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.