A Sociological Analysis of Military Resilience

• Date: 01 April 2015
• Published date: 01 April 2015
• Author: Ross McGarry,Sandra Walklate,Gabe Mythen
• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X13513452
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article
Armed Forces & Society
2015, Vol 41(2) 352-378
A Sociological Analysis
ª The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X13513452
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Opening Up the Debate
Ross McGarry1, Sandra Walklate1,
and Gabe Mythen1
Abstract
The term ‘resilience’ has grown in its usage across a range of disciplines and prac-
tices. The US military and the British armed forces have typified this increasing use of
‘resilience’ in recent years within such initiatives as Comprehensive Soldier Fitness
(CSF) and throughout British Army Doctrine. However by unpacking what being
‘resilient’ for soldiers might mean we explore the interaction between their personal
‘masculine’ characteristics, the structural environment within which they operate,
and the civilian life they return to. In doing so this paper offers a critical sociological
analysis combining the agency of the soldiers’ body with the structure of the military
as a [total institution] to problematize issues of masculinity, stigma and resilience
within the military setting. As such, we question if the fostering of ‘resilience’ in
military personnel is something that may be productive during service, but counter-
productive thereafter when service personnel return to civilian life as veterans.
Keywords
resilience, soldiering, masculinity, stigma, barriers to care, comprehensive soldier
fitness, sociology
1 School of Law and Social Justice, Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology, University of
Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
Corresponding Author:
Ross McGarry, School of Law and Social Justice, Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology,
Eleanor Rathbone Building, Bedford Street South, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZA, UK.
Email: S.R.Mcgarry@liverpool.ac.uk

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McGarry et al.
353
Introduction
The ways in which combat and deployment have been understood as impacting the
mental health of British service personnel have changed quite dramatically since the
war in Iraq began in 2003. The psychological links between exposure to combat and
poor mental health (in particular posttraumatic stress [PTSD], alcohol, anxiety disor-
ders, and depression) have gradually developed from being loosely affiliated,1 to being
understood as prevailing issues for the modern British military (see, e.g., Forbes et al.2
and Sundin et al.3). Similarly, the growth of knowledge about the experiences of mili-
tary veterans in the United Kingdom has been exponential, gradually drawing attention
to the psychosocial, rather than purely individualized consequences of service life for
some service leavers.4 Addressing both of these developments research has recently
established a link between violent offending in British military personnel in the
United Kingdom and exposure to combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, adding that insti-
tutionally garnered behavior, including the promotion of ‘‘targeted aggression’’ and
survival, may also influence the ‘‘propensity’’ to commit violence.5 Although these
relationships were foreseen in previous psychological research, the confluence
between violent acts of war and the psychosocial impacts on soldiers have been well
established for nearly two decades (see, e.g., Dave Grossman6 and Rachael Mac-
Nair7). When considered in this way, military issues with a typically psychological
bent come into view in more culturally informed ways.
It is our contention that through sociological inquiry, it is possible to probe the
deployment of the concept of resilience in order to extend our understanding of
experiences of military life. Although no unified definition of resilience exists,8
what appears consistent throughout the literature is its virtually synonymous use
with the attribute of ‘‘bouncing back’’9 (when faced with adversity, disruption, or
trauma that needs to be overcome) but also its capacity at a policy level to nurture
assumptions about those who are expected to be resilient and those who are not (see
Sandra Walklate and others).10 As suggested, with reference to military organiza-
tions, the term ‘‘resilience’’ has been used predominantly from a psychological per-
spective and almost exclusively with reference to the US military. Conversely, there
is a paucity of critical sociological analysis of the relationship between the military
as an institution, soldiers’ experiences of military life, and resilience. The closest
application of sociological knowledge to debates of this kind stems from Harold
Braswell and Howard Kushner’s11 recent reconsideration of Durkheim’s theory of
suicide in relation to ‘‘overintegrated’’ groups like the military. For them the
increased rate of suicide in the US military should be attributed to the ‘‘fatalistic’’
rather than ‘‘altruistic’’ nature of masculine military culture that can traumatize mil-
itary personnel during war and prevent them from seeking help through the stigma-
tization of vulnerability.12 In this article, we seek to adopt an apposite sociologically
informed position on resilience to stimulate a discussion of soldiers, a group who are
assumed to be resilient, but whose vulnerability has often been underestimated. Our
analysis will be broadly centered on literature addressing UK and US militaries in

