As the UK launches another advertising campaign aimed at overcoming the recruitment shortages in its armed forces it is worth looking at what these messages say about the society that uses them and why the message no longer resonates as it once did.
The overriding message of the UK Armed Forces recruitment campaigns over the last fifty years has been one of action, adventure, travel, sport, friendship, career opportunity and technology. Little has changed in the latest round of print, TV and internet advertising. Although there are few overt messages appealing to the more traditional ideals of military masculinity, combat or nationalism, nor has there been a complete break from these. All of these ideals remain embedded within the recruitment material and more tellingly within the cultural norms associated with them. The core of the recruitment message has not changed across the period from the end of National Service until the present, pointing to a deep rooted and stable cultural appeal of armed service upon which the recruitment is built. The challenge for future recruitment is contained in the evolving place of the Armed Forces in British culture and the ability to maintain a sense of uniqueness of the roles it offers.
The growing challenge for Armed Forces recruitment should be viewed with the understanding that the cultural idea of armed service is based upon the proximate representations for underlying innate desires. That is, armed service has always, throughout history, formed a way of fulfilling evolutionary biological and psychological requirements, albeit within changing cultural forms. The current issues of recruitment and retention have arisen as they have not responded effectively to both a growing cultural counter-narrative of armed service or the alternative mechanisms which have been produced elsewhere, as society and culture has evolved across the period. The continued effectiveness of the traditional message should be questioned in light of recruitment and retention statistics which make dire reading for the Ministry of Defence. Added to this has been high profile inability to attract the required numbers of reservists. That these challenges exist is readily admitted in Whitehall but there is a growing failure to grasp the underlying reasons and a sense of blaming society not the product being sold. That the recruitment message is still built upon a significant positive cultural foundation is apparent. Such a cultural perception was empirically shown by the 2015 IPSOS MORI survey Hearts and Minds, which showed that the substantial number of 72% held a favourable or very favourable view of soldiers. This is part of the wider cultural view which describes all servicemen as heroes.
The core message of the recruitment still has resonant appeal within the same sections of society due to this embedded cultural appeal. The challenge for the Ministry of Defence it would seem, as it seeks to address issues of recruitment and retention, is that the core evolutionary proximates, upon which Armed Force recruitment campaigns and literature are built, are losing their appeal in the face of wider cultural solutions to these biological and psychological requirements. The age of cheap foreign travel, the liberalisation of sexuality in society, the prevalence and free availability in the variety of dynamic sporting competition means that the central tangible selling points of armed service have been diminished and continue to be so further. In simple terms, if the underlying individual motivation, at a subconscious level, is the fulfilment of evolutionarily produced biological necessities, these are now obviously more widely fulfillable outside the Armed Forces. The positive cultural norm and wider pleasure culture of war means that the intangible rewards of uniqueness of experience and fraternity for example, perceived as deriving from armed service, remain a powerful selling point for the Armed Forces. It is the challenges to these norms and perceptions in the wider culture which undermine the message of these supposed unique selling points of the Armed Forces service.
There is an obvious cultural disconnect between violence, suffering and war, which remains the primary role of the Armed Forces, and the view that peace is preferable and war has had its day, and that in an age of increasingly available information this disconnect challenges recruitment portrayals. This being a key factor in recruitment, however, is not strongly borne out by recent campaigns which show soldiers in, if not combat, certainly dangerous situations. It would be an unusual technique to explicitly show the potential injuries which could occur. Although the imagery is often highly romanticised or evoking wider media depictions of war, it would also be presumptuous and demeaning to suggest that in the face of widely known potential dangers that would-be recruits were unaware of these. Indeed, exhibitions such as those depicting war wounded point to a desire to further highlight and reinforce a sense of respect and honour due to those in armed service. Whilst there will inevitably be a youthful belief in “it won’t happen to me” and depictions of the horrors being at one remove, sanitised and glorified in media, a belief in the gross misperception of killing and violence would not appear to be of significant effect on recruitment tactics. Indeed, an appeal to glory would run counter to a portray as the impartial defender. It is the cultural norms of armed service that underpin the recruitment message which are undergoing change or at least being challenged in certain quarters of society. The tactic to portray a depoliticised Armed Forces has allowed the recruitment message to remain broadly apart from controversial campaigns and conflicts, selling a picture of honourable and valuable contribution. This is perhaps where the most controversial part of recruitment lies. The UK remains the only country in Europe and one of only twenty worldwide which recruits sixteen-year olds directly. It is tactics, such as school visits and branded “junior” groups, which targets and delivers marketing even below this age where an intangible message appealing to excitement, honour and a sense being special has most effect. This is not a wider cultural message of a pleasure culture of war but direct recruitment efforts designed to exploit this cultural depiction.
There is a wider interplay of cultural militarism outside of armed forces recruitment that explains the appeal of the messages being sold to those joining up. However, society is changing. The debate on institutionalism, structuralism and the evolution of cultural norms helps define the interplay of factors which are giving rise to this change. The counter revolution of the 1960s failed in many regards to change cultural views on most issues and most societal norms. The slow evolution of views with regard to liberalisation of sex and gender equality are perhaps their most enduring legacy. However, it is the new culture born of this legacy which has begun to challenge the place of the Armed Forces in British society. If societal leaders are defending the cultural norm of the beneficial role of the armed forces, it must be placed within a context where a respect for cultural institutions, for example the police, are radically changing and wider populist movements are gained increasing effect. The challenge for Britain is to define what the place of armed service and the Armed Forces is both culturally and functionally. Currently the embedded perception of armed services built up across historically through the appeal of a pleasure culture of war has meant the recruitment message of the Armed Forces has maintained much of its appeal. It is also worth noting that the effect of growing Populist movements on perceptions of armed forces is an intriguing counter point to many of the cultural movements noted and that although they present a perceived counter narrative it is one which, although delivering a different message, relies entirely upon the same issues within society. As culture continues to evolve and different outlets are found to fulfil biological desires and predispositions, the recruitment to the Armed Forces will be placed under increasing pressure. This is the challenge for politicians and economics and ultimately part of the debate of the place of war in the modern age.