Are British soldiers mercenaries?
June 16, 2009
The paper by Hew Strachan I mentioned last time makes another intriguing point:
The British armed forces are composed of volunteers who have enlisted because soldiering is their chosen career: in this sense (rather than in any pejorative sense) they are mercenaries. Britain has no tradition that men serve in the armed forces out of civic obligation, partly because it escaped the Rousseauist legacy of the French Revolution but principally because home defence has not been a prime requirement of strategy.
I think that on this point, Professor Strachan draws the contrast between the military and civilian society too starkly. Civic obligation might not require that most British men serve, but nonetheless, I am sure that a great many of those who do are motivated by an idea of Britain and of its values, as well as by the desire to pursue their vocation in the military profession.
There is, however, a bigger point here about civil-military relations, and the separateness of the military from wider society – and on this I’m in complete agreement with Strachan. The military is necessarily different from the rest of liberal, postmodern British society, not least because – as I’ve written - its members must have a different view on killing and being killed than do many of us civilians.
More broadly, the armed forces have a moral ethos that is radically different from societal liberalism that emphasises the individual’s worth. As Strachan writes:
The armed forces believe that they cleave to higher moral standards than civil society; that they elevate the collective good over individual needs; and that they do both for excellent reasons. Why, they ask, should they be required to forfeit such qualities? And, if they do, is there not a danger that they will fail in the next war? [...] The underlying tension in civil-military relations resides in the fact that civil society is predicated on an expectation of peace, whereas military society anticipates war.
This is convincing – the values of the British army have been tested in battle. I would though, add two important caveats: first, civil society does not always fit the neat liberal label I’ve given it. I suspect that old fashioned notions of patriotism, sacrifice and the greater good are still held by a great many civilians too. After all, many soldiers serve only a few years before returning to civilian society themselves. And second, soldiers may cede some of their rights as individuals while still holding to the importance of those values for wider society.
The article, well worth a read if you’ve got access, was written in 2003. Since then there has been much fretting within the armed forces about their relationship with wider society – what’s called the military covenant. One unpopular war in Iraq, and a troubled one in Afghanistan have exacerbated these concerns. But as public trust in other institutions crumbles, the military convenant seemingly remains strong.
Liberals like me seem to recognise that protecting our values sometimes requires the employment of people who voluntarily opt out of our ethical code. In that sense, Strachan’s point about mercenaries makes sense, provided the term is understood non-pejoratively, as he suggests. As a society, we have contracted out our defence to a group of people who espouse different values.
