Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:48:18.551Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Necessary and surplus militarisation: Rethinking civil-military interactions and their consequences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2017

Marcus Schulzke
Marcus Schulzke*
Affiliation:
Lecturer, Department of Politics, University of York
*
*Correspondence to: Marcus Schulzke, Department of Politics, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD. Author’s email: marcus.schulzke@york.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent scholarship on militarisation suggests that Western democracies are threatened by military influence spreading into civilian domains. I contend that this research has identified problematic forms of militarisation, but that more careful attention should be given to different manifestations of this phenomenon. I borrow Herbert Marcuse’s distinction between necessary and surplus repression to show that militarisation can be excusable or excessive, depending on the context and its extent. Militarisation is potentially harmful and should be opposed when it is coercive or promotes militarism. By contrast, militarisation may be necessary if it is beneficial or ineliminable. A degree of militarisation may be desirable insofar as contact between civilians and soldiers promotes the spread of information, ensures that civilians have some influence on the military, and prevents members of the military from feeling detached and resentful. Some militarisation may also be indispensable for guarding against plausible threats or promoting social stability. Thus, militarisation should be treated as a process that has mixed costs and benefits depending on how it is enacted.

Keywords

MilitarisationMilitarismSecurityPopular CultureCivilians
Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of International Security , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 94 - 112
Copyright
© British International Studies Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Der Derian, James, Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network (New York: Routledge, 2009)Google Scholar; Salter, Mark B., ‘The geographical imaginations of video games: Diplomacy, Civilization, America’s Army and Grand Theft Auto IV ’, Geopolitics, 16:2 (2011), pp. 359–388 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Enloe, Cynthia, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Enloe, Cynthia, ‘The risks of scholarly militarization: a feminist analysis’, Perspectives on Politics, 8:4 (2010), pp. 1107–1111 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sjoberg, Laura and Via, Sandra, Gender, War, and Militarism: Feminist Perspectives (Wesport, CT: Praeger, 2010)Google Scholar; Sylvester, Christine, War as Experience: Contributions from International Relations and Feminist Analysis (New York: Routledge, 2013)Google Scholar.

3 Davies, Matt and Philpott, Simon, ‘Militarization and popular culture’, in Kostas Gouliamos and Christos Kassimeris (eds), The Marketing of War in the Age of Neo-Militarism (New York: Routledge, 2012), pp. 42–59 Google Scholar; Robinson, Nicholas and Schulzke, Marcus, ‘Visualising war? Towards a visual analysis of videogames and social media’, Perspectives on Politics, 14:4 (2016), pp. 995–1010 Google Scholar.

4 Orr, Jackie, ‘The militarization of inner space’, Critical Sociology, 30:2 (2004), pp. 451–481 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Giroux, Henry A., The University in Chains: Confronting the Military Industrial, Academic Complex (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2007)Google Scholar; Power, Marcus, ‘Digitized virtuosity: Video war games and post-9/11 cyber-deterrence’, Security Dialogue, 38:2 (2007), pp. 271–288 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Turse, Nick, The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008)Google Scholar; Stahl, Roger, ‘Why we “support the troops”: Rhetorical evolutions’, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 12:4 (2009), pp. 533–570 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beier, J. (ed.), The Militarization of Childhood: Thinking Beyond the Global South (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Kraska, Peter B. and Kappeler, Victor E., ‘Militarizing American police: the rise and normalization of paramilitary units’, Social Problems, 44:1 (1997), pp. 1–18 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kraska, Peter B., ‘Militarization and policing – its relevance to twenty-first century police’, Policing 1:4 (2007), pp. 501–513 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Balko, Radley, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013)Google Scholar.

6 Adelman, Madelaine, ‘The military, militarism, and the militarization of domestic violence’, Violence Against Women, 9:9 (2003), pp. 1118–1152 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Barker, David, Hurwitz, Jon, and Nelson, Traci L., ‘Of crusades and culture wars: “Messianic” militarism and political conflict in the United States’, The Journal of Politics, 70 (2008), pp. 307–322 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Kraska and Kappeler, ‘Militarizing American police’; Kraska, ‘Militarization and policing’; Balko, Rise of the Warrior Cop.

9 Slavoj Žižek, ‘The depraved heroes of 24 are the Himmlers of Hollywood’, The Guardian (10 January 2006), available at: {http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jan/10/usnews.comment}; Van Veeren, Elspeth, ‘Interrogating 24: Making sense of US counter-terrorism in the Global War on Terrorism’, New Political Science, 31:3 (2009), pp. 361–384 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Armitage, John, ‘Beyond Hypermodern militarized knowledge factories’, Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 27:3 (2005), pp. 219–391 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Turse, The Complex; Kershner, Seth and Harding, Scott, ‘Addressing the militarization of youth’, Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 26:2 (2014), pp. 250–257 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Friesen, Matthew C., ‘Framing symbols and space: Counterrecruitment and resistance to the U.S. Military in public education’, Sociological Forum, 1 (2014), pp. 75–97 Google Scholar.

