Abuse by soldiers of other soldiers and civilians is an endemic part of military culture, not simply a case of a "few bad apples", according to Dr Ben Wadham, a lecturer in education at Flinders University.
Dr Wadham is currently researching military culture and the processes employed in army training to create the Australian soldier. He is presenting his findings at The Australian Sociological Association Annual Conference in Beechworth, Victoria, in early December.
Dr Wadham is himself an ex-infantry soldier and military policeman who served in 2/4 Royal Australian Regiment between 1988 and 1992.
Dr Wadham said the Ku Klux Klan "prank" photo - the subject of recent controversy - is an example of a type of behaviour not unusual in arms-corps culture.
"Men are asked to develop strong bonds to manage the challenges of infantry life and to join together to overcome intense adversity," Dr Wadham said.
Those bonds, however, often result in men relinquishing any sense of individual responsibility to others, resulting in abuse.
"The problem for the military in today's liberal democracy is how to train soldiers to be effective soldiers: that is, to be able to take the life of another human being, and to become resilient to the atrocities of warfare, while still remaining in line with broader community standards," Dr Wadham said.
"Military training regimes are effective at the former but unable to manage the latter in any effective way."
General Peter Cosgrove and the Prime Minister have argued that the photograph is a military "prank" that went too far.
Dr Wadham said that such pranks however, are a central element of building arms-corps solidarity, promoted by personnel across all ranks. A survey of such scandals featured in the media over the past 15 years demonstrates that this is an endemic part of military culture that effectively makes soldiers both protectors of, and a threat to, Australian values.
Dr Wadham has been researching the practices and traditions of arms-corps soldiers and the making of the Australian soldier, a project motivated by his own experience of such activities in his time in the Operational Deployment Force.
"There is an identifiable process of constructing soldiers which exists in some form across most armies across the world," he said.
"That process involves the stripping away of the `civilian self' in order to create the soldier. Similar processes are used in the training of police, para-military and torturers and involve bastardisation and abuse alongside professional training procedures."
Speaking from his own experience, Dr Wadham argues that the process of training works through relinquishing a sense of personal responsibility in favour of loyalty to the group. This group is established around a brotherhood not unlike the fraternity culture of North American colleges.
"The central axes of identification involve both being an Australian soldier and being a man," Dr Wadham said.
"The performance of masculinity is central to the arms-corps soldier's sense of self, filtered through the relations of race and sexuality.
"Infantry soldiers' lives are heavily determined by considerations of sex and gender, and their enclosed and segregated lifestyles engage with these interests in multiple and diverse ways."
At the same time, Dr Wadham said it is important to note that to talk about military culture and abuse is not to tar all soldiers or the Australian military with the same brush.
"These identities and practices can work in contradictory ways, and while these activities are a principle of military culture, they occur in highly specific ways," he said.
"There are the competing influences of professionalism and brotherhood, creating a dilemma for the military hierarchy and all Australians more generally."
Flinders Journal No 19: November 15 - November 28, 2004
