The Boer War was important for British military nursing as it was the first major conflict for Britain in which nurses in large numbers had been deployed, and at the end of the war a new nursing service was created, the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS), which saw nurses becoming a formed component of the British Army. Although there are published accounts of the Boer War and nursing histories that cover this period, there are no accounts of who the nurses were themselves. The nurses who served in South Africa were pivotal to the acceptance of the need for nurses and nursing in time of war, and that they should be wherever the sick and wounded were. Prosopography was chosen to illuminate this body of nurses in order to discover what characteristics they possessed as a whole, what contexts motivated their choosing to serve, and how they as a body of nurses helped to shape military nursing. The birth of military nursing that took place over this period was a collective action. The nurses were drawn from a wide geographic footprint, many were relatively young and inexperienced, some had experience in the military or in South Africa. This fusion of experience and background, and the need to overcome adversity and the chaos of medical care in the Boer War, somehow forged a group of nurses who were then able to lay the foundations for military nursing. This military nursing was founded on civilian practice as few nurses had military experience, and indeed many doctors and orderlies also had little or no military experience either, so they collectively fell back on what they knew. The prosopography was a view across nearly 2000 nurses and had the effect of balancing some of the rhetoric about the Boer War. The numbers of nurses identified were different to any other published account and highlighted how many nurses were not in the military or were newly recruited reservists. It was clear that most nurses were professional and hard working. Most had not worked in the military system or with orderlies before, and this helps to explain some of the issues between nurses and orderlies which began to settle down over time and were put onto a formal footing with the formation of the QAIMNS.

Despite the seemingly never failing popularity of the subject in non-scholarly works of popular history, the academic study of specialist formations and irregular warfare has remained as broadly elusive and as specialist as the practitioners of special operations themselves. This thesis serves as a holistic study of the development, application and value of Anglo-American commando and special forces formations, 1943-1945. Placing the development and use of these units within the broader context of the Anglo-American `special relationship' reveals a close, almost symbiotic, bond between Britain and the United States. This relationship, characterised at all levels by a spirit of interdependency and cooperation, was instrumental in how many of these units were conceived and consequently evolved. Although of a mutually supportive nature, it is fair to suggest that the US profited more from a close alliance in these fields than did the British. By the time the US entered the war Britain had already developed a range of unconventional forces and had begun to amass significant experience in their application. The willingness of the British to share this experience and guide their ally's first forays into this field was of the utmost importance to American developments. British support would continue throughout the war to broadly outlast the more general decline of Britain's strategic contribution; it would take time before the US, having gradually forged many of their own unique approaches towards these units, were able to approach the British volume of irregular operations. Despite such clear allied commonality, an analysis of the Anglo-American attitudes towards the inception, organisation, expansion, use and disbandment of the varied commandos and special forces ultimately reveals notable points of divergence between the policies and perceptions of the two allies. This work serves to examine and evaluate how and why Britain and the US, respectively, went about conceiving both commandos and special forces and serves to chart the evolution of their use. Analysing the roles and employment of these formations, charting the evolution of their command and control, and investigating the notion of `correct' use, this study also serves to examine the impact of these formations on the course of the Second World War and, through an assessment of their merits and failings, presents a favourable overall conclusion as towards the value and cost-effective nature of these units

The aims of the study were to a) estimate the prevalence of specific mental and physical health problems among female UK military personnel, b) examine their association with work, family, and interpersonal relationship stressors and protective factors, and c) explore stressors in these domains and their perceived relationship to health among serving and ex-serving women. A mixed methods approach was used, integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches across several stages of the research. Quantitative data came from female participants (n=1185) who responded to a postal survey questionnaire as part of a cohort study of UK military personnel. This provided the sampling frame for the qualitative study, which included 41 in-depth interviews with purposefully selected participants. While no statistical impact of deployment or parenthood on health was found overall, the interviews identified a far broader array of stressors, protective factors, and outcomes not measureable from the survey data. In particular, the importance of interpersonal factors on well-being and career intentions among women was emphasised. Sources of stress from three main domains were explored: deployment, parenthood, and integration. The importance of including more gender-specific stressors and outcomes in understanding factors influencing women’s well-being and decisions to remain in the military was revealed. The study provides a solid basis on which to build future research, both qualitative and quantitative, to further expand and assess the generalisability of the current findings. Implications for policy interventions are discussed.

