Category Archives: Military and Society

Hard Reading

Book Reviews, Military and Society, WW2, , , ,

This year I had the opportunity to visit Bruly-de-Pesche in Belgium, close to the French border. In my time I have visited many battlefields and related sites, but this one felt different. Bruly-de-Pesche was where Hitler’s forward headquarters for the 1940 France campaign was situated and where he dictated the terms of the French surrender. Hitler spent some three weeks here, and the village has changed little since then – disconcertingly so. One can walk, recognisably so, in Hitler’s footsteps both in the village and in the woods. In the woods Organisation Todt landscaped a woodland walk for Hitler’s relaxation which still stands. To see pictures of a jocular Hitler with his staff there, or to quietly sit on a landscaped wall where quite likely Hitler sat, is to understand how banal evil is.

In the footsteps of evil: Hitler, Goering and staff at Bruly-de-Peche Church

Evil often only seems black and white in hindsight. We are all guilty of moral compromise, and we all like to think that we would not compromise in the important things. That there are red lines we would not cross. The truth is rather more prosaic. Our society is characterised by moral relativism and significant moral fissures over such issues as abortion, transgenderism and immigration. Moral relativism is inherently susceptible to manipulation and extant moral fissures can be exploited and compromise can lead to complicity. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. White turns grey and grey turns black gradually over time, and the urge to conform is strong.

This can all too clearly be seen in Christopher Browning’s excellent book ‘Ordinary Men‘, the story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland.

Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning

Browning’s work clearly shows how ordinary men can do unspeakable things.

“At Józefów a mere dozen men out of nearly 500 had responded instinctively to Major Trapp’s offer to step forward and excuse themselves from the impending mass murder.“

“As important as the lack of time for reflection was the pressure for conformity – the basic identification of men in uniform with their comrades and the strong urge not to separate themselves from the group by stepping out.” (page 71)

“The battalion had orders to kill Jews, but each individual did not. Yet 80 to 90 percent of the men proceeded to kill, though almost all of them – at least initially – were horrified and disgusted by what they were doing. To break ranks and step out, to adopt overtly nonconformist behaviour, was simply beyond most of the men. It was easier for them to shoot.” (page 184)

Photograph 47433, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Michael O'Hara
Men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 celebrate Christmas

Mostly Brown’s book is short on the details of the killing work. But for their work, and for others like them, there were witnesses and helpers, some willing and some ‘requisitioned’. Two of the most harrowing books that I have read on the Holocaust provide eyewitness accounts to these so called actions, in Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Belarus and Russia). These killings were carried out largely by shooting, and largely in public, absent the euphemisms of deportations and work camps. It is important to read these accounts because they lay bare the lie that few knew of the killings. It is also important to read these to realise how low ordinary people can stoop when violence is legitimised by both law and prevailing social standards. They are hard reading indeed.

The Holocaust by Bullets

“These peasants also spoke to me of the pits as if they were alive. How was I to understand what they meant? How was I to accept the witnesses’ repeated assertion that the pits “breathed” for three days afterward? I attributed it, without yet having explained it, to the deterioration process of the bodies. And then, on a different day in another village, someone who had been requisitioned as a child to dig that pit told us that a hand coming out of the ground had grabbed hold of his spade. I understood then that all the witnesses who had told us about the pits moving, accompanying their words by an up and down movement of their hand, had signified in fact that a pit took three days to quiet down because many of the victims had been buried alive. After understanding that, I accepted as the true meaning of these words: “The pit took three days to die…” “The well shouted for three days.” Some victims were only wounded or had even been thrown alive into the pits.” (page 65)

“Dora was a little girl who lived in Simferopol in Crimea. She was Krymchak. Dora died at the age of four and a half, assassinated.

Dora was taken off with two other members of her family. Those who had escaped the raid begged two neighbours to go to the extermination site to try and negotiate with the Germans for her not to be killed. When the neighbours arrived at “Kilometer Eleven,” they found that the Germans had put up a road block. Traffic was stopped during the shootings. Only the trucks willed with Jews were authorised to pass. On the other side of the barricade, they caught sight of little Dora. She was naked. In the icy cold, she was begging the Germans to give her back her coat: “Give me my jacket, I’ll give you my shoes in exchange!” But the Germans listened to no one’s requests. Dora was shot.” (pages 211-212)

