’s intelligence against the
Boko Haram monster in all parts of the state. Some Nigerians have the
perception that individuals sympathetic to Boko Haram have either
infiltrated the Nigerian army or are also political office-holders, given
the group’s coordinated attacks, intelligence and sophistication in
terms of weaponry. It is noteworthy that one act that has not been
practiced by Boko Haram terrorists is hijacking (of vehicles or planes)
which is a recurrent incident in other countries.
Unlike the police who are inadequate in terms of equipment to
suppress activities of terrorists, the military seem to have enough
equipment to contain the terror monster. But, the war against terror is
beyond the acquisition of only sophisticated weapons, and this makes
information discrimination and communication critical through
early warning and response systems to curtail threats to human
security. This is against the backdrop of the truism that terrorists are
not spirits, they live in communities and also visit public places like
normal citizens.

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Challenges to and Limitations of JTF

The four states that witnessed Boko Haram riots from 25 July to 30
July include Bauchi, Kano, Yobe and Borno, but Borno saw the most
extensive rioting mainly because it was the base of the movement
and its leader (Adesoji, 2010). The situation took a more dangerous
dimension in 2013 when the group embarked on massive killings in
public places and highways by mounting roadblocks and camouflage
as security forces with the aim of killing commuters. For instance, over
ten persons were killed by Boko Haram terrorists when they launched
an attack along the Damaturu–Maiduguri highway, set ablaze several
vehicles, including those conveying food items to Borno State. From
media reports, the incident took place kilometres from Benisheik Town
where terrorists dressed in military fatigue and riding in armoured
tanks killed at least 140 travellers on 17 September 2013 (Audu, 2013).
One wonders how this group succeeds in camouflaging within
Borno State without residents having knowledge of their operational
base to forestall the consistent breakdown of law and order by the
sect. Animasawun and Luqman (2013) opine that the perception of
security forces’ proclivity for oppressing the masses makes it difficult
for the people to dish out valuable information that may aid in military
operations. The tip-off that led to killing of Zakariyya Yau’s father and
Abatcha Flatari who was also said to be the spiritual mentor of the
group on 14 August 2013 by security forces in Mubi shows that the
group enjoys support from some residents and people at grassroots.
The military reported in August 2013 that Boko Harm leader, Abubakar
Shekau, may have died at the forests of Sanbisa in Borno State where
he was said to have been shot by security forces during a raid on his
hide out. Contrary to the claims by men of the MNJTF, the President
of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, on 29 September 2013 enthused that
he did not have the knowledge of Shekau’s alleged death and that
journalists should know better than him. Even though some people
argued that the President was right that journalists quote as if they are
close to them, some Nigerians described such statement as not only
synonymous with hopelessness and confusion, but also discouraging
and thus portrayed the government as not capable of devising a way
to track down Boko Haram leaders that have been on the wanted list
for years due to poor intelligence. Some people even went as far as
comparing the President with President Obama of United States who

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 Countering Terrorism: Interrogating Communication Oversight  311

has been instrumental to United State’s success in devising a plan to

track down Osama Bin Laden who was haunted for a decade since the
September 2001 terrorist attack in the USA, with the assertion that
Nigeria’s President could do the same against Boko Haram to avoid
conflicting reports. From the President’s statement during the televised
media chat, it appears that there is a disconnect between the men of
MNJTF in Borno State, Military Headquarters and the Presidency.
Nigerians expect the security forces to not only carry the Commander-
in-Chief of the Armed Forces along but also dish out security reports
that would facilitate their operations in Borno communities.
Boko Haram’s sophistication manifested in attacks at various police
stations and military barracks in Borno State. It is worthy of mention
that apart from abduction of expatriates, one of the notable foreign
dimensions of the Boko Haram radicalization was the coordinated
attack at the United Nations House in Nigeria’s Federal Capital
Territory Abuja on 26 August 2011 which led to the death of over
33 civilians, 11 UN personnel and many people injured. The attack
heightened interest and debates on the proscription of the group as a
global terrorist organization.
The challenges of intra-MNJTF operations and prospects of success
in the counterterrorism are noteworthy. Most security operations face
different challenges and the ability of the team or task force involved
to overcome the challenges would definitely determine the success of
the operation embarked upon. Terrorism in Borno state is aggravated
by porous borders, intelligence failure and the existence of bomb
factories in remote communities in Northeast which complicate the
counterterrorism efforts. A situation in which there is no early response
to signs of security threats, terrorists are likely to take advantage of
the development to recruit more members, acquire more weapons,
construct safe havens and even attack financial institutions.
It is worthy of mention that Boko Haram’s terrorism in Borno is
further consolidated by the successes recorded in attacking banks and
escaping with unspecified amounts of money. The call by Niger State
Governor and Chairman of Northern Governors Forum, Babangida
Aliyu, on Boko Haram terrorists to embrace government’s amnesty
offer fell on deaf ears as the group neglected ceasefire and possible
disarmament. The sect consistently planned and executed more attacks
with increased casualties among civilians and security forces despite
various checkpoints and joint security patrols in Borno State.

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 312  James Okolie-Osemene

Recent observations and reports show that Boko Haram has

developed international connections which strengthen its capacity
to challenge security forces and threaten Nigeria’s internal security
(Marc-Antoine, 2012). Notably, this was widely reported by media
organizations that the leader of the sect, Abubakar Shekau, while hiding
in unknown location within Borno State, cried out for help from the
group’s ‘Brethren in the Middle East’. According to him “our Brethren
please come to us and join this war.” This was the period that MNJTF
operatives stormed most communities in Borno State and launched
offensive against members of the sect in their various camps between
June and September 2013.
The United States met with FGN to express its willingness to assist
Nigeria by offering modern technological assistance to fortify security
at the borders with the aim of curbing the activities of terrorists in the
country. The leader of the US delegation, and the Counter Terrorism
Deputy Secretary, Ms. Anne Witkowsky, said the aim of the visit was
to avail Nigeria to modern technology of securing borders by showing
the Personal Identification Secure Comparison and Evaluation System
(PISCES) and the Demonstration of the PISCES equipment. It is a
border control system with 10 fingerprints, which ensures that if the
name and other means of identification were falsified, the 10 finger-
prints cannot (Iroegbu & Akinwale, 2013). The murderous character
of Boko Haram terrorists remains the threat to the operations of the
MNJTF who battle daily to end the breakdown of law.
So far, it has not been easy for MNJTF to forestall all attacks through
tip-offs to the extent that security forces arrive at scenes of attacks after
the acts of terror have been executed by the terrorists. This is aggravated
by the fact that it is not part of MNJTF’s operational strategy to be
present at residential areas at night or in the markets in the day time.

The Twelve Rules

Terrorism is linked to myriads of intrastate political, social and eco-

nomic issues. Marc-Antoine (2012) argues that the terrorist evolu-
tion of Boko Haram was mainly caused by the brutality of the state
repression, but the fact that Boko Haram condones violence to achieve

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 Countering Terrorism: Interrogating Communication Oversight  313

ideological ends, including acts of terrorism (Sodipo, 2013), makes

it crucial for Nigerian state to consider some of the ‘Twelve Rules
for Preventing and Countering Terrorism’ as outlined by Schmid
(2012). Rules are as follows: prevent radical individuals and groups
from becoming terrorist extremists by confronting them with a mix
of ‘carrot and stick’ tactics; deny terrorists access to arms, explosives,
false identification documents, safe communication, safe travel and
sanctuaries; disrupt and incapacitate their preparations and opera-
tions through infiltration, communication intercept, espionage and
by limiting their criminal and other fund-raising capabilities; keep
in mind that terrorists seek publicity and exploit the media and the
Internet to propagate their cause, glorify their attacks, win recruits,
solicit donations, gather intelligence, disseminate terrorist know-how
and communicate with their target audiences; and try to devise com-
munication strategies to counter them in each of these areas. The carrot
and stick tactics manifests in setting up of roadblocks, restriction of
movement, parking of vehicles and motorcycles around places of wor-
ship to curtail bomb blasts among others. Apart from disconnection of
mobile telephone networks after declaration of state of emergency in
May 2013, the above rules no doubt have not been given much atten-
tion by stakeholders including the MNJTF, especially the issues of arms
proliferations, funding and operations of foot soldiers and bombers.
There are allegations that the MNJTF forces no longer observe rules of
engagement due to some reports on human rights violations in Borno
State which affect residents.

Conclusion

Terrorists always pursue ideologies that challenge state policies. They

recruit members through indoctrination or by threat to safety of rela-
tives. It poses a grave threat to the forces which are supposed to plan and
lead the counterterrorism operations. Interrogation of the operational
and communication oversight of MNJTF, formulated for taming the
Boko Haram monster in Borno State and other states in North-East,
offers several concerns in this direction. It calls for re-examination of
MNJTF’s operations to comprehend BH’s modus operandi both in

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 314  James Okolie-Osemene

terms of arms acquisition and deployment. Further, eradication of

terrorism demands efforts that must go beyond military deployment
and manoeuvres, and focus more on restoring people’s confidence in
them through enlightenment on the economic, security and political
costs of terrorism in affected states. This would motivate more people
to give MNJTF relevant information on the sect’s modus operandi in
Borno State. To make this realistic, community-based approach to
human security needs to be mainstreamed into MNJTF’s cooperation
with civilian JTF in Borno State. Such an ability of security forces to
identify those responsible for burying arms in cemeteries, and terrorists
who hide in uncompleted buildings to carry out nefarious activities,
could contain the Boko Haram sect. Equally, the proven model of
countering terrorism by community-based approach can be applied
across globe to contain the terror threat wherever applicable.

