Keywords

What Is Military Behavioral Science and Why Does It Matter?

Merriam-Webster (2021) defines a military as “of or relating to soldiers, arms, war, or armed forces.” A pat definition for most readers of this handbook, who know well the multifaceted and complex nature of the “military.” A military is the sum of the human behaviors composing it, after all, and the human behavior defining any institution is too multifarious and intricate to be captured in a dictionary definition. Of course, some humility may be in order because even those of us who study military behavior find it difficult to circumscribe – let alone define – all the subjects, disciplines, and activities that fall under the heading military behavioral sciences. All the same, this chapter attempts an introduction to military behavioral science for the Military Behavioral Sciences section by discussing the research topics, disciplines, and organizations within the field, the evolution of the field as whole and the main players engaged in this research, and offers some conjectures on the future of military behavioral sciences.

As one can tell from the chapters in the Handbook of Military Science (Sookermany, 2021), part of the Military Behavioral Sciences section, military behavioral science comprises a large set of disciplines, including military psychology, military sociology, military anthropology, and the behavioral aspects of biology, economics, geography, law, psychiatry, and political science, as well as a broad set of subjects related to human behavior within the military, such as military ethics, military readiness, operational performance, and military leadership. Given the multidisciplinary nature of this field, all the approaches, methods, and tools used cannot be covered in an introductory chapter. Suffice it to say that the methods employed in military behavioral sciences are as many and as various as the methods used in each disciplines and subdisciplines composing it – if often tailored to the military context (e.g., Bowles & Bartone, 2017; Caforio & Nuciari, 2018a, b; Carreiras & Castro, 2013; Kümmel & Albrecht-Heide, 2000; Soeters et al., 2014). The component chapters within this section will address specific methods, tools, and approaches as applicable.

The impetus for studying the military through behavior is simple enough: Military behavior is human behavior. From the strategic levels of military planning, to the operational and tactical levels, human beings conceive, develop, and implement all military activity. Even the material elements – such as weaponry and equipment – are identified, designed, developed, procured, and trained on can ultimately be understood through human behavior. As Dank and Dank (2016) put it: “Any attempt to understand warfare – its causes, strategies, legitimacy, dynamics, and resolutions – must incorporate humans as an intrinsic part, both descriptively and normatively. Humans from general staff to ‘boots on the ground’ play key roles in all aspects” (p. 1). This insight is not been missed by militaries themselves, with most armed forces subscribing to the mantra that personnel are their most important resource. Not coincidentally, perhaps, personnel also make up a large portion of military budgets. The majority of NATO militaries spend at least a third of their budget on personnel. A recent study showed that the cost of total military spending related to military personnel ranges from a low of 33.4% in Luxembourg to a high of 74.8% in Portugal (Santamaría et al., 2021). In the United States, the costs of personnel payments and benefits alone comprise about 40% of the military budget (Office of the Undersecretary of Defence, 2020), and in Canada the largest proportion of the budget is allocated to personnel (Department of National Defence, 2020).

While a definition is not easy, a list of the topics under the umbrella of military behavioral sciences is illustrative (see Fig. 1). Some of these interrelated topics are as follows: personnel generation, including attraction, recruitment, selection, training, career management, and retention of military members; the military profession, socialization, and military professional education; personnel planning research to inform armed forces’ human resource requirements and decisions; the study of military members working conditions and how these impact elements such as morale, motivation, and cohesion; military identity, culture, and leadership; human performance including the various physical and physiological factors that interact with the human body to affect behavior; diversity (e.g., gender integration, minority groups, generational differences); human aspects of deployment, operational stress, pre-deployment preparedness, and post-deployment reintegration; focus on military families (e.g., effects of families and on families, support mechanisms); understanding the human aspects that influence adversaries and/or drive threats (e.g., ideology, social, cultural, physical, informational, and psychological elements that influence adversaries’ motivations, thinking, and activities); group dynamics (e.g., multinational collaboration; inter-service approaches; whole of government elements); military-civilian relations or what is often called democratic control of the military as well as relations between military and society (e.g., media, public opinion); and focus on military veterans and transition following military service. These are some examples. Also of note, and not surprisingly given the breadth and multidisciplinarity of this domain, elements that fit under the umbrella of behavioral military sciences are also related to other research fields, including those covered in other sections of the Military Sciences Handbook [e.g., chapters “Women in the Military: Changing in Representation and Experiences,” “Military Families: Topography of a Field,” “Military Profession,” “Civil-Military Relations: What Is the State of the Field?,” “Military Leadership,” and “Military and Society”].