In Broad Daylight

[From the deposition of soldier Josef F. soldier in the Wehrmacht who was invited to witness the events by an acquaintance in the SS to witness “the shooting of the Jews“]

“Then I noticed a very handsome couple with two small children. The husband and wife were very well dressed. You could see right away that they were fine people … This couple was in one of the groups that a Russian civilian was bringing toward the firing squad. The woman had a child of about one in her arms, and the couple was leading another child of three or four by the hand. Once they were facing the firing squad I saw the man ask for something. He had probably asked for permission to hold his family in his arms one last time, because I saw him embrace his wife and the child she was holding. But at the same time the shots were fired and everyone fell to the ground. I watched those people all the way to the firing squad because they were such a handsome couple and they had two children.“

“Most of the time, the children knocked over by their falling mothers sat on the ground or on their mothers’ bodies without really understanding what had just happened. I saw how they climbed on their mothers among the dead women. They looked around and definitely did not understand what was going on. I still have the image very clearly before my eyes: they looked up with their big eyes and scared expressions at the shooters. They were too terrified to cry. Twice I saw an SS go down in the ditch with a rifle and kill the children, who were sitting on the dead or on their own mothers, with a shot to the nape of the neck. As I’ve said, they weren’t crying, but looking around in shock . . . The children I saw struggling to move here and there ranged from babies to children of two or three years.“

“While I was watching the massacre, a young girl came up to me suddenly, grabbed my hand, and said: ‘Please, please, they have to let me live a little longer, I’m so young. My parents have already fallen. We don’t have any radio at the house, and we didn’t have newspapers either. The rich Jews left a long time ago with cars and planes. Why are they shooting the poor Jews? We have never insulted the Germans. Tell them that they have to leave me alive a little longer. I’m so young!’ The girl had her hands in front of her face , as though praying, and she was looking me straight in the eyes. From what I remember, she was still a schoolgirl or student. She spoke German fluently, without an accent. One of the shooters with an automatic pistol saw us and called out to me ‘Bring her!’ I answered that I would not do it. The girl, who had heard, begged me, terrified: ‘Please, please, don’t do it!’ Since I was making no move to bring the girl to the firing squad, I saw the SS coming toward me. He had his automatic pistol ready at his hip. At this point all I could think was: ‘Let’s hope that the girl doesn’t turn around, that she keeps looking me in the eye and that she does not see her killer approaching and have to face death.’ I kept comforting her over and over, even though I could see the shooter approaching her back. The girl was still begging me and surely didn’t hear the shooter coming. Once he right behind the girl, he pulled the trigger. He shot her behind the ears and she fell to the ground in front of me, without a sound. I think that she even fell on my feet. I will never in my life forget this image of the girl lying at my feet. Her right eye had been torn out. It was still held by the optic nerve and lay on the ground ten to fifteen centimetres from her head. The eye was still whole. The shot had just ripped it from her head. I can still that white glove today. Her head wound barely bled.” (pages 164-170)

Holocaust reading is hard. The necessary things in life often are. We would do well to do more hard reading, recognising that we too are ordinary men and women, with all that entails.

The Virtues of Virtue Signalling

Military and Society, ,
Tilting at windmills

The British Military is engaged in Virtue Signaling. That seems to come as a surprise to some; it shouldn’t. What would be surprising if an organisation that has, throughout its existence, engaged in virtue signalling decided to stop.

It started with this

The @BritishArmy sent a tweet, which as some tweets are wont to do, generated froth in the teacup. In itself the tweet was innocuous but clearly some took exception to this and there then followed what can only be termed a fairly robust exchange of views. So far so good.

This tweet and exchange of views generated some attention from British #MilTwitter which is where I, with customary Colonel Blimp tact and diplomacy dived in with two left feet.

with two left feet

I have to say that I was not expecting the volume of response that I received (I have a small but much appreciated band of 25 followers at going to press) but the type of response was everything that a dialectical junkie such as myself could have wished for.

Before we go any further, a definition is in order. It became very clear very quickly that ‘virtue signalling‘ meant different things to pretty much everyone. To me, virtue signalling is the “open signalling of values to show acceptance of and encouragement for said values“. Mine may not be the most widely held definition of the term, but you are reading (and thank you very much for doing so) the words of someone who possesses neither Facebook nor television – you can make of that what you will.