This thesis focused on psychological help-seeking and the barriers and facilitators to mental health care in a military population. It is presented in three parts. Part one is a literature review examining the role of stigma in relation to military personnel seeking help for psychological problems. The review highlighted that, despite concerns about perceived stigma from others being highly endorsed as a barrier to care in military personnel, public stigma concerns do not appear to predict actual help-seeking and care utilisation. The review suggested considerations for future research including refining the conceptualisation and measurement of stigma within this population as well as encouraging consideration of other potentially important factors, such as attitudes and beliefs about mental health and mental health treatment. Part two is an empirical paper. This qualitative study aimed to understand the perspectives of UK ex-servicemen, and the barriers and facilitators, in relation to their pathway to care for mental health problems. The results indicated that there are specific barriers and facilitators that are more relevant at different stages in the veterans’ pathway. A number of recommendations for future research as well as a set of clinical implications are proposed and discussed. Part three is a critical appraisal of the research. It reflected on the practical, methodological, and conceptual issues encountered during the process of setting up and conducting research with an ex-military population. It covered areas relating to the literature in the field, factors influencing recruitment, and the process of conducting and analysing the interviews. Potential considerations for future research are highlighted.

This thesis explores the role and effect of 'Troubles'-related violence on soldiers who belonged to the Ulster Defence Regiment and served in the geographical area of South Annagh. Research into the actions of the UDR, a regiment of the British Army, but whose membership lived and operated in Northern Ireland, provides a mumber of insights into the variety of definitions, range of approaches, and array of explanations which can be applied to the study of violence. The experiences of soldiers living and operating in South Armagh, an area situated beside the border with the Republic of Ireland and closely associated with high levels of insurgent violence during the Troubles, provides a foundation upon which to demonstrate violence as a concept whose complexity and multilayered characteristics are matched by that which is dynamic, engaging and ultimately compelling. This thesis focuses, on both the extraordinary, and those seemingly mundane, ordinary ways in which violence is lived and experienced. This is achieved by analysing a range of areas, from the training processes undertaken by new recruits to turn them into a proficient soldier and the symbolic and ritual characteristics of military operations, to the traumatic experiences arising from conflict engagement and the role of veterans' organisations in shaping soldiers post~conflict recovery and recollections. Therefore, by placing violence in the centre of the lives of those exposed to it, and by focusing on the subjective, experiential realities of conflict, illustrates how violence must be analysed and understood beyond its physical aspect, encompassing social., cultural and ideological features, since it is such dimensions which give violence its power, meaning and ultimate expression.

