Warrior Nation

From Deepcut to sexual abuse cases and war crimes, the UK military and MOD are no stranger to legal controversy.  And when you read back through the reportage around this lamentable list one name recurs again and again, acting in opposition to power and in favour of fairness and human rights.

Emma Norton is Director and co-founder of the Centre for Military Justice, whose work we at Forces Watch greatly admire. She is also former head of the legal team at human rights organisation Liberty and lectures twice a year at the Defence Academy on human rights and the armed forces.  Emma joins us to explain the glacial pace of service justice reform and what it’s like to challenge the power of the British military.

Trigger Warning: this episode includes discussion of sexual violence.

You can read more about the work of the Centre for Military Justice on their website and Twitter (@cmjhq).

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You can discover Housmans Bookshop's amazing selection here: https://housmans.com/

Music by Esion Noise.

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Back in 2003, every national British newspaper bar the Guardian supported the invasion of Iraq - including The Guardian's sister paper, The Observer. Unfortunately, this was not an anomaly (dodgy dossiers or not). The sad truth is that it is very hard to find critical pieces on the UK's armed forces. And since the Edward Snowden leaks, Britain's intelligence establishment has worked assiduously to ensure that even The Guardian begins to tow the line.

You really can’t talk about British defence and security journalism without mentioning today’s guest. Richard Norton-Taylor covered defence and security for The Guardian newspaper for over 40 years, reporting on everything from the Cold War to the 'War on Terror'. Winner of a number of awards he was once described by a GCHQ officials as a thorn in the side of the intelligence establishment.

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You can discover Housmans Bookshop's amazing selection here: https://housmans.com/

Music by Esion Noise.

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In this special episode of Warrior Nation, Joe is joined by Dr Ross McGarry to discuss the deeper and varied meanings behind Armed Forces Day. In 2017, when Liverpool hosted the Armed Forces Day national event, Ross ventured out onto the streets of his home town to experience proceedings with a critical - and analytical - eye. He reflects on his findings and highlights how the event offered up a sanatised view of military life that is out of touch with the reality.

You can read Ross' 2019 article in the journal Visual Ethnography here. To find our more about his research areas you can head over to his profile on the University of Liverpool website.

Support us via the Warrior Nation Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/WarriorNation

Or follow us on Instagram (@forceswatch) and Twitter (@ForcesWatch).

Music by Esion Noise.

[Original image used in art-work was taken by Ross McGarry during his ethnographic study]

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In the final installment of our series on war and memory, Joe speaks with Essex University historian Lucy Noakes and Chicago-based artist Michael Rakowitz on the creation of cultural memories around armed conflict. They cover a wide array of topics, including the Churchillian turn of British World War II narratives and how the words monument and demonstrate are linked by their roots in Latin. Their discussion beautifully encapsulates a number of topics covered across the series and explores more radical ways of remembering - or remembering better.

Lucy Noakes is a social and cultural historian with specific interests in war, memory and gender.  She is co-editor of the book British Cultural Memory and the Second World War, sits on the Academic Advisory Board of the Imperial War Museum's Second World War Galleries redevelopment project, and is a series editor for the Social History Society book series New Directions in Social and Cultural History.

Michael Rakowitz is an Iraqi-American artist working at the intersection of problem-solving and troublemaking. His anti-war statue April is the Cruellest Month formed part of the Turney Contemporary for the English coast series in 2021. Michael is also Professor of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University.

As always, the show was presented by our very own Joe Glenton. If you'd like to learn more about Joe's new book Veteranhood (as mentioned in the podcast by Michael) then head over to his publisher Repeater.

ForcesWatch is a small organisation funded by grants and donations. All contributions - no matter the size - can make a huge difference. If you want to support our work then please follow the link below.

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In the fifth instalment  of our series on war and memory Joe speaks with Harvard historian Maya Jasanoff on the ways Empire is remembered in Britain and the disconnect between the state's projection of the country's colonial past vis-a-vis the way it's seen by different communities. Maya also discusses how these histories - including the cult of Winston Churchill and nostalgia for World War II - bleed into more recent British military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the decision to leave the European Union.

Maya Jasanoff is Coolidge Professor of History at Harvard University, where she focuses on the history of Britain and the British Empire. You can find out more about Maya's work here.

ForcesWatch is a small organisation funded by grants and donations. All contributions - no matter the size - can make a huge difference. If you want to support our work then please follow the link below. 

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In the fourth installment of our series on war and memory we speak with ex-British Army mental health clinician Christian Hughes on the traumatic impacts of conflict.  He gives a detailed breakdown of PTSD, critiques the condition's framing as a 'heroes injury' only experienced by those on the front-line, and introduces us to the notion of moral injury.

In a wide-ranging discussion, Christian also explains that combat isn't the only element of an armed forces career with psychological impacts - arguing that military training conditions soldiers to respond to traumatic events in ways that are counter-productive to their mental wellbeing.  