There’s a reason we send these messages. We are demonstrating our adherence to the values of the society we serve. This is important for a number of reasons, not least where it may be held in doubt. Plus, despite our core values, upheld by the vast majority, and despite the fact that we are the most meritocratic of organisations (at least in my experience), we still struggle to reach out to some of the communities we come from and serve – we can seem exclusionary. A targeted message to such a community and that exemplifies our core values makes sense.

My tweet spanned a number of points, the four main points being:

  • The original tweet had gained traction;
  • I agreed with the original tweet;
  • The British Army was virtue signalling;
  • Are we virtuous (or appropriately weighted) in our virtue signalling?

The first two points were largely glossed over entirely in the ensuing froth, not altogether unsurprising considering the medium. The latter two points generated considerable heat though. This is a good thing. It’s a good thing as it demonstrated people engaging positively and constructively in a public forum in support of core values. Mission command in practice or simply doing the right thing? Either way it’s a good thing.

Many took exception to my use of the phrase ‘virtue signalling’, impugning a pejorative slant to the term. Not my intent, but understandable enough. I still stand by my contention that the British Army is virtue signaling. We send these messages to demonstrate that we believe in and abide by our core values: Courage, Discipline, Respect for Others, Integrity, Loyalty and Selfless Commitment. In this case we were clearly signaling ‘Respect for Others’.

But we live in uneasy times. Our values are not necessarily all of society’s values, our beliefs as a society are not homogenous. There is a tension between diversity and tolerance and good order and discipline both within the military and within society. There is therefore a need to stake our ground and fight for it. The original tweet did just that, and as both @thepagey and @TheMaverickSgt pointed out, British MilTwitter rose to the occasion, although (and I am guilty of this myself), more supporting fires would always have been appreciated. To me the exchange exemplified what we should be allowing our soldiers to do on social media: engage robustly in line with clearly defined guidelines (in this case Army Values). yes it will get messy, yes sometimes there could be blowback – sounds a lot like combat. That is why I was so pleased that so many jumped on my tweet as it showed both a willingness to engage and a firm stance for core values.

My last point “will we see the same for the end of Lent next year” generated as much heat as ‘virtue signalling’, although not unfairly this time. I will admit that there was a degree of twitter fed dialectical devilry at work in using the phrase, but with a serious point. We live in unsettled times. Arguably we live in a post-religious and relativist society. The old certainties have gone and new challenges have arisen. Uncertainty is stressful, stress breeds fear and fear can be exploited. Our culture is neither homogenous nor settled, it is in fact contested ground. Our societal faultiness are stressed every single day with an aim to exploitation. It therefore seems to me that in our messaging reassurance is as important as assurance. Have we got the balance right in this – or am I tilting at windmills?

Of Twitter Brawls and Diversity

Military and Society, Military Reform,

There was a rather unseemly Twitter brawl towards the end of last week with regards to the issue of women in close combat. It was revealing both in what was said, what was unsaid and the manner of saying.

Now policy has been given to us, and the issue of women in close combat has been resolved in so far as all combat roles have been opened to women. I have reservations about this, not on the grounds that women could, but rather on the grounds as to whether women should. The debate that we have had has focused for the most part on the first part, and less so on the latter, with the exception that the military has made a good case as to why they need to make maximum use of all the nation’s human capital.

The assumption that has been made is that encouraging women into close combat roles is good for society as a whole. As any good strategist will tell you, assumptions need to recognised as assumptions (and not facts), and challenged. My reservations on the policy are based on a personal philosophy rooted in the philosophy of Aquinas, the concept of Natural Law and a believe that form reflects function. I do not challenge that women can, I merely have reservations about the assumption that because they can they should in the broader sociological sense.  My reservations do not challenge policy, but they do (I believe) allow me to bring a different perspective to the debate, and it is this very difference of perspective that the military values in seeking diversity.

From the military’s point of view what should be worrying about the debate last week (and I caveat this, with the fact that it was on Twitter, with all the limitations of that medium) is the tenor of the debate. We in the military pride ourselves on our diversity, because we recognise that there is a strength in diversity. That strength lies in harnessing the power of different perspectives to bring about a constructive dialectic. If we are unable to engage constructively in debate, then debates will simply not happen.

I have seen great strides recently in the intellectual formation of the military, and the army in particular. We should not be complacent about the work still to be done.