Entitled a "Moment In Time" this document looks at the British Army and the various related military and civil organisations as from 1st July 2007. This day selected the midi of the year, which was the 351st since the Regular British Army was formed (1656). It is one month before the successful end of Operation Banner, the Campaign in Northern Ireland against terrorist organisations from August 1969, the longest single military campaign in the Army's history (and probably the longest ever continuous single military campaign ever). A decision made in order not to chase my own tail in preparing it, and whilst I have included updated information from that date until completion, the basis of the document is to that "Moment In Time"! Its origins were in a short five page paper prepared for professional colleagues, following questions, it went to 30, after more, it went to 55 pages, a couple of people more interested in the military side, said I should enhance it, so I did, with the following electronic pages the result. Its content a 380 page book with 24 pages of photos and renditions of the Army's cap badges. I make no pretence it covers every unit or facet of the Army (and even so, it is an ever changing organisation, and items recorded here, by the time you have read it, will have changed in the time since recorded from the source document) so it must be considered a historical document. There are not recorded within these electronic pages a variety of units which are specific for the operations within Iraq and Afghanistan. These changing rapidly in format and function; one such example being UK ANATT - UK Afghan National Army Training Team. I have deliberately made no attempt to record such, due to their transitory nature of existence, and constant format changes! NOTE : Unless otherwise stated, Army means British Army. This is a ongoing work on a organisation which is in a permanent state of flux, the unfortunate Future Army Structure of 2004 had created an organisation which was struggling in July 2007 to fulfill the huge operational requirements laid upon it by a increasingly incompetent national government. With the concept of removing the Arms Plot, resulting in wholesale amalgamation of infantry regiments (resulting in the disbandment of three battalions, and the conversion of another to a special forces role), so all infantry battalions would be in a stable environment, proved false. Formations and the Territorial Army units being once more reorganised, and since the Labour Government does not seem to have a cognitive idea what it is doing, it will probably remain like this for some time. And further defence reductions are very possible. To which must be added the current government's ill-conceived obsession with privatisation of everything possible in the Armed Forces, which has seen the (virtually the entire) base logistical structure sold off to companies (mainly American owned) who have no common link, with Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) and Public Private Partnerships (PPP) being used for funding new programmes. These enable in the short term the appearance of capital expenditure savings, but cost far more in the long term over the life of a programme in the payments back to the relevent civilian organisations. This wholesale privatisation does not work (is not capable of supporting a Army on a wartime footing – any graduate with a MBA knows “Private enterprise is about maximum profit gained with the least expenditure!” they have to make a profit), and the costings of the services provided by the private company quickly appear to exceed the previous military based (with Ministry of Defence civilians) costings, and do not provide services to the same standard, and is in training providers failing to produce to the same high level. It has been reverted in the case of The Ministry of Defence Police disposing of private security companies and creating the Ministry of Defence Guard Service, providing a more efficient service (and making a financial saving!). Similar occurring with the training structures, and the linking to the incompetent British adult education system, away from the military system. A Memorandum from the Public and Commercial Services Union, the 274,000 strong main Civil Service Union in the UK, of 23rd November 2001, with pinpoint accuracy pointed out all the inherent flaws with these privatisations. The campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have proven them right, added to which the outflow of monies from the UK to the US companies is staggering. As an aside, the privatisation of the control and upkeep of the privatised training areas has also proven badly flawed, with complaints from many civilian bodies. Further must be added the refusal of The Treasury to enhance the financial budget of Armed Services at war, and keeping them on a peacetime system of accounting, with no increase to show the realities of these military operations, and in fact decreasing the actual funding dramatically. The National Audit Office in 2004 reported that readiness (including training) was being sacrificed as money was diverted to ongoing operations, diluting skill and threatening what it called "high-end war fighting skill sets". And the end of 2007 saw no improvement over this, with many training activities cancelled. Then also the refusal to return to the Defence Vote, monies gained in the sale of property assets, from which vast sums were made, such as The Duke of York's Headquarters in the centre of London, in the possession of the Army for some 200 years, or the multitude of TA Centres throughout the country, centrally based in prime locations inside cities. Whilst the socialist based Scottish Nationalist Party received only a minimal hold on Scotland's government in the then recent 2007 election (a majority of one, and all the other parties in total outnumber them dramatically), they remain firmly fixed on their agenda of the breakup of the United Kingdom in order to become a independent socialist nation (!), the future of Scottish Regiments and recruiting in Scotland is in serious doubt (as is the Territorial Army in Scotland). 3,440 Regular soldiers were stationed in Scotland, along with 3,400 RN/RM, 5,850 RAF, and 6,650 MoD Civil Servants in 2007. The Minister of Defence, Des Brown, also wears the appointment of Secretary of State for Scotland, the stupidity of having one person holding two high profile portfolio's, both very politically sensitive in a time of fighting two war's is unbelievable! It must be said at this point that the problems affecting the Army are mirrored in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, and are far worse in many aspects. Since this project first started in late May 2007, the activities of the Labour Party that is the governance of the United Kingdom appears in the writings of many commentators in the UK, to be determined to destroy the Union of England,Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. To which must be added the future of the Brigade of Gurkhas, who whilst superbly recruited, with their newly enhanced conditions of service are now making them far more expensive than British (or Commonwealth) enlistees), example recruit training is 38 weeks with only limited English skills gained, this would have to be enhanced to 54 weeks to improve the level of language ability, whilst also the political future of Nepal is itself very uncertain, and with it the Gurkhas future service!

Situated within strategic aspects of International Relations, this thesis asks whether the West still needs warriors. The West has always had and needed warriors, and six warrior ideal types are analysed. Three of these are premodern and three are modern. Warriors are defined as soldiers with a personal and existential commitment to master and experience warfare, who are willing and able to kill and sacrifice their life in combat. It is argued warriors are principally individual types, and whereas there are many soldiers, few of these are warriors. The thesis presents a social theory of who and what the West is, analysing how this is translated into security paradigms that conceive for example whether security ought to be pursued for only the West, or whether it ought to be pursued for all of mankind. A further context issue is the relationship between war and combat. The character of war is changing and becoming ever more instrumental. Combat, meanwhile, is existential and unchanging, consisting of the same basic features and social structure it did in Homeric times. To ask whether the West needs warriors is thus to ask both an instrumental and an existential question. The existential features have to do with whom the West conceives themselves as; the instrumental features about what the West needs. Warriors are both a type of human being embodying qualities like manliness and courage, and instruments towards the attainment of security for Western states. To an extent, social developments have eroded the esteem in which warriors are held, because society is sceptical of the deliberate use of force. Yet at the same time, the security agendas conceived by the West are more expansive than ever, which leads to a greater need for warriors.