Fig. 1
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Select military behavioral sciences topics

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Much of the work in military behavioral sciences falls under the banner of the social sciences (e.g., chapters “Military Psychology,” “Sociology of the Military,” and “Anthropology of the Military”). Yet other fields of inquiry contribute to the study of behavior in the military: Physiology, human performance and human factors, and operations research (OR) are prominent members of the military behavioral sciences family (see chapter “Role of Analytics in Military Workforce Planning”). Human performance research studies a host of environmental and physical stressors on human behavior and performance, such as altitude, isolation, heat, cold, humidity, and aridity (chapters “Environmental Stress in Military Settings” and “Training-Related Stress and Performance in the Military”). Human factors, sometimes also referred to as human engineering, human factors engineering, or ergonomics, focus on the design and testing of equipment to increase safety and effectiveness (chapter “Military Psychology”).

Levels of Analysis

The complexity of human behavior invites a variety of perspectives. A common way of classifying perspectives on human behavior in a broader institutional is levels of analysis – into the macro, meso, and micro levels. Macro-level research on military behavior focuses on broad social structures, such as the relation between the armed forces and society or the military as a social institution. How does the political system influence military leaders, for example, or how does the mandate of a mission interact with the culture of the host nation to affect relations with host nationals? At the meso-level , the group is the level of analysis, including both formal and informal groups. How does leadership style at the division or battalion level influence morale and cohesion, for example, or what are the differences in subculture and tradition among the military services and how do these influence outcomes such as gender integration? The micro-level focuses on the individual within the organization and society. For example, how do different marketing campaigns influence the propensity of individuals from different backgrounds to join the military? How does one’s military identity influence organizational commitment and retention in the armed forces?

Military behavioral sciences research usually focuses on one of these levels. Level of analysis is often related to the topic being studied and, as a result, the discipline through which the topic is examined usually determines the level of analysis. Psychologists will tend to study micro-level behavior, for example, while sociologists study meso-level behavior. Naturally, inquiry at one level can obscure the understanding of a phenomenon at another levels. In response to this, researchers increasingly use multi-level analyses to enrich our understandings of phenomena in military behavioral sciences (Goldenberg & Soeters, 2014).

Disciplines and Multidisciplines

Disciplines that study human behavior – such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, and political science – have developed sub-specializations focusing on the military (Scott et al., 2018a, b) that have coalesced into an independent field. The study of the military in general, and military behavioral sciences in particular, began with early psychometric tests used to inform World War I war efforts, followed by wider applications and more disciplines in World War II and again in the Vietnam War. The end of the Cold War and the rapidly evolving technological and sociological changes have further impacted the military and its personnel. In concert with these developments, military behavioral science topics, questions, and areas of inquiry evolved and expanded into the latter half of the twentieth century, expanding again in the twenty-first into a broader range of disciplines and subdisciplines (e.g., psychobiology, social and cultural anthropology, and behavioral economics; Caforio et al., 2018; chapter “Military Psychology”).

Research in military behavioral science has become highly multidisciplinary and research groups interdisciplinary to reflect the complexity of human behavior and the multiple perspectives required to understand it. As Kuemmel (2006) observed, the reasons for this interdisciplinarity stem from “the simple truth that the military is a highly complex social phenomenon in itself and one that cuts through various levels, touches different context and is thus subject to multiple processes of interpretation” (p. 417). Thus, researchers are still trained in specific disciplines, but at the practical level scholars and researchers in military behavioral science often collaborate with other disciplines on projects (Scott et al., 2018a, b).

Naturally, comparative approaches are also used to study topics and phenomena in the military behavioral science, including comparative studies of past and present military organizational structure, conflicts, and approaches to war as well as comparisons across modern militaries along a variety of dimensions (Scott et al., 2018b). Lessons learned through comparative study can lead to novel perspectives and insights and a more comprehensive understanding of phenomena of interest. Comparisons across contexts, nations, or other important dimensions can identify gaps in knowledge and point to new directions of inquiry. Comparative research goes hand-in-hand with collaborative research because it often involves sharing tools, methods, approaches, and research processes across disciplines and nations.

Who Conducts Military Behavioral Research and for Whom Is It Conducted?

