Commentary on the Standard Model of Military Group Cohesion

Abstract

In response to King’s article on cohesion, this author submitted a critique, “The Essence of Military Group Cohesion” (2007), based on 20 years of research. The critique noted that King had set up several strawmen and presented a narrow focus. Furthermore, the critique introduced the Standard Model of Military Group Cohesion as a more widely useful approach. The Model was further articulated in “Key Questions and Challenges to the Standard Model of Military Group Cohesion” (2011) and “The Misconceived Construct of Task Cohesion” (2015). This current article describes major conceptual and measurement efforts leading up to the development of the Model, critiques and expansions of the Model, and needed future research to refine the Model as well as combine cohesion with other key variables such as motivation, combatant capacity, and leadership to more fully explain variation in key military outcome variables such as unit performance and retention.