From the "citizen army" to the "market army": Israel as a case study

Introduction Western armies have undergone an organizational-cultural transformation since the end of the Cold War. Beyond the downsizing of mass armies and the phasing out of the draft in most Western countries, two main themes have been suggested as describing this transformation: post-modernity and post-Fordism. Moskos (1998) claimed that civil-military relations have shifted from a modern to a post-modern paradigm. The post-modern military is characterized by its preparedness to be assigned to new missions, such as international interventionist missions and combat against terrorism and ethnic violence, rather than traditional warfare. It is also characterized by an increasing mutual interpenetrability of civilian and military spheres, reflected in greater social diversity in the ranks and a growing similarity between military and civilian professions. This transformation is accounted for by the demise of the nation state and the citizenry’s loyalty to it, the decline of mass production in favor of specialized organizations, and the waning of the values on which military service was traditionally established, in particular those associated with masculinity and national patriotism. In this spirit, Shaw (2000) has argued that as the military has adopted new roles, traditional military culture has increasingly been questioned from within, a process that has also helped to eliminate taboos regarding women and homosexuals. Dandeker (1994) defined this transformation in terms of “new times, " characterized by a growth of risk complexity, globalization, and financial pressures that have driven armies to modify their structural format and award equal status to women and homosexuals. In particular, he highlighted the importance of pressures to increase governmental control over public expenditure. Thus, armies may be required to implement organizational reforms that demonstrate costeffectiveness, such as flattening their hierarchy and civilianizing military functions. Nonetheless, these and other reforms are strictly modern rather than post-modern, argue Booth et al. (2001). Although these scholars certainly acknowledged the market’s impact on military structures, none allowed it the emphasis that is conveyed by the notion of a post-Fordist military introduced by Anthony King (2006). In general, King notes, post-Fordism is characterized by the displacement of a mass workforce by a specialist core and a part-time periphery, outsourcing, management centralization, and network production. He argues that Western armies have progressively been adopting parallel patterns: downsizing following the abolition of the draft, specializing, outsourcing logistic missions that lie beyond the military’s “core business, " centralizing the command into unified, joint headquarters at the same time as flattening the hierarchy, and moving to network warfare. King, however, questioned the argument that the parallels between industrial and military transformations can be interpreted as a form of “institutional isomorphism” that helps the military to gain legitimation. Instead, he traced the transformation to budget constraints and the changing pattern of the new battlefield following the end of the Cold War. And when the US instilled the post-Fordist form within its armed forces, other Western militaries began to follow its lead (Demchak 2003). With the market regulation of enlistment - a result of the vocationalization of armies and post-Fordist reforms - the door has gradually been opened to the supply of supplementary military services by private companies, including the revival of mercenarism in several conflict areas around the world (Shields 1990). As can be seen in the American model of fighting in Iraq, tens of thousands of private-security personnel are integrated within, or provide assistance to, the military forces (Avant 2007). Herein lie the drawbacks of current research. Advocates of post-modern approaches to the army have refrained from addressing the interplay between the market and the military and have neglected changes in the latter’s economic environment, focusing mainly on organizational and operational changes and social pressures. At the same time, the post-Fordist approach has refrained from dealing with the cultural and societal aspects of post-Fordism. King restricted himself to discussing the internal workings of the military rather than analyzing how its new relationships with society might affect its internal structure. Cultural changes - such as those emphasized by Moskos and Burk - have been overlooked. No less important, the autonomous impact of the market, with the rise of the market economy, has been downplayed and post-Fordist reforms have been explained solely in instrumental terms of adaptation to new threats and shrinking resources. The present chapter seeks to integrate these themes by portraying the Western army of the early 2000s as a “market army, " distinct from the traditional “citizen army.” It is argued that the market army emulates market practices to cope with strategic, economic, political, and cultural constraints. What typifies the market army is a combination of the following characteristics: the subjection of military doctrine to the market; a post-Fordist structure; a network-centric hierarchy; market values borrowed by the military profession; the convergence of military and civilian occupations; and new forms of bargaining between soldiers and the military in which they serve.