Social Science Research Council

"Be the best:" Military Recruiting and the Cultural Construction of Soldiering in Great Britain

By Melissa T. Brown

The main concern of this article is the social constructions of soldiering-ideas about what it means to be a soldier, who should be a soldier, and what soldiers do.(1) Cultural constructions of soldiering are tied up with ideas about what militaries are for, ideas about masculinity and femininity, and the ways that states represent themselves to domestic and international audiences. According to David H. J. Morgan,

the changes in the military and the changes in the gender order are mutually dependent. Changes in the military and the conduct of war have an effect on dominant images of embodied masculinities. Changes in the gender order, for example, in the widespread employment of women, in their turn have an effect on how the military is conceived and constructed. (1994, 179-180)

In different cultures and across time periods, soldiering has been closely associated with men and masculinity. Militaries have historically depended on female labor for a wide range of necessary support work, but with very few exceptions, men have been the combatants. In theory and in practice, war making has been the province of men, and a source of masculinity. In the industrialized West, women have been gaining new access to military roles, particularly in the past ten years, as a result of political pressure, legal challenges, and the needs of militaries to recruit more women to avoid "manpower" shortages. At the same time, Western militaries have become more involved in "operations other than war." Changes in military functions and activities and changing gender roles in militaries have called into question what it means to be a soldier threatening the historical bond between masculinity and soldiering. The masculine culture of some militaries has been under attack; the presence of women has forced many changes in military life, and new missions for the military may require new sets of skills. If the hyper-masculinity of militaries has been justified on the grounds that their real purpose is to train killers, then that same form of masculinity may not be necessary (and could be detrimental) to an army of peacekeepers. According to R.W. Connell, "violence on the largest possible scale is the purpose of the military; and no arena has been more important for the definition of hegemonic masculinity in European/American culture" (1995, 201). Changes in military culture and in cultural constructions of soldiering may alter dominant conceptions of masculinity or help to make new forms of masculinity the dominant social ideal.(2)

This paper examines patterns of recruitment to demonstrate how one particular military-that of Great Britain-is struggling with the social aspects of its post-Cold War transformation in the 21st century. I examine how recruitment materials create and deploy constructions of gender. Recruiting images build a positive image of the armed forces to the domestic society at large, legitimate service, provide reasons to serve, and produce general support for military service. Thus, recruitment is the "public face" of the military.

Feminist scholars have developed a large literature on women in the military (as well as women and the military), some of which examines the relationship between masculinity and soldiering (e.g., Elshtain 1987; Enloe 1983 and 1993; De Pauw 1998; Herbert 1998; Steihm 1989), and they have explored the impact of masculinity on the practice and study of international relations (e.g., Cohn 1987; Enloe 1989; Tickner 1992 and 2001; Zalewski and Parpart 1998). This paper builds on the existing literature by focusing on recruitment materials-aimed at whole societies, and changes in military masculinities, as well as the ways that armed forces appeal to both men and women.

British Military Recruiting

With the end of the Cold War, the British armed forces shrank from about 315,000 to about 215,000 soldiers. Over the course of the 1990s, however, the military found itself faced with a growing set of international commitments in Bosnia, Sierra Leone, and East Timor. In 1997, the Blair government began a Strategic Defence Review (SDR) to reassess Britain's military needs to ascertain how to reshape its forces to be more flexible and more easily deployed, and better suited to a non bi-polar world in which Britain faced no immediate threats to the homeland. The review allowed the military establishment to rethink and reassert Britain's role in the world. According to a commentator in the New Statesman:

The review will redefine British forces' role as an expression of Britain's allegedly newfound power and prestige. Rather like the Millennium Dome, though of course in a different way, their role will be to show foreigners (and the British) what an important and relevant nation Britain still is. Instead of sitting around waiting for the Russians, significant parts of the British military will be organized into 'expeditionary forces' ready to travel at short notice to 'make a difference' in any war zone or disaster area. (The humanitarian potential of this policy is one way in which ministers hope to sell it to the left. Already the backdrop pictures at MoD [Ministry of Defence] press conferences tend to show soldiers cradling black children rather than SA80 rifles.) (Gilligan 1998).