Fiction and Our Fractured Future

Book Reviews, Military and Society, , ,

 

Good science fiction is often a great window in the future. One of the best science fiction books I have recently read is Linda Nagata’s ‘The Red:First Light‘ which is set in the near future. The book concerns the exploits of a US ‘Linked Combat Squad’ and explores in part the fusion of exo-skeleton technology and advanced data communications on the battlefield.  This technology is already in development and is expected to be fielded in the near future; the book is worth reading from this aspect alone.

Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit
(Photo by Jen Judson/Defense News staff)

However what I found most interesting in the novel (the first of a trilogy) is its look at the impact on society of the diffusion of information through social media, and with increased reliance on Artificial Information, just how far we can rely on what we are told:

“People are dividing into smaller and smaller groups, while the number of widely shared memes – ideas or facts known to just about everyone in a large, related group, like the population of the US – is in steep decline…”

“It’s about perspective. It’s not that what we know is necessarily wrong or incomplete. It’s that what we know and what we believe to be apparent to everyone, isn’t.”

I have previously blogged about the impact of social media on societal cohesion and its attendant impact on military operations; ‘First Light’ illustrates this dynamic beautifully.  Also worth listening to are three podcasts from RAND on what they term “Truth Decay“. For those interested in the information environment in which we operate these are a must listen.

Lastly I have not done ‘First Red’ justice in this blog, it is an excellent read and I enjoyed it immensely – get the book!

 

Things Have Changed

Military and Society,

Twitter can be a marvelous thing.

A few weeks ago there was an excellent thread by Mr Leonardo Carella (@leonardocarella), an MPhil candidate at Oxford University, about the crisis of liberal democracy and the role of information technology (sic) as a major source of destabilization.  His thesis is:

  • The internet allows:
    • the organisation of political fringes
    • the fragmentation of the public sphere
    • the globalisation of nationalisms
    • the globalisation of grievances
  • Mainstream parties have lost control of the public agenda;
  • Fringe political interests can now be organised and co-opted in coalitions that were unthinkable in spatially determined cleavage politics;
  • The public sphere is increasingly global:
    • populist forces support and learn from each other
    • political debate is constantly targeted by foreign forces
  • Counter-narratives can develop their own evidence, facts and belief systems shielded from scrutiny
  • Traditional parties’ advantages – territorial presence, local elite networks, penetration of civil society “mezzo” (sic) structures have become undone, making them increasingly unable to act as gatekeepers between local and national level interests.

Mr Carellas then goes on to say that from his perspective, changes in the internet and social media are not ancillary to changes in politics, but fundamental to it; yet not enough is being done to understand the changes and address the issues.  I found Mr Carella’s thesis the most concise explanation of the issues facing us that I have seen for some time.

This changing political landscape holds challenges.  At the strategic level if we take a Clausewitzean view and regard war as the continuation of politics by other means, then the fact that the (national) public sphere has fragmented while issues and identities have globalized presents a significantly different operating environment.   If the Main Effort becomes remains national cohesion and will to fight, followed by coalition cohesion and will to fight, then we may have to focus more on crafting a positive narrative of what we fight for, rather than rely on focusing on a positive narrative of what we fight against.  If we look at the recent campaign against ISIL, crafting a narrative of what we are fighting against was much easier than crafting a narrative to support what we are fighting for.  This problem becomes more acute when we start to inhabit the gray zone of polite men bearing cats, or straightforward inter-state conflict where the issue is national interests and cannot clearly be portrayed in stark moral terms such as the fight against ISIS.

My takeaways from this are:

  • We need to be better at understanding our changing strategic information environment and its impacts on us.  Our politics are changing, our political contextualisation of operations has not necessarily kept pace.
  • As a state we need to be much better at Strategic Communications, recognising the nature of the threat we face.
  •  If we can identify opportunities to exploit (and there are many) in this new environment, we need to accept that our adversaries have already identified them and are exploiting them against us.
  • Twitter can be a marvelous thing!

Lastly, for a good view on the impact of the changing information environment on the use of force, I recommend “War in 140 Characters: How Social Media is Reshaping Conflict in the Twenty-First Century” by David Patrikarakos

The Future Shape of Security Concerns?

Internal Security & Policing, Military and Society, , ,

Venezuela street protests, 2017

Internal Security is somewhat of a modern day anathema to the British Army. When we operate under the guise of Military Aid to the Civil Powers it is generally thought of as being primarily with niche capabilities.

Falls Road, Belfast. 4th July 1970.

