27. Why Do Soldiers Fight?
As seen above, King Frederick Williams I had tried to breed super soldiers. Other armies and military establishments throughout history took a less ambitious route. Rather than try to get super-soldiers, they tried to get super performances out of otherwise normal soldiers. The super soldierly performances that were often most desired from the commanders’ perspective were physical courage and the willingness to face deadly peril without fear or flinching. So they did what they could to suppress their soldiers’ fear.
A lot of the time, that boiled down to the commanders getting their men real drunk on booze, or real high on narcotics in order to get them to fight courageously. Or at least get them to fight oblivious to the mortal perils around them. Those were among the prime methods to get men to fight since the dawn of history – a task that is simultaneously easy, and tricky. “Why do soldiers fight?” British military historian John Keegan answered that question with three factors: “inducement, coercion, and narcosis“.