We are doing some good work for these people, but I joined the Army to be in a combat-ready unit, not to be a policeman

American peacekeeper. (Kitfield, 2000, in: Franke, 2003, p. 34)

From Military Stereotypes to A Revaluation of Soldiers’ Discretionary Autonomy

Traditionally, if there is one organization that is associated with obedience, rule compliance and an alleged lack of discretion on the part of its personnel, it is the military organization. From stereotypical depictions in popular culture to a plethora of academic analyses, all point to the military as a command and control organization that revolves around obedience to authority (Kucera & Gulpers, 2018, p. 366). Furthermore, military occupational culture has often been described in terms of a standard model with recurring characteristics of hierarchy, rules, discipline and obedience (Soeters, 2018).

These ideas about traditional military organizational and cultural structures are said to have a considerable relevance for military ethics. For instance, Olsthoorn et al. (2013) state that the military is distinguished from other organizations by its specific organizational circumstances, in which especially the loyalty to direct colleagues ‘is the part of the military ethic that is most at odds with what a “regular” professional ethic entails’ (2013, p. 86). Kucera and Gulpers (2018) frame this military ethic in terms of two dominant orientations on moral responsibilities: military ethic seems to revolve largely around the inward orientation on fellow soldiers, and the upward orientation on the political community or state, whereas the outward orientation on ‘significant others’ (allies, enemies, civilians) is mainly conceived of in terms of negative moral obligations, i.e. soldiers are expected to minimize harm to civilians.

In this contribution, I suggest that this traditional imagery has been superseded and, most importantly, that a ‘constabularization’ of the military (Easton & Moelker, 2010; Janowitz, 1964) necessitates a revaluation of military discretionary autonomy and moral demands. In other words, I explore the possible moral implications of the partial shift of military work towards police-like work. Quite a few studies point to the fact that battlefields, missions and military organizations have changed, but only a few elaborate on what these changes might mean for how soldiers have to navigate new discretionary and moral demands. I reflect on the possible implications of a change in discretionary autonomy by first mapping some important changes in military organizations and missions and their possible moral implications. Next, I introduce some of the moral demands police officers face as ‘street-level bureaucrats’ and discuss how these demands might increasingly apply to military settings. By comparing changes in military work with police officers’ discretion and the moral character of that profession, I hope to provide a particular perspective on what it might mean to be a contemporary soldier.

Military Autonomy: From Effective Fighting Power to New Moral Demands

Military autonomy understood as room for the decisions and initiatives taken by soldiers and lower ranking officers is in no way a new concept. However, relatively recent (post-Cold War) developments have placed the discretion of soldiers in a new perspective and in a more complex occupational reality. I will first outline how military autonomy might be read as the result of a change in command philosophy. Next, I will indicate what recent changes might mean for this autonomy and (consequently) for the moral demands placed on military personnel.

The notion of autonomy has quite a long tradition in military thinking. Especially in German military theory, going at least as far back as the writings of Clausewitz, and through the army reforms of General Von Moltke, the ideal can be observed of a ‘professional officer corps with the authority and willingness to take decisions in real time at a low level’ (Bungay, 2005; Van Bezooijen & Kramer, 2015). This ideal was grounded in military strategical considerations: the ‘fog of war’ leads to a degree of uncertainty that demands ‘individual initiative, independent thinking and responsibility at all levels of command (Visser, 2017). As such, operational autonomy—known in this context as Auftragstaktik as opposed to Befehlstaktik (Bungay, 2005)—was given credit for an instrumental reason, namely to build ‘a more effective fighting organisation’ (Visser, 2017). These views on fighting power became a military tradition and later contributed to the successes of the German army during World War II (Bungay, 2005; Wilson, 1989).