Given the applied and consequential nature of this field, there is a range of individuals and organizations engaged in conducting military behavioral sciences research, ranging from stakeholder or defense-sponsored research conducted on behalf of military organizations/stakeholders to more independent research conducted by universities and other more independent players such as think tanks. Further, who conducts the research is related to what specific topics are studied in the first place, the research approaches used, as well as how the research is disseminated and applied, as will be elaborated in the sections below.

Research Directed and Sponsored by Defense Establishments

In the twentieth century, defense establishments (most notably the US Department of Defense, then the War Department) called on social scientists to provide empirical research for military decision making. One of the first large-scale applications came from American psychologists in World War I. The mass mobilization of American recruits required some means of matching soldiers from this diverse group to a wide range of roles and to do so quickly. A group of psychologists led by Robert Yerkes produced a series of intelligence tests modeled on those developed by Alfred Binet that could be efficiently administered to large numbers of recruits entering service (chapter “Military Psychology”). These tests allowed the US military to sort recruits into different roles.

Perhaps the most recognized government-sponsored behavioral science research during World War II is the work of Samuel Stouffer, who was hired by the US Department of Defense to implement field surveys of more than half a million soldiers in the United States and in combat theatres in Europe and the Pacific. These surveys focused on soldiers’ attitudes about the war across a wide range of domains, from racial integration to performance, and were based on the premise that a soldier’s attitudes are important predictors of behavior and, ultimately, of operational success (Scott et al., 2018b). World War II also saw the need for solutions to equipment and weapons, which led to the rise of a new scientific discipline called operations research. Operations research applies advanced analytical methods and techniques to assist in military decision making and has since continued to evolve and remains vital to military planning.

Defense establishments continue to commission military behavioral research across a broad range of capacities. Extensive research programs have evolved to provide scientific intelligence to manage what are often referred to as personnel resources. The US Army Research Institute (ARI, n.d.) for the Behavioral and Social Sciences’ mission, for example, is “to drive scientific innovation to enable the Army to acquire, develop, employ, and retain professional Soldiers and enhance personnel readiness.” ARI’s origins can be traced back to the inception of military psychology, with a meeting of experimental psychologists at Harvard University in 1917, who would go on to develop scientific tools for personnel selection, classification, and performance testing. This group grew into the Committee on Selection and Classification of Military Personnel, the predecessor of ARI, which was stood up at the start of World War II to advise on soldier selection and classification. Following World War II, ARI expanded its behavioral science research to training, human engineering, social psychology, and physiological psychology. At present, ARI develops measures, methods, and models to maximize personnel and unit readiness, develops theories and investigates new areas in behavioral and social sciences, and conducts scientific assessments that inform human resources policies (ARI, 2021).

In Canada, similar research is conducted by the Director General Military Personnel Research and Analysis (DGMPRA), which “provides an integrated personnel research program for the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, addressing both strategic and operational research needs” (Department of National Defence, 2021). The DGMPRA research program is organized into the following domains: personnel generation research (e.g., selection and assessment, recruitment, retention); personnel and family support research (i.e., conditions of service and work environment, diversity and gender integration, support to ill and injured members, military family research, military transition and veterans); and individual and organizational effectiveness (e.g., human dimensions of operations, unit morale and cohesion, leadership, culture, and ethics; Goldenberg, 2018). Like ARI, DGMPRA matured out of the foundations of precursor organizations, most recently the Directorate of Human Resources Research and Evaluation (DHRRE), which replaced the Personnel Research Team (PRT), which itself had replaced the Canadian Forces Personnel Applied Research Unit (CFPARU).

Moving to several European examples, the Bundeswehr Center for Military History and Social Sciences (ZMSBw) is a German military agency and research facility that conducts research on military history, military sociology, and security policy. The center employs a multidisciplinary group of researchers, including historians, political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, and others. As with ARI and DGMPRA, the ZMSBw evolved out of other organizations (i.e., the Military History Research Office and the Social Science Institute of the Federal Armed Forces; Bundeswehr, 2021). Similarly, the Defence Research Establishment (FFI) is the primary institution responsible for defense-related research in Norway, including research in behavioral sciences. As with the other examples, the FFI provides empirical research and recommendations to the Ministry of Defence and the Norwegian Armed Forces. Its research spans a broad range of domains, but there is a strong behavioral science component (Ministry of Defence – Norway, 2021).

Research that is directed or sponsored by military organizations is, above all, characterized by its applied nature. In other words, it must address the question of “So what?” As McFate et al. (2012) aptly noted, “The military, as a customer of social science knowledge, wants to apply whatever they learn to solve problems in a timely, practical manner. Knowledge that cannot be applied may be very interesting to a commander and his staff on a personal level, but is essentially useless in the context of the mission” (p. 102).

