The Hybrid Soldier: Identity Changes in the Military

Abstract

In general, paying attention to the soldier, i.e. to the micro or individual level of the soldierly subject, is something that, compared to an analysis of the military and its usefulness and effectiveness as an instrument of a state’s foreign, security and defense politics, is done rather rarely. There certainly are some objective reasons for this, especially the fact that access to the object of such research, the soldierly individual, is regulated by the military organization. Nevertheless, the described situation comes as quite a surprise as this neglect, even if it is not a complete one, is thoroughly unjustified, because, at the end of the day, as organizational sociology tells us, any institution is made up of human beings. Institutions can only be as good as their members allow for; it is human capital, the human factor, which determines the extent of the gap between pretensions and reality regarding the realization of the tasks and functions commissioned and entrusted to the institution and that matches practice and theory. KeywordsWorld SocietyMilitary MissionPeace BuildingOrganizational SociologyGuardian SoldierThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.