Britain could re-position itself as a force capable of engaging in peacekeeping, responding to crises, providing humanitarian aid, and flexibly intervening in world events.(3)

The SDR authorized the British Army to increase its forces, but by 1999 the Army was already 6,000 soldiers under strength. The year before, the Army had suffered net outflows averaging 100 people per month. In 1999, 35% of the Army was committed to operations. The understaffed military was overstretched, which exacerbated its retention problems (Ritchie 1999). By 2001, the Army, Navy, and Air Force (RAF) faced combined shortfalls of about 11,000 personnel.

The armed forces were not able to recruit enough people to hit their target levels. Recruiting problems were blamed on a variety of factors, including: a demographic trough, a strong economy with low unemployment, a "couch potato" culture, the perception that with the end of the Cold War, the military did not need recruits and/or was in decline. In the mid-1990s, the British press reported that their "couch potato" youth were not only less likely to be interested in the military, but were in fact unfit. The military found that record numbers of potential recruits could not pass the prerequisite medical and fitness tests. It also found that recruits needed to be treated more gently than earlier generations of soldiers, given more time in basic training to meet physical demands, and permitted to wear athletic shoes on marches until their soft feet become tough enough to run in army boots. The culprits included a culture in which young people watched TV and used computers instead of playing outside, rode in cars instead of walking, and schools that neglected physical education. The military found young people less "mentally robust" and required coddling as many of them were afraid of the dark or of staying outside overnight (Almond 1995).

The British media's focus on these issues revealed anxieties about the physical prowess of British youth, and young men in particular. In response to the problem, the military cultivated the idea that it was enabling and empowering young people and helping them to develop their potential. The reports on the "softness" of British recruits and the image problems of the British military provide an interesting contrast to media coverage of basic training and recruiting issues in the United States. The US shared many recruiting problems with the British, particularly the economic issues and the demographic trough. The US Army changed basic training to be more recruit-friendly, with programs to prevent weak recruits from washing out, and, like the British, all branches of the US armed forces initially provided recruits with running shoes (Moniz 2000). But while in Great Britain, poor recruiting and changes in basic training tend to be blamed on the "couch potato" culture and the weakness of British youth, in the US, recruiting problems and changes in boot camp are frequently blamed on the incursions of "political correctness" on military culture, and in particular on its perceived "feminization." (See Bonat 1999; Gutmann 2000; Mitchell 1998; Moore 1998; Smart 2000; Strother 1999.) In the UK, young men are feared to be too soft for the military; in the US, the military is considered by some to be too soft to attract real men.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has taken a number of measures over the past several years to increase recruitment. It launched a series of advertising campaigns, and stepped up efforts to recruit women and minority men. The MoD allowed soldiers to obtain National Vocational Qualifications, a credential recognized by civilian employers. In 2000, it launched the magazine Camouflage to improve its image among young teens, and in 2001 created the position of a "schools advisor" to raise the military's profile within schools. In efforts to present itself as a high-tech organization and to reach out to those with technical skills, the Army released a CD-ROM called "First Contact" with information on the British Army with eight computer games and created a "chat room" on its website (http://www.army.mod.uk/careers). The MoD encouraged applications from citizens of Commonwealth nations to join the British military. In an effort to be more in line with the realities of contemporary society, the Army stopped asking recruits whether they had ever experimented with drugs, and it relaxed its absolute ban on recruiting anyone with visible tattoos.(4) In a decision that met with some public derision (5), the Army looked for potential recruits in hostels for the homeless and set up a program to enlist young criminals who had been sentenced to prison for two years or less.

The British Army

The first major post-Cold War Army recruiting ad campaign went by the title "Let's Be Frank." The series showed two bored young men thinking about their friend, Frank, who joined the Army. The viewer sees Frank windsurfing, chatting with women, and skiing with a group of soldiers (while carrying an automatic weapon). These ads were, of course, less than "frank" about army life, and recruits arrived expecting fun in the sun (Lavery 1994).

