There was an interesting study done on the Norwegian Naval Special Forces Command (Marinejegerne). Some years ago, there was a national plan to fold the branch in under central Special Forces Command in Norway (FSK) -- but there was some push-back from the Navy branch. In order to better quantify the cultural differences (if any) between them and other Norwegian Special Forces (eg: Army) -- they did the sensible thing: they reached out and got an external anthropologist (Tone Danielsen) to do a full anthropological study: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ffi.no&#x2F;no&#x2F;Rapporter&#x2F;12-00516.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ffi.no&#x2F;no&#x2F;Rapporter&#x2F;12-00516.pdf</a> (Summary in English in second paragraph).<p>Article about the study in English: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sciencenordic.com&#x2F;tough-special-forces-don’t-strut-their-stuff" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sciencenordic.com&#x2F;tough-special-forces-don’t-strut-th...</a><p>As for the sibling comment in this thread wrt: &quot;breaking down and building up tweens&quot; -- while the training to get into the Norwegian Special Forces training is though, and the subjects are often young -- I think there might be more of a cross-over in organization&#x2F;leadership&#x2F;group dynamics than what might appear on the surface.<p>There are a couple of things that are needed for military operations that are different from similar activities (eg: search and rescue) -- and parts of the military mind does go against what could be considered a sound human mind in today&#x27;s society. War is inherently about violence and murder. But even if we do not want our programmers to <i>actually</i> be assassins&#x2F;ninjas -- don&#x27;t want them to <i>actually</i> have a killer mindset -- much of military training is about changing one&#x27;s idea of what can be achieved by an individual and a team (to realize that one can indeed do the (previously) &quot;impossible&quot;. To not give up, and part of the intense drills are part of making someone an expert. In physical arts, intense drilling is required for technique to become &quot;good enough&quot; for expert level (this is also AFAIK true for dancing, for example).<p>One should also remember that as long as the organization in question is able to do meaningful self-reflection and improvement, training methods can change and result improve.