Christian K Hughes is a psychotherapist who served in the British Army as a mental health clinician. He also worked as a Senior NHS Clinician in a Complex Treatment Team and has a special interest in PTSD, trauma and moral injury.  You can find out more about his work here.

If you've experienced, or are experiencing, any of the issues discussed in this podcast you can get specialist help from the NHS. Follow this link to find out more.

ForcesWatch is a small organisation funded by grants and donations. All contributions - no matter the size - can make a huge difference. If you want to support our work then please follow the link below. 

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In the third installment of our series on war and memory we speak with American academic and Vietnam veteran Jerry Lembcke on how resistance to the conflict in South East Asia was framed during the 1960s and 70s. The discussion focuses on two key positions in Jerry's work: stab in the back theory and the pathologising of dissent through the coining of post-traumatic stress disorder. He unpacks how in the former, mysogny was used to paint anti-war activists as weak and effeminate against the strength and heroic resolve of the troops; whilst in the latter, the critical voices of veterans returning from the conflict were explained as the product of mental health rather than a form of resistance to the war.

 Jerry Lembcke is  Associate Professor Emeritus at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts and the author of eight books, including The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam, CNN’s Tailwind: Inside Vietnam’s Last Great Myth, and Hanoi Jane: War, Sex, and Fantasies of Betrayal. His opinion pieces have appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. He has been a guest on several NPR programs including On the Media.  You can find out more on Jerry's amazing work here.

Music by Esion Noise.

We would also like to thank Jacob over at Liverpool Podcast Studios.

ForcesWatch is a small organisation funded by grants and donations. All contributions - no matter the size - can make a huge difference. If you want to support our work then please click the link below or follow us on Twitter. 

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In the second episode of our new series on war and memory, we speak with founder of Forensic Architecture Eyal Weizman and academic Susan Schuppli on the role memory plays in testimony and witnessing. The discussion explores the different approaches to evidence in war crimes tribunals, starting with the Nuremburg trials of 1945, and explains how the contemporary work of Forensic Architecture is helping to unlock the hidden memories of the victims of state violence. 

Susan Schuppli is a researcher, documentary filmmaker, and artist based in the UK, whose work examines material evidence from war and conflict to environmental disaster and climate change. She is Director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths University as well as affiliate artist-researcher and Board Chair of Forensic Architecture and author of Material Witness, which is out on MIT Press. You can find out more on Susan's work here: https://susanschuppli.com/ 

Eyal Weizman is the founding director of Forensic Architecture and Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. The author of over 15 books, he has held positions in many universities worldwide including Princeton, ETH Zurich and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He is a member of the Technology Advisory Board of the International Criminal Court and the Centre for Investigative Journalism. In 2019 he was elected life fellow of the British Academy and appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to architecture.

Follow the work of Forensic Architecture here: https://forensic-architecture.org/ 

Music by Esion Noise [www.esionnoise.com]

ForcesWatch is a small organisation funded by grants and donations. All contributions - no matter the size - can make a huge difference. If you want to support our work then please click the link below. 

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In the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, and the Conservative Government's attempt to impose a maximum sentence of 10-years for vandalising statues, we speak with academics Natasha Danilova and Adam Elliot-Cooper on the national histories constructed through memorials and statues, and the spaces of reconstruction opened up by their removal.

The discussion covers a wide range of themes, including the different interest groups involved in the creation of war memorials; the lack of public discussion around commemoration and who gets to be remembered; how commemoration presents a sanitised version of history that blocks controversial discussions around Britain's colonial past; what a meaningful process of decolonisation might look like; and what other forms of remembering might emerge within a framework of social justice.

Adam's new book is published by Manchester University Press. 

You can find more information on Natasha's work here.

 Music by Esion Noise [www.esionnoise.com]

ForcesWatch is a small organisation funded by grants and donations. All contributions - no matter the size - can make a huge difference. If you want to support our work then please click the link below. 

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Joe Glenton is joined by Phil Miller, staff reporter at Declassified UK and author of 'Keenie Meenie: The British mercenaries who got away with war crimes', for a wide ranging discussion on defence journalism and coverage of the UK military in the media. 

Declassified provides critical investigative reporting on the UK military, security services and foreign policy. The organisation was blacklisted by the Ministry of Defence earlier this year. Despite this, it is filling the void which existed in foreign policy and defence journalism.

We discuss how Phil first got into investigative journalism and is now one of the leading reporters in the UK on defence, security and the military.

The discussion also covers: Phil's work (now also a documentary) on Keenie Meenie, a British mercenary company which, as a result of evidence he presents, the Metropolitan Police are currently investigating for war crimes; press freedom around defence issues; Labour and left policy and response on military and veteran issues; and, what's over the horizon, including the potential impact of Scottish independence on the military and foreign policy, and post-Brexit 'Global Britain' policy. 

For more information on Phil's work: @pmillerinfo and http://KeenieMeenie.Info

Declassified: @DeclassifiedUK and https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/declassified-uk/

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Or follow us on Instagram (@forceswatch) and Twitter (@ForcesWatch).

Apologies for some reduced sound quality at points.

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