Thesis advisor: Eve Spangler / The Department of Defense not only acknowledges the current ramifications of climate change but also recognizes the threat it poses to U.S. national security. The Department of Defense is a major domestic and international organization, and despite the Department’s impact in many areas, including the environment, the relationship between national security and environmental concern has not been studied nearly to the extent it could. Furthermore, no study using data from a large military organization exists that could help the Department of Defense progress toward the sustainability it desires. This dissertation addresses this problem by reviewing the U.S. Army’s greening directives and initiatives and providing a short history of these efforts at the United States Military Academy. It examines how and why attitudes, intentions, and behavior regarding the environment differ among military, both ROTC and West Point cadets, and civilian college students, and whether they view environmental problems to be a threat to our national security. This project has five broad findings of interest. First, the relationship between environmental attitudes and environmental behaviors and intentions remained as predicted and was always strongly significant. Second, ROTC cadets were never significantly different in their survey responses when compared with civilian students, and USMA cadets were rarely different. Third, civilian students’ political views were almost never significantly related to their environmental attitudes, behaviors, or intentions, while military cadets’ political views were always significantly related to lower scores on the environmental attitude scale. Fourth, being a U.S. Military Academy cadet, compared to civilian students, was significantly related to stronger agreement with the statement that the so-called ‘ecological crisis’ facing humankind is a threat to the United States’ national security. Fifth, women were more likely than men to report higher scores on the environmental attitude scale and make a special effort to recycle but also more likely than men to express weaker agreement with the statement that the ecological crisis is a threat to national security. This project has the potential to inform the military’s conservation policies and programs, while the military is uniquely positioned to be an agent of change in the efforts to combat climate change. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

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The subject of combat motivation continues to challenge historians, sociologists, psychiatrists and the military establishment. Despite a considerable body of research, the subject remains multifaceted and complex. Combat motivation is a cyclical process within which motivations to fight before combat, during combat and after combat, are subject to significant changes. The impelling forces for the cycle have been the myths of popular culture. These have shaped how potential combatants understood war and provided the intrinsic motivation to enlist. These attitudes were extrinsically reshaped by training but not removed, and soldiers carried into combat ideas from popular culture that suggested appropriate behaviour; actual participation in combat rapidly reshaped these attitudes. Post-combat, a personal composure was sought to make sense of fighting experiences, and some memoirists extended this into the public sphere. A bifurcation of memoirs reveals not only the perpetuation of traditional myths, but also revelatory attempts to dispel them and thus reshape the popular culture of warfare; specifically, past commemoration and future imagining. Three substantive sections of this thesis will analyse each part of this motivational cycle. By drawing upon evidence from earlier wars it will be possible to demonstrate a continuity of combat motivation throughout the twentieth century. This will also reveal how media representations of the American experience of war have been subsumed into the British cultural template. Research has tended to conflate motivation with morale, but they are different concepts. Motivation provided the reasons why combatants were prepared to fight; however, morale represented the spirit in which it was undertaken. This thesis will separately analyse the elements of morale as a hierarchy of personal needs. A central theme of this thesis is that motivations were dependent upon a complex of interests that combined: the public and the state, military culture, and the core personal orientations of the individual combatant. As a campaign that sits on the transitional boundary of post-modern warfare, the Falklands War provides an opportunity to assess continuity and change within this complex as it has adapted to the impact of war.

