Unfortunately this article suffers from the modern tendency of reducing eros to sexuality. The wider meaning of eros as a type of love always connoted a union; yes, like sexual partners, but also like a group of soldiers fighting together, a jazz band jamming together etc.
In fact, eros is heavily required today in team sports; when a team of volleyball players are in flow, the usual boundaries between different players are no longer salient, they have to act in so tight synchrony, they have to have such accurate models of each other's participation that, mentally they are lost in each other, they act as one, they are one. This is closer to the meaning of an erotic army that Phaedrus is talking about than a bunch of warriors that just had sex with each other.
I wish you explained which one of the 5000 propositions in that article was in disagreement with my opinion in your opinion instead of throwing the whole article out there.
For the most part, large, successful armies have been accompanied by women serving as prostitutes. There will always be a small community of men, perhaps like the 254 skeletons mentioned in this article, who prefer sex with other men; but there is not a hidden policy solution in that.
down the wikipedia rabbit hole stumbled upon this story of the killing of the Alexander the Great's father, king Philip. Pretty impressive illustration how bringing in personal erotic relationships can complicate things:
"Pausanias of Orestis, feeling spurned, insulted his romantic rival Pausanias, Attalus's lover, in public. To secure his public honor, Pausanias, the beloved of Attalus, endangered himself in battle while protecting the king. Devastated by his lover's effective suicide, Attalus sought to punish Pausanias of Orestis by getting him drunk and raping him. For any number of reasons, Philip did not punish Attalus for the rape of Philip's former lover; probably as a consolation, Pausanias of Orestis was promoted to the rank of somatophylax.[1]
It has been supposed then that Pausanias' motive for killing Philip was at least in part due to personal anger over Philip, who was the host of the party where Pausanias was raped, not having intervened in any way, nor even having reprimanded Attalus."
In fact, eros is heavily required today in team sports; when a team of volleyball players are in flow, the usual boundaries between different players are no longer salient, they have to act in so tight synchrony, they have to have such accurate models of each other's participation that, mentally they are lost in each other, they act as one, they are one. This is closer to the meaning of an erotic army that Phaedrus is talking about than a bunch of warriors that just had sex with each other.