11 Kershner and Harding, ‘Addressing the militarization of youth’.

12 Bos, Daniel, Jenkings, K. Neil, Williams, Alison, and Woodward, Rachel, ‘Geography, military geography, and critical military studies’, Critical Military Studies, 1:1 (2014), pp. 47–60 Google Scholar.

13 Enloe, Maneuvers, p. 3.

14 Ibid.

15 Lutz, Catherine, ‘Making war at home in the United States: Militarization and the current crisis’, American Anthropologist, 104:3 (2002), pp. 723–735 (p. 723)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Ibid., p. 725.

17 Giroux, The University in Chains; Robbins, Christopher G., Expelling Hope: The Assault on Youth and the Militarization of Schooling (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

18 Lagotte, Brian, ‘Turf wars: School administrators and military recruiting’, Educational Policy (2012), p. 15 Google Scholar.

19 Giroux, The University in Chains, p. 58.

20 Kershner and Harding, ‘Addressing the militarization of youth’, p. 250.

21 Available at: {http://www.forceswatch.net/}.

22 King, Samantha, ‘Offensive lines: Sport-state synergy in an era of perpetual war’, Cultural Studies <—> Critical Methodologies, 8:4 (2008), pp. 527–539 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Butterworth, Michael L. and Moskal, Stormi D., ‘American football, flags, and “fun”: the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl and the rhetorical production of militarism’, Communication, Culture & Critique, 2:4 (2009), pp. 411–433 (p. 429)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Butterworth, Michael L., ‘Militarism and memorializing at the Pro Football Hall of Fame’, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 9:3 (2012), pp. 241–258 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fischer, Mia, ‘Commemorating 911 NFL style, insights into America’s culture of militarism’, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 38:3 (2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Butterworth and Moskal, ‘American football, flags, and “fun”’, p. 429.

24 See, for example, Saul, Roger, ‘War games: School sports and the making of militarized masculinities’, in Nancy Taber (ed.), Gendered Militarism in Canada: Learning Conformity and Resistance (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2015), pp. 209–228 Google Scholar; Virchow, Fabian, ‘Sporting aces and the military’, in Rikke Schubart, Fabian Virchow, Debra White-Stanley, and Tanja Thomas (eds), War Isn’t Hell, It’s Entertainment: Essays on Visual Media and the Presentation of Conflict (London: McFarland, 2009), pp. 31–43 Google Scholar.

25 Halter, Ed, From Sun Tzu to XBox: War and Video Games (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Dyer-Witherford, Nick and De Peuter, Greig, Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

26 Boggs, Carl and Pollard, Tom, The Hollywood War Machine: U.S. Militarism and Popular Culture (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2006)Google Scholar; Boggs, Carl and Pollard, Tom, ‘The imperial warrior in Hollywood: Rambo and beyond’, New Political Science, 30:4 (2008), pp. 565–578 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Philpott, Simon, ‘Is anyone watching? War, cinema and bearing witness’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 23:2 (2010), pp. 325–348 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Dittmer, Jason, Popular Culture, Geopolitics, and Identity (Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), pp. 91–110 Google Scholar.

28 Ibid., p. 61.

29 Davies and Philpott, ‘Militarization and popular culture’.

30 Tynan, Jane, ‘Military chic: Fashioning civilian bodies for war’, in Kevin McSorley (ed.), War and the Body: Militarisation, Practice and Experience (London: Routledge, 2013), pp. 78–90 Google Scholar.

31 Gonzales, Roberto J., Militarizing Culture: Essays on the Warfare State Paperback (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2010)Google Scholar.

32 Ibid., p. 19.

33 Martin, Geoff and Steuter, Erin, Pop Culture Goes to War: Enlisting and Resisting Militarism in the War on Terror (Plymouth: Lexington, 2010), p. 12 Google Scholar.

34 Power, ‘Digitised virtuosity’, p. 278.

35 Thomson, Matthew, ‘From underdog to overmatch, computer games and military transformation’, Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture, 7:2 (2009), pp. 92–106 (p. 99)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Castonguay, James, ‘Conglomeration, new media, and the cultural production of the “War on Terror”’, Cinema Journal, 43:4 (2004), pp. 102–108 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Thee, Marek, ‘Militarism and militarization in contemporary international relations’, Security Dialogue, 8:4 (1977), pp. 296–309 (p. 296)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Adelman, Madelaine, ‘The military, militarism, and the militarization of domestic violence’, Violence Against Women, 9:9 (2003), pp. 1118–1152 (p. 1123)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Fischer, ‘Commemorating 911 NFL style’, pp. 8–9.