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 16
Winning Hearts and Building Peace

Amparo Pamela H. Fabe

The Armed Forces of Philippines (AFPs) has been facing a three-

pronged insurgency war—one against the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front (MILF), the second against the communist New People’s Army
(NPA) and the third front against the Abu Sayyaf terror group. Under
the AFP’s counter-insurgency plan of clear-hold-and-develop, the
additional Army battalions are needed to stick or hold an area which
has been cleared to ensure the security of the people. Approximately, 40
per cent of the Philippine Army’s combat battalions are being used as
manoeuvre force. The remaining force is tasked to guard the local resi-
dents and vital infrastructure installations in a particular conflict area.
The 12,000-member MILF has been waging a decade-old insurgency
to set up a Muslim state in southern Philippines. Christian settlers
now outnumber the Muslim inhabitants. The Philippine government
started formal negotiations with the MILF in 1997 to end peacefully
more than three decades of Muslim separatist rebellion that has killed
at least 120,000 people and stunted development in resource-rich
Mindanao. The talks collapsed in 2000 when the Philippine military
launched strong offensives and captured several of the MILF’s jungle
bases, including Camp Abubakar in Maguindanao Province. Malaysia
rescued the peace process in 2001 and has since been consistently
brokering the talks.
The NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the
Philippines, has been waging a guerrilla campaign in the countryside
for four decades. Military estimates the NPA strength at more than
4,000 men scattered in more than 60 guerrilla fronts throughout the
country. The military has been successful in reducing the number of the
NPA to just about 4,000 from a peak of more than 20,000 in the 1980s.
Communist rebels are active in 69 of 80 provinces across the country.
The membership of the NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party

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 318  Amparo Pamela H. Fabe

of the Philippines (CPPs), was reduced further to a historic low of

4,111 from 4,702 in 2009. This figure is way below the peak number of
more than 25,000 during the 1970s. Of the 4,111 communist rebels, 52
per cent, or 591, have surrendered voluntarily and have availed of the
government’s integration and livelihood programmes. Communist-
affected barangays have also decreased from 1,077 to 1,017 at the end
of 2010 (Armed Forces of the Philippines Report, 2010).
The timely strategy, combined with the successful security opera-
tions, community-based civil-military operations and the implemen-
tation of an active information drive in rural barangays and urban
town centres yielded consequent positive outcomes. Three communist
guerilla fronts have been dismantled, from 51 in 2009 to 48 by the
end of 2010, as a result of intensive military operations. In 2010, the
arrested NPA personalities were five regional committee leaders and
three front secretaries in Northern Luzon, Davao, Panay and Negros
Island (Armed Forces of the Philippines Report, 2010). The AFP
claimed that NPA killed an average of one civilian per week in 374
violent incidents in 2012.
On terror threats, the Armed Forces of the Philippines operations
in Basilan and Sulu have reduced the Abu Sayyaf ranks from 391 ter-
rorists and 340 firearms in 2009 to 340 elements and 296 firearms by
the end of 2010. The continuing and successful counter-terrorism
operations resulted in the neutralization of 51 terrorists including
key leaders such as Albader Parad and Abdulgafur Jumdail who were
killed in two separate encounters with government forces in Sulu. The
Armed Forces stated that its counter-terrorism efforts have resulted
in a significant reduction in the frequency of terrorist attacks nation-
wide from 54 in 2009 to 29 in 2010 (Armed Forces of the Philippines
Report, 2010).
Approximately between 60 per cent and 75 per cent of the total
­battalion units of the Armed Forces of the Philippines have been
deployed to Mindanao. Military operations continue in interior
­barrios such as Magpot and Arakan in North Cotabato, in the Davao
City districts of Marilog, Baguio, Calinan and Paquibato, in Kataotao,
Bukidnon and in Talaingod, Kapalong, Asuncion, Laac and Sto. Tomas
in Davao del Norte. The combined Special Forces of the 73rd Infantry
Battalion (IB), 56th Infantry Battalion, 37th Infantry Battalion, 64th
Infantry Battalion, Scout Rangers and Special Forces were installed
in new areas.

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 Winning Hearts and Building Peace  319

Soldiers with ‘Hands Behind the Back’

The persistent counter-insurgency efforts waged by the Philippine

government forces against private armed groups, Islamic militants
and indigenous people’s armed groups have yielded atrocities that
are regularly committed against Filipino soldiers and civilians. In
separate instances, Islamic militants have resorted to beheadings and
genital mutilation of Filipino soldiers after killing them during combat
operations. For example, an independent fact-finding team on the
Basilan incident, comprising of government and MILF representatives,
has identified 15 Muslim preachers in the list of 127 suspects in the
10 July 2007 mutilation and beheading of 10 Philippine Marines in
Albarka town in Basilan. The Muslim preachers consisted of an ustad,
an aleem, an imam and a hadji. An ustad is a teacher in a madrasa
(Islamic school) while an aleem is a muslim scholar. An imam is a
person who leads the prayers in mosques, whereas a haji is someone
who has performed Islamic rituals in Mecca. The killing of 14 soldiers
and the beheading of the 10 Philippine Marines renewed calls for the
observance of respect for human rights in combat situations (Philippine
fighting forces, 2007).
Marines Commandant Maj. Gen. Nelson Allaga has instructed the
Marines involved in the pursuit operations not to retaliate against the
perpetrators by beheading them, saying that beheading is ­‘‘disrespect to
human dignity.” “I told them we will not do such barbaric act because
we are professional soldiers so we should not commit atrocities as they
do. We should not disregard human dignity. We pride ourselves as war-
riors but we respect human dignity” (Philippine fighting forces, 2007).
In a separate incident, the Abu Sayyaf rebels beheaded five out of
seven Philippine Marines who were killed in fierce fighting in a Sulu
jungle. Those decapitated included a 2nd lieutenant, a sergeant and
three privates first class. Commodore Armando Guzman, Naval Forces
Western Mindanao commander, described this incident as a barbaric
act (Bodies of mutilated, 2011).
Colonel Daniel Lucero, Commander of the Army’s 103rd Infantry
Brigade based in Lanao who spent time in Basilan before, said it was
not unusual for the Abu Sayyaf to mutilate fallen soldiers. “They behead
soldiers to dehumanize our troops,” Lucero said, citing at least two
additional incidents during his Basilan stint. The soldiers who were

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 320  Amparo Pamela H. Fabe

killed received Gold Cross medals, the third highest recognition for
a soldier and were posthumously promoted to the next highest rank
(Bodies of mutilated, 2011).
Moreover, Colonel Lucero stated that many soldiers have lost col-
leagues in the conflict and many are of the opinion that the armed groups
they are fighting show little or no respect for International Humanitarian
Law (IHL). Some soldiers feel their rebel opponents encourage human
rights violations (HRV) as a way to instill fear among the Army troops.
Colonel Lucero said that there were reported instances wherein Filipino
soldiers were either beheaded or mutilated by the Muslim armed rebels
(personal communication, 6 September 2011).
Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had condemned the
beheading of seven Filipino hostages by the Abu Sayyaf group and
ordered government troops to focus on neutralizing the bandits.
Arroyo had said that the beheading of the seven captives in Sulu had
once again demonstrated the ruthlessness of Abu Sayyaf ’, However,
she reiterated that this has only strengthened their resolve to neutralize
them (‘Philippine president condemns’, 2007).
A kidnapping incident carried out by the Abu Sayyaf group which
included the Burnham couple at the upscale Dos Palmas resort on
Palawan island in May 2001 resulted in the death of a Filipino nurse
and the beheading of two Filipino security guards from the resort. In a
separate attack, the Abu Sayaff seized 34 civilians in the southern village
of Balobo. The rebels beheaded 10 civilian hostages, said Philippine
Army spokesman Maj. Alberto Gepilano (‘Basilan kidnapping’, 2001).
In another incident, the MILF gunmen in Lanao del Norte occupied
the towns of Kolambugan, Maigo and Kauswagan. One commuter bus
was ambushed at an MILF rebel checkpoint near Kolambugan town
and at least 14 passengers were mercilessly gunned down, witnesses
said (‘Guerrillas attack towns’, 2008).
The Philippine Army strongly condemned the NPA rebels for the
brutal attack on four unarmed and off-duty soldiers in Sitio Cinco,
Barangay Mapula, Paquibato District, Davao City. Major Harold
Cabunoc, former Philippine Army spokesperson, stressed that the
attack was a clear violation of the IHL and Republic Act No. 9851 or “An
Act Defining and Penalizing Crimes Against IHL, Genocide and other
Crimes Against Humanity” (‘Philippine army condemns NPA’, 2012).
The peace negotiations between the Philippine government and
the separatist MILF suffered another big blow after the massacre of
19 soldiers in the hands of heavily armed Moro rebels in Al-Barka,

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 Winning Hearts and Building Peace  321

Basilan, in Southern Philippines (News Analysis: Basilan massacre,

2011). In another atrocity committed by Muslim armed groups on
civilians comprising the 15 members of the Mangadadatu clan and
30 media workers, a witness recounted that the female corpses were
beyond recognition. Forensic investigators pointed out the possibil-
ity of post-mortem rape as evidenced by the female corpses bearing
laceration of the hymen (Morelos, 2010).
According to Khadaffy Mangudadatu, an assemblyman of the
Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao who testified for the
prosecution at the resumption of the Maguindanao massacre trial,
the female corpses were “beyond recognition because of the number
of wounds inflicted on them”. The Philippine National Police (PNP)
Crime Laboratory revealed that five female victims of the Maguindanao
massacre were positive of semen sample which authorities branded
as presumptive evidence of possible rape (Five female victims, 2009).
Based on Republic Act 9851, these acts that were perpetrated by
rebel armed groups on Filipino soldiers and civilians are considered
war crimes and punishable under Chapter III, Section 4(b) of R.A.
9851 are: (a) violence to life and person, in particular willful killings,
mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; (b) committing outrages upon
personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;
(c) Taking of hostages and (d) the passing of sentences and the carry-
ing out of executions without previous judgement pronounced by a
regularly constituted court, affording all judicial guarantees which are
generally recognized as indispensable.

Winning Hearts and Minds

The AFP has started implementing its new anti-insurgency strategy

aimed at winning the hearts and minds of the people rather than
directly confronting the enemy to achieve peace and stability and
finally put an end to the 40-year-old communist insurgency. The AFP
Internal Peace and Security Plan (IPSP), also known as “Bayanihan”,
is being implemented until the end of the term of President Benigno
Aquino III in 2016. The IPSP was anchored on the President’s national
security strategy which emerges from the realization of lasting peace
and stability, development and social progress, through a multi-
stakeholder approach focused on the protection of the citizens’ rights

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 322  Amparo Pamela H. Fabe

and civil liberties. The plan puts equal emphasis on the combat and
non-combat dimension of the campaign such that efforts are not
only focused on combat operations, but will likewise give importance
to the peaceful settlement of conflict. Thus, the main parameters of
success shall place a high importance on the number of friends won
as contrasted to the number of enemies killed. The Armed Forces
leadership is highly optimistic that IPSP Bayanihan ends what IPSP
Bantay Laya started.
The IPSP Bayanihan is characterized by an increasing involvement
of stakeholders both from the government side and the civil society
comprising a ‘Whole of Nation’ approach. The IPSP promotes a
“People-Centred Approach,” featuring a strict adherence to the IHL,
human rights and the rule of law. By the thorough implementation
of this plan, the AFP articulates its specific desire and commitment
to the peaceful and just settlement of conflicts, and its firm belief
that lasting peace and security is a shared vision and undertaking
among the players in the security sector, civil society stakeholders
and the entire citizenry (Philippine Army, 2011).
The Armed Forces of the Philippines with its IPSP Bayanihan aims
at zero tolerance for HRV and upholds respect for the IHL. It paved the
way for the establishment of Human Rights Offices within the AFP and
the PNP, and the introduction of several humanitarian interventions
provided by government agencies to communities, especially women
and children, in conflict-torn areas.