The major campaign of the 1990s, created by the ad firm Saatchi and Saatchi, introduced the slogan still in use, "Be the Best." The "Be the Best" campaign was much grittier than the "Frank" ads, intended to give a more accurate picture of Army life. Over the seven-year campaign, the ads have put the viewer in a variety of challenging situations, though the ads have become less martial and more lighthearted over time. The first "Be the Best" ad debuted in 1994 and put the viewer in the soldier's position of facing a difficult situation, in order to communicate that the army presents "challenges that require not just physical courage but imagination, skill and intelligence" according to the advertising magazine Marketing. In one TV advertisement, a soldier is behind enemy lines and has to decide what to do, "but he keeps his head, pulls out his laptop and directs fire onto the target." According to Saatchi and Saatchi, "the commercial promoted two fundamental messages: that army life is high-tech, not just muscles and brawn, and that it used skills that can be applied to civilian life" (McLuhan 1998). But, the ad presented a man in a combat situation, confronted by danger and prevailing over it, which sent other messages about what it means to be a soldier.

In other dramatic ads, an officer must help a dying child in a destroyed foreign hospital with fifteen minutes of power supply left, and in another, helping a woman in a war-torn scene who is holding a baby. The viewer learns that the woman is a rape victim who has just seen her husband killed. The ad informs the viewer, "the last thing she wanted to see was another soldier." However, it is a female British soldier who comes to her aid. Marketing magazine interpreted this ad as an attempt to "[draw] attention to the growing equality of opportunity in a profession where 70% of jobs are open to women" (McLuhan 1998). Rather than showing equality of opportunity, this ad implies that in the post-Cold War era, women in the military may have special, new roles, ones that are specific to them as women and as caregivers and protectors of other women. In general, these ads use the Army's humanitarian missions and "operations other than war" as a selling point. They present this type of military work as important, exciting, and demanding but do not show combat or weapons. Officers and soldiers are decision-makers and professionals, making a difference in the world.

In 1997, the Army created a series of posters based specifically on its humanitarian work. The posters request, "body builders, body piercers and surrogate fathers." The accompanying pictures show the "body builders" delivering food, the "body piercers" giving inoculations to refugee girls, and the "surrogate fathers" taking care of young boys (Millward 1997). In 2000, they took on a humorous tone, showing the relationship between civilian life and army life. The ads feature nothing recognizably military-no weapons or uniforms. In one, a young man uses his military skills to sneak into his girlfriend's bedroom, at one point clinging to the ceiling in his boxer shorts to avoid detection by her father. The girlfriend helps him out with Army signaling techniques. In another, a group of teenagers build a car out of scraps, and in the third, a young woman uses her bra to repair a soccer goal post. These ads replaced the tagline from the earlier ads, "a job for life," with the motto; "if you've got what it takes, take it further" (Leonard 2000). With that change, the Army signaled that young people who join will move on, and that what recruits learn in the military will be useful to them elsewhere. Overall, the "Be the Best" campaign was successful. It won numerous advertising industry awards and it increased recruitment response 142 percent between 1994 and 2001 (Mills 2001). In and of itself, however, the campaign could not solve the military's recruiting and retention problems, particularly as the 1998 SDR had again raised recruitment targets.

Much of the Army's recruiting efforts in the last two years focused on economic issues, using a marketplace philosophy to sell service as a career opportunity. The recruiting page of the Royal Army's website (http://www.army.mod.uk/careers) proclaims at the top of the page, "As Britain's largest employer, the Army has over 15,000 vacancies annually for people of all ages, abilities and educational standards." The site asks potential recruits, "Do you want a career where you can earn £182 a week, in over 100 trades, with six weeks paid holiday and the opportunity to earn NVQ's and BTECs?" and to potential officers, "Are you a graduate, under graduate or of graduate calibre and looking for an exciting and challenging career?"