It has not always been so and popular memories are short. Few remember much about Operation Banner in Northern Ireland, except the glib view that we mostly learnt the wrong lessons and misapplied even these to Iraq and Afghanistan. Stretching further back, prior to the establishment of a professional police force, the military was heavily involved in supporting the Civil Powers in the maintenance of order.

Anti-capitalism protestors in France.

Much comment has been directed recently at the fragmentation of the public sphere. This is a trend which has been ongoing for some time, but which has been thrown into sharp relief by recent political events at home and overseas. One result of the fragmentation of the public sphere is that political polarisation and possibly extremism is not only more possible, but possibly likely, and with this comes the prospect of increasingly large scale public order issues and other threats to the public space. In any large scale breakdown of public order the issue of the appropriate use of military force becomes an issue, as it did in 2011.

Guarding the British way of life?

When I consider both this fragmentation of the public sphere and what could be perceived as the militarisation of the police, in the absence of of British paramilitary police force such as the French Gendarmerie and CRS, I wonder what is the British perspective of the role of the military in Internal Security? What is the British perspective on the role of police in Internal Security? In many parts of the world the primary role of the police forces is internal security, not policing (law enforcement) as we might recognise from a British or other Western model. As the military looks to become more engaged in upstream capacity building and defence engagement, understanding the British perspective and approach towards the military role in internal security, and towards internal security generally, is going to become more important.

It Happened Here

Military and Society, , ,

Francesca di Rimini and Paolo Malatesta Appraised by Dante and Virgil by Ary Scheffer, c. 1855 [Louvre, Paris]
It Happened Here

It Happened Here is a little known masterpiece of the British Cinema that looks at the aftermath of a German invasion of Britain in World War Two. Unsurprisingly we behave in much the same way as the Europeans did. Some support the Nazis, some fight them and most just want a quiet life. We are not that different from those around us.

In the United States there is a growing scandal over the posting online of sexually explicit materiel involving service members. I would be surprised if something of that sort has not happened in the UK as well; we are not that different from those around us.

The queenofthinair philosophy blog has an excellent post on the affair which looks at it from an ethical stance. Fundamentally I am in agreement with much of what she says, where I disagree (albeit tangentially) is where she states “The first suggestion is this is indicative of the state of the larger sexual culture in our society that we cannot expect our military members and veterans to be exempt from. I see this as a variation on Socrates’ argument about the lack of morals in the youth and the general moral decay of society; this is hardly a new argument. Sexual mores change yes. Does that explain this? It may be part of the picture, but it is not sufficient.” I would agree with her absolutely on this, but where I disagree is that to my mind without addressing the issue of pornography in society I fail to see how we can effectively deal with the issue of the treatment of women in the military.

Another US Military blog also covers this in some detail. Again this blog states “And while I agree that rape culture is a growing issue nation-wide, the problem with this argument is that it 1) somehow alleviates the military of responsibility for policing itself and 2) ignores the fundamental issue here: Marines see other Marines (or service members see other service members) as “not Marines”. In short, some Marine men do not think that women Marines are Marines.” There are some fundamental problems with his argument here. Firstly in no way does accepting that there is a wider issue in society absolve or alleviate the military from policing itself. Secondly there is a flawed assumption that on becoming Marines (or any servicemember) people become asexual, they don’t. One can be a Marine and a man, or a Marine and a woman, one does not become a Marine and neither. The implications of this are that militaries will continue to have to deal with sexual behaviour patterns and issues for the forseeable future. Where this blog absolutely nails it is that this is about “training your troops to treat each other with dignity and respect.”

My moral upbringing and education taught me that all pornography was morally wrong. Pornography objectifies the subject as a means (object) to an end (sexual gratification), it is inherently degrading. It does not matter whether the person is a willing participant in pornography or not, pornography reduces the subject to the role of an object, stripping them of their intrinsic dignity as a person in the process. Two generations ago this was the accepted moral majority position on pornography in Western society. Yet pornography now is largely regarded as amoral in Western society. Sexting is as acceptable as texting and in some quarters the argument is made that pornography is both empowering and progressive. If as a society we continue to condone pornography, then we have to accept that there are consequences of doing so (note, this is not the same as saying that we accept those consequences).

The military too objectifies people in the sense that we value our service personnel as a means to an end (military performance). We get round the degradation of an individual’s self-worth through objectification, by giving them inherent self-worth as a servicemember. We state that we will esteem all alike as members of the service community, recognising no other denominator save that you perform your duties effectively. This approach works well, and means that the military simply has to police those elements of behaviour which detract from military effectiveness.