Upholding Human Rights

The Government of the Republic of the Philippines has passed several

laws penalizing the most heinous offenses against human rights, such
as torture (as penalized by Republic Act No. 9745), enforced disap-
pearance (as penalized by R.A. No. 10353), war crimes, genocide and
crimes against humanity (as penalized by R.A. No. 9851) and a law
compensating victims of HRV during the Marcos Regime (R.A. No.
10368). Furthermore, during the Universal Periodic Review conducted
by the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission last May 2012, the
observers highlighted a decrease in reported HRV. The government took
significant steps towards prosecuting the alleged violators of human

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 Winning Hearts and Building Peace  323

rights with the formation of the Inter-Agency Committee (IAC) through

Administrative Order No. 35 (s. 2012) comprising the Department of
Justice, the PNP, Armed Forces of the Philippines and a representative
of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process.
Philippines ratified Protocol I additional to the Geneva Conventions
that protects victims of armed conflict. Filipino victims of international
conflict—whether they are civilians or wounded, sick, shipwrecked
or detained military personnel—will now have more protection.
Philippines has signed and ratified more treaties relating to IHL more
than any other country in South-East Asia. The country acceded to the
Geneva Conventions in 1952, signed both Additional Protocol I and
Additional Protocol II in 1977 and ratified Protocol II in 1986. In 2010,
it passed the Republic Act 9851 (or Philippine Act on Crimes against
IHL, Genocide and Other Crimes against Humanity), incorporating
many of the obligations of IHL into domestic law.
The Additional Protocol I imposes constraints for humanitarian
reasons, on the way in which military operations may be conducted in
internal armed conflicts. Its ratification will result in greater protection
for Filipino military personnel deployed abroad in peace-keeping or
other military operations undertaken in connection with an internal
armed conflict. Armed Forces medical units and medical transporta-
tion enjoy enhanced protection.
Another important development in the field of human rights pro-
tection is the ratification of the Philippine Senate of the Rome Statute
of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in August 2011. The ICC is
the first permanent international court set up to prosecute individu-
als for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime
of aggression. The Statute entered into force for the Philippines on 1
November 2011, bringing the total number of States that have joined
the Rome Statute system to 117.

The Armed Forces Human Rights Office

In December 2010, the AFP has established the Human Rights Office
which serves as the main platform for addressing all human rights
and IHL issues involving the Armed Forces. The AFP has its Human
Rights and International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Handbook as an

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 324  Amparo Pamela H. Fabe

important component of its efforts to institutionalize human rights

concepts. The handbook provides a handy guide for soldiers during
the conduct of operations.
According to Colonel Rhoderick Parayno, AFP Chief Human Rights
Officer, every Filipino soldier is supposed to know: the need to protect
civilians, the need to distinguish combatants from non-combatants
and the humane treatment of prisoners. Each ICRC human rights
training presents an overview of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, and the laws related to respect for human rights encompass-
ing R.A. 9851, R.A. 9745 and R.A. 10353 (personal c­ ommunication,
4 December, 2013).
Colonel Domingo Tutaan Jr., the previous AFP Human Rights
Officer, stated that his office is responsible for ensuring that every
soldier knows IHL and applies it in the field. Colonel Tutaan draws
a parallel on the IHL being applicable during armed conflict and
human rights being applicable during both peace and armed conflict.
He emphasizes that a Filipino soldier is a guardian of human rights.
He admitted that with the long period of martial law, something was
tainted… something was needed to restore relations with the public.”
The colonel clearly sees IHL promotion not just as a moral imperative
but it is considered strategically smart. He affirms that “with IHL, this
work may help bring an end to the conflict” he claims that it is not
defeating the enemy, it is winning the peace. Further, he stated that
there is a Human Rights Officer in charge of IHL, who is usually the
second in command, in every unit and battalion. The main job descrip-
tion of the AFP Human Rights Officer is to monitor implementation
and compliance with IHL, and to report violations. The HRV by
soldiers can then be prosecuted under the new RA 9851 law (personal
communication, 1 May 2012).
The Philippine military continues to affirm human rights more
comprehensively and firmly as a means to improve national security.
They have seriously adopted timely policies incorporating human
rights in the conduct of security and tactical operations. Through the
continuous training of military commanders, soldiers and auxiliary
staff, the AFP hopes to address human rights more strategically both in
terms of policy and practice. The AFP Human Rights Officers believe
that the promotion of human rights finally supports the analysis of
conflict and exclusion, and helps win the drive against insurgency
and terrorism. Through the use of various technical handbooks, the

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 Winning Hearts and Building Peace  325

Philippine military is equipped with innovative tools to support human

rights analysis and assessment, and help promote culturally sensitive
approaches in the battlefield (R. Parayno, personal communication,
4 December 2013).

Partnering with Civil Society Organizations

To facilitate the promotion of human rights and IHL within the military
organization, the AFP has partnered with the Philippine Commission
on Human Rights (CHRs) which was established as “an independent
office” by the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines.
The Philippine CHR exercises the following mandate: (a) monitor the
Philippine Government’s compliance with international treaty obliga-
tions on human rights; (b) provide appropriate legal measures for the
protection of human rights of all persons within the Philippines; (c)
investigate, on its own or on complaint by any party, all forms of HRV
involving civil and political rights and (d) exercise visitorial powers over
jails, prisons or detention facilities (Philippine Constitution, 1986).
In addition, the Armed Forces of the Philippines has established
linkages with the International Commission of the Red Cross (ICRC)
and the European Union Criminal Justice Support Programme for
the publication of the handbooks and the training of military officers
and personnel on human rights and the IHL. The ICRC has been
working in the Philippines for 50 years. Its main advocacy is to visit
detainees and assist people in need, many of them displaced because
of military conflict. The ICRC reminds all parties to armed conflicts
of their obligations under IHL, and the protection of civilians. It acts
as a neutral and impartial intermediary to facilitate the handover of
people captured and detained in relation with the conflicts to their
families. The organization has been working to integrate IHL into
national legislation, and promote knowledge of and respect for this
body of law among local and national authorities, armed and security
forces, university students and civil society.
The AFP also coordinates closely with the Working Group for an
ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, in partnership with the Philippine
Representative to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on
Human Rights (AICHR). Ambassador Rosario Manalo, the Philippine

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 326  Amparo Pamela H. Fabe

Representative to AICHR, emphasized that while ASEAN make eco-

nomic growth and shared prosperity a high priority, it is important
to keep in mind the states’ commitment to upholding, respecting,
promoting and protecting human rights. The AFP has linked with
We Act 1325 or Women Engaged in Action on 1325 (United Nations
Security Council Resolution 1325), a national network support-
ing the National Action Plan of United Nations Security Council
Resolution 1325. The AFP has existing links with Amnesty International
Philippines, the Ateneo Human Rights Center, BALAY Rehabilitation
Center, Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND),
Medical Action Group, PhilRights, Task Force Detainees-Philippines
(TFDP), Women’s Legal Bureau and WEDPRO. These civil society
organizations continue to facilitate in monitoring and documenting
human rights and IHL violations, providing relief and rehabilitation
services to internally displaced persons, and advocating for IHL and
legal remedies to HRV.

Training Soldiers on Human Rights

The Filipino soldiers regularly undergo refresher training on human

rights as part of its campaign against the communist insurgency.
The main focus of military operations is to defeat the enemies and at
the same time, help the soldiers concentrate on their training on the
observance of human rights. Training officers from the International
Committee of the Red Cross tackle questions and areas of concerns by
the soldiers such as how to operationalize observance of the IHL at the
field level of the AFP and PNP. Soldiers also seek guidance regarding
the provision of adequate protection of victims and witnesses. They
also undergo training regarding the designation of special courts to
try cases involving crimes punishable under RA 9851 or the Philippine
IHL law (R. Parayno, personal communication, 4 December 2013).
The AFP-HRO promotes advocacy and training seminars in all AFP
area commands and Philippine Navy units in the field. These activities
help foster awareness, as well as informing soldiers about the principles
of the Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights and IHL. These
seminars help soldiers about the proper process of filing complaints
against the enemies who committed violations of this agreement.

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 Winning Hearts and Building Peace  327

Interventions for Protecting Human Rights:

Current Status

Apart from the regular AFP courses for all military personnel from
the pre-entry, basic, advance, specialization courses up to the career
courses for promotion and re-assignment, the AFP through the AFP
Human Rights Office (AFP-HRO) conducts a continuing advocacy
and information dissemination campaign to individual and formed
units, particularly on the principles of IHL, and on the Republic Act
9851, which is the Philippine Act against Genocide, War Crimes, and
Crimes Against Humanity. The same IHL training likewise include
the rules on arrest (Rule 113 of the Rules of Court of the Philippines),
rights of persons arrested, detained, or under custodial investigation
(Republic Act 7438), and the Anti-Torture Law (Republic Act 9745).
Aside from the regular training and advocacy campaigns, the AFP-
HRO conducts its regular Company Commanders’ Symposium and the
Battalion/Brigade Commanders Symposium, wherein the commanders
in the field are continuously briefed and updated on IHL and human
rights issues. Furthermore, the AFP partners with non-governmental
organizations/civil society organizations/governmental organizations
in the conduct of IHL training, such as the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC), Sulong CARHRIHL and the Government of the
Philippines Monitoring Committee (GPHMC). All of the Philippine
military personnel are continuously inculcated on the principles of
IHL, human rights and the rule of law. Every AFP unit/command
has a designated Human Rights Officer, who is usually the Deputy
Commander or the Executive Officer.
The AFP through the Human Rights Office is in continues engage-
ment with stakeholders, including the CHR, in the spirit of transpar-
ency and accountability. This approach is in close consonance with
the strategic imperatives of the “Internal Peace and Security Plan-
BAYANIHAN”. The CHR, in its annual “Ulat sa Bayan” (Report to
the People) issued during its anniversary last May 2013, reported that
there has been a significant drop or marked reduction in the incidence
of extrajudicial killings, and forced disappearances and acts of torture
from 2010 to 2013. This may be attributed to the ongoing campaign
of the AFP to adhere to IHL and human rights, and to abide to the
rule of law (R. Parayno, personal communication, 4 December 2013).