40 Ibid., p. 4.

41 Butterworth and Moskal, ‘American football, flags, and “fun”’, p. 419.

42 Stahl, Militainment, Inc.

43 Turse, The Complex, p. 18.

44 Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and its Discontents (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1962)Google Scholar.

45 Ibid., p. 44.

46 Marcuse, Herbert, One-Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Marcuse, Herbert, Eros and Civilization (Beacon Press: Boston, 1966)Google Scholar.

47 Marx, Karl, Capital (New York: Penguin Books, 1990)Google Scholar.

48 Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, p. 37.

49 Ibid., p. 36.

50 Chandler, David, ‘War without end(s): Grounding the discourse of “global war”’, Security Dialogue, 40:3 (2009), pp. 243–262 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Esch, Joanne, ‘Legitimizing the “War on Terror”: Political myth in official-level rhetoric’, Political Psychology, 31:3 (2010), pp. 357–391 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thomas Mitchell, William John, Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

51 Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, p. 88.

52 Scheips, Paul J., The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Disorders, 1945–1992 (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 2012)Google Scholar.

53 Marcuse, Eros and Civilization.

54 It is important to note that Marcuse has more to say about the psychoanalytic roots of the necessary/surplus repression distinction as well as how it fits into Marxist theory, but that I am deliberately omitting these details here to focus on how Marcuse’s work can best inform research on militarisation.

55 Marcuse, Herbert, An Essay on Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), pp. 7–9 Google Scholar.

56 Marek Thee, ‘Militarism and militarization in contemporary international relations’, p. 297.

57 Kellner, Douglas, Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), p. 170 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Brooks, Risa A., ‘Militaries and political activity in democracies’, in Don M. Snider and Suzanne C. Nielsen (eds), American Civil-Military Relations: The Soldier and the State in a New Era (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), pp. 213–238 (p. 225)Google Scholar.

59 Gibson, Christopher, ‘Enhancing national security and civilian control of the military: a Madisonian approach’, in Snider and Nielsen (eds), American Civil-Military Relations, pp. 239–263 Google Scholar.

60 Berinsky, Adam J., In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), p. 62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 David Margolick, ‘The night of the generals’, Vanity Fair (16 September 2013), available at: {http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/04/donald-rumsfeld-iraq-war}.

62 Cook, Martin L., The Moral Warrior: Ethics and Service in the U.S. Military (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004)Google Scholar; Case, Chris, Underwood, Bob, and Hannah, Sean T., ‘Owning our army ethic’, Military Review The Army Ethic (2010), pp. 3–10 Google Scholar.

63 Basham, Victoria, War, Identity and the Liberal State: Everyday Experiences of the Geopolitical in the Armed Forces (New York: Routledge, 2013)Google Scholar.

64 McInnes, Colin, ‘Spectator sport warfare’, Contemporary Security Policy, 20:3 (1999), pp. 142–165 (p. 143)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 Ibid., p. 144.

66 Ibid.,

67 Der Derian, James, ‘Virtuous war/virtual theory’, International Affairs, 76:4 (2000), pp. 771–788 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Der Derian, James, Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network (New York: Routledge, 2009)Google Scholar.

68 Feaver, Peter D. and Gelpi, Christopher, Choosing Your Battles: American Civil-Military Relations and the Use of Force (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Berinsky, In Time of War.

69 Burk, James, ‘The military’s presence in American society, 1950–2000’, in Peter Feaver and Richard H. Kohn (eds), Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001), pp. 247–274 (p. 262)Google Scholar.

70 Case, Underwood, and Hannah, ‘Owning our army ethic’, p. 6.

71 Kohn, Richard H., ‘Out of control: the crisis in civil-military relations’, The National Interest, 35 (1994), pp. 3–17 Google Scholar, 153; Nye, Joseph S., ‘Epilogue: the liberal tradition’, in Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (eds), Civil-Military Relations and Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 151–156 Google Scholar.

72 Huntington, Samuel P., The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959), p. 465 Google Scholar

73 Ibid., p. 466.

74 Lock-Pullan, Richard, US Intervention Policy and Army Innovation: From Vietnam to Iraq (New York: Routledge, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75 Edward N. Luttwak, ‘Toward post-heroic warfare’, Foreign Affairs, May/June (1995), available at: {https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/chechnya/1995-05-01/toward-post-heroic-warfare}.

76 Tom Bowman, ‘Gap grows between military, civilians on war’, National Public Radio (5 October 2011), available at: {http://www.npr.org/2011/10/05/141084358/gap-grows-between-military-civilians-on-war}.

77 James Fallows, ‘The tragedy of the American military’, The Atlantic (January 2015), {http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/}.

