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Welcome to Warrior Nation, the UK's only podcast offering a critical lens on the British military and its relationship with civil society. The podcast is produced by ForcesWatch, an organisation dedicated to investigating militarisation and military ethics. From the brutality of basic training, to predatory recruitment practices and lobbying, we expose and challenge unaccountable military power.
36 Episodes
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In our final episode of Series 4, we speak with Paul Rogers on the parallels and differences between the invasions of Iraq and Ukraine, and reflect on some of the key themes that have emerged across the past five months. Paul is Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies in the Department of Peace Studies and International Relations at Bradford University, and an Honorary Fellow at the Joint Service Command and Staff College. You can read his rich body of work as openDemocracy’s internat...
Think-tanks are a key part of the political process in the UK - indeed globally - but do they actually promote democracy? Which ones have influence, how are they funded, and what role does legacy media have in amplifying their ideas.In this episode we speak with Rethinking Security coordinator Richard Reeve and academic Kjølv Egeland, experts in the multifaceted world of defence and security think-tanks. They discuss how funding plays a key role in think-tank output, constraining critiq...
As the impacts of the climate crisis escalate, there is a growing trend for securitised responses that foreground the role of militaries in tackling the fallout. But whose interests do these militaries serve and what role have they played in bringing about environmental catastrophe.In this episode we speak with Nick Buxton, a communications specialist with 20 years experience in climate sustainability and international development, to pick his brain on the intersection between climate change,...
As the sentiment goes, there always seems to be money for warfare but never quite enough for welfare. So what's the picture in the UK - that tiny collection of islands with its towering defence expenditure. In this episode, we're joined by Matt Fawcett from the Global Campaign on Military Spending UK to discuss the dark economics of Britain's war machine.Matt talks about the troubling gaps between what Britain spends on its military and what it spends on climate mitigation or carbon reduction...
Foreign and military policy doesn’t cut through to voters, or so it is said. What matters to the public is bread and butter economic policy or GP surgery hours. Yet, is it really the case that people simply don’t care about, for example, Yemen? And if not, why not? Is it the case that the main parties are so alike on these matters that there appears to be no space for debate? Much was made of Qatar's human rights record during the men's World Cup, but where was any critique of the RAF's role ...
Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) is the preeminent anti-arms trade organisation in the UK. Their advocacy for a safer and fairer world extends into many realms, including Parliament – where defence firms wield unchecked influence over elected politicians.In this episode we speak with Katie Fallon, CAAT’s Parliamentary Coordinator, to discuss the difficulties of working in spaces where militarism and war are seen as inevitabilities. Our discussion is wide-ranging: from the revolving door...
When it comes to critiquing and analysing how Government works to support the military, the focus is always on politicians and the lobbying work that seeks to influence them. But what about the people in Whitehall who oil the political machine? Civil servants out-live the ministers, cabinets and governments they work for, and have more influence than we fully understand. If the overall culture within the civil service is pro-military, then it stands to reason that the mechanics of government ...
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...
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...
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 m...
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...
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 imp...
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 s...
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 re...
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 p...
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 ex...
In the first episode of our second series, we talk about Armed Forces Day with Symon Hill of the Peace Pledge Union, the pacifist campaigning organisation. We discuss the context in which the annual event came into existence in 2009, how it works to market armed forces recruitment and the military more generally and promote arms companies, and the issues it raises about the normalisation of weapons and violence. Should Armed Forces Day be changed into Public Sector Workers Day or is the herof...
For the finale of our first podcast season, we spoke to political hip hop artist Lowkey about war, militarism, the current political climate, and our hopes and prospects for the future. The event was recorded in front of a live audience at Housmans Bookshop in London on 4 December and co-hosted with peace activist Maya Evans. The music in this podcast is from Hand On Your Gun by Lowkey.Follow us on Instagram.Support the show
We talk to ForcesWatch’s founders David Gee and Emma Sangster, about recruitment and militarism in the UK and some of ForcesWatch’s key outputs over the years. Join us as we discuss: How and why ForcesWatch beganThe lack of ‘informed choice’ in the military’s enlistment of minorsHow we define militarismHow militaristic the UK is compared to other countries, and whyTurning war into spectacleThe long-term risks and harms of the military’s recruitment of minorsMilitary training - turning yo...
We talk to academics Vron Ware and Antonia Dawes about their ongoing project with Mitra Pariyar: a two-year study of an army town in Wiltshire. We discuss why and how significant policy changes over the last ten years are changing the relationship between military and civilian communities, and the impacts of relocating thousands of soldiers from Germany to newly expanded ‘super-garrisons’ in rural England. Join us as we discuss:What led Vron and Antonia into studying military affairsCommonwea...
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