Research in Military Educational Institutions

In addition to these organizations managed and funded by national armed forces, most nations also conduct behavioral science research through the activities of their military educational institutions (e.g., Royal Korean Military Academy, Royal Military College of Canada, United States Military Academy at West Point, Finnish National Defence University, and Swedish Defence University). The primary objective of these colleges and universities is to provide professional military education, including the socialization of new members as well as academic leadership training and accreditation in higher education for military officers as they progress through the ranks. Staffed by military professors and civilian academics, these institutions also conduct military behavioral sciences research through their master’s and doctoral programs in sociology, psychology, and political science. Research produced by these institutions is often shared with their defense establishments and published in the scholarly literature.

Researchers in defense establishments and military academies also collaborate with their peers in allied countries. In 2008, a group of military academies formed the International Society of Military Sciences (ISMS) to “further research and academic education in military arts and sciences in the broadest sense” (International Society of Military Sciences, 2021). ISMS focused on the armed forces of small and medium-sized nations on the assumption that these institutions lacked the capacity to examine all topics of interest to them. Pooling resources and sharing information through this international network would enable broader coverage and enrich the study of all the militaries and their security challenges. Since its inception, ISMS has informed the development of research programs and enabled the type of international comparative research noted above (Bon & Feichtinger, 2020).

Scholarly Research in Civilian Universities

While defense establishments sought empirical insight for their decisions, the subject matter falling under the umbrella of military behavioral sciences has proved rich enough to draw the interest of civilian scholars and researchers. As discussed above, civilian scholarly and scientific research provided the expertise and established the legitimacy of the disciplines in military institutions (Scott et al., 2018a, b), and military behavioral sciences has evolved into a broad range of subdomains through the research of university scholars who are independent of their nations’ armed forces and defense establishments. Many universities have academic centers focused on war, security, defense studies (e.g., Defence Studies Department King’s College London; Centre for Security and Defence Studies , Carleton University, Ottawa; Center for Military Studies, Copenhagen University).

Think Tanks, Networks, and Others

In addition to university scholarship, a variety of national and international networks and think tanks have also proliferated. The most well-known might be the RAND Corporation, which is a large-scale international organization that aims to conduct empirical, non-partisan, and objective research and analysis across a range of important complex policy areas. Although RAND Corporation is not focused exclusively on military research, this is one of its core domains, as evinced by the standing up of several defense and security subdivisions (e.g., Homeland Security Operational Analysis Centre; RAND Army Research Division; RAND National Security Division), and has produced extensive research across the full spectrum of military behavioral sciences topics. Notably, RAND focuses on applied problems and on the provision of recommendations policy and action. Although RAND receives significant funding from sponsors and clients, it is also supported by philanthropic benefactors, and places strong emphasis on scientific objectivity as well as rigor by subjecting all of its publications and recommendations to a rigorous scientific review process (RAND Corporation, 2020, 2021).

A few other examples include the Centre for Defence and International Security Studies (CDiSS), a British defense and security think tank, the International Centre for Defence Studies (ICDS) based in Estonia, the Canadian Defence and Security Network (CDSN), the Philippines Defense Forces Forum, and the Centre for Security Studies (CSS) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although these organizations differ in a variety of ways, some common objectives include advancing the body of knowledge in defense and security studies; providing independent research recommendations to improve policy-making (i.e., without formal allegiances to the armed forces) by identifying and analyzing national security and defense challenges and proposing policy solutions; serving as conduits between various research groups and other stakeholders (e.g., between the academic community, the government, and defense and security industries) to improve cross-sector information sharing; organizing knowledge dissemination events such as conferences and seminars, as well as through scholarly and general publication and social media; supporting new generations of scholars; and informing the public on issues related to defense and security.

Many disciplinary organizations have also evolved subdivisions focused specifically on military issues, often to do with the military behavioral sciences. For example, the appetite for psychological contributions to the field of military behavior led the American Psychological Association to stand up the Division of Military Psychology (Division 19), which was one of the first formal American Psychological Association subdivisions and was stood up in 1945 following the significant contributions of military psychology in relation to World War II (Laurence & Matthews, 2012).

Does the “Who” and the “For Whom” Matter?