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Armed Forces & Society 41(2)
the ‘‘war against terrorism’’ but should be understood in the context of the wider
experience of soldiering across different nations and conflicts.
To be clear from the outset, in this article, we are not evaluating military pro-
cesses nor looking to pose solutions to the psychological or structural problems in
the military. Following the caveat issued by Bill Durodie´,13 we conceive of resili-
ence and its relationship to soldiering in qualitatively and culturally informed ways;
drawing a range of disparate knowledge together to outline the problematic conse-
quences resulting from the relationship between the military as an institution, and the
soldier as an individual. In so doing, the intentions of this article are to acknowledge
the predominant ways in and through which soldiers have been understood in aca-
demic research and to urge a paradigm shift toward the sociological in how the mil-
itary institution and soldiering are considered. The article is presented in six
interlinked parts. First we begin by introducing the salient literature on military
resilience across three themes: as individual traits, interpersonal relationships, and
as a skill to be learned. In doing so, we indicate the inherent sociological problems
that we perceive to belie the content and application of resilience. Following this,
in the second section, we introduce our overarching problematique by conceptua-
lizing our understanding of resilience through an appreciation of what we dub the
soldiers’ triad (risk, resilience, and consequence). Using military doctrine, we
offer an alternative way of thinking about military resilience operating in two par-
ticular ‘‘layers’’: the individual and the institutional. From here, in the third and
fourth sections, we connect these individual and institutional ‘‘layers’’ to more
specific ‘‘inherent’’ and ‘‘structural’’ resiliences to detail the wider ramifications
of institutional military frameworks that draw upon resilience, and the corporeal
effects that this has on soldiers. In the fifth section, we excavate the consequences
of resilience by positing that these are fostered in the relationship between the sol-
dier as an individual and the military as an institution. This leads to a focus on sol-
diers as gendered masculine subjects during service life, then resilient veterans
reluctant to seek help following their service. Finally, in the sixth section, we offer
some concluding thoughts that suggest the future impact of military resilience on
soldiers may remain hindered if not more fully reconsidered in sociologically
informed ways.
‘‘Attention!’’ Military Resilience: What Is It?
A focus on resilience within the military is of relatively recent concern. With refer-
ence to its psychosocial context, resilience has been addressed in indirect ways relat-
ing to military cohesion as a social support network14 and via analyses of military
training programs.15 The main proponent of this approach problematized the con-
cept of resilience at the 2011 IUS conference (Inter University Seminar Series on
Armed Forces and Society) as requiring differentiation at individual, group, and
organizational levels.16 We concur that there is a need to rethink the ways in which
resilience is referred to beyond that of the individual and connected to wider social

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355
groups and/or social structures. However, John Cacioppo et al.17 have recently noted
that ‘‘Resilience has been regarded narrowly as a quintessential individual property
by most investigators,’’ and we aver that military resilience has almost exclusively
been the ‘‘property’’ of psychological discourse in this respect. Indeed, the emer-
gence of resilience as a priority for the US military is associated with the (recent)
high numbers of military personnel committing suicide and suffering from PTSD.18
With regard to ‘‘soldier resilience,’’ two approaches to resilience are discernable
from the literature: one that focuses on individual characteristics and one that
focuses on interpersonal relationships.19 We also note a third approach relating to
the expansion of military resilience training programs in the United States. We shall
briefly address each of these in turn.
Military Resilience as Individual Characteristics
...