¶ … Canadian Forces, small group military relationships Within the Canadian Forces, how are small group military relationships on operational deployments in Kabul, Afghanistan?

A group is mostly defined to be two or more people interacting together so they can achieve a common specific goal. The main purpose of the group would be towards a shared and desired outcome. With this in mind, Military groupings are formed to achieve a common interest like defeating a common foe, or lobbying for a specific cause. The group will have some form of leadership structure to ensure it is not mistaken for a crowd. The leadership for military groups is formal. Military groups report to one leader, and follow the orders or instructions given by their leader. For the effectiveness of the military groups, the group members should work together. Working closely together, and for long periods, the group members will form certain bonds, and relationships with each other. These relationships are always geared towards the group's overall objective, and they are formed through trust and cooperation with each other.

The research proposal focuses on the small group military relationships for the Canadian Forces deployed in Kabul, Afghanistan. The research proposal, will attempt to provide theoretical support for the question been asked. It will provide explanations and methods of conducting the research. The research proposal will also identify the intentions of the research, and provide the methodologies to be used during the research. For the research topic, academic reasons will be provided for and against Suri & Clarke, 2009.

Methodologies that will be employed for data collection will be discussed in this research proposal. The research design will be analyzed in the research study. The research will investigate, present, and provide summarized facts about the research topic.

Purpose of the research

This research proposal will deal with this topic, within the Canadian Forces, how are small group military relationships on operational deployments in Kabul, Afghanistan? The armed forces for any country are closely guarded secrets, and finding information regarding their groupings is not available. One has to research the specific forces they wish to analyze. In the case for this research proposal, it is the Canadian Forces based in Kabul, Afghanistan. The research proposal will attempt to identify the various military groupings available for the Canadian Forces, how many service men and women are in the groupings, the structure of leadership, each group's role, how each group is made up, and the relationships found within the groups Morgan, 1996.

How relationships are developed within the various military groupings, will also be researched.

The purpose of conducting the research will be to gain more insight on the small group military relationships. These relationships will be related to how they are formed, how the members of a group interact with each other during official and unofficial timings, are the relationships long lasting or are they easily broken in case of quarrels. The research will also try to establish how each group handles disagreements amongst its members, and do the disagreements lead to lose of trust which would affect the groups' relationships.

The research will provide a better understanding of the military to people, their groupings, leadership and the kind of relationships that are found in the military groups. This information will provide the public with more insight and they will better appreciate their country's military. The military can also use the research findings to improve on their groupings, coming up with better groupings, managing the groupings and ensuring that the group members have cordial relationships with each other and other groups found in the military.

The best type of research for this kind of research would be observatory study. This is because the subjects are not controlled, or they are out of the investigators control Rosenbaum, 1992.

Military groups cannot be controlled by the investigator as they are complex units formed using a lot of red tape. Nobody would be willing to subject a country's service men and women to a controlled experimentation especially when they are in war. Using observation also ensures that the subjects are not interfered with, which leads to better results.

The other reason for choosing observatory study is because of the nature of the respondents to be studied. Since the subjects are participating in war, it would be very difficult to conduct a randomized experiment. The subjects been in their natural groupings would also afford the investigator better information, and more understanding as the investigator will get to see the subjects in their real world scenarios. Moving the subjects into a controlled experiment would not provide...

To see the relationships as they are taking place, observation is the only method that would accord the investigator this opportunity. Though, it is argued that the subjects may act differently once they are aware they are been observed or researched, this fact would not have much effect on the subjects been observed for the research.
The variables to be used for the research question are dependent, and independent Cox & Snell, 1974.

The independent variable will be the operational deployments, and the dependent variable will be the relationships.

Background of the research

The Canadian forces were deployed to Afghanistan in October 2001 secretly. The first contingent arrived in Afghanistan between January and February 2002. This was a contingent comprising of regular Canadian troops. August 2003 saw the Canadian forces moving to Kabul, and Canada became the commanding nation. The Canadian task force comprised of 1,900 soldiers, who were involved in providing assistance such as digging wells, and repairing of buildings. They were basically providing assistance to civilian infrastructure.

The soldiers were grouped in small groups, each assigned a specific task. It is the relationships that took place during these deployments, which form the basis for this research. Understanding small group dynamics and their organization will help in establishing how the group members relate to each other. Since the groups are small, all the members of the group will know each other, and they will understand other members. Each group member is responsible for the protection and general safety of other group members. That is how relationships and bonds are formed, but to be sure of this, the research suggested would be conducted Ormerod, 1998()

The variables to be used for the research are independent and dependent variables. There might be a need to consider extraneous variables that might affect the research outcome in some scenarios. Independent variables are variable which can be manipulated or varied by the researcher. These variables are the presumed cause. In other cases, the independent variable is considered to be the variable that has some logical effect on the dependent variable. This mostly occurs in nonexperimental research. The second variable to be used is dependent variable, which is the measured response. Dependent variables are the presumed effects of any research. A dependent variable is the result the investigator is interested with. Changes to the independent variable will have a ripple effect and cause changes to occur in the dependent variable status. There are some variables that can be both considered to be independent or dependent. This depends on if the variable occurred after or before a certain event.

The Canadian military police provide professional security, police, and operational support for the Canadian forces and worldwide. The military police are peace officers, according to the Canadian Criminal Code. The main role of the military police is to provide support services to the Canadian Forces contributing to their readiness, and effectiveness. The unit is headed by a commander, and it has the same rank structure as any military unit. Their main role in Afghanistan is to provide mentorship and training the Afghan Security Forces. Training the afghan Forces will ensure that they have the numbers required for the Afghanistan Army. The military police also provide training in technical and professional abilities.

Research methodology

The research design to be used when conducting the study is descriptive research. Observational study is the perfect design for the research, because the military groups may not be able to answer questionnaires because of their schedules Johnson & Tsiatis, 2004.

The military is highly guarded and secretive, by observing how they relate and work in groups the researcher will gain more information that they could have had they used any other method. Due to the spreading of the groupings in different parts of Kabul, Afghanistan it would not be possible to interview all the group members from the chosen sample size. Observation is both fast in data collection and one get to witness the subjects in their comfort zones which makes them more at ease. The data collected will be explained by the investigator in detail.

The research will use the philosophical position of interpretivism Tushnet, 1983.

This position relies on the assumption that general conditions should be considered so as to understand fully the phenomena. In this case, the phenomenon is small military group relationships.

Choosing the military groups randomly, and observing each group for one week as…