As is evident from the preceding discussion, variety of individuals, groups, and organizations engage in military behavioral science research. These include military officers and civilian personnel working for the armed forces, scholars and professors in civilian and military universities and other educational institutions, and researchers working in a range of public and private organizations. The organizations, systems, programs, and processes related to military personnel and the variety of contexts in which these operate within the military and in relation to the broader society is complex and multifaceted. DGMPRA researchers, for example, collaborate with researchers from other militaries, domestic public health agencies, public and private veterans’ agencies, private opinion research firms, and research centers in civilian universities. The variety of players and perspectives is necessitated by the scope of the military’s activities and its complex relationship with the rest of society.

An in-depth analysis of the different approaches or actors is beyond the scope of this chapter. But the different parties have general strengths and weakness by virtue of how they are positioned to contribute. The most notable distinction is between publicly funded (usually military-funded) social scientists and independent researchers, such as those at civilian universities and think tanks. On the one hand, the former work for the institutions they study – perhaps an immediate red-flag against the ideal of independent empirical inquiry (Redden, 2020). Clearly, researchers affiliated with the armed forces are less able to choose their research topics because they are generally required to focus on the topics that interest the armed forces. Moreover, the empirical insights gleaned from internal research are less widely shared and less likely to contribute to the overall knowledge base because they are mostly communicated through internal reports and briefings rather than published in peer-reviewed scientific literature. At the same time, this “client-responsive approach” is more likely to reach senior policy and decision makers and, all things being equal, is more likely to influence military strategy, policy, and practice.

Academic researchers, on the other hand, have greater autonomy with respect to their research focus, or, as Caforio et al. (2018) put it, they are able to conduct “research for the sake of research.” It is also generally supposed that those not working for the armed forces are freer to criticize the military. In contrast to internal researchers, moreover, academic research is more likely to be shared with the scientific community and to be published in peer-reviewed journals, thereby contributing to the knowledge base. At the same time, external research is generally peripheral for decision-makers and practitioners and is, therefore, less likely to be communicated to – let alone taken up – by decision-makers. External research is also more likely to involve theory, including analyses using particular theoretical lenses. Research sponsored by the armed forces, meanwhile, tends to be less theoretical, more pragmatic, and linked to specific military priorities and concerns, making it more likely to impact armed forces’ practices, programs, and policies.

Various approaches to closing this internal-external gap have been developed. The Minerva Research Initiative, stood up in 2008, builds connections between external social scientists and the US military. The program is funded by the Pentagon and US Air Force and Navy to advance the military’s understanding of key issues related to military and society (Redden, 2020). In Canada, the Innovation in Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program was established to foster “open innovation to provide creative thinkers with the structure and support to e encourage solutions.” Essentially, IDEaS curates scientific research and findings produced by academia and industry that are relevant to the Department of National Defence (Government of Canada, 2021).

Another consideration with respect to “the who and for whom” is related to access. Gaining access to military facilities and to military personnel is certainly much more readily facilitated by those working for the armed forces, or at the least, those whose research is supported and endorsed by the military. This is certainly the case in garrison or on the home front, but is even more consequential when considering research conducted in theatres of operation. For independent scholars, access to research in and on the military has been shown to be a dynamic process of negotiation, one which can have considerable implications for the development of the research in the first place (Navarro, 2013). Indeed, it has been argued that the extent of the researcher’s integration in the research context affects not only the feasibility and process of obtaining data but may also affect its analysis (Carreiras & Castro, 2013).

Networks and Organizations: Bridging the Divide

A number of networks and organizations have been established to provide a forum for collaboration and exchange in the military behavioral science domain, bridging the divides among the various subgroups discussed above. These formal and informal networks and organizations have also contributed to the increased multidisciplinarity and use of comparative approaches in military behavioral science research. Among the earliest was the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society (IUS) initiated in the United States by Morris Janowitz. Established in the 1950s as a grassroots network, the IUS has grown into a “forum for the interchange and assessment of research and scholarship in the social and behavioral sciences dealing with the military establishment and civil-military relations.” It is “based on the premise that research on military institutions is best conducted across university, organizational, disciplinary, theoretical, and national lines” (Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society, 2021). The IUS created the Armed Forces and Society journal, one of the most authoritative peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, and international journals focused on military establishments, civil-military relations, operations, security, and related topics (Sookermany et al., 2017).

In 1986, the European Research Group on Armed Forces and Society (ERGOMAS) was established. Many ERGOMAS members participated in IUS, but were dissatisfied with what they believed to be an unbalanced emphasis on the United States, overshadowing the key questions and concerns in other Western militaries (Scott et al., 2018a, b). Initially, ERGOMAS was organized into thematic working groups that focused on the questions and concerns about European militaries and, like the IUS, emphasized interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives. Over the years, ERGOMAS has become more international, with leadership and membership from every region around the globe (European Research Group on Military and Society, 2021).

