Lilienfeld et al.(2011), defines learning as “a change in an organism’s behaviour or thought as a result of experience” (p. 261).
Classical conditioning is “learning in which the conditioned stimulus is paired with and precedes the unconditioned stimulus until the conditioned stimulus alone is sufficient to elicit the response” (Spielberger, 2004, p. 655). When I joined the Israeli Army in 1999, after fishing high school in Israel, classical conditioning was a key strategy to train everyday students to become Israeli soldiers. During the recruit training our commander screamed at us and scrutinised our behaviour, to set an environment of discipline and obedience. The screaming and yelling of orders triggered the fear reflexes, which led to a change in mindset from being a freewill teenager to an obedient soldier. Screaming is the unconditioned stimulus (US), which led to the unconditioned response (UR) reflex of fear. The unconditioned reflex of fear evolved to the conditioned response (CR) of obedience.
Commander’s green uniform and shoulder marks served as natural stimulus (NS) that later became conditioned stimulus (CS), which once seen by the recruits triggered a response of obedience, whether or not the commander was shouting. Natural stimuli of commanders green uniform repeatedly paired with screaming and yelling is the US which later became CS that naturally elicit a response of fear and obedience of UR that evolved to CR.

Stimulus generalization (SG) occurred to obey and comply any commander when seen wearing similar green uniform and shoulder marks, as opposed to stimulus discrimination (SD) where when seen commander’s uniform other than green, the fear response was not activated. For example when a blue uniform was seen the response of fear and obedience was not activated, the recruits made a distinction between the two different types of uniforms and responded appropriately. This example of discrimination shows how we learn involuntary reflexive responses to stimuli that would not ordinarily trigger that response.
This kind of learning where recruit’s behaviour is scrutinised and yelled at to change lifelong habits, to learn new skills in a short period of time, makes the difference between success and failure. Classical conditioning was combined as a learning technique. When a recruit disobeyed a command they were punished. Therefore there was a clear statement of cause and effect also known as the law of effect. Recruits quickly learned that their behaviour of obedience and disobedience will lead to consequences of punishment or praise. Screaming and scrutinising served as negative reinforcement and stopped once the commander noticed that the recruit is following his instructions. Behaviour modification of positive reinforcement was used to praise recruits on a job well done, and thus reinforced the frequency of soldiers obeying instructions and a decrease of undesirable behaviour of disobedience.
Learning can take more than one form and from my personal experience both operant and classical conditioning play an imperative role in learning. Both styles need to be incorporated for successful implementation of learning new skills and adaptation to new environments.

References

Scott O. Lilienfeld, S. J. (2011). Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding. NSW: Pearson.
Spielberger, C. (2004). Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology . University of South Florida: Elsevier Academic Press.