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This Thesis Has Been Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for a Postgraduate Degree (E.G This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. ‘BE POLITE, BE PROFESSIONAL, BE PREPARED TO KILL’1: COUNTERINSURGENCY, MASCULINITY AND BRITISH MILITARY DOCTRINE Hilary Cornish Thesis Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Social and Political Science University of Edinburgh 2015 1 Lt. Col. John Nagl (2007) summarising the new counterinsurgency approach in a television interview with John Stewart on the US Daily Show. A similar formulation “Be polite, be professional and have a plan to kill everyone you meet” is attributed to Gen. James Mattis (Ricks 2007:313). It was used as a poster in a marine base in Ramadi, Iraq (Filkins 2006). i ii Candidate’s Declaration of Own Work I hereby declare that this thesis has been composed solely by me and the work is entirely my own. This work has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. _____________________ Hilary Cornish 15/05/15 This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/F011695/1] iii iv Counterinsurgency, Masculinity And British Military Doctrine ABSTRACT Contemporary counterinsurgency has been characterised by a shift from the ‘kill or capture’ of insurgents to prioritising winning over civilian populations. This focus on the population brings a particular skillset to the centre of military practice. Prioritising understanding culture, training, mentoring and relationships, practices previously associated with peacekeeping operations are conducted alongside combat. Feminist literature on peacekeeping has traced the relationship between entrenched hierarchies of gender and race in military institutions and abuses perpetrated by peacekeepers. This thesis contributes to that literature. It focuses on the British Armed Forces to analyse how identity is constructed in relation to contemporary counterinsurgency, in order to understand changing military roles and the potential impact on civilian populations. The thesis comprises a feminist discourse analysis of select British military doctrine. Doctrine draws together practice, teaching, and policy and offers a productive site to study institutional identity. The analysis shows how these non-combat practices are made sense of in relation to different configurations of masculinity, which don’t evoke combat or aggression. Nonetheless, they are constructed as masculine identities, hierarchical in organisation and constituting relations of power. I argue this recourse to masculinity enables the framing of non-combat practices as warfare and so valuable military activity. However, this framing simultaneously restrains the ways in which they can be understood. The thesis further highlights an ambiguity in the texts which argue both for widespread institutional adaption to the practices, and their limitation to a specific specialism and personnel. This ambiguity I argue is productive for an institution facing an uncertain future, leaving open possibilities for reform, or to revert to focussing on traditional understandings of core combat related military tasks. This thesis contributes to feminist debate about the possibility for military reform, and the capacity for Armed Forces to act as agents for peace. I argue that military reform is possible and occurring; the British Armed Forces are developing more sophisticated approaches to gender, human security and culture. However, whilst this is likely to have some benefit, the (re)establishment of gendered and raced hierarchies, limit the extent to which such reform offers meaningful change. v Counterinsurgency, Masculinity And British Military Doctrine CONTENTS Abstract .................................................................................................................................................. v Contents ............................................................................................................................................... vi Table of Figures ................................................................................................................................... ix List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................ x List of Doctrines & Referencing Note .............................................................................................. xii Acknowledgements............................................................................................................................ xiii Chapter 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 Counterinsurgency war and the new savage wars of peace ................................................................ 3 A feminist approach to make sense of irregular war? ........................................................................ 9 Structure of the thesis ....................................................................................................................... 12 Part I - Theoretical Framework and Methodology .......................................................................... 15 Chapter 2. Gender and War ............................................................................................................. 17 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 17 2.1 Defining gender and/in war ........................................................................................................ 18 2.2 British military norms, hegemony and the gendered institution ................................................. 24 2.3 Military agents for peace? .......................................................................................................... 29 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 33 Chapter 3. Doctrine and Discourse Analysis .................................................................................... 35 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 35 3.1 Doctrine ...................................................................................................................................... 35 Doctrine and the British Armed Forces ....................................................................................... 37 Doctrine, the military institution & identity ................................................................................ 38 Contemporary doctrine documents: organisation, form & structure ........................................... 40 3.2 Research Journey: From documents to fieldwork and back again ............................................. 46 Which doctrines? ......................................................................................................................... 48 3.3 Analytical Strategy ..................................................................................................................... 51 Selves and others, linkages and differentiation, the inside and out ............................................. 52 Space, ethics, and time ................................................................................................................ 54 Capturing practice & institutional identity: three questions ........................................................ 54 Intertextuality .............................................................................................................................. 56 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 57 Part II - The Doctrine ......................................................................................................................... 59 Chapter 4. British Defence Doctrine ................................................................................................. 63 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 63 4.1 British Defence Doctrine ............................................................................................................ 63 4.2 Purpose, practice, identity: the three questions .......................................................................... 67 vi Counterinsurgency, Masculinity And British Military Doctrine What do we do? .........................................................................................................................
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