The German notion of Auftragstaktik directly inspired ideas of ‘mission command’. As an alternative to centralized forms of command that see initiative as a form of disobedience, the notion of ‘mission command’ advocates empowerment of those at the forefront of events (Bungay, 2005; Van Bezooijen & Kramer, 2015). In this view, military personnel on all levels are expected to make decisions, guided by more generic descriptions of mission goals (cf. De Graaff & Kramer, 2012, p. 44). It paved the way for an instrumental view of military autonomy; that is, freedom was granted to use one’s own discretion—in line with the intentions of those higher in command—so that military objectives would be easier to achieve (Bungay, 2005).

Military autonomy understood in these terms is grounded in a specific conceptualization of war and how it can be fought effectively. However, the context in which ideas of Auftragstaktik came into being has since changed substantially. These changes have both increased the dependency on military discretionary autonomy and added other moral dimensions to it.

After the Cold War ended, a more complex geopolitical interplay of forces has led to, among other things, a partial change from ‘threat-driven’ to ‘ambition and capability-driven’ military forces, a general downsizing of the military and the deployment of military forces for crises, ‘postmodern conflicts’ and new missions (Hoffenaar, 2017; Kaldor, 2007; Manigart, 2018). In this respect, traditional wars have given way to ‘new wars’, in which states disintegrate and the distinction between combatants and non-combatants disappears, as does that between legitimate violence and criminal behaviour (Kaldor, 2007). These wars demand a different approach, one in which individual rights are given prominence over state rights; in other words, a human security approach (ibid.). Elsewhere, changes have been described mostly in terms of a shift from ‘combat-related deployment’ towards ‘peacekeeping’ (Franke, 2003). Following Franke (2003), a growing array of peace operations (military operations other than war, or ‘MOOTW’) is generating debate on how to differentiate between ‘humanitarian assistance, preventive diplomacy, peace-making, peacekeeping, peace-building, and peace enforcement’ (ibid., p. 33). Such differentiation is beyond the scope of this contribution, but it is clear that military work has gone through a significant evolution.

These changes have several important consequences for the organization of the military. One of the most conspicuous is the changing outlook of military missions. Instead of traditional warfare with large, opposing land forces, present-day missions are intended to be relatively quick, flexible and temporary deployments in which multinational cooperation takes place through task forces (De Graaff & Kramer, 2012). Some claim that these general changes have led to a further ‘contraction of command’, as a result of which the traditional military hierarchy has flattened (Manigart, 2018). As such, this further underlines the philosophy of ‘mission command’ mentioned above, albeit in part for a different reason. Mission command here is not only the result of thoughts on effectiveness, but also of circumstances in which centralized command and control is not always easy to maintain. The ‘dynamic complexity’ of contemporary missions implies a degree of ambiguity, indistinctiveness and equivocality that makes it impossible to centrally plan and control military operations in their entirety (Kramer, 2007). Thus, military autonomy is not (only) the result of an instrumental military tactic to enhance fighting power, but also the unavoidable outcome of how missions have changed.

This also leads to an increase in responsibility for mission leaders and frontline personnel, and requires a great deal of improvisation and ad hoc cooperation (Kramer & Moorkamp, 2019; Moorkamp et al., 2016; Richardson et al., 2004). Soldiers are expected and obliged to learn and adapt during their missions, to deal with uncertainty and to cooperate and achieve mission goals while improvising. As such, military organizations appear to be losing some of their characteristics as ‘total institutions’ in which all behaviour and roles are predictable (Goffman, 1961).

Most importantly for the point made here, these changes have a relevance for the moral demands on soldiers. Military organizations have long actively refuted the adage that ‘orders are orders’, and soldiers are expected to independently judge how to act in specific situations on the basis of their own moral considerations (Verweij, 2002). However, it seems that these moral obligations are being made more complicated by the aforementioned changes and associated responsibilities (Richardson et al., 2004). Under the circumstances described above, soldiers are perhaps more than before confronted with the moral question of having to judge when and how to apply force (Van Baarda & Verweij, 2006; Verweij et al., 2007), especially when they have to balance this with the expectations of involvement, respect and insight into local communities (see also Kucera & Gulpers, 2018). Moreover, if ‘human security’ is key in these ‘new wars’ (i.e. the security of individuals and communities instead of state security; cf. Kaldor, 2007), soldiers are confronted with the question of how this security is locally constituted, what actors influence it and how (with what means) it might be enhanced. All of these aspects imply (moral) demands that soldiers will have to deal with. As such, this human security agenda has important consequences for what is expected from military personnel. Among other things, communication, consultation and dialogue are key aspects of this role in new wars: a bottom-up approach that goes beyond ‘winning hearts and minds’ towards truly gaining insight into local communities and their needs (Kaldor, 2007).