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Military wives continue to represent the majority of military spouses and as a result, most research on military spouses has focused exclusively on them. Utilizing data from the 1999 Survey of Active Duty Spouses, one goal of this study was to address this gap in the literature by examining how male and female military spouses differ. The results indicated that military husbands were more likely to have military experience themselves than military wives. Military husbands were also more likely to be older than female spouses and less likely to have children. Men were also more likely to indicate that their employment was not a concern during the family's last permanent change of station move. The primary goal of this study was to examine the influence of gender on military spouses' support for their active duty spouses' retention in the U.S. Military. Previous research has indicated that spousal support plays an important role in military personnel's retention decisions. Other factors that were considered for their influence on spouse support for retention included age, race/ethnicity, education, children, personal military experience, employment concerns during the family's last move, the hours worked per week by the active duty spouse, the rank of the active duty spouse, and the military spouse's satisfaction with the military lifestyle. The results of this regression analysis indicated that military husbands are less supportive of their active duty spouses' retention than military wives. Satisfaction with the military lifestyle was found to be the most significant predictor of military spouses' support for their active duty spouses' retention in the U.S. Military. Of the other factors, age, race/ethnicity, education, the hours worked per week by the active duty spouse, and the presence of children in the family were also found to be significant predictors of spouse support for retention. As satisfaction with the military lifestyle was demonstrated to be a significant influence on spouse support for retention, this study also involved an examination of gender differences in satisfaction with the military lifestyle. Gender was not found to be a significant influence on satisfaction with the military lifestyle. Factors that were found to significantly influence satisfaction included the military spouse's age, race/ethnicity, concerns about employment, hours worked per week by the active duty spouse and the rank of the active duty spouse. Concerns about employment during the family's last move and the hours worked per week by the active duty spouse were both found to have a negative influence on military spouses' satisfaction with the military lifestyle. / Ph. D.

This study addresses the extent to which participation in the military affects subsequent status attainment and mobility in America. The purpose of this research was to conduct a comprehensive examination of existing empirical research resulting in a synthesis of findings and establishing a concise summary of the state of the literature on this topic. The study is limited to the examination of existing research on male veterans in the years between 1950 and the present. Findings from sixty-four articles and seven books are presented. The background characteristics of servicemen, the promotion and retention of servicemen, and the post-service earnings and education of servicemen, in the era of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the All-Volunteer Force are discussed. When possible, comparisons are made between servicemen and their civilian counterparts, as well as between Anglos and African Americans. Findings indicate that men serving in the military prior to Vietnam were from somewhat higher socio-economic and educational backgrounds. The background characteristics of Anglo veterans of Vietnam and the AVF were homogenous to their civilian counterparts. Black veterans of the period from the war in Vietnam through the present have slightly higher levels of education and income prior to service as compared to their civilian counterparts. Research on promotion, retention, and military occupational assignments demonstrate that blacks are more likely to enlist and re-enlist than are Anglos. Promotions are currently achieved at approximately the same rate regardless of race. However, throughout the period examined, blacks are more likely to be trained in military occupational specialties considered to be less transferable to the civilian workforce. Findings on post-service attainment are limited to the examination of income, earnings, and education. Military service resulted in higher levels of income, earnings, and education for all veterans serving since 1950, with the notable exception of Anglo Vietnam veterans. In other words, as compared to their civilian counterparts, veterans had significantly higher incomes, earnings, and educational levels post-service. Explanations for the association between military service and social mobility, including fluctuations in enlistment standards and educational benefits during the period under investigation, are presented. / Ph. D.

All organizations involved in war are concerned with military cohesion. Yet previous studies have only investigated cohesion in a very narrow manner, focusing almost solely on Western state militaries or on micro-level explanations. This dissertation argues for the need to broaden this perspective. It focuses on three classic sources of cohesion – coercion, compensation and constructs (such as identity and ideology) – and investigates their relevance in the Second Liberian Civil War (1999-2003). More specifically, this dissertation consists of an inquiry of how the conflict's three main military organizations – Charles Taylor’s Government of Liberia (GoL), the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) – drew on these three sources to foster cohesion. Based on thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork with former combatants, this dissertation contains five parts: an introduction, which focuses on issues of theory and method, and four essays that investigate the three sources of cohesion in the three organizations. Essay I focuses on the LURD rebels, and provides an insider account of their strategy. It shows that even decentralized movements like the LURD can execute strategy, and contends that the LURD fought its fiercest battles not against the government, but to keep itself together. Essay II focuses on coercion, and counters the prevailing view of African rebels’ extensive use of coercion to keep themselves together. Since extreme coercion in particular remained illegitimate, its use would have decreased, rather than increased, cohesion. Essay III investigates the government militias to whom warfighting was subcontracted. In a context characterized by a weak state and fragmented social organization, compensation may have remained the only available source of cohesion. Essay IV investigates identities as sources of cohesion. It argues that while identities are a powerful cohesive source, they must be both created and maintained to remain relevant. Taken together, this dissertation argues for a more comprehensive approach to the investigation of cohesion, and one that also takes into account mezzo- and macro-level factors.

