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In
Support the Troops, Katharine M. Millar provides an empirical overview of "support the troops" discourses in the US and UK during the early years of the global war on terror (2001-2010). As Millar argues, seemingly stable understandings of the relationship between military service, citizenship, and gender norms are being unsettled by changes in warfare. Millar asserts that military support acts as a new form of military service, which serves to limit anti-war dissent, plays a crucial role in naturalizing the violence of the transnational liberal order, and recasts war as an internal issue of solidarity and loyalty. This is the first work to systematically examine "support the troops" as a distinct social phenomenon, offering a novel reading of this discourse through a gendered lens that places it in historical and transnational context.
List of contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Preface
- Chapter One: Introduction
- Chapter Two: The Military, Gender, and Liberal Political Obligation
- Chapter Three: Supporting the Troops in Historical Context
- Chapter Four: Contemporary "Support the Troops" Discourse and Practice
- Chapter Five: The Politics of "The Troops"
- Chapter Six: The Meaning(s) of Support
- Chapter Seven: Support and the Making of Political Community
- Chapter Eight: The Meaning of Support for War Opposition
- Conclusion
- Appendix One
- Appendix Two
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Katharine M. Millar is an Assistant Professor of International Relations and a member of the Centre for Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics. She has participated in consultation processes regarding the UN Women, Peace and Security Agenda for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the US Marshall Center, the NATO Defense College, and the NATO Defence Education Enhancement Project (DEEP). She also works on policy engagement on gender and cybersecurity with institutions such as the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, Women in International Security, and Chatham House.
Summary
In the past, it was assumed that men, as good citizens, would serve in the armed forces in wartime. In the present, however, liberal democratic states increasingly rely on small, all-volunteer militaries deployed in distant wars of choice. While few people now serve in the armed forces, our cultural myths and narratives of warfare continue to reproduce a strong connection between military service, citizenship, and normative masculinity.
In Support the Troops, Katharine M. Millar provides an empirical overview of "support the troops" discourses in the US and UK during the early years of the global war on terror (2001-2010). As Millar argues, seemingly stable understandings of the relationship between military service, citizenship, and gender norms are being unsettled by changes in warfare. The effect is a sense of uneasiness about the meaning of what it means to be a "good" citizen, "good" person, and, crucially, a "good" man in a context where neither war nor military service easily align with existing cultural myths about wartime obligations and collective sacrifice. Instead we participate in the performance of supporting the troops, even when we oppose war--an act that appears not only patriotic and moral, but also apolitical. Failing to support the troops, either through active opposition or a lack of overt supportive actions, is perceived as not only offensive and inappropriately political, but disloyal and dangerous. Millar asserts that military support acts as a new form of military service, which serves to limit anti-war dissent, plays a crucial role in naturalizing the violence of the transnational liberal order, and recasts war as an internal issue of solidarity and loyalty. Rigorous and politically challenging, Millar provides the first work to systematically examine "support the troops" as a distinct social phenomenon and offers a novel reading of this discourse through a gendered lens that places it in historical and transnational context.
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I would highly recommend it to both scholars and students for its empirical, theoretical and methodological contributions.