To an important extent, these changes and the ensuing demands on military personnel point to matters of discretion. Military personnel are expected to decide in conditions that are often largely unknown to them, and are handed a significant amount of discretion that they might not be expecting or trained for. Moreover, they have to do so in contexts in which peacekeeping is considered more important than combat.

Discretionary Autonomy and Moral Demands: The Case of the Police

A way to describe these changes and to understand their implications for the military profession is by comparing contemporary military work with police work. I argue that police officers’ discretionary autonomy is of a specific moral nature and that an exploration of this area might help shed light on possible moral demands in contemporary military frontline work.

As early as 1964, Janowitz described the military establishment as a ‘constabulary force when it is continuously prepared to act, committed to the minimum use of force, and seeks viable international relations, rather than victory’ (Janowitz, 1964, p. 418). Others literally frame recent military developments as a ‘politicization’ of military work (Kucera & Gulpers, 2018). During these deployments, it is not the absolute use of force but practical conflict resolution that counts (Easton & Moelker, 2010; Janowitz, 1964), and conduct that resembles community policing is expected of soldiers (Easton & Moelker, 2010). This is also evident in the composition of human security forces, which consist of mixed units of military, civilian and police forces that in fact resemble police units more than traditional military units (Kaldor, 2007).

As a result, frontline military personnel might increasingly be seen as ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (Lipsky, 2010) or ‘streetcorner politicians’ (Muir, 1977). They have to deal with complex situations fraught with impactful decisions in which it often does not come down to the use of force as such but instead to the question of how to limit the use of coercion to a minimum and solve issues by other means. The aforementioned ‘human security agenda’ also clearly brings to mind the principles of specific forms of policing, in particular community policing, as this too is centred around the priorities and (feelings of) insecurity of citizens (Skogan, 2009; Terpstra, 2010). These settings call for other competencies and capabilities and another type of moral professionalism than has hitherto been expected from soldiers.

The question, then, is what are these moral demands that police officers face and that might be instructive for the military profession? Although it is widely accepted that all street-level work can be framed in terms of moral reasoning and that frontline professionals use their own ‘normative order’ for judging the people they encounter in their jobs (Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003, p. 158), police work is known to be of a particular moral nature; that is, through their relationship with the use of force, police officers operate in a unique moral space with unique moral demands in which their discretionary autonomy in decisions concerning the use of coercion is a vital and inherent part of their professionalism. In this respect, a police officer might see restraints upon his discretion as hampering his ‘capacity to fulfil his assigned task’ (Skolnick, 1966, p. 90). Some therefore state that the question of what authority he formally has is less important than the constitution of his authority through his uniform and the way he uses this in the street. A police officer sees criminal procedures through the eyes of a ‘craftsman’ and emphasizes his own expertise to judge on appropriate measures (Skolnick, 1966, p. 196). In other words, it is inherent to police officers’ work to steer on the basis of what Frans Denkers et al. (2001) call their ‘moral compass’. Therefore, it is an illusion to fully discipline police officers’ behaviour, because, ‘police officers to a large extent act on their own terms. In fact, they have to, due to the nature of their work. […] police officers remain reliant on their moral compass’ (Denkers et al., 2001, p. 37—translation my own). There is a rich intellectual and academic tradition that shows that their professional behaviour as ‘moral entrepreneurs’ in practice is more important than an application of legal and formal rules (Denkers et al., 2001; Herbert, 1996; Manning & Van Maanen, 1978). As such, Denkers et al. (2001) point out that morality is at the heart of police work by stating, among other things, that the police are defined by the expectation that they are able to deal with injustice in a decent and non-biased way, and that they factually deal with the vast majority of offences through various moral practices rather than by invoking criminal law or through law enforcement (Banton, 1964; Bittner, 1967; Denkers et al., 2001; Skolnick, 1966; Terpstra, 2010).