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 328  Amparo Pamela H. Fabe

The AFP continues to value its partnerships with the International

Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), ASEAN Human Rights and the
Hanns Seidel Foundation to foster the aims of the HR office of the
AFP. The ICRC is in continuous partnership with the AFP-HRO. It
has jointly conducted with the AFP numerous training programmes,
training of non-commissioned officers as “Mobile Training Teams”
regarding the observance of IHL to military personnel and CAFGU
units assigned in the different detachments/patrol bases of the AFP,
publication of training manuals and code of competence under IHL,
publication of manuals called “Essentials for Commanders” to ensure
compliance with IHL. The Hanns Seidel Foundation, in partnerships
with the AFP, PNP, CHR and civil society groups, has, since 2008, con-
ducted “community based dialogue sessions” in the different regions of
the Philippines to foster constant coordination with all stakeholders to
address and resolve issues on human rights, IHL and the rule of law. At
present, this partnership has been conducting “top level policy discus-
sions” to further enhance the resolve to end extra judicial killings, and
forced disappearances, torture and other grave violations to the right
to life, liberty and security of persons. In fact, an agreement had been
reached by the recent issuance of the “La Breza Declaration on Human
Rights Cooperation on December 2012, wherein the CHR, PNP, AFP
and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology agreed to speed up
the human rights cooperation between and among them. The Defense
Institute of International Legal Studies (DIILSs) of the United States of
America, together with the JUSMAG, has also partnered with the AFP-
HRO in the conduct of IHL Training and maritime law enforcement
(R. Parayno, personal communication, 4 December 2013).
The International Labor Organization (ILO), together with the
Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the AFP, is now
in the process of finalizing the move to conduct a nationwide campaign
on the “Joint DOJ, DILG, DND, DOLE, AFP and PNP Guidelines”
to observe and respect workers’ rights and activities. The UNICEF,
together with the Council for the Welfare of Children (CWC) of the
Philippine Government, partnered with the AFP in disseminating the
recently issued AFP Letter Directive 25 that mandates the protection of
children and the prohibition on the occupation of schools and hospi-
tals by armed units of the AFP. This is consonant to the IHL principle
that schools and hospitals are protected objects. The AFP continues to
partner with various entities to further enhance the culture of human
rights, IHL, and the rule of law in the Philippines.

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 Winning Hearts and Building Peace  329

Finally, the AFP welcomes partnerships with NGOs, whether local

or international, to pursue adherence and observance of the law.
Mechanisms had been set up to address IHL and HR issues, that is
why the AFP has adopted the BAYANIHAN concept to ultimately
address these concerns and resolve the cases. Mechanisms such as
the National Monitoring Mechanism (NMM) are a tripartite system
of validating reported violations that is jointly investigated by the
CHR, NGOs and the government. This complements the inter-
agency committee created under the Administrative Order Number
35 signed by President Benigno Aquino on November 2012. There
are mechanisms pertaining to the following: (a) implementation and
compliance on the Convention Against Torture, which is known as
the National Preventive Mechanism led by the CHR; (b) monitor-
ing, reporting and response system (MRRS) led by the CWC and the
UNICEF to prevent grave child rights violations (GCRVs) as enunci-
ated in United Nations resolutions; (c) the Complaints Monitoring
Working Group (CMWG) of the GPHMC on the agreement entered
into by the Philippine Government and the CPP/NPA/NDF known as
the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect of Human Rights and
International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL).

Positive Outcomes of the Interventions

The constant training on ‘respect for human rights’ has yielded imme-
diate positive outcomes for the Philippine military. For example, the
Armed Forces of Philippines (AFPs) have reported that no branch of
the military service has been involved in any instance of HRV during
the first quarter of 2012. Col. Arnulfo Burgos, Jr., AFP spokesperson,
attributes this positive development to the sincere efforts of the military
command to educate and train its soldiers on the protection of human
rights and adherence to international humanitarian and rule of law.
AFP-HRO has been tasked to verify HRV reports involving military
personnel that were referred to the CHR (personal communication,
1 June 2011).
The AFP-HRO has a Board of Inquiry which was also replicated
down to the battalion levels to conduct investigations that would vali-
date the reports of the CHR. The AFP-HRO has vowed to maintain its
close coordination with the CHR to reconcile the numbers of alleged

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 330  Amparo Pamela H. Fabe

HRVs recorded by both parties. Any soldier who will be involved in

any misconduct or malpractice will be dealt with through the military
justice system. The AFP is tasked to apply disciplinary actions such as
dismissal from military service and revocation of privileges. Once an
involved soldier goes outside military bounds, the case will come from
the higher civilian court which will undergo due process of law.
In addition, the AFP-HRO is very active in teaching the active-duty
AFP personnel who are assigned in garrisons and in the field about
local laws such as the Republic Act No. 9851 or the Philippine Act on
Crimes Against IHL, Genocide, and Other Crimes Against Humanity;
R.A. 9745 or the Anti-Torture Act of 2009; R.A. 7438 or the Act defin-
ing the rights of the arrested, detained or persons under custody as well
as the duties of the arresting, detaining and investigating officers; and
Rule 113 under the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure.

Conclusion

Upholding human rights by the forces can provide a winning edge in

seeking cooperation of the people and building peace in conflict areas.
It is seen that the respect for human rights and the observance of the
IHL by the Armed Forces of the Philippines in all of its operations in the
battlefield represents a significant paradigm shift that started in 2010.
This shift took place despite the consistent atrocities being commit-
ted on Filipino soldiers at the hands of communist rebels and Islamic
militants. The implementation of an Internal Security and Peace Plan
from 2011 to 2016 paved the way for more engagement with respect for
human rights in peace and conflict zones. This positive trend towards
safeguarding human rights in combat zones led to the establishment
of the AFP-HRO in 2010 and the appointment of one Human Rights
officer in each battalion and unit. The reduction in the number of
reported HRV by members of the Philippine military in 2012 reflects
the seriousness with which the soldiers have imbibed the respect for
human rights. Perceptibly, the attitudinal and behavioural change in the
forces is encouraging for winning the hearts and minds of the people
and for building peace and security in a nation marred by conflicts.

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 Winning Hearts and Building Peace  331

References

Armed Forces of the Philippines. (2010). Armed Forces of the Philippines Report —2010.
Quezon City: Philippines
Basilan kidnapping. (2001, August 5). The Commercial Appeal, p. 12.
Bodies of mutilated marines recovered in Sulu. (2011, July 30). Retrieved from http://www.
philstar.com/headlines/711145/bodies-mutilated-marines-recovered-sulu
Commission on Human Rights. (2010). Primer on Philippine commission on human rights.
Manila, Philippine: Commission on Human Rights.
Fact-finding team tags Abu Sayyaf in beheading of marines. (2007, August 8). Businessworld,
p. 23.
Guerrillas attack towns in southern Philippines; The Moro Islamic Liberation Front kills
more than a dozen people, military says. (2008, August 18). Los Angeles Times, p. 7.
Morelos, M. (2010, December 9). Corpses beyond recognition after Maguindanao Massacre.
McClatchy—Tribune Business News.
News Analysis: Basilan massacre of Philippine troops big blow to peace talks with Moro
rebels. (2011, October 1). Xinhua News Agency, p. 23.
Philippine army chief says troops to take refresher training on human rights. (2010, July 5).
BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific, p.12.
Philippine Army. (2011). Armed forces of the Philippines internal peace and security plan.
Manila, Philippine: Research Department of the Philippine Army.
Philippine fighting forces “thousands” to flee as army hunt Marines killers. (2007, August).
BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific.
Philippine president condemns Abu Sayyaf’s beheading of hostages. (2007, April 20). BBC
Monitoring Asia Pacific, p.17.
Philippine President strongly condemns beheading of five soldiers. (2011, July 16). BBC
Monitoring Asia Pacific, p. 26.
Philippine troops rescue 13 captives from guerillas. (2001, August 2). The Associated Press, p. 6.
Philippines: AFP records zero HRV for first 4 months of 2012. (2012, May 16). Asia News
Monitor, p. 15.
———: Arroyo said should rethink peace initiative after Moro ambush. (2007, August).
BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific, p. 14.
———: ICRC welcomes PHL ratification of protocol 1 protecting victims of armed conflicts.
(2012, March 3). Asia News Monitor, p. 9.
———: Philippine army condemns NPA attack on defenseless soldiers in Davao City. (2012,
November 12). Asia News Monitor, p. 19.
PNP: Five female victims of Maguindanao massacre tested positive for semen sample. (2009,
December 8). Asia News Monitor, p. 7.
The Philippine Constitution. (1986). Manila: The Philippine Congress and the Philippine
Senate.

NidhiMaheshwariAndVineethVKumar_MilitaryPsychology.indb 331 11/24/2015 3:01:11 PM

 17
Beyond Century: The Future of
Military Psychology

Nidhi Maheshwari and Vineeth V. Kumar

Future conflicts, especially in Asian countries such as India, will enthuse

military psychologists to uptake arduous challenges in service of the
soldier. In the upcoming era of ‘smart bombs’ and ‘killer robots’, it
is not only the psychology of the man behind the machine but that
of machine itself, which has to be deciphered and managed. Both the
real (man) and the artificial intelligence (machine) need to be in sync
for appropriate mission success. Hence, irrespective of the nature of
missions, manned or unmanned, psychology has an enormous role to
play both as an art and science of future wars on Indian or other soils.
Matthews (2014) argues in his book, Head Strong: How Psychology is
Revolutionizing War, that psychology will be the deciding science in
future wars. Nations that embrace psychology and turn to it to improve
military selection, training, decisionmaking, resilience, leadership and
cultural understanding will succeed compared with nations that focus
only on building bigger and more lethal weapons.

