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Career choices: exploring military migrants’ justifications for their enlistment in the British Armed Forces
PurposeUsing “on justification” theory, this article explores the rationality and justification of the West-African military migrants for joining the British Armed Forces.Design/methodology/approachWe utilise an interpretive qualitative research methodology in this study. We undertook semi-structured interviews with 42 military migrants who joined the British Armed Forces between 1998 and 2013.FindingsWe identify various factors that influenced the participants’ decision to join the British Armed Forces, such as individual aspirations, the need to find a “path” at a crossroad in life (e.g. a career dilemma or the loss of a parent), economic opportunities and institutional incentives. Military migrants’ career motivations are shaped by their deep affection for the Crown and their desire to give back to the country with which they share a colonial history.Practical implicationsThe UK’s Ministry of Defence, government and policymakers could gain valuable insights from this study. The findings could significantly shape their recruitment and retention policies, thereby enhancing the attractiveness of the military profession. This could be a crucial step in addressing the recruitment challenges and personnel deficit currently faced by the British Armed Forces.Originality/valueThis study provides a fresh perspective on the dynamics of the military service of foreign-born veterans. The article focuses on an underrepresented group (West-African military migrants) to enhance our understanding of their career motivations in the British Armed Forces. We identify and categorise the motivations and justifications for military migrants’ enlistment in the British Armed Forces according to seven justifications, each depicting a career pattern informing the participants’ motivations and justifications for their enlistment.
Journal Article
Israel the Unremarkable
The article seeks to correct for the exceptionalist tendency among scholars of Israeli politics and religion by offering quantitative and qualitative analyses of religious discrimination, regulation of religion and support of religion in Israel compared to other countries. We find that Israel’s religious policies are unremarkable. In some areas, Israel’s policies parallel those of other democracies. In other areas, they exceed or fall short of comparable democracies. Our quantitative analysis draws on the Religion and State (RAS) Dataset. Israel exhibits far less discrimination against minority religions than many non-democratic countries, but scores average among democracies. Israel engages in a moderate amount of regulation and support of its majority religion compared to other countries. It engages in more regulation and support of its majority religion than most democracies. We conclude with a case study contrasting Israel’s religious policies as manifested in the IDF with British religious politics towards its armed forces. The purpose of this comparison is to move discussions of religion, state, and society in Israel away from normative judgments and towards a dispassionate analysis of discernible cross-case similarities and differences.
Journal Article
Knowing the adversary
States are more likely to engage in risky and destabilizing actions such as military buildups and preemptive strikes if they believe their adversaries pose a tangible threat. Yet despite the crucial importance of this issue, we don't know enough about how states and their leaders draw inferences about their adversaries' long-term intentions.Knowing the Adversarydraws on a wealth of historical archival evidence to shed new light on how world leaders and intelligence organizations actually make these assessments.
Keren Yarhi-Milo examines three cases: Britain's assessments of Nazi Germany's intentions in the 1930s, America's assessments of the Soviet Union's intentions during the Carter administration, and the Reagan administration's assessments of Soviet intentions near the end of the Cold War. She advances a new theoretical framework-called selective attention-that emphasizes organizational dynamics, personal diplomatic interactions, and cognitive and affective factors. Yarhi-Milo finds that decision makers don't pay as much attention to those aspects of state behavior that major theories of international politics claim they do. Instead, they tend to determine the intentions of adversaries on the basis of preexisting beliefs, theories, and personal impressions. Yarhi-Milo also shows how intelligence organizations rely on very different indicators than decision makers, focusing more on changes in the military capabilities of adversaries.
Knowing the Adversaryprovides a clearer picture of the historical validity of existing theories, and broadens our understanding of the important role that diplomacy plays in international security.
eBook
Losing small wars : British military failure in the 9/11 Wars
This new edition of Frank Ledwidge's eye-opening analysis of British involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan unpicks the causes and enormous costs of military failure. Updated throughout, and with fresh chapters assessing and enumerating the overall military performance since 2011-including Libya, ISIS, and the Chilcot findings-Ledwidge shows how lessons continue to go unlearned.
Book
The Pleasure Culture of War in Independent Ireland, 1922–1945
Most studies of Irish recruitment to the British forces during the Second World War have identified a desire for adventure as one of the principal motives. While this motive has existed throughout history, this article argues that its prominence among Irish recruits was due to the image of war that was diffused in independent Ireland. The interwar market for children's literature and cinema was dominated by British boys' weeklies and war films, which portrayed British soldiers as glamorous heroes participating in wars that were exciting and just. For some Irish youths this influenced their perception of British military service.
Journal Article
Effecting Discrimination
In recent years, the British military has introduced a number of policies aimed at recruiting and sustaining demographically diverse armed forces. Central to these is a “zero-tolerance” approach to discrimination and harassment. However, by undertaking an “effective” reading of policies aimed at managing sexual orientation and gender diversity, and by drawing on qualitative research with members of the British forces, this article demonstrates how the military’s own implementation strategies facilitate discrimination against some recruits. It concludes that although the British military is understandably keen to protect its operational effectiveness, by clinging to unreflexive claims about the nature of social cohesion, and in failing to respond to societal demands for inclusion, military officials are undermining the social legitimacy of the armed forces. By extension, they are destabilizing, rather than protecting, their capabilities.
Journal Article