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Essay on Prejudices Operating in the Military
Prejudice and discrimination are negative manifestations of integrative power. Instead of bringing or holding people together, prejudice and discrimination push them apart. Ironically, even prejudice and discrimination imply some sort of relationship, however. If there is no relationship people would be completely unaware of another person's or group's existence. When there is any relationship at all--even a negative one--there is some integration. This is seen in military patriotism, in nationalism, and in any situation of "negative identity" in which one group defines itself in terms of what it is not. This tends to lead into a "pathological situation of internal violence, often perpetuated through the family itself.
While this is especially obvious and destructive when it occurs on a large scale--as it did in the Balkans, Somalia, Sri Lanka, or the Middle East--it also occurs on smaller scales as well, when one group holds negative stereotypes of another group and discriminates against members of that group based on those stereotypes.Where man’s performance on the battlefield is concerned these changes may sometimes, but not always, have a minimal effect, Thus man’s behavior in Caesar’s Gallic Wars, or at Hastings, Agincourt, Trafalgar, Waterloo, Gettysburg, Sulva Bay, Cambrai, Alamein, Stalingrad and Kursk may all have great relevance for today and tomorrow because man has not changed greatly.
His reaction to stress and danger, to isolation, to great leadership, to victory and defeat remain reasonably constant. In addition, whatever the technology of the size of forces involved, the impact on the outcome of military operations of such movements as infiltration, turning, envelopment, penetration, counter-stroke, blockade or such factors as surprise, bombardment, failure of communication, logistic ineffectiveness or offensive exhaustion has a timelessness about it that may make historical study rewarding. That such study may not be rewarding where radical change has intervened, as for instance in the advantage.....
