Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War, And Build a Better World

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Unlike last year’s 10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military, another book that explores many of the deceptive techniques used by military recruiter’s to entice youth into joining, Aimee Allison and David Solint’s An Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War, and Build a Better World is focused primarily on giving antiwar activists the tools that they need to effectively counter military recruiters. Known as “counter-recruitment” in the antiwar movement, this strategy has become increasingly common as antiwar activists have realized the simple fact that the Iraq War could not continue if the military did not have the soldiers necessary to fight it. Additionally, counter-recruitment challenges the underlying assumptions of imperialist policy, with the intro stating that:

“Counter-recruitment organizing is the most practical way to tangibly resist United States policy that, while cutting funding for education, employment, and social programs, promotes war and empire, It exposes the relationship between, and acts to correct, both local and global injustices.”

To assist those who have not previously heard about the recruiting techniques used by the military, Allison and Solnit include three chapters–”The Military Message and the Facts,” “The Military’s Goal–Own the School,” and “Brand Army: Molding Minds, Recruiting Bodies” that look at how the military recruits youth. The chapters provide an overview of many of the prominent arguments against military service, explaining that recruiters frequently lie, that the military contract guarantees nothing and can be changed at any time and that promises of signing bonuses or money for college are rarely kept. The authors then explore how the military promotes itself, focusing on how the military enters into schools and uses a variety of techniques from class room presentations and JROTC to advertising on the “Channel 1″ service that is aired in high schools across the country. Significant attention is given to the No Child Left Behind Act and its provisions that allow military recruiters to obtain high school students’ personal information, as well as the public relations techniques used by the military to develop a “brand” that appeals to youth.

The remainder of the book is devoted to sharing ideas for those interested in actually doing counter-recruitment work. Allison and Solnit’s guide is invaluable and widely encompassing, containing a plethora of strategies that could be used by activists both in schools and in the communities. The authors explain how to get into schools, how to give presentations, how to organize direct action protests, and other tactics–while emphasizing the importance of having a clearly defined strategy and tangible goals. To this end, Allison and Solnit also include a chapter titled “People Power Strategy to End War and Build a Better World” that focuses on organizing against the “Pillars of War”–the military, corporate war profiteers, and the corporate media as part of an effort to achieve fundamental change in society. This discussion of long-term strategy–often missing from the antiwar movement–is an important inclusion in the book.

Army of None is an essential book for antiwar organizers working on counter-recruitment campaigns, but it is also an important read for those pursuing other avenues to end the occupation of Iraq. Allison and Solnit outline a compelling case for why counter-recruitment should be a major focus of the antiwar movement while simultaneously outlining the role that such a movement could have in challenging the underlying foundations of militarism that exist in our society.

Aimee Allison and David Solnit, An Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War, and Build a Better World, (Seven Stories Press, 2007).

Related Posts:

1. Military Recruitment Database Expanded to Facilitate Counter-Recruitment Organizing in Grand Rapids
2. New Military / Counter-Recruitment Database and Resources Online
3. Interview with Activate about their Counter-Recruitment Work
4. Army Recruitment Numbers on Race Reveal Disproportionate Numbers of People of Color, Poor; Michigan’s Eaton County has Highest Latino Recruitment Rate
5. Counter Military Recruiting: Midwest Social Forum

Tags: antiwar, military, military recruiting, organizing, protest