Futuristic War Demands and Supplies

Network-centric warfare, information warfare, non-platform centric

warfare, cyber warfare, nuclear-bio-chemical warfare, high-end elec-
tronic warfare (EW), etc., are some of the catchall terms to signify
future conflicts. While Western nations have begun slipping into such
high-end warfare, eastern countries are heading towards it. Use of
Electro-Magnetic Pulses (EMPs), Robot soldiers such as British Lethal
Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWSs), Weapons of Mass Destruction
(WMD), Kinetic energy weapons, Laser weapons and security systems,
Particle Beam weapons, Sonic weapons, Nuclear-Biological-Chemical

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 Beyond Century: The Future of Military Psychology   333

(NBC) weapons, AI-based Cyborgs, advanced surveillance and stealth

weapons include the dynamic threats that the century ahead is going
to propose in front of the soldier and his psyche. At some instances,
he has to use the same while at other instances he has to guard himself
against them. Such generation of warfare shall increase ambiguity,
uncertainty, repulsion, stress and mental workload for the future war-
riors at a lightning speed. Along with the use of such weapons, advances
in the arena of human enhancement through regenerative medicine,
cybernetic implants, human brain programming and critical organ
transplants, etc., might pose greater moral, legal and operational threats
than ever before. The soldier has to work as a system or console with an
independent mind, yet rooted to a national and noble cause.
Interestingly, as the enemy will have no defined battle space, battle
time and fighting strength, the soldier too will have an ill-defined
working ground. As an exemplar, the drone operators, who target
their covert enemies while sitting in their basement, and then, soon
step out of it to their bed rooms or dining rooms at dinner with family
and children; such a dynamic working ground is a reality. Equally,
job of the commander even gets tougher as he will have to widen his
expanse of operations and manage mixed teams of inter-disciplinary
and virtual nature. This will build a new generation of operational stress
for the Forces. Clearly, deployment in such a scenario shall project the
following dynamic challenges for the soldier:

1. Fighting alone at several nodes,

2. Meek replacement, repair and replenishment possibility,
3. Unawareness about the zone of safety,
4. Requirement of super-skilled maneuvering,
5. Wariness of passive detection systems,
6. Strong gesture and neural control,
7. Guarding against monotony and complacency,
8. Working ethically in unethical environments,
9. Instantaneous and independent decision making,
10. Operating with/in virtual groups.

Close to the above-mentioned challenges, it should be kept in focus

that alongside technology the enemy too will be marching ahead in
warfare tactics pace by pace with the Forces. And so, the only edge in
defeating the enemy can be procured by maintaining psychological

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 334  Nidhi Maheshwari and Vineeth V. Kumar

robustness coupled with the technological grip. Laurence and Matthews

(2012) believe that sophisticated weapon systems, platforms and tech-
nology offer critical advantages only if they can be mastered. Thus,
physiological functioning, information processing, cognition, decision
making and so forth remain key ingredients to victory.

Futuristic Errands for Military Psychology

Again selection, training, adaptation, performance and sustenance will

remain the focal areas for military psychology in future warfare scenario.
And, military psychologists will be more immersed than ever before
in all the concerned areas. Especially for developing countries such as
India, wherein the socio-economic gap alongside cultural fanaticism is
widening with technological advances, military psychology has to bear
much load to train and sustain the soldier. Traces of fundamentalist ISIS
being operational in India, frequent cross-border activities in plains and
at high altitude, suicide bombings, breach of maritime boundaries, mis-
representation of Indian Territory in the world map, etc., are indicative
of different types of threats for the Forces. India and her neighbours are
just a playground for the disgruntled lot who is trained on latest technol-
ogy elsewhere against the State. Psychologists have not only the onus
to select the right soldier for the right job but also to train and sustain
him in such varied conditions. They have to go interdisciplinary while
developing theoretical and methodological apparatus for their research
works and applying them from laboratory to land. Neuroergonomics,
cultural engineering, cognitive engineering, forensic-based intelligence,
neural physics, etc., can be some of the emergent hybrids to the knowl-
edge base and applications of military psychology.

Selection

Selecting men for appropriate military jobs of the coming times require
skilled professionals who can think beyond the obvious job summaries
and estimate the extent of enhancement in the soldier after requisite
training. Assessing men for covert operations, capture or kill missions

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 Beyond Century: The Future of Military Psychology   335

such as the recent Operation Neptune Spear of Navy SEALs (Sea, Air
and Land) in Pakistan, conducting Military Information and Support
Operations (MISOs), designing cultural engineering programmes,
winning the hearts and minds of the alien group, performing crisis
negotiations, nabbing and interrogating suicide bombers, mapping
human terrains, conducting cognitive engineering, evacuating hos-
tages, hacking the enemy’s mind, directing relief and rescue missions
as in Japan, Nepal or Uttarakhand, etc., will be some of the regular job
summaries for military psychologists in the approaching times. Both
the cognitive and non-cognitive attributes would be of prominence to
assess the future warriors. Following are some of them:

1. 3-D/ 4-D environmental scanning and tolerance

2. Individual survivability under extreme conditions
3. Cultural sensitivity
4. Stronger ego strength
5. Sense of justice/ Moral decision making
6. Risk-orientation
7. Adaptability to new gadgets/ systems
8. Alertness
9. Ingenuity
10. Cognitive flexibility
11. Emotional regulation
12. Tactical creativity
13. Communication/ negotiation skills

Likewise, innovative selection processes have to be developed which

not only covertly assesses the candidate’s aptitude on the said skills to
serve the forces but also his commitment and integrity to do the same
despite prospective obstacles.

Training

Training need analysis reveals that education and instruction should be

consistent with the future operational context. It has to be specific for
the specific rather than application of the general to the specific. War
games, Internet simulations, fuzzy games, serious games can mark a

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 336  Nidhi Maheshwari and Vineeth V. Kumar

definite impact onto the preparedness of the soldier for future warfare.
However, mode of training has to be swift with the advances in weapon
systems and technology. Simulation training has to be more real time
and should ignite psycho-physiological changes of the same intensity
and frequency as that during a real life mission. Training ‘soldier as
a system’ with mind-enabled tools should be a priority because well-
equipped soldier with all gadgetry might have to engage personally
on one-to-one basis with the enemy. The soldier needs to function
independently and covertly on sophisticated weapon systems and tech-
nologies, with swift decision-making capability and pure intent-based
actions towards the desired goals as defined by the organization. Thus,
psychology would be of help to designing such automated systems and
training soldiers to such systems including force multipliers such as
EW equipments, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), aerial warships
and satellite systems, etc. Melton (1957) anticipated that future systems
will involve greater automation, and, programming of operations and
maintenance suggest that military psychology will become involved in
system design and system functioning problems.
More so with the soldier’s increasing role in humanitarian opera-
tions, psychologists need to train the soldier to shed off his mas-
culine orientation (‘think soldier think male’ stereotype) and move
towards more androgynous orientation. Also, soldier has to rub his
shoulders more with personnel of non-military organizations, social
groups and media in upcoming Military Operations Other Than War
(MOOTW). Hence, he needs to be trained for better communica-
tion, being compassionate while handling victims and survivors,
considerate to the needs of refugees, females and children, etc., well in
advance, so that the desired behaviour becomes spontaneous during
peace making/peace-keeping and other humanitarian efforts. Also,
psychologists as trainers would serve the purpose in training future
men for the following:

1. Advanced patrolling and ambush techniques

2. Advanced search and destroy tactics
3. Simulation-based psycho-physical stress resilience
4. Handling and feeding media
5. Eliciting intelligence in the hinterland
6. Cultural shaping and sensitivity

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 Beyond Century: The Future of Military Psychology   337

7. 6s sensitivity training
8. Humanitarian and ethical laws
9. Remote viewing
10. Task-mastery and proficiency over gadgets
11. Effective group communication
12. Lone survival
13. Directive style of leadership
14. Social engineering
15. Cognitive hacking
16. Psychological operations
17. Neural programming

For countries in the Asian subcontinent, training institutes need to

upgrade their syllabus in light of the upcoming challenges and train-
ing needs as mentioned above. Also, neuro-psychologists should be
employed as trainers on a regular basis to the institutes.

Adaptation

Adapting to the upcoming challenges would again be a test for the soldier.
Art lies both in the quantity and quality of adaptation. The soldier needs
to be more resilient and robust as fear of unknown would be prominent
during this era. He has to not only survive but also excel in trying situations
of future warfare. Often, his close team or unit which is otherwise a sig-
nificant stress-buster may not be at his arm’s length to pacify him in times
of crises. Moreover, adaptation becomes customary while functioning in
mixed teams in an alien land with scarce social resources. Efforts by psy-
chologists need to be made to provide the soldier enough alternatives to his
privy so that he hardly gives up in the face of future adversities. Conversely,
building cohesive teams should be another focal area, especially in expe-
ditionary forces. Leadership has to be strengthened by making it more
transparent and diversified. Inoculation of leaders to the psychological
operations of the enemy is an area of considerable research. Countering
propaganda and rumour intervention will be applicable more than any
other time as non-state actors would aim more at the collateral damage
rather than the State forces. Thereby, psychologists have to fully suffice to

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 338  Nidhi Maheshwari and Vineeth V. Kumar

the demands of the organization in adapting soldiers to their environment.

Following can be some of the group and individual adaptation strategies
to train upon the soldiers of any country for present and future:

1. Cognitive retraining
2. Learned positive reappraisal of situations
3. Attitude modulation and perception management
4. Situational awareness
5. Relaxation training through goggles, helmets, etc.
6. Rhythm healing
7. Yogic breathing and style of life

The above-mentioned adaptation strategies will be extra productive

in future situations as soldiers would be tasked to function in small
groups or on an individual basis without much social support.
Importantly in countries such as India, it is high time that operational
psychologist be placed in respective units of the soldiers where he rubs
his shoulders with the soldier and accompanies the soldier during his
adaptation to the vagaries of the operational environment. Additionally,
psychological support to military families must gear up as they bear the
secondary stress and trauma of deployment besides the soldier. Alert
and agile support system at community level with a keen supervision of
the command and control will be a responsibility of military psycholo-
gists to aid the families face future adversities appropriately.

Performance

Performance of the soldier has to be extraordinary at all times in every

situation as exception is a norm for him. With the possibility of cogni-
tive hacking, remote neural monitoring, brain-washing and advanced
brain–computer interface (BCI), he has to think beyond the enemy lines
while moving on his mission with commitment. Planning, decision
making, cognitive flexibility, situation awareness, etc., shall be some
of the imperatives to better functioning because often his plans will
be excellent but action to plans will be amiss due to dynamic targets.
Performance will be based on preparedness which can be achieved by
mentally rehearsing the actions, taking assistance of VR programmes

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 Beyond Century: The Future of Military Psychology   339

and practicing cognitive restructuring in the face of obligatory events.

