Australian Army Journal

OPINION
On the Culture of the Australian Army
Insularity
Insularity is a double-edged trait — and a very strong one, so worth examining on
its own terms. The Army is secluded from society. Originally this seclusion was for
society’s protection — it was not accidental that Enlightenment and Romantic-era
barracks (at least in Europe) so closely resembled prisons. Soldiers were then
viewed with the deepest suspicion, and with reason. 31 Now it’s at least as much
about preserving necessarily distasteful (to civilians) military virtues and about a
sincere wish on those civilians’ part not to know too much of what the military does.
Today, the threat Western armies pose to their societies is considerably diminished,
or so runs the conventional wisdom. Certainly no in-barracks Western military
is likely to prey on its own civilian population, individual criminality and weekend
public-house brawling aside. 32 But once deployed, much changes. The fine line of
morality is so hard to see through war’s fog.
Remember Abu Ghraib in 2003–2004? A unit of quite ordinary American Reservists
ran a torture centre for personal amusement. 33 And just maybe they had direction
to do so from the very top levels of the US Government. 34 Or go a little further back
to 1993 in Somalia when the Canadian Airborne Regiment beat a captured local
youth to death for an evening’s amusement. 35
So perhaps the old way of thinking is not so outdated after all. Armies, even the
best armies, remain dangerous to those around them at times; the line between
professional and undisciplined violence can be very fine indeed. And that is a
reason to maintain barriers between armies and societies.
Fortunately our own army has not recently been stained by anything worse
than the tragic accidents of war. The one recent occasion when it was seriously
suggested that our soldiers had done wrong met a public outcry in the soldiers’
favour. 36 It was as though a national institution was threatened. In the event, the
charges were dropped.
The point of this is that people outside the Army felt and, in many cases, said
publicly that the Army should have a different legal status to the rest of Australia.
And certainly plenty of us agreed with that. This is another side to insularity: society
expects the Army to be somewhat inexplicable and to operate under different rules.
The Army exists in almost monastic seclusion. When it does come into the public
eye there is careful stage management. ANZAC Day is the best example. Society’s
near-universal goodwill towards soldiers on this ‘one day of the year’ is interesting.
Australian Army Journal
Culture edition 2013, Volume X, Number 3 Page 234