78 Kohn, Richard H., ‘The erosion of civilian control of the military in the United States today’, Naval War College Review, 55:3 (2002), pp. 8–59 (p. 29)Google Scholar.

79 Wool, Zoe H., ‘Critical military studies, queer theory, and the possibilities of critique: the case of suicide and family caregiving in the US military’, Critical Military Studies, 1:1 (2015), pp. 23–37 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

80 MacLeish, Kenneth T., Making War at Fort Hood: Life and Uncertainty in a Military Community (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

81 MacLeish, Kenneth T., ‘The ethnography of good machines’, Critical Military Studies, 1:1 (2015), pp. 11–22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 Kohn, ‘The erosion of civilian control of the military in the United States Today’, p. 27.

83 Nigel Aylwin-Foster, ‘Changing the army for counterinsurgency operations’, Military Review, November-December (2005), p. 10.

84 Bacevich, Andrew J., The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

85 Kennard, Matt, Irregular Army: How the US Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members, and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror (New York: Verso, 2012), p. 82 Google Scholar.

86 Power, ‘Digitized virtuosity’; Delwiche, Aaron, ‘From the Green Berets to America’s Army: Video games as a vehicle for political propaganda’, in Patrick J. Williams and Jonas Heide Smith (eds), The Players’ Realm: Studies on the Culture of Video Games and Gaming (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007)Google Scholar; Allen, Robertson, ‘The unreal enemy of America’s Army’, Games and Culture, 6:1 (2011), pp. 38–60 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Salter, ‘The geographical imaginations of video games’, pp. 359–88.

87 Weber, Cynthia, Imagining America at War: Morality, Politics and Film (New York: Routledge, 2006)Google Scholar; Dalby, Simon, ‘Warrior geopolitics: Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and The Kingdom Of Heaven’, Political Geography, 27:4 (2008), pp. 439–455 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kellner, Douglas, Cinema Wars: Hollywood Film and Politics in the Bush-Cheney Era (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88 Armitage, John, ‘Beyond hypermodern militarized knowledge factories’, Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 27:3 (2005), pp. 219–239 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harding, Scott and Kershner, Seth, ‘“Just say no”: Organizing against militarism in public schools’, Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, 38:2 (2011), pp. 79–109 Google Scholar; Friesen, Matthew C., ‘Framing symbols and space: Counterrecruitment and resistance to the U.S. military in public education’, Sociological Forum, 29:1 (2014), pp. 75–97 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

89 King, ‘Offensive lines’; Butterworth and Moskal, ‘American football, flags, and “fun”’; Butterworth, ‘Militarism and memorializing at the Pro Football Hall of Fame’; Fischer, ‘Commemorating 911 NFL style’.

90 Balko, Rise of the Warrior Cop.

91 Ibid., pp. 228–32.

92 Shirley Li, ‘The evolution of police militarization in Ferguson and beyond’, The Atlantic (15 August 2014), available at: {http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/08/the-evolution-of-police-militarization-in-ferguson-and-beyond/376107/}.

93 Klinker, Philip and Smith, Rogers M., The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), p. 233 Google Scholar; Knauer, Christine, Let Us Fight as Free Men: Black Soldiers and Civil Rights (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)Google Scholar.

94 Klinker and Smith, The Unsteady March, p. 64.

95 Ibid., p. 233.

96 Moskos, Charles C. and Sibley Butler, John, All That We Can Be: Black Leadership and Racial Integration the Army Way (New York: Basic Books, 1997), p. 2 Google Scholar.

97 Sarkesian, Sam C. and Connor, Robert E. Jr, The US Military Profession Into the 21st Century: War, Peace and Politics (New York: Routledge, 1999)Google Scholar; Hickes Lundquist, Jennifer, ‘Ethnic and gender satisfaction in the military: the effect of a meritocratic institution’, American Sociological Review, 73:3 (2008), pp. 477–496 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

98 Jacobson, Cardell K. and Heaton, Tim B., ‘Inter-group marriage and United States military service’, Journal of Political and Military Sociology, 31:1 (2003), pp. 1–22 Google Scholar.

99 Firestone, Juanita, ‘Occupational segregation: Comparing the civilian and military work force’, Armed Forces & Society, 19 (1992), pp. 363–381 Google Scholar.

100 Bashman, Victoria, ‘Effecting discrimination: Operational effectiveness and harassment in the British Armed Forces’, Armed Forces & Society, 35:4 (2008), pp. 728–744 Google Scholar; Ware, Von, Military Migrants: Fighting for YOUR Country (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101 Guess, Raymond, The Idea of a Critical Theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 35 Google Scholar; Kellner, Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism, p. 429.

102 Wolff, Robert Paul, ‘Marcuse’s theory of toleration’, Polity, 6:4 (1974), pp. 469–479 (pp. 474–5)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.