In terms of behaviour the military has often maintained different standards from civilians, but the substantive difference has normally been one of standards, not of type. The military have largely been held to the same or higher standards of behaviour than their civilian counterparts, but not to different types of behaviour. The problem for the military will be if de facto standards in wider society continue to drift away from those required for the effective functioning of the military. If this happens then correcting such behaviour will take increasing amounts of institutional energy.

I think that we are beginning to see this already with the unfolding scandal in the US. The US military will now have to actively enforce a code of behaviour that the chain of command likely assumed was inherent within its people. This would have been a naive assumption, I know that my sexual ethics are not those of my junior soldiers. The situation is exacerbated by the nature of modern social media. The proliferation of social media forums means that different generations often inhabit parallel cyberspaces with little overlap; again to police this will require an active effort.

The solution is remarkably simple, but also remarkably difficult. One has to inculcate junior commanders with the necessary values and they need to know their troops and guide, mentor and police their behaviour. This is top down driven and bottom up implemented. The hardest part will be the first part, inculcating the necessary behaviours.

Three points to finish with:

1) Do not underestimate the severity of the crisis within the USMC. This scandal exposes a fundamental breach in core values and standards within a sizeable element of the Corps, and a similar gap between generations. The role played (or not) by junior leadership in this scandal is one that bears the most scrutiny, where were the squad and section commanders and what role did they play?

2) This scandal also presents a fundamental opportunity for the USMC to reform itself.

3) Without doubt there is similar behaviour within the British Armed Forces; It Happened Here.

Securing Reform in Baghdad

Iraq and Afghanistan, Military and Society, Uncategorized, ,

The aftermath of the Karrada bombing in Baghdad
The aftermath of the Karrada bombing in Baghdad

‘he is dead, whoever it is you are looking for is dead, if he hasn’t showed up this morning then just accept it‘

Every once in a while a post really hits home.

This post by Sajad Jiyad on the situation in Baghdad is just such one.

The Flames That Consumed Hope

It should be read in conjunction with this one:

Iraq at the Crossroads

I have spent years in Iraq working alongside the Iraqi Army or trying to reform the Iraqi Security Forces. Despite the popular perception we (the West) has not a bad track record in improving the combat effectiveness of our partnered militaries. Unfortunately our track record of reforming the systems within which they operate is appalling at best. If you cannot reform the system then any improvements to the institution are likely to be both unsupported and unsustainable. Turning out the best junior officers may give you a tactical edge in the short term, but unless you reform the middle and upper management they will still have to conform eventually to the very system that lead to failure in the first place.

The Karrada Bombing in Baghdad (pictured above) was a terrible tragedy that may well turn out to have had a strategic impact on the course of politics and the war in Iraq. It was enabled in part by a system that has corruption at its core and still retains use of the so called “magic wands” that were sold as bomb detectors, revealed as worthless and still remain in use. When a system is as corrupt and as ineffective as this, winning the fight is one thing, winning the war another entirely.

Baghdad 'magic wand' in use
Baghdad ‘magic wand’ in use

The Debate On Women In Combat

Military and Society, ,

When I think of the debate over women in close combat, and especially dismounted close combat roles, I am mindful of Chief Vitalstatistix: the sky is not going to fall on our heads simply because we introduce women into close combat roles. I am also mindful that introducing women into these roles is not going to have the effect of Getafix’s magic potion either. The truth is that there are both risks and opportunities inherent in this change, as there are with most changes. Much will depend on the degree of change and how it is managed.

I am however frustrated by the character of the debate on women in close combat roles. It seems to me that this debate has been largely ill-informed and marked by mutual fear and hostility; in this sense it bears remarkable similarities to the ongoing US presidential election contest. This is not altogether surprising because the nature of this debate, like political debate gripping the US at the moment, is primarily a sociological debate, albeit this one is clothed in the emperor’s new (and entirely inappropriate) clothes of military effectiveness.

In one sense Colonel Laurens is quite right “it is so bloody obvious that we should do it”. That is because war is a social construct and the way war is fought always reflects the societies that wage it. Our society has changed and the ways and means that we fight will (and should) change with it. To me therefore it is a non sequitur to place the argument for or against women in close combat within the context of military effectiveness against which it is currently playing out. A society wages war in a manner that reflects its values; it reaps the benefits and pays the costs accordingly.