Equally, combat performance has to aim at minimum destruction with
maximum psychological lethality. Target would shift from the enemy’s
body to his mind through use of enhanced non-lethal weapons wherein
psychologists have a significant role to offer.
Importantly enough, use of primitive warfare strategies and charis-
matic ‘hero’ warrior image cannot be ruled out in the future as the jam-
ming and raiding of techno-based devices and gadgets is a possibility.
Thus, psychologists have not only to shape the future performance of a
soldier on one hand but also to sharpen the conventional performance
of a soldier without gadgets on the other hand.

Sustenance

In light of Google patenting the robots with personalities, future

warriors would face a new generation of challenge while sustaining
in battlefield. Psychologists have much to deliver. Like present times,
sustenance would be crucial to any combat mission in the future also.
Motivation and morale can often be marred by the ambiguity, uncer-
tainty, boredom and isolation associated with the mission. Often, they
might find it difficult to fight with their adversary in an unknown land,
clear the area off the terrorists with hostile civilians around them, hit
robots or unmanned vehicles who might come in swarms without
any emotion of being dead or disclosing the strength of the enemy
forces, fight an insider defying humanitarian laws or witness brutal and
unprecedented death of the buddy along with the intruder attempting
to hack one’s mind. Under such circumstances, psychology can come
in a big way to the rescue of a disheartened soldier. Following are some
of the sustenance strategies that the psychologists can train upon the
future warriors of both individualistic and collectivistic societies:

1. Mindfulness-based stress reduction

2. Guided meditation/imagery
3. Revisiting one’s precious belongings or cherished moments
4. Spiritual discourses
5. Personally valued songs or prayers through various apps on
one’s cellphone or ipod

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 340  Nidhi Maheshwari and Vineeth V. Kumar

Also, sinuous reintegration with families after deployment, re-

employment after active service, coupled with attracting youth to the
services and minimizing prejudices and stereotypes in military would
be some other upcoming arenas for military psychology to get deployed
in the Armed Forces.

Conclusion

Military psychology bears the onus for preserving the mental and
moral health of the Armed Forces. Building tech-savvy warriors as
well as savvy warriors sans technology remains the agenda for military
psychology to delve upon. The discipline has proved its worth for
nearly a century and is going to make headway beyond century also
as an independent and customary subject for the Forces to conquer.

References

Laurence, J. H., & Matthews, M. D. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of military psychology (pp.
92–113). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Matthews, M. D. (2014). Head strong: How psychology is revolutionizing war. New York, NY:
Oxford University Press.
Melton, A. W. (1957). Military psychology in the United States of America. American
Psychologist, 12, 740–746.

NidhiMaheshwariAndVineethVKumar_MilitaryPsychology.indb 340 11/24/2015 3:01:12 PM

 About the Editors and Contributors

Editors

Nidhi Maheshwari, Ph.D., is a Scientist at the Strategic Behaviour

Division, Defence Institute of Psychological Research (DIPR), Defence
Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Ministry of
Defence, Government of India, Delhi. She specializes in the area of
Strategic Behaviour Analysis, particularly Assessment and Management
of Psycho-bio-social Markers of Combat Stress Behaviours, Combat
Motivation and Morale, Rumour and Propaganda Management
(Psychological Operations), as well as Special Forces Profiling. She has
obtained her doctorate degree from University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. As
a psychologist, Dr Maheshwari has been employed at various Services
Selection Board (SSB) for the assessment and selection of officers
of Indian Army, Navy and Air Force. As the principal investigator,
she has pursued several research projects for Indian Armed Forces.
Also, several need-based assessment tools and manuals have been
developed and delivered by her. Besides her contribution to various
books and journals, she has authored a field guide on assessment
and management of combat stress behaviours for Indian soldiers.
She has conducted various training programmes on strategic issues
in numerous fields and forward locations of Northern and Eastern
Command of the Indian Armed Forces. She has also been a guest
speaker cum faculty to various seminars/courses at institutions such
as National Security Guard (NSG), Army War College and Military
Intelligence Training School and Depot, apart from various leading
universities of India. She has been a recipient of the research fellow-
ship namely NET-JRF by University Grants Commission in 2001.
She is also, the Young Scientist Awardee (2006) and the Technology
Group Awardee (2011). In 2013, her book on military psychology
entitled Sainya Manovigyan was awarded the DRDO Rajbhasha Award.
She is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA),
International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), the Indian
Science Congress Association (ISCA), the Centre for Land Warfare
Studies (CLAWS), the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI),
the Industrial Psychiatry Association of India (IPAI) and the National
Academy of Psychology (NAOP).

NidhiMaheshwariAndVineethVKumar_MilitaryPsychology.indb 341 11/24/2015 3:01:12 PM

 342  Military Psychology

Vineeth V. Kumar, Ph.D., is Associate Professor at the School of

Management, BML Munjal University, Gurgaon, Haryana. He has
over 13 years of experience in teaching, training and research in behav-
ioural sciences. He has been awarded doctorate in psychology from
University of Rajasthan. His subjects of interest include psychometric
testing and assessment, applied psychology, organizational behaviour,
positive psychology and military psychology. He has published several
research papers in peer-reviewed national and international journals.
His pursuits have been in the arena of positive psychology-based
interventions for nurturing holistic well-being. Dr Kumar has been
a faculty with Amity University; SRM University, Tamil Nadu and
the Indian Institute of Health Management and Research (IIHMR),
Jaipur. Over the years, he has been actively undertaking management
development and training programmes for management profession-
als, defence scientists and service personnel. He has organized several
international conferences in the arena of positive psychology-based
interventions and has been the editor of the Journal of Human and
Work Management and associate editor of the Amity Journal of Applied
Psychology. He is a member of the APA and the Indian Science Congress
Association (ISCA).

Contributors

Suresh A. is Scientist ‘D’ at the DIPR (DRDO), Delhi, India.

Dinika Anand is a Researcher at the DIPR (DRDO), Delhi, India.
Archana is Scientist ‘D’ at the DIPR (DRDO), Delhi, India.
Emerald M. Archer is an Assistant Professor and Chair at the
Department of Politics and History, Woodbury University, CA, USA.
Soumi Awasthy is Scientist ‘F’ and Head, Intelligence and Aptitude
Division, DIPR (DRDO), Delhi, India.
Paul T. Bartone, is Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Technology
& National Security Policy (CTNSP), Institute for National Strategic
Studies, National Defense University, USA.

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 About the Editors and Contributors  343

Jarle Eid is Dean, Faculty of Psychology at the Department of

Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Norway.
Amparo Pamela H. Fabe is Senior Fellow at the Philippine Institute
for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research (PIPVTR), Manila,
Philippines.
Sneha Goswami is Researcher at the DIPR (DRDO), Delhi, India.
Arunima Gupta is Scientist G and Additional Director of the DIPR
(DRDO), Delhi. She is also Head, Personality Division, DIPR.
Sigurd W. Hystad is Associate Professor of Psychology at the
Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Norway.
Swati Johar is Scientist ‘C’ at the DIPR (DRDO), Delhi, India.
Gurpreet Kaur is Scientist ‘D’ at the DIPR (DRDO), Delhi, India.
Updesh Kumar is Scientist ‘F’ and Head, Mental Health and Follow-up
Division, DIPR (DRDO), Delhi, India.
Eyal Lewin is Assistant Professor at the Department of Middle Eastern
Studies and Political Science, Ariel University, Israel.
T. Madhusudhan is Serving Colonel and Senior Advisor at the
Department of Psychiatry, Command Hospital (Southern Command),
Pune, India.
Michael D. Matthews is Professor of Engineering Psychology at the
Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership, United States
Military Academy (USMA), West Point, USA.
Joseph Miller is ex-US Marine and Iraq War veteran. He is a tactics
writer, veteran’s advocate and memoirist. Currently, he is a history
graduate student at the University of Maine, USA.
James Okolie-Osemene is Research Fellow at the French Institute for
Research in Africa (IFRA), Nairobi, Kenya.
Vidushi Pathak is Researcher at the DIPR (DRDO), Delhi, India.
Anju Rani is Researcher at the DIPR (DRDO), Delhi, India.

NidhiMaheshwariAndVineethVKumar_MilitaryPsychology.indb 343 11/24/2015 3:01:13 PM

 344  Military Psychology

Ashutosh Ratnam is a serving Major and resident Doctor at the

Department of Psychiatry, Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC),
Pune.
Sucheta Sarkar is Researcher at the DIPR (DRDO), Delhi, India.
Sujata Satapathy is Clinical Psychologist and Assistant Professor at
the Department of Psychiatry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences
(AIIMS), Delhi, India.
Ron Schleifer is Senior Lecturer at the School of Mass Communication,
Ariel University, Israel.
Pankaj Kumar Sharma is a serving Major and Resident at the
Department of Psychiatry, Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC),
Pune, India.
N. P. Singh is Scientist G and Head, Strategic Behavior Division, DIPR
(DRDO), Delhi, India.

NidhiMaheshwariAndVineethVKumar_MilitaryPsychology.indb 344 11/24/2015 3:01:13 PM

 Index

3 Cs, 235 Army Alpha Tests, 1

Abu Sayyaf terror group, 317 Army General Classification Test
Afghanistan war veterans, 98 (AGCT), 19
AI-based Cyborgs, 333 Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT),
Air Force programme, 226 220
Airmen Qualifying Examination, 21 Army’s Human Terrain System, 23
Al-Qaeda, 8 Army Surgeon General, 216
Al-Shabaab attacks, 299 Arthashastra (Kautilya), 16
altered professional aspirations, 115 Art of War (Sun Tzu), 16
American All Volunteer Force (AVF), Arunachal Pradesh, 3
103, 105 ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism,
American Civil War, 185 325
American Psychiatric Association ASEAN Intergovernmental
(APA), 253 Commission on Human Rights
American Psychological Association (AICHR), 325
(APA), 17, 19, 216 assessment centre approach, 56
Amnesty International Philippines, Ateneo Human Rights Center, 326
326 augmented reality (VR), 49–51
Anti-Torture Act of 2009, 327, 330 authentic leadership, 276
applicant, information acquired
about, 57 BALAY Rehabilitation Center, 326
aptitude Basilan kidnapping, 320
battery, 39 battle fatigue. See Combat shock
definition of, 38 Battle of Detroit, 93
testing for placement, 38–41 Battle of Kadesh, The, 267
Arab–Israeli Conflict / War (1973 and Bayanihan, 321
1982), 3–4, 150, 193–195 Bhagwat Gita, 6, 16
Armed Forces, Indian, 2–4, 5, 7, 27 Binet–Simon testing, 33
Armed Forces Medical College biodata
(AFMC), 27 advantage of, 59
Armed Forces of Philippines (AFP), definition of, 56
317, 329 and personality measures, 59
Armed Forces Qualification Test prediction of performance of
(AFQT), 19 applicants, 58, 70
Armed Forces Special Powers Act scales, 57, 59, 66
(AFSPA), 7 scoring of, 72–75
Armed Services Adaptability Profile sources of, 71
(ASAP), 69 structure of, 66
Armed Services Vocational Aptitude validity of, 64–66
Battery (ASVAB), 21, 106n1 verifiability of, 59–62

