How has the meaning of ‘combat-ready’ changed throughout history?

Against an increasingly volatile geopolitical backdrop of ongoing conflicts, what it means to be combat-ready feels progressively more pertinent. The meaning of ‘combat readiness’ has evolved throughout Western military history, reflecting changes in military technology and strategy, tactics, societal attitudes, and the nature of warfare. Despite many differences, combat readiness in the ancient Greco-Roman world remains highly relevant to the modern armed forces. [1]

A new collaborative project between the University of Bristol and King’s Centre for Military Health Research, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), explores the complexities of combat readiness by drawing comparisons between ancient and modern warfare, and highlighting the importance of critiquing what it means to prepare soldiers for both the physical and psychological demands of war.

Early project findings point to comparative components of combat readiness including ‘morale’, camaraderie, physical fitness, psychophysiological arousal, and alcohol use.

Military Morale

Originating from the Latin moralis, morale has been intimately associated with military contexts since at least fourth century BCE Greece. [2] Morale has been identified as a measure of combat readiness influenced by several core factors, including cohesion, esprit de corps, leadership, shared purpose/common goals, resilience, preparedness and training and discipline. [3]

In classical antiquity, morale was often tightly linked to the leadership of senior commanders, and to a strong sense of honour and duty amongst soldiers to both commanders and comrades within their unit.  The core values of trust, respect, discipline, courage, and presence both in camp and on the battlefield, meant that commanders could get the best out of troops in the successes and downfalls of battle. [4] 

Today, the British military remains governed by these core values and standards or ‘CDRILS’, namely courage, discipline, respect for others, integrity, loyalty, and selfless dedication, to ensure readiness and operational success.

Camaraderie and (Liquid) Courage

Camaraderie, referring to the sense of mutual trust, friendship, and interpersonal bonding between members of military unity remains a core aspect of combat readiness. In the ancient world, small, tight-knit military units relied heavily on the spirit of comradeship and mutual trust. [4]

In Western military history, the use of alcohol has been a tool facilitating such bonding. For members of the UK armed forces today, alcohol remains a significant part of military culture, with excessive alcohol consumption both normalised and encouraged in a social context, even seen as part of the identity and cohesion of serving members. [5]

Alcohol has long been used to prepare for engagement in combat, for example, it was common for British Army units to issue rations of spirits to soldiers during WW1 before climbing out of their trenches to march across No Man’s Land, [6] and remains a tool to manage the effect of traumatic exposures post-service. [7] In the ancient world too there is evidence of excessive alcohol consumption amongst troops, which was sometimes even encouraged by commanders to fire-up their combatants prior to an engagement. [8] 

This longstanding and controversial relationship, between the military and alcohol as a tool for combat-readiness, leaves a legacy of alcohol-related harm, with alcohol use disproportionately higher in the armed forces than the UK general population. [9] It also raises questions as to why hazardous drinking seemingly continues to be necessary in military contexts.  

Boots and Technology in the Battlefield 

Since the twentieth century, the rapid evolution of technology has given rise to combat innovations, such as inter-continental ballistic missile systems and more recently drone warfare [10], and the use of simulation and virtual reality in military training. On the surface, this suggests that we are moving away from the canon of ‘boots on the ground, bodies in the battlefield’. Yet, ‘boots on the ground’ remain a core aspect of current defence against ongoing global offensive operations. Therefore, physical training remains an important part of preparation for military service and combat. 

We can trace the integral practice of physical training in preparation for battle to the ancient Mediterranean and further back. [11] Whilst the military today swaps the sword, shield and hand bow for rifles and bayonets, physical readiness tests as a measure of health, fitness, and preparation for combat underly service from the start of basic training.

The project workshops have explored how war, arguably, makes combatants and technology out of everything it touches, necessitating an entanglement of bodies and weapons. As in the ancient world, war remains an embodied practice: so, can physical training ever truly prepare individuals, or is it only by experiencing combat first-hand that one can be prepared physically and mentally for the realities of war? 

Living on High Alert

Physical and mental preparedness for combat is intrinsically linked. From the very first days of military training, vigilance towards ambiguous or threatening stimuli is wired in as an adaptive mechanism in combat environments. 

Studies suggest that this adaptive behaviour, which is crucial in combat and the preparation of entering such environments, can lead to persistent heightened psychophysiological arousal, post-military service [12], such that long after being in a threatening environment, the brain continues signalling to the body a need to escape a threat that no longer exists [13]. 

