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The Late Profession of Arms: Ambiguous Goals and Deteriorating Means in Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Philip Abrams
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Extract

These three statements distil the dilemma of the armed forces in Britain—a dilemma compounded of obscure and conflicting goals, a pervasive anxiety as to the nature and viability of military professionalism and internal conflicts and misunderstandings which themselves symbolise a deeper alienation from contemporary British society.

Type
Armed Forces and Society in Western Europe
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , November 1965 , pp. 238 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1965

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References

(1) Abrams, P., “Democracy, Technology and the British Officer”, in Huntington, S. (ed.), Changing Patterns of Military Politics (New York 1962)Google Scholar. Raven, S., “Perish by the Sword”, in Thomas, H. (ed.) The Establishment (London 1959).Google Scholar

(2) Barber, B., The Sociology of the Professions, Daedalus, Autumn, 1963.Google Scholar

(3) Mosca, G., The Ruling Class (1939), ch. IX.Google Scholar

(4) Razzell, P. E., Social Origins of Officers in the Indian and British Home Army, British Journal of Sociology, XIV (1963), 248–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(5) Ibid., and private communication from C. R. Otley whose major study of the social recruitment of British soldiers is to appear shortly in the British Journal of Sociology.

(6) First Report from the Select Committee on Estimates, 1959–60: Admiralty Headquarters Organisation (London, H.M.S.O., 1960).Google Scholar

(7) Divine, D., The Blunted Sword (London 1964).Google Scholar

(8) Abrams, , op. cit.Google Scholar, and “The Officer as a Dysfunctional Element in Military Organisation”, Vth World Congress of Political Science, 1961Google Scholar; Snyder, W. P., The Politics of British Defence Policy (Ohio 1964)Google Scholar; Divine, , op. cit.Google Scholar; Smith, C. Woodham, The Reason Why (London 1960).Google Scholar

(9) Razzell, , op. cit.Google Scholar

(10) Synder, , op. cit.Google Scholar; Journal of the Royal United Services Institute, 1959–1964Google Scholar, passim; The Army League, The British Army in the Nuclear Age (1959).Google Scholar

(11) Beloff, M., New Dimensions in Foreign Policy: A Study of British Administrative Experience, 1947–59 (London 1961)Google Scholar; Day, A. C. L., The Cost of Defence, Survival (1960)Google Scholar; Snyder, , op. cit.Google Scholar; The Central Organization for Defence, Cmmd. 2097 (1963).Google Scholar

(12) Report of the Advisory Committee on Recruiting, Cmmd. 545 (1958).Google Scholar

(13) Information from Janowitz, M., The Professional Soldier (New York 1960)Google Scholar; Abrams, , op. cit.Google Scholar; Copeman, G. H., Leaders of British Industry (London 1955)Google Scholar; Kelsall, R. K., Higher Civil Servants in Britain (London 1955).Google Scholar

(14) Cmmd. 2097 (1963); Moulton, J. L., Defence in a Changing World, (London 1964)Google Scholar; Snyder, , op. cit.Google Scholar; Foot, M. R. D., Men in Uniform, (London 1961).Google Scholar

(15) The Central Organization for Defence, Cmmd. 476 (1958)Google Scholar; Report on Defence, Cmmd. 952 (1960); Progress of the Five Year Plan, Cmmd. 662 (1959)Google Scholar; and Cmmd. 2097 (1963).

(16) Hughes-Hallet, Admiral J., “The Central Organisation for Defence”, Journal of the Royal United Service Institute, [?] (1958), 488–493.Google Scholar

(17) Defence: A Financial Times Survey, 03 1964Google Scholar; statements of the Rt. Hon. Peter Thorneycroft, M.P., Minister of Defence, and of Denis Healey, M.P., then Opposition spokesman on Defence matters, now Minister of Defence.

(18) House of Commons, Official Report, 12 14, 1964.Google Scholar