Through its advertising the army has presented itself (briefly) as a vacation fantasy, as a challenging, exciting, tough way to make a difference in the world, and as a good career opportunity and skill-builder. It has offered men several versions of masculinity: the soldier firing high-tech weapons, the professional who makes important decisions under tough conditions and saves lives, the caring surrogate father and provider of relief and protection, the bearer of marketable skills, and, of course, the guy who successfully gets into his girlfriend's bedroom. The Army also offers women the chance to be challenged, to make life-or-death decisions, to make a difference in the world, to learn skills, and it also seems to offer them a special new role in post-Cold War missions, as feminine protectors of female victims. This image contrasts sharply with that of the Marines.

The Royal Marines

Like the US Marines, the Royal Marines have cultivated a different image from the rest of the armed forces, one that is more overtly masculine and combat-oriented. One important difference is that unlike the US Marines, the Royal Marines do not recruit women at all-they are excluded from service.

In recent years, the Royal Marines' advertisements and website have projected an image of toughness and exclusivity. In 1997, the Marines launched the largest recruitment drive of that decade with a series of advertisements that showed a group of recruits training and developing, physically and mentally, into Marines. In one ad, a Marine recruit goes from sliding down a rope in a gym to rappelling off a cliff, and climbing down a sheer drop in combat gear. According to the voiceover, "To become a Royal Marines Commando, your basic training has to be longer and harder than for any other fighting force in the world" (Hall 1997). In January 2002, the Marines debuted another set of ads that showed the training process and followed a recruit as he struggled through a water tunnel on a training exercise. The ad said, "You've never known so much pain. Want to know more?" and presents the new slogan, "99.99 per cent need not apply" (Booth 2002). The Marines held public demonstrations, in Newcastle, to show off their prowess to potential recruits. In this staged demonstration, camouflaged Marines jumped out of a helicopter to save a "woman" (actually a male colleague) from a ship, which had been invaded by terrorists.

Marine recruitment strategies present a sharp contrast to those of the Army. They offer traditional warrior masculinity, by focusing on combat, exclusivity, and physical and mental strength and endurance, and virtually ignoring civilian job skills and career issues.

Equal Opportunities-Race/Ethnicity and Gender

Over the course of the past decade, the British military has tried to increase its recruitment of women and minority men.(6) They are doing so for a number of reasons, which include the general need to increase recruitment to meet personnel targets, the desire to project the image of a modern, equal-opportunity armed forces, and meeting the political demands that the military reflects the society it defends, as befits a democracy, and in response to the threat of legal challenges, in particular by the Commission on Racial Equality (CRE). These attempts have met limited success. The number of minority recruits has remained low, and the perception that the military is a racist institution persists within minority communities. In 2000, minorities made up 7% of the British population, but were less than 2% of the army's enlisted ranks and about 1% of the officer corps (Bruce and Settle 2001). In 1990, women made up around 5% of the army (Dandeker and Segal 1996). In 2001, women were 9.4% of officers and 8% of enlisted ranks ("British Armed Forces Recruit…" 2001).

In the early 1990s, the military's public image was tarnished by reports of bullying and abuse of black soldiers, some of whom went AWOL to escape the treatment (e.g., Muir and Hynes 1992). In 1997, the Office of Public Management released a damning report that found evidence of widespread racism in the armed forces. That same year, the MoD issued a new set of recruiting posters based on the famous World War I, "Your Country Needs You" poster, but featured Ghanian-born Captain Fedelix Datson or Warrant Officer Ashok Kumar Chauhan rather than Lord Kitchner. In 1998, the Army launched its first-ever ad aimed specifically at recruiting ethnic minority officers. All of the services initiated policies to accommodate ethnic minorities from a variety of religions. Sikhs were permitted to wear turbans instead of helmets, observant Jews could wear yarmulkes when not wearing other headgear; halal, vegetarian, and kosher meals were made available, Muslim women were allowed to take their Navy swimming tests with only women present, and women could to wear uniforms with long pants, instead of leg-bearing skirts, year-round.

