Content area
Full Text
Since the end of the Cold War, US. armed forces have participated in an increasingly complex array of military operations. As missions change, officers must frequently shift focus and adjust between warfighting and peacekeeping. This study examines the extent to which military leaders at different stages of their professional careers are prepared cognitively to accommodate rapidly changing roles. Using survey methods, the article compares the attitudes of entering and graduating cadets at the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point to those of senior military officers attending the US. Army War College. In particular, the study measures respondents' levels of patriotism, warriorism, globalism, and Machiavellianism and discusses the extent to which adherence to these value-orientations impact the Army's effectiveness in future missions.
INTRODUCTION
Few observers could have predicted the developments that have shaken the international system over the last decade. The fall of the Berlin wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the waning threat of a military confrontation between major powers, combined with growing demands for ethnic, religious, and national autonomy, flourishing economic interdependencies, increasing technological and social integration, and escalating planetary problems have profoundly changed the nature of global interactions and call into question operational assumptions that have characterized international relations for nearly half a century.
These dramatic changes severely challenge Cold War notions of national security. No longer are U.S. forces only called upon to fight wars in defense of national interests. Instead, they are increasingly deployed to fulfill a widening array of non-conventional roles, from humanitarian assistance to peacekeeping and peace enforcement. These expanding roles require not only flexible and versatile strategies but also demand that military leaders are prepared technically, cognitively, and emotionally to adjust between combat and non-combat tasks.
In this study, I examine the extent to which military leaders at different stages of their professional careers are prepared cognitively to shift between changing mission requirements. Using survey methods, I compare the attitudes of entering and graduating cadets at the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point to those of senior military officers attending the U.S. Army War College. The survey asked respondents to indicate their levels of agreement with a series of attitudinal statements designed to measure patriotism, warriorism, global institutionalism, and Machiavellianism. After...