NidhiMaheshwariAndVineethVKumar_MilitaryPsychology.indb 345 11/24/2015 3:01:13 PM

 346  Military Psychology

weighted scoring, 57 combat brigade teams (CBT), 225

in Western countries, application combat operations, 22–23
forms, 57 combat-related stress disorders, 214
biographical instrument construction, combat shock, 215
69–72 Commission on Human Rights
biographical inventory, 57, 59 (CHR), 325
in military selection, 67–69 commitment, control and challenge
biological weapons, 22 (3Cs), 4
Boer War, 82, 84 Communist Party of the Philippines
Boko Haram Momodu Bama, (CPP), 317–318
Nigeria, 8, 298, 305, 307–305 compassion fatigue (CF), 256
Brahmastra (a weapon created by Complaints Monitoring Working
Brahma), 176 Group (CMWG), 329
brain-computer interface (BCI), 338 Comprehensive Agreement on the
brain-computer interface (BCI) tech- Respect of Human Rights and
nology, 175, 178–179 International Humanitarian
brain washing, 166–167 Law (CARHRIHL), 329
brain-wave technology, 167 Comprehensive Battery of Cognitive
brief strengths test, 218. See also Abilities (CBCAs), 26, 43
Emotional fitness comprehensive resilience modules
British Armed Forces, 269 (CRM), 221
British Lethal Autonomous Weapons Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF),
Systems (LAWS), 332 1, 24, 214, 215–216
building collapse in 2013, DFR in, elements of, 4, 216–227
251. See also Disaster first future directions of, 228
responders (DFR) historical significance of, 227–228
history of, 214–215
calibrated testing, 48 computer-adaptive testing, 48, 49
capture missions, 23 computer-based testing, 51–52
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 19 Computerized Pilot Selection System
Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CPSS), 26
(CLAWS), 27 computers use for selection and place-
chemical disaster (2013), DFR in, 251. ment, 47–49
See also Disaster first responders comradeship, 185
(DFR) conduct disorders, 213
chemical warfare, 17 Confederate army, 185
chemical weapons, 22 construct assessment, paradigm shift
Civil Defence Act, 250 in, 42–44
civil society organizations, 325–326 Control Balance-Deviance Theory,
Civil War, 98, 185, 214 305
coding test, 40–41 conventional warfare, 172–174
cognition, meaning of, 43 core military values, 268–270
cognitive science, 42–43 Council for the Welfare of Children
Cold War, 14, 227 (CWC), 328

NidhiMaheshwariAndVineethVKumar_MilitaryPsychology.indb 346 11/24/2015 3:01:13 PM

 Index  347

crime control model, 305 ecology model, 58

criterion-related validity of biodata, 64 Educational and Biographical
Information Survey (EBIS),
Darfur Peace Agreement, 302 The, 69
Darwin, Charles, 99 effect-based operations (EBOs), 23
Day of Atonement, 193 Egyptian invasion, 193
Deceit Detection and Interrogation Eid-el-Kabir message, 305
Manual, 27 El Alamein, desert battle of, 194
Defence Institute of Psychological electro-magnetic pulses (EMP), 332
Research (DIPR), 25–26, 35, 39, electronic warfare (EW), 332
41, 43–44, 51 emotional fitness, 218
Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), emotional resilience, 217, 221
306 emotional well-being, 283
Defense Institute of International emotion-focused coping, 290
Legal Studies (DIILS), 328 empirical keying method of biodata
Defense Manpower Data Center, 21 scoring, 72–73
Department of Labor and enemy offences, 121
Employment (DOLE), 328 ethical leadership, 6
Department of State Security (DSS), European Convention on Suppression
306 of Terrorism, 301
Desert Storm, 22 European Union Criminal Justice
Developmental-Integrative (D-I) Support Programme, 325
model, 58
dharmayuddha, 279 factorial keying approach of biodata
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of scoring, 73–74
Mental Disorders (DSM), 20 faking, 59, 62–63. See also Biodata
diagnostic psychiatric disorder, 215 Families of Victims of Involuntary
Differential Aptitude Test, 39 Disappearance (FIND), 326
Directorate of Psychological Research family
(DPR), 25, 35 fitness, 218
disaster and emergency first respond- resilience, 217, 293–294
ers, stress sources for, 253 fear of death, 197. See also
disaster first responders (DFR), Testimonies, themes of
249–263 Federal Government of Nigeria
Disaster First Responders (DFRs), 5 (FGN), 298
Disaster Management Act (2005), 250 female Marines, 5. See also Stereotype
disaster response, 249 threats (STs)
disaster workers (DW), 249 markmanship domain threatening
Disordered Action of the Heart to, 108–111
(DAH), 18 Filipino soldiers, 319
Dispositional Resilience Scale (DRS), First World War (WWI), 1, 13–14,
236 16–21, 27–28, 33–34, 81, 188.
distancing self from stigmatized See also Military psychology
group, 114 forces, strengthening the, 290–295

NidhiMaheshwariAndVineethVKumar_MilitaryPsychology.indb 347 11/24/2015 3:01:13 PM

 348  Military Psychology

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Human Rights Office (HRO), 8, 327

106 human rights violations (HRV), 320
Husain, Saddam, 23
Gaddafi, Muammar, 302 hypernationalism, 84
gas hysteria, 18
generalizability of biodata, 64–65 Imperial troops, 186
Geneva Conventions (1952), 323 incremental validity of biodata, 65–66
Ghosh Committee (1948), 35 Indian military values, 277–280
Global Assessment Tool (GAT), 217 individualized training, 221. See also
Global Terrorism Index, 304 Comprehensive Soldier Fitness
Global War on Terror (GWOT), 3, (CSF)
23, 215 Infantry Battalion (IB), 318
Golan Heights, 194, 197 Infantry Brigade, 319
Gold Cross medals, 320 information age, opportunities in,
Government of the Philippines 167–169
Monitoring Committee Information, Education and
(GPHMC), 327 Communication (IEC), 5,
Grade Point Average (GPA), 238 262–263
Grave child rights violations (GCRV), information manipulation, 172
329 information warfare, 169–172
Great Indian Mutiny of 25, 1857 intelligence
group solidarity, 192 definition of, 35–36
Guernica raid, 188 testing, 1, 35–38
Gulf war, 21–22 tests, 36–38, 41
Gulf War Syndrome, 22 Inter-Agency Committee (IAC), 323
internalized moral perspective, 277
Hamas PsyOps, 155–158 Internal Peace and Security Plan
Hamas regime in Gaza, Iran, 149 (IPSP), 321
Hamas TV, 154 International Committee of the Red
hands behind the back', soldiers with, Cross (ICRC), 325, 327, 328
319–321 International Criminal Court (ICC),
Hanns Seidel Foundation, 328 323
Hans Selye syndrome, 81 International Humanitarian Law
hardiness induction, 236–237 (IHL), 320, 323
Hausa Boko, 299 International Labor Organization
Hezbollah, 149 (ILO), 328
History Opinion Inventory (HOI), internet-based tests, 50
67–68 Iraq war veterans, 98
home, thoughts about, 197. See also IRT, 44–45
Testimonies, themes of Islamic Courts Union (ICU), 299
human–computer interaction, 168 Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS),
human rights, interventions for pro- 3, 8
tecting, 327–330 I.S.P. Test 20, 37

NidhiMaheshwariAndVineethVKumar_MilitaryPsychology.indb 348 11/24/2015 3:01:13 PM

 Index  349

Israel Defense Forces (IDFs), 9, 149, man–machine systems analysis, 23

154–157, 159–160, 185–186, 194 Manual on Interrogation Techniques
Israeli air force, 205 in Counterinsurgency
Israeli–Hamas PsyOps, 149, 159–161 Operations, 26–27
item, content and development, Marine Corps, 226
69–72 Marine Corps Recruiting Depot-West
(MCRD-West), 106–107
Jammu and Kashmir, 3, 7–9 mass media, 169
Jewish calendar, 193 master resilience trainers (MRT),
job-based test construction, 47 221–222
Joint Task Force (JTF), 305, 310–312 mathematical reasoning test, 41
Matrix 38 tests, 36
Kargil, 3 mechanical information test, 41
Kennedy, John F., 22 Medal of Valor, 199
Kenyan Defence Forces (KDF), 306 Mercaz L’Mivtzaei Toda’a (MALAT,
killer robots, 332 The Center for Consciousness
kinetic energy weapons, 332 Operations), 149, 151, 153,
Korean war, 21–22 159–160
kshatriyadharma, 279 mesh worms, 175
kutayuddha, 279 Military Applicant Profile (MAP),
68–69
La Breza Declaration on Human military, changing faces of, 267–268
Rights Cooperation, 328 military families, 24
Laden, Osama Bin, 23, 311 challenges for, 285–289
Lake Chad, 308 healthy, 7
language aptitude test (LAT), 39–40 and quality of life, 283–285
laser weapons, 332 risk of violence, 131
Left-wing Extremism (LWE), 3 Military Family Fitness Scale, 218
Lewin, Kurt, 81, 83, 99 military family syndrome, 284
Libyan crisis (2011), 301–302 Military Information and Support
local terrorists, 300 Operations (MISO), 335
Lohamat Modi’in (LOM, Intelligence military movements, description
Warfare), 149 of, 196. See also Testimonies,
low-intensity conflict (LIC), 27, 42 themes of
Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Military Occupational Specialties
Service, Honor, Integrity and (MOS), 105, 109
Personal Courage (LDRSHIP), Military Operations Other Than War
269 (MOOTW), 4–5, 23, 249, 336
Luftwaffe activity, 187–188, 190 military psychology, 1, 167
contemporary phase of, 22–25
Mahabharata, 25 definition of, 14–15
malaria threat, to military operations, during WWI and WWII, 16–21
215–216 futuristic errands for, 334–339

NidhiMaheshwariAndVineethVKumar_MilitaryPsychology.indb 349 11/24/2015 3:01:13 PM