During the post-Cold War period, women's military roles expanded and their numbers increased. These changes have not come without resistance from within the military and from some sectors of the public who fear that "political correctness" and equality will compromise the military's fighting abilities (Anderson 2000 and "Fairness and our Fighting Force" 1998). By 2000, 96% of RAF jobs were open to women.(7) In 1990, the Royal Navy opened warships to women. In 1995, the Army devised a new set of physical fitness tests for recruits. Unlike the previous tests, which were different for men and women, these new tests set up identical standards for each. The gender-neutral tests were presented as an equal opportunity measure (8), and were implemented at the same time that the Army promised to open new combat support jobs to women (Ministry of Defence, 1998b). To qualify for the new roles, women would have to meet the required physical standards, same as men. The expansion of women's military roles was propelled by the Labour government, which demanded that military leaders prove that women were unfit for certain roles, notably direct combat. The Labour government may try to force the military to go even further in allowing women to front-line positions. The Army conducted a series of tests that found that mixed-gender platoons performed as well as all-male platoons ("Tests Show Women Ready…" 2000).

In January 2000, the British government rescinded its ban on gays in the military after it lost a case in the European Court of Human Rights. The MoD's guidelines on gays in the military had claimed, "homosexual behavior can cause offense, polarize relationships, induce ill discipline and, as a consequence, damage morale and unit effectiveness" (quoted in Lyall 2001). One year after the ban was lifted, the MoD reported that, contrary to expectations, the new policy has not caused problems with morale or discipline. No incidents of harassment were reported (Lyall 2001).

Whether or not the British military is actually an enlightened, non-discriminatory, employer (9), it is certainly trying to project that image to potential recruits and to the larger public. It is committed, according to the Army's website, "to the continued development and use of Service policies, practices and procedures which respect and value every individual's unique contribution, irrespective of their gender, marital status, race, ethnic origin or religious belief, and without reference to social background or sexual orientation."

The Social Construction of Soldiering in Great Britain and Britain's Role in the World Over the course of the last ten years, the British military has repositioned itself to domestic and international audiences as a force that can "make a difference" in the world, a force that is internationally effective, and one that can take on the new challenges of the post-Cold War world. It is, however, misleading to speak of the British military monolithically, because various factions of British society, inside and outside of the military have been battling over how the British military should project itself in the world, both literally and symbolically-over what kinds of missions the military should be engaging in and preparing for, and whether the British soldier should be a traditional warrior or a humanitarian and a peacekeeper. They have been battling over whether or not the military is fundamentally different from the rest of society because of its ultimate military purposes, and thus has the right to serve its own needs without regard to equal rights and to create a culture, which may be exclusionary.

Some factions within the military believe that the infantry should be completely altered to focus on "operations other than war" (peacekeeping). That would mean giving up high-intensity war fighting as the primary mission of the military (Crampton 1998). Others in the military, including some of the highest-ranking officers, worry that the government's current emphasis on peacekeeping will damage the military's long term fighting abilities. General Sir Charles Guthrie, Chief of the Defence Staff, believes that the British military is over-committed to peacekeeping and relief missions, and wants British politicians to scale back commitments so that the armed forces can do more battlefield training. Sir Charles disparaged humanitarian missions by saying "Being a force for good does not just mean cuddling orphans and giving aspirins and cups of tea to old ladies. It also entails producing a highly effective, well-equipped and trained fighting force" (Lea and Spanton 2000). His use of language is telling. With the phrases like "cuddling orphans," "giving…cups of tea," and "old ladies" he genders peacekeeping and humanitarian work, casting it in distinctly feminine terms. Sir Charles, one could infer, believes that the military and its missions and training should be more masculine to be a truly effective force in the world.

