Swedish and British Public Opinion of the Armed Forces after a Decade of War

• Author: Joakim Berndtsson,Karl Ydén,Christopher Dandeker
• Published date: 01 April 2015
• Date: 01 April 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X13516616
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article
Armed Forces & Society
2015, Vol 41(2) 307-328
Swedish and British
ª The Author(s) 2014
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Public Opinion of the
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X13516616
afs.sagepub.com
Armed Forces after a
Decade of War
Joakim Berndtsson1, Christopher Dandeker2, and
Karl Yde´n3
Abstract
This article analyzes public opinion of the armed forces, focusing on Sweden and the
United Kingdom. The cases offer interesting similarities, such as their institutions of
parliamentary monarchies and, most recently, their reliance on all-volunteer force,
as well as differences especially with regard to their experience of international
defence missions. The discussion considers the extent to which the public has been
supportive of recent missions conducted by Swedish and UK armed forces, and
whether such support is also accompanied by support for the armed forces as an
institution. Levels of opinion and trust in the military are quite different in both cases,
and public opinion of international missions reflects the contrasting historical
engagements of both states. In both cases, we also find a divergence between what
publics are willing to support and what national governments wish to pursue as mis-
sions for their armed forces.
Keywords
public opinion, armed forces, defence missions, Sweden, Britain, Iraq, Afghanistan
1 University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
2 King’s College London, London, UK
3 Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden
Corresponding Author:
Joakim Berndtsson, University of Gothenburg, P.O. Box 700, Gothenburg, SE-40530, Sweden.
Email: joakim.berndtsson@globalstudies.gu.se

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Armed Forces & Society 41(2)
Introduction
Armed forces across Europe have undergone substantial organizational and opera-
tional changes to meet the demands of a new strategic environment and new sources
of threats arising first from the end of the Cold War and, second, from the events of
9/11.1 At the same time, participation in military operations abroad continues to be a
source of political debate and public protest. This has been particularly true in rela-
tion to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As major military operations in Afghanistan
are coming to an end, questions are being raised about the value and prudence of
such large-scale and costly military interventions to promote national and interna-
tional security policies. In addition, the issue of political and military leadership
in future international interventions remains unclear, though most likely the United
States will be reluctant to take on a leading role in areas that it does not consider first
order priorities. The focus will shift somewhat to others not least European states as
was evident in Libya.2
In the face of military reorganizations, ongoing budget cuts, and controversies
surrounding military operations abroad, it is reasonable to expect changes in the rela-
tionships between the military, society, and the political leadership. One important
aspect of this development—and the focus of this article—is the ways in which the
public views the military. Analysts of western civil–military relations have sug-
gested that there has been a decline in public understanding of the military, rooted
in the reduction in size of the military establishment after the Cold War, and the
accelerated shift away from conscription in Europe, with a consequent reduction
in its military presence in society in terms of bases, and the number of ex-Service
personnel returning to civilian society. Some have argued that, with an all-
volunteer force, there is an inevitable ‘‘gap’’ in understanding between the military
and wider society.3 This argument raises a series of questions about public opinion,
the military and the government’s use of the armed forces in prosecuting its security
and defence policy. These include the following: how far the public supports gov-
ernment policies, the level of its support of the armed forces during military opera-
tions, and how far government and the military’s conduct and effectiveness are
constrained by public opinion. In addition, there are questions about how far support
is well informed and whether support of government defence and security policy can
vary independently of its support for the armed forces. All of these questions suggest
that any civil–military gap should be located in a broader context of the interaction
among the central actors in civil–military relations: society and its constituent civil-
ian groups, government, and the armed forces themselves. Thus, the capacity of a
government to use the armed forces to pursue its goals in international affairs will
be influenced by the degree of agreement among the trinity of key actors in soci-
ety—government, the people, and the armed forces. Such agreement, or lack thereof,
will be shaped by the history of the threat environment of the states in question and
the military responses that have been made to it. For example, drawing on Michael
Desch and others who have pointed to the relationship between external threat and

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309
civilian control, Shemella argues that the macro-roles of the armed forces, defined in
part by the perceived existence of external threats, are important also for the kind of
support that the armed forces enjoy.4 In ‘‘Warfighting’’ countries, the armed forces
enjoy high levels of support because there is a perceived need for them to respond to
external threats. However, Shemella also predicts that the armed forces in ‘‘Peace-
keeping’’ countries also tend to enjoy strong public support, particularly if the mil-
itary regularly partake in peacekeeping missions abroad.
The Trinitarian agreements or tensions among government armed forces and the
public comprise a key theme in the work by Schiff, where the public or the citizenry
makes up one out of three central partners in civil–military relations, the other two
being the military itself and the political leadership.5 In her perspective, civil–mil-
itary relations are described as an agreement (or concordance) among the three part-
ners concerning the role and mission of the military. A lack of agreement, for
instance, in the shape of public distrust in the military or low levels of support for
specific military operations, indicates problems concerning the role of the military.
From this point of view, the public functions as an important legitimizing and sta-
bilizing actor in civil–military relations. Yet we need to not only describe but also
find out more about the conditions under which concordance among these actors
flourishes or is eroded. Furthermore, it is important to investigate the specific fea-
tures of actors’ discontents and the influences these can have on the other actors
in society.
We know that public opinion also shapes the context in which Service personnel
join and leave the armed services as well as their morale especially during military
operations.6 For example, poor public understanding of the military may arise from
the diminished social contact between society and the armed services and the result-
ing divergences in their attitudes and experiences. In the ‘‘civil–military gap’’ thesis,
if these differences become too wide there may be a number of consequences for
respect, mutual comprehension, support and trust, as well as military effectiveness.7
As mentioned earlier, this ‘‘civil–military gap’’ comprises a number of different
dimensions, including social contact and shared experiences between military and
civilians, convergent or divergent cultural attitudes and cultural preferences as well
as similar or dissimilar sociodemographic profiles.8 Of particular concern to both
political and military leaders are the potential effects a large civil–military gap might
have on the recruitment and retention of personnel, which may be exacerbated by
negative public perceptions about military life.9
Earlier studies have found that public opinion can play an important role in shap-
ing national political decisions to deploy the military. Also, from a political perspec-
tive, the ability to explain the reasons for deploying the military, as well as the
potential for success or failure or military operation are important factors in building
(or eroding) public support.10 Governments prefer their publics to be supportive of
the missions their armed forces undertake as well as of the armed forces themselves.
However, one lesson of the wars of 9/11 is that, at least in terms of the missions
undertaken, governments can no longer take for granted that their publics will be

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Armed Forces & Society 41(2)
wholly supportive as such missions are not perceived in terms of existential threats
even if governments attempt to define them in these terms.11
Although a good deal of robust research exists on public opinion’s view of
the armed forces and security and defence policy in the United States and some
European countries, in the United Kingdom most research has been conducted via
opinion polls. More in-depth or representative data are rare and it is only recently
that public attitudes to the military were included in the British Social Attitudes sur-
vey, the most influential survey of public opinion in the United Kingdom.12 Detailed
comparisons between the United Kingdom and other countries are also sparse. The
aim of the article is to contribute to the debate on the changing role of the military by
focusing on issues of public opinion and public support of the armed forces and their
missions. Using statistical data from national...