Hypervigilance is a core symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), seen prominently in trauma survivors including current and ex-serving personnel. [14] Although the language surrounding hypervigilance and trauma has evolved over centuries with the birth of neuroscience, such phenomena seen in the ancient world. The influential work of psychologist Jonathan Shay, for instance, drew parallels between the PTSD of Vietnam veterans and the depiction of combat stress in Homer’s Iliad.  [15]

With research indicating a higher prevalence of mental health issues and poorer treatment outcomes among service personnel compared to the general population, [16] and the complex interplay between pre-service vulnerabilities and impact of military service, the workshops explore the implications of what it means to be combat ready.

This collaborative research funded by the AHRC will continue to explore what it means to be ‘combat ready’. The first workshop in March 2024 engaged academics, healthcare professionals and military personnel in discussion focusing on the use of technology in preparing the body and mind for war in the ancient and modern armed forces. A second workshop later in the year will explore gender and identity in connection with combat readiness. In a world where war and genocide dominate our headlines on a daily basis, this project seeks to learn how historical comparison can serve our understanding of combat readiness from its roots in classical antiquity to the modern day.

This blog post was co-written by Dr Hannah-Marie Chidwick and Dr Daniel Leightley

References

[1]      G. Bornstein, “Reading Thucydides in America Today,” Sewanee Review, vol. 123, no. 4, pp. 661–667, 2015, doi: 10.1353/sew.2015.0113.

[2]      S. Childs, “Defending a Core Military Capability,” Security Challenges, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 43–52, 2016.

[3]      See, for example: Aelian, Tactics pr.1-2; Aeneas Tacticus 10.26; Caesar, Civil War 3.28, 3.72-74;  Frontinus Strategems2.8; Vegetius, On Military Matters 2.2, 3.9-13, 3.25. Also, for example: S. E. Phang, Roman Military Discipline. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008;  M. C. Van ’t Wout and G. A. J. Van Dyk, “Managing Morale on the Battlefield: A Scientific Perspective,” Scientia Militaria - South African Journal of Military Studies, vol. 43, no. 1, May 2015, doi: 10.5787/43-1-1112.

[4]      B. Campbell, War and society in imperial Rome 31 BC-AD 284. London: Routledge, 2002.

[5]      M. D. Kiernan, A. Osbourne, G. McGill, P. Jane Greaves, G. Wilson, and M. Hill, “Are veterans different? Understanding veterans’ help-seeking behaviour for alcohol problems,” Health Soc Care Community, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 725–733, Sep. 2018, doi: 10.1111/hsc.12585.

[6]      E. Jones and N. T. Fear, “Alcohol use and misuse within the military: A review,” International Review of Psychiatry, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 166–172, Apr. 2011, doi: 10.3109/09540261.2010.550868.

[7]      M. L. Kelley, J. Runnals, M. R. Pearson, M. Miller, J. A. Fairbank, and M. Brancu, “Alcohol use and trauma exposure among male and female veterans before, during, and after military service,” Drug Alcohol Depend, vol. 133, no. 2, pp. 615–624, Dec. 2013, doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2013.08.002.

[8]      For example, Plutarch’s Life of Caesar 41; Appian Civil War 2.64.

[9]      R. Rhead, D. MacManus, M. Jones, N. Greenberg, N. T. Fear, and L. Goodwin, “Mental health disorders and alcohol misuse among UK military veterans and the general population: a comparison study,” Psychol Med, vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 292–302, Jan. 2022, doi: 10.1017/S0033291720001944.

[10]    M. J. Boyle, “The legal and ethical implications of drone warfare,” The International Journal of Human Rights, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 105–126, Feb. 2015, doi: 10.1080/13642987.2014.991210.

[11]    See, for example, Vegetius, On Military Matters 1.9. Also, W. B. East, A historical review and analysis of Army physical readiness training and assessment. Combat Studies Institute Press, US Army Combined Arms Center, 2013.

[12]    A. Y. Cameron and D. Mamon, “Towards A Better Understanding of Hypervigilance in Combat Veterans,” Mil Behav Health, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 206–217, Apr. 2019, doi: 10.1080/21635781.2018.1526144.

[13]    B. Van der Kolk, The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. . New York: Penguin Books, 2015.

[14]    M. O. Kimble, K. Fleming, and K. A. Bennion, “Contributors to Hypervigilance in a Military and Civilian Sample,” J Interpers Violence, vol. 28, no. 8, pp. 1672–1692, May 2013, doi: 10.1177/0886260512468319.

[15]    J. Shay, Achilles in Vietnam. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. Also: O. Rees, K. Hurlock, J. Crowley, eds, Combat Stress in Pre-Modern Europe. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.

[16]    D. Murphy, R. Ashwick, E. Palmer, and W. Busuttil, “Describing the profile of a population of UK veterans seeking support for mental health difficulties,” Journal of Mental Health, vol. 28, no. 6, pp. 654–661, Nov. 2019, doi: 10.1080/09638237.2017.1385739.