A number of other international networks and organizations have been stood up to share information, tools, and methods, as well as to engage in comparative research and collaboration. Some of the most notable in the behavioral sciences domain include the Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution Research Committee, or RC01 (part of the International Sociological Association), which is rooted in sociology (Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution Research Committee, 2021), and the International Military Testing Association or IMTA (International Military Testing Association, 2021), which is rooted in psychology. The International Studies Association or ISA (International Studies Association, 2021) is not focused on the military specifically, but it is an important venue for political scientists and international relations scholars who study the military. There is significant overlap among the members across these organizations, though there are some informal distinctions. While the IUS is certainly international, for example, it is still more US-centric than the others and focuses more on political science and international relations. The IMTA, originally created to focus on personnel testing, now has a much broader scope and the “topics currently addressed, encompass most facets of behavioral sciences applied to the military. These include selection, classification, training, morale, mental health, leadership, family issues, security and military aspects of human resources, human factors and human effectiveness” (International Military Testing Association, 2021).

In addition to these international academic forums and organizations, armed forces-led and funded organizations also exist to enable cross-national research and information sharing in military behavioral science. Like their national counterparts, these international organizations generally respond to the priorities of the armed forces. NATO’s Science and Technology Organization’s (STO) Human Factors and Medicine (HFM) Panel, for example, supports international research on health, human protection, well-being, and human performance in operational environments. STO-HFM research focuses on the physical, physiological, psychological, and cognitive compatibility among military personnel, technological systems, missions, and environments (NATO Science and Technology Organization, 2021). Similarly, The Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP), a partnership among the Commonwealth nations of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand as well as the United States, supports personnel and psychology research through its Human Resources and Performance (HUM) group (TTCP, 2021). The research and technology collaborations under the European Defence Agency (EDA) also sponsor defense research through capability and technology (CapTech) groups. Human and behavioral research is conducted under the CapTech CBRN and Human Factors division (European Defence Agency, 2021). As noted by the TTCP, such partnerships enable “the sharing of ideas and the harmonisation of programs. This gives member nations the potential to extend their research and development (R&D) capabilities at minimal cost, to avoid duplication and to improve interoperability” (TTCP, 2021).

Concluding Thoughts and Future Directions

Military behavioral science research is first and foremost an applied discipline. Although there are core and perennial questions that confront military organizations in regard to the human behavior, the focus of military behavioral science is largely guided by what the military needs at a given time or in a given context. These needs evolve over time and in tandem with political, social, economic, and technological changes. Mastroianni’s (chapter “Military Psychology”) remark about military psychology applies to military behavioral sciences generally: “Military psychology is what military psychologists do, and what military psychologists do is determined by military needs. Military needs change in unpredictable ways. Military psychology, then, is nothing more than the institutionalized capability to apply specialized skills and knowledge to military problems” (this volume).

The need to understand human behavior in militaries has resulted in the rapid evolution of the topics studied, the disciplinary lenses applied, and the diversity of players involved. Interdisciplinary collaboration and international partnerships have become common. The trend toward complementarity and mutual reliance not only saves resources but also enables the exchange of insights and scientific methods and approaches. It is undeniable that this has narrowed the gap in getting evidence-based information to decision-makers across the armed forces. Still, research is not always used by leaders or practitioners in the best way. There is much room to advance the science-policy interface and to optimize approaches for communicating empirical findings to influence practice and policy. It has been suggested that all scientists be conscious of the research–policy connection when approaching and communicating their research (Goldenberg, 2019).

Militaries evolve with the world around them and the missions assigned them. Continued internationalization of the operational context, technological advancements, and growing national diversity are some of the aspects that compel the armed forces to adapt. In recent years, this has meant that most have become smaller but with more “permeable boundaries” with society, particularly regarding the increased diversity and the greater use of reservists and private military contractors. The changes driving the evolution of the military profession also place demands on military personnel, shaping their roles, needs, training, and perspectives. Further, these developments also affect military-civilian relations, which are highly consequential in areas such as recruitment, legitimacy, and nations’ monetary and nonmonetary support to operations (Caforio & Nuciari, 2018a, b). Military behavioral sciences are thus as relevant as they have ever been and will continue to evolve in concert with these developments.

Cross-References