 350  Military Psychology

futuristic war demands and sup- multimedia

plies, 332–334 based tests, 49
growth of, 13 definition of, 49
in India, 25–27 Multinational Joint Task Force
middle phase of, 21–22 (MNJTF), 8, 299, 306–307
Military Service Inventory (MSI), 68 Munich agreement, 187
military settings, nature of psycho- musical aptitude test, 39
logical research in, 15 mustard gas, 17–18
Miller, James, 81, 85–99
mind-enabled tools, 178–179 Nagaland, 7
mind reshaping, 99 National Center for Social Research,
miniature robots, 175 195
misconduct behaviours, military, National Disaster Response Force
120–121, 147 (NDRF), 250
basis of, 127–128 National Monitoring Mechanism
contributory factors to, 130–136 (NMM), 329
curbing among soldiers, 6 negative emotion, 292
dead bodies mutilation, 126 negative stereotypes, 103, 136
desertion, 123 negotiating site, 99
enemy and death penalty, offences Nehru, Pt Jawaharlal, 25
relating to, 121 Network Centric Warfare (NCW), 42
interventions to control miscon- networking, 168
duct, 138–141 New People’s Army (NPA), 317
intoxication, 125 Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS),
leaders role in control of, 306
142–146 Nigerian Armed Forces, 306
malingering, 126 Nigerian-Biafran violence, 301
mutiny, 122 Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), 306
nonworking of coping training, Nigeria Police Force (NPF), 306
137–138 Nightingale, Florence, 119
no quarter, 125 NIMHANS, 27
rape and looting, 124 non-combat operations, 22–23
self-inflicted wounds (SIWs), 127 non-commissioned officer (NCO),
suicide, 124 221–222
threatening, striking or killing a Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs),
unit leader, 122–123 107
Mizoram, 7 non-conventional warfare, 42,
modern intelligence testing, 33 172–174
Modern Military Missions (MMMs), non-verbal intelligence tests, 36, 38
1, 22–25 North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Monitoring, reporting and response (NATO), 150, 233
system (MRRS), 329 Northern Golan Heights, 198
moral courage, 270 Norwegian Navy cadets, 235–236
Moro Islamic Liberation Front Not Yet Diagnosed Nervous (NYDN),
(MILF), 317 18

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 Index  351

nuclear-biological-chemical (NBC) physical courage, 270

weapon, 332–333 Positive and Negative Affect Scale
nuclear bombs, 20 (PANAS), 218
positive emotion, 292
Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 19 positive psychology, 23, 192, 197. See
On War (Clausewitz), 16 also Testimonies, themes of
operational psychologist, 338 positive psychology center, 222
Operation Cast Lead, 9, 149, post-traumatic growth (PTG), 4,
151–159 223–224
Operation Desert Shield, 22 post-traumatic stress disorders
Operation Neptune Spear of Navy (PTSDs), 3, 22, 213, 254
SEALs, 335 preventive and curative mental
Operation Restore Order, 306 health, purpose of, 259. See also
optimism, 192–193 Disaster first responders (DFR)
Arab-Israeli 1973 War, 193–195 Prisoner of Wars (PoWs), 121, 205
common knowledge, 185–191 problem-focused coping, 290
defined, 192 psychological assessment in military
implication, 206–208 personnel selection, 33
methodology, 195–197 psychological hardiness, 245
outcomes, 197–206 psychological operations (PsyOps), 1,
Other Rank Trade Allocation System 9, 25–27, 149
(ORTAS), 39, 43–44 assessing effectiveness of, 158–161
extrapolating in future conflicts,
Panama Canal, 216 161–163
paper–pencil tests, 52 Hamas (see Hamas PshyOps)
parental absence, 290 Israeli-Hamas PsyOps, 159–161
parenting stress, 288–289 role of, 166
particle beam weapons, 332 theoretical principles of, 150–151
path-goal leadership theory, 241 Psychological Research Wing (PRW),
pathways thinking, 192 25, 35
Penn Resilience Program (PRP), 222 psychological testing, 21
people with mental illnesses (PWML), psychological warfare doctrine, 9,
259 18–19, 149, 177
Personal Identification Secure definition of, 150
Comparison and Evaluation Hamas, 155
System (PISCES), 312 limitations of, 180
personality inventories and biodata, means of transmission, 151
difference between, 60 and mind control, 176–178
personality scales, 59, 61 objective of, 150
personality testing, 1 Operation Cast Lead, 151–158
Philippine Act on Crimes against IHL, psychological well-being, 283–284
330 psychosocial health of DFR, 252–254
Philippine Army, 320 psychosocial health promotion,
Philippine IHL law, 326 259–261. See also Disaster first
Philippine National Police (PNP), 321 responders (DFR)

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 352  Military Psychology

psychosomatic symptoms and Nuremberg trials, 122

post-traumatic stress disorder selection of Indian military per-
(PTSD), 20, 27, 81–85, 91–100 sonal, 34–35
Selection and Trade Allocation
quality of life and military families, Battery, 26
283–285 self-awareness, 276
self-handicapping, 112
rally-round-the-flag syndrome, 187 self-inflicted wounds (SIWs), 127
rational keying approach of biodata Services Selection Boards (SSBs), 26
scoring, 74–75 shared values, cultivating, 272
reactance, 112–114 authentic leadership, 275–277
Red Army, 190 induction process, 273–274
relational transparency, 277 promoting an ethical culture, 275
Republic Act No. 9851, 320, 327 rewards and reinforcement, 274
resilience, 231–232, 293–294 selection process, 273
building, 234 training and development,
empirical support, 237–238 274–275
factor, 235–236 Shell shock, 18, 81–84
future directions, 243–245 Siachen, 3
hardiness training programmes, simulation-based testing, 50
236–237 Sinai desert, 195
leader influence on group hardi- Sinai Peninsula, 193, 197
ness, 239–241 situational reconstruction, 236
in military context, 232–234 situation judgment test (SJT), 47
pillar of, 217 situation reaction test (SRT), 46
self-help steps to increase hardi- smart bombs, 332
ness, 241–243 social capital theory, 186
theoretical models of, 257–258 social cohesion, 185, 192
resilience building, 1–2 social cohesiveness, 185
Resilience Scale for Adults (RSA), 232 social resilience, 217, 218
resilient soldiers, 3–4 social support, consolidating, 291
right soldier for right mission, selec- social well-being, 283
tion of, 2 soldier dilemma, 270–272
Royal Indian Air Force, 34 soldier heart, 214
Royal Indian Engineers, 36 soldier resilience, 23, 213–214
Royal Indian Navy, 34 sonic weapons, 332
rumor management, 27 Soviet forces, 190
Soviet technologies, 194
Scout Rangers, 318 space relations test, 41
secondary traumatic stress, theoretical Spanish Civil War, 188
models of, 256 Spartan military tradition, 185
Second World War (WWII), 13–14, special aptitude tests, 38–39
16–21, 67, 98, 165, 176, 186. See Special Forces, 318
also Military psychology spiritual fitness, 219–220

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 Index  353

spirituality, 207 terrorism, 298–303

spiritual resilience, 217 terrorist financing, 298
spiritual transcendence, 207, 208 testimonies, themes of, 196–197
S.P. Test 2 (Bennett), 37 testing, paradigm shift in, 41–42
S. P. Test 3-A, 37–38 Third Reich, 191
S.P. Test 15 (V.I.T.), 36–37 transformational coping behaviours,
standard operating procedures (SOP), 237
233 transformational leadership theory, 240
Stanford Binet Test 5 (SB 5), 33 trauma, 5, 100
Steele, Claude, 103–104 emotional, 85, 87
stereotype threats (STs), 1 of green gas by soldiers, 17–18
affect members of stereotyped trauma and traumatic stress, psycho-
social groups, 111 social health of, 253–254. See
consequences of, 112–115 also Disaster first responders
definition of, 103 (DFR)
female Marines vulnerable to, 108 trench warfare, 17
future directions, 116 Trojan War, 82
homosexual men in childcare The Twelve Rules, 312–313
domains, affect on, 111
and US female Marines, relevance UCLA Loneliness Scale, 218
to, 103–105 unconventional war, 10
stress management briefing, 119 UN Human Rights Council, 155
stressors among military personal, United Nations' Human Rights
127–128 Commission, 322
stress-related symptoms, 215 United Nations Security Council
subgrouping method of biodata scor- Resolution 1325, 326
ing, 75 United States Marine Corps (USMC),
Suez Canal, 193, 194 103–108, 110
suicide bombers, Japanese, 20 universal resilience training, 221. See
supreme emergencies, 186 also Comprehensive Soldier
surface-to-air missile batteries, 194 Fitness (CSF)
Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), 336
(SERE) model, 21 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs),
Syrian army, 197 175, 178, 336
Syrian-Israeli border, 201 US Air Force, 20
US Army doctrine, 269
Task Force Detainees-Philippines US army soldiers, CSF programme
(TFDP), 326 for, 214–228
technique of analysis, paradigm shift US Gulf War soldiers, 235
in, 44–47 US Marines, 5
Tehelkha scam, 6 US Military Academy, 220
Tel Saki battle, 201–202 Uttarakhand Flash Flood (2013), DFR
Terman group tests of mental ability, 34 in, 251. See also Disaster first
terror, containing the, 305–307 responders (DFR)

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 354  Military Psychology

Valley of Tears, 198 War Office Selection Board,

value-based leadership, 267 Dehradun, 25
Values-in-Action–Inventory of warrior caste, rise of, 277
Strengths (VIA–Is), 218 Washington, George, 98
verbal intelligence (Verbint), 39 Weapons of Mass Destruction
verbal intelligence tests, 36, 38 (WMD), 332
vicarious trauma (VT), 5, 256–257 Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
Vietnam War, 21–22, 122, 207, 215 (WAIS), 17
virtual reality (VR), 49–51 Wechsler-Bellevue Scale, 17
visual memory test (VMT), 40 Wehrmacht's social community struc-
Volga River, 190 ture, 185
vyuh rachana (fighting formations), 25 well-being, 283–284
western foreign policy, 188
war winning hearts and minds, 321–326
brutality of, 119 Women Engaged in Action on 1325
neurosis, 18 (We Act 1325), 326
warfares, future, 10, 169 Woodworth Personality Data Sheet,
applicability of psychology in, 27 17
information age impact on, work-family facilitation, 294–295
169–172
preparation of solider for, 8–9 Yemen evacuation, 3
technology, 174–175
war, national causes of, 196–197. See Zvika Force, 200
also Testimonies, themes of

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