Foreign Security Policy, Gender, and US Military Identity

Elgin Medea Brunner was a Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies. She holds a Doctorate in Political Science from the University of Vienna, a Master in Political Science and a Master in International Relations both from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Her research focus lies on gender issues in security studies and international relations, risk analysis and resilience as well as critical (information) infrastructure protection and cyber conflicts.

What do military doctrines and propaganda leaflets have to do with national identity and gender? Everything, argues Elgin Brunner in this wide-ranging and innovative book. Theoretically sophisticated, methodologically thorough, and refreshingly not loath to inject an updated notion of ideology into her post-structuralist approach, the book adds a new spin to feminist contentions that link foreign policy to gendered constructions of state identity. A multiple reading of texts and silenced intertexts reveal an 'information age' military with neoliberal traits, Orientalist productions of hypermasculine enemies and feeble civilian others, and stealth performances of US identity. A dizzying tour through the discursive corridors of the US military that shakes our understanding of what foreign policy and military strategy are all about! Elisabeth Prugl, Deputy Director, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Switzerland This timely book engages with the hereto insufficiently researched subject area of US military perception management doctrine and practice in an analytically deep and critically sophisticated manner. By unearthing war schemes of power through gendered constructions of identity and by showing the implications of these constructions for the state, its society, and its foreign policy from a wealth of documents, the book positions itself as a highly relevant and thought-provoking volume in the poststructuralist research tradition. Myriam Dunn Cavelty, lecturer in security studies and senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

• Figures, Tables and Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Contextualizing the Study of Gender and War 2. Making Gender Tangible in Military Discourse  3. Poststructuralism in International Relations Theory 4. From Women to Gender – Poststructuralist Feminism in International Relations and Security Studies 5. The Performative Relation between Foreign Policy (Military Discourse) and (Gendered) Identities 6. Accounting for the Unaccountable: Ideology and Discourse – a Strained Relation? 7. Methodology and Data 8. The Doctrine of Military 'Perception Management' in Conflict  9. Information (Age) Warfare  10. Reading Identity I: (not so) Silent Documents  11. Gendered Ideological Underpinnings: Masculinist Neoliberalism  12. The Practice of Military 'Perception Management' in Conflict  13. Self and Other in Psyop Leaflets  14. Reading Identity II: Telling Articulations  15. The Masculinist Orientalism of the Omnipotent aviour 16. Performing Identity/Foreign (Security) Policy Conclusion – Another Gendered Reproduction of the State Annex: Sources I. Military Doctrine Documents II. US Armed Forces Leaflets Bibliography