This thesis examines the role of Soviet military policy in the formation, history and decline of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO). It traces the relationship between two functions of the alliance, an external strategic role and an internal military-political function, and asks whether the decline of the WTO in the late 1930s was the result of a change in external requirements, of the abandonment of the internal role, or of some combination of the two. The internal political functioning of the WTO, its military command structures, and the question of Soviet strategic goals, in Europe during the 1955-1987 period are examined. It is argued that both internal and external alliance functions were important, but that while there were fluctuations in the level of internal political control by the USSR, this was less noticeable in the military command sphere. This suggests that the external strategic role may have been primary, though it does not establish this beyond doubt. An examination of Soviet policy in the late 1980s shows that the functions of the WTO were placed in question in different ways by projected reforms of military strategy and by the logic of "Mew Thinking" in foreign policy. However, it could not have been predicted on the basis of the Soviet strategic debate alone that the USSR would accept the political transformation of Eastern Europe, the early withdrawal of Soviet forces, and the virtual collapse of the WTO as an alliance during 1989-90. It is there-fore argued in conclusion that this collapse can best be explained in terms of a political calculation about the future of Eastern Europe which the Soviet leadership made at a time when the military-strategic debate was still unresolved.

One persistent concern about the increasingly widespread use of private security companies (PSCs) is that, unlike the state-organized military, PSCs are inherently unreliable and disloyal because they are primarily motivated by profit and only subject to limited controls. Yet if these concerns were valid, one should expect misconduct to be PSCs' default behavioural option. Evidence from UK PSCs operating in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003-2009, however, suggests that misconduct was relatively rare, given how widely PSCs were used in both theatres of operation. Indeed, PSCs are frequently lauded for their professionalism and loyalty - particularly by their customers, who arguably have a close view of their behaviour. The core problem of this thesis is, therefore, the question why misconduct is actually not more prevalent in the UK private security industry (PSI). It argues that the dominant conceptualization of PSC behaviour overemphasises the importance of financial interests in their decision-making. Using Granovetter's concept of embeddedness, this thesis suggests that the social context of PSCs, through institutions, networks and power relationships, shapes their economic actions. In a three-level analysis, it shows how (1) the decisionmaking processes in individual PSCs, (2) competition in the market for PSC services and (3) the (contractual) relationship between PSCs and their clients reduce the likelihood of misconduct. Rather than being exclusively interested in maximising their corporate profits, PSCs are therefore motivated by a complex amalgam of financial and non-financial interests. This motivation, combined with informal regulatory influence from their labour, market and client relations, causes PSC behaviour to be more restricted than previously acknowledged. Adopting a qualitative approach and drawing on over fifty semi-structured interviews with UK PSC representatives and employees, their clients, policy-makers and experts as well as on corporate reports, biographies, academic and media research, this thesis traces the key factors that shaped the behaviour of UK PSCs in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003-2009. By providing a more nuanced understanding of UK PSC behaviour, this study offers a new approach to PSC regulation. Instead of strict, formal regulation, including intrusive monitoring and strong sanctions, this study demonstrates the advantages of less antagonistic, responsive forms of regulation, which rely on fostering military professionalism in the PSI, on shaping public and private sector demand power in the market for PSC services and on using the relationship dimension of contracting to increase regulatory responsiveness.

This thesis is an account of the ways in which private security markets rest upon and reproduce categories of race, colonial constitutions and gender in its commodification of security labour. To support this claim, this project is a feminist political ethnography that draws upon interviews and observations from both white British Gurkha officers/presently security company directors, local Gurkha employment agents and Gurkha security contractors operating in Afghanistan between January 200B-September 2010. This study considers the ways Gurkhas are represented, recruited and marketed in private security by these individuals and how these men negotiate/adapt and resist representations of Gurkhas within larger security market colonial scripts. It offers a much-needed historic and cultural analysis of the ways race, class and gender work in tandem to construct differences amongst security and security labour and how these practices constitute security markets. As such this research demonstrates that experiences and representations of Gurkhas (and any security contractor) can never be reduced to naturalising claims of "just the market".