While Sir Charles presents "operations other than war" as social work, a columnist for The Independent presents the post-Cold War missions as tough and dangerous, "the savage wars of peace." To deal effectively with "the globalization of potential threats," the armed forces must keep women away from the front lines and depend on traditional, tough military training methods. He writes that the men who fight the "wars of peace:"

For the most part…will be the same sort of young men who have always been drawn to the colours. They will not have been inspired by the noble prose of the Geneva Convention, nor will they see themselves as The Save the Children Fund in uniform (though they may well spend much of their service in saving children and upholding the Geneva Convention). But they will be hard young men who want to prove themselves in a tough masculine environment. (Anderson 2000)

Some Generals prioritize training for high-intensity war over peacekeeping, and other military-watchers would recast peacekeeping as combat to re-masculinize the armed forces, but the British government and the Ministry of Defence are shaping a new public image for the military. Major General Christopher Elliot, Director General of the Army's Training and Recruiting Agency, outlines the new ideal in an MoD press release: The British soldier of the future is a global citizen; highly trained, motivated and socially responsible, and is drawn from all elements of our society. Equal opportunities, education and training are now the watchwords of the modern British Army, and our soldiers represent one of the best-qualified and trained work forces in the country. (Ministry of Defence 1998a)

The image of service created through recruiting materials, at least for the Army, is built on inclusiveness, professionalism, the challenge to do good in the world, all while gaining valuable skills. Peacekeeping and relief missions are used to attract recruits, and the military presents itself as a nurturing, enabling employer which will develop their potential, even if they are not the traditional military mold of the straight, white, Anglo male. While appealing to women with equal opportunity rhetoric, the British Army constructs a set of masculine roles that is not overtly martial but parallels its developing post-Cold War image. Within the British military, masculinity based on professionalism and mastery of technology may be the new dominant form of masculinity (10), while more traditional warrior masculinity, more physical and combat-oriented, retains a special place in all-male combat units.

__________

Notes:

1. I use this term in a generic sense to apply to the activities performed by members of all of the service branches, to sailors, marines, and airmen as well as army soldiers.

2. R.W. Connell's ideas that in any given social order there are multiple masculinities, not a single idea of masculinity, that some forms of masculinity will have social dominance over others, and that the form of masculinity which inhabits the hegemonic position is not a fixed type but is contestable and can change.

3. This positioning may be mainly symbolic. As Gilligan notes, "New ministers are also grappling with the fact that even expanded expeditionary forces will be able to do almost nothing (apart, perhaps, from humanitarian relief) on their own. As a pocket superpower, the pocket capabilities we can bring to bear are often very, very small. Just as the Millenium Dome needs help from the Japanese, the British forces' role in any future conflict will be as an adjunct to the USA" (Gilligan, 1998). There are also those within the British military establishment and society who, as will be discussed, reject this positioning and argue for a returned focus on training for traditional war fighting.

4. The policy change was prompted by recruiters' realization that a growing number of women were being rejected solely because of small tattoos, generally of birds, between their thumb and forefinger.

5. German Defence Minister Rudolf Scharping angered the British government when he said, in defense of Germany's conscript army, "Everyone will ask themselves whether we should oblige ourselves to repeat the bad experiences suffered by other countries with professional armies. Should we do the same as Britain and give criminals the option to serve in the army rather than go to prison?" (Gilfeather 2000).

6. The MoD generally discusses its appeals to the two separate groups "women" and "minorities" without explaining how minority women fit into this scheme.

7. Women were still barred from the RAF Regiment, a combat unit whose unofficial motto is "To kill the enemy."

8. The changes were not just to accommodate women or open up new roles to them, but also to help the men. The new tests were a way to deal with the high numbers of "couch potato" unfit (male) recruits who were failing the fitness tests (Butcher 1995a).

9. Since 2000, the Armed Forces have been fighting a government proposal to allow disabled people to join the services in non-combat roles (Deans 2000).

10. Whether this professional, technologized masculinity is accessible to women or somehow gives more space to women to become a part of military cultures is another question.



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Melissa T. Brown is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Rutgers University. Her research interests include the relationship between militaries and gender identity and state identity formation.