This work is based on the belief that the Provisional IRA developed its combat effectiveness through enhancing its small-unit effectiveness. Although PIRA ultimately failed in its objective to reunify Ireland, it successfully waged a thirty-year long campaign against the British military. The current state of terrorism studies does not explain how this was possible. It can explain the development of PIRA’s strategy, membership type and weapons used but it lacks sufficient explanation of small-unit dynamics. By drawing on the ideas of Huntington and King, among others, this work argues that PIRA successfully professionalised its small-unit tactics and this was the source of its increased effectiveness. By examining changes in structure, training, specialisation, motivation and identity it will be possible to demonstrate whether professionalism did have an effect. Ultimately, the findings of this research will provide an example for others to follow in their efforts to understand past and present terror threats.

Human capital formation is a fundamental requirement for countries' long term economic development and societal prosperity. This process can be enhanced or disrupted by internal factors such as migration and remittances, or external ones like wars. This thesis is interested in investigating both phenomena. The following questions are addressed: what is the impact of migrant remittances on human capital formation, do these private inflows induce any changes in the behavior of remittance-receivers towards education expenditure, and finally what is the short term micro-economic effect of armed conflicts on education in post war countries. In investigating these issues, focus is made on two perspectives: first youth, an active group in the society whose age matches up higher education levels and labor force entry simultaneously; second gender differentials both in terms of impact and behavior. The research explores new surveys from the Middle East, datasets that have not been analyzed previously from an education angle and that are not generally available to researchers. These datasets come from Jordan and Lebanon, two middle income non-oil producer countries. The thesis is composed of three independent essays. The first examines the impact of migrant remittances on human capital accumulation among youth in Jordan and highlights the various ways in which remittances influence education outcomes. The analysis takes a gender dimension and examines whether the effects and magnitude of such impact is different between males and females. The second essay considers remittances receipt, from both domestic and international sources, and examines their impact on Jordanian households' education spending patterns. Following the literature on intra-household bargaining and gender expenditure preferences, the analysis examines whether such impact is potentially different between male and female headed households. The third essay tackles the impact of the 2006 war on education attendance of youth in Lebanon. The chapter captures households' schooling responses in the aftermath of the war. By looking at the implications of a diversified array of damages sustained; reflecting physical, human, income and employment losses; the chapter examines possible linkages between the nature of the damage incurred and the manner and magnitude in which such damage affects education.

This thesis addresses the relationship between Greek Cypriot nationalism, militarism and masculinity following the opening of the borders in Cyprus between North and South in 2003. Drawing upon empirical research conducted in Cyprus in 2011, the thesis argues that there is an integral relation between nationalism, militarism and masculinity and that since the opening of the borders, there has been a re-constitution of this relationship. In the re-constitution of this relationship what appears as the weakening of each component is illustrated to be an adapted reiteration of its co-constitution under new social and political parameters. This adapted reiteration is a continuation of the Greek Cypriot perceived nationalist militarist masculinist stance of power in the conflict situation against ‘occupation' and explains, amongst other post – 2003 nationalist, militarist and masculinist reiterations, as to why the opening of the borders has not helped in the bringing together of the two communities. On the contrary, in fact, in some cases the adapted reiterations have helped new divisions to emerge. The research reveals that the inextricability of masculinity in this three-fold co-constitutive relationship is significant in the adapted reiteration of an identity, which exists beneath the politically symbolic or institutional level – and is hindering the process of reconciliation. It is argued that despite there being a shifting away of the hegemonic masculinity of men from the national struggle, and thus also the conscription service, towards a transnational entrepreneurial masculinity, there remains a broader masculinist discourse in this co-constitutive relationship, which I name in this thesis as nationalist militarised masculinity. This is significant because it is a discourse that is integral to this Greek Cypriot nationalist militarist masculinist stance, with its adapted reiterations, that creates obstacles for reconciliation. The results of this thesis highlight the necessity of addressing the co-constitution of nationalism, militarism and masculinity in Cyprus and likewise in other post-armed conflict societies.