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that require skills in the hand-to-hand range of
This is accomplished by carefully choosing a trai- the fight. At its core, warfare is a fierce and des-
ning method that requires Soldiers to face their tructive interaction between humans; this truth
fears and overcome stressful situations. Like the remains unchanged despite the changing tech-
tribal chiefs in our example, we must realize that nology of war. The spirit of the Soldier to engage
developing warriors is not an academic exerci- and win this fight is most effectively trained in the
se; it requires Soldiers to overcome fear through hand-to-hand phase of combat because it is here
physical challenges to gain the confidence they that this violent interaction is most intense and
need to succeed on the modern battlefield. personal. 7
The purpose of a unit combatives program
is ultimately derived from our understanding of MACP Warrior Skill-Set Development
what it means to be a Soldier and a member of To better understand how the MACP deve-
a warrior profession. The U.S. Army’s mission is lops fighting skills, it is worth taking a moment to
to “fight and win our nation’s wars by providing discuss the motor learning process. Motor lear-
prompt, sustained land dominance across the full ning describes the process of how humans learn
range of military operations and spectrum of con- new physical skills. This process is broken down
flict in support of combatant commanders.” The into three stages: cognitive, associative, and auto-
6
phrase “sustained land dominance across the full nomous. The cognitive stage of learning descri-
8
range of military operations” describes a fighting bes how Soldiers intellectually learn what they
force that is capable of victory in any phase of are to do to accomplish the task. This stage re-
land combat. This spans the spectrum of conflict quires significant guidance, instruction, and fee-
from long-range precision fires to subterranean dback as Soldiers learn how to perform the tech-
warfare in dense urban terrain. Units that ignore nique correctly.
any of these phases of the fight are unprepared The second stage of motor learning is the
for the full range of military operations. Increa- associative stage. In this stage Soldiers unders-
singly there is a belief that technology will lead tand the movement but still must consciously
to a form of warfare that is more remote; while think about performance. There is less verbal
this is partly true, current conflicts have shown input, but this stage is characterized by constant
that the increasingly urban landscape will pla- adjustments, awkward movements, and slow
ce combatants in closely confined battlespaces task completion. During the associa-
tive stage, Soldiers are working to
string together the steps learned in
the cognitive stage and make them
smooth and fluid. This stage is where
the most time must be spent to mas-
ter a skill.
Finally, we come to the autono-
mous stage of motor learning. This
stage describes Soldiers who no
longer consciously think about the
skill; they merely react to a stimulus
and their body responds with little
processing required. Consider point
guards on a basketball team, when
A Soldier from the 4 Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25 Infantry Division demonstrates
th
th
grappling techniques at Joint Base Elmendorf- Richardson, Alaska on 6 February 2020. they are running up the court on a
Photo by Justin Connaher. fast break they do not have to give