A work that addresses these moral practices in detail is William Muir’s, 1977 study Police: Streetcorner Politicians. In this book, Muir specifically addresses variations in how police officers work by posing the central question ‘What makes a police officer good?’ and mapping various police work styles. Muir does so by defining two virtues of police work. The first one centres around the use of legitimate force. Muir explains this as the extent to which police officers know how to resolve the contradiction between coercive means and just ends. In Muir’s view, this can be done in either an ‘integrated’ way in which the use of coercion is part of ‘an overall moral code’, or in a ‘conflictual’ way in which the application of coercion is likely to cause guilt ‘because it is not related to basic moral principles’ (ibid.). Other authors have equally recognized this matter as inherent to police discretion. In fact, this particular moral challenge sets police officers apart from other frontline professionals: having the possibility to legitimately use force if needed comes with specific (moral) responsibilities and expectations, and even defines police officers as police. Police officers are the ultimate authority to be called upon when force is needed, and they are expected to use it in a decent way (Bittner, 1970; Muir, 1977; Terpstra, 2010; Van den Brink et al., 2016). A second reason why police officers’ use of discretion comes with particular moral questions follows from what Muir calls the challenge of how to grasp ‘the nature of human suffering’. Although Muir understands this as an intellectual endeavour, it can also be understood in moral terms. In his view, police officers approach human suffering either ‘cynically’ or ‘tragically’. Officers with a cynical approach frame people in binary terms such as good or bad/us and them and police work is about fault-finding. When police officers look tragically upon human suffering, they support a more unitary vision of mankind and ‘action [is] complexly produced by chance, will and circumstance’ (Reiner, 2010, p. 133).

Muir understands the responses to these two virtues to boil down to a fourfold typology. He therefore identifies the moral heart of the profession by mapping how police officers respond to the moral challenge of how to apply coercive means and how to grasp (and, might I say, morally judge) human suffering. This typology can be found in similar terms in many other studies on police work styles (Reiner, 2010; Van den Brink et al., 2016). Here I use Reiner’s overview of Muir’s categories:

The “avoider” (with cynical perspective and conflicted morality) shirks duties; the “reciprocator” (tragic perspective and conflicted morality) hesitates to use coercive power even when appropriate; the “enforcer” (cynical perspective and integrated morality) acts in the heat of conflicts and without understanding the need for restraint; the “professional” (tragic perspective and integrated morality) is the “good” cop. He or she is able to use violence where necessary in a principled way, but is adept at verbal and other skills that enable solutions to be resolved without coercive force wherever the opportunity exists. (Reiner, 2010)

In conclusion, morally challenging interactions or moral dilemmas appear to be inherent to police officers’ work because of the very nature of that work.

These conceptualizations can also be interpreted in normative terms. To develop a notion of what is a ‘good policeman’, Muir uses Weber’s model of a ‘mature man’ (1977, p. 54) and his view of a ‘professional politician’ with both ‘passion’ and ‘perspective’ (and here it becomes apparent how Muir leans on Weber’s normative idea of a professional politician). In Weber’s view, passion is the ‘capacity to integrate coercion into morals’. In other (and Muir’s) words, a truly professional police officer has ‘passion’, which implies that he has an integrated morality and sees the use of coercion as part of an encompassing moral code and as part of his profession. Conversely, the lack of passion points to a ‘conflicted morality’ and thus objections to coercive means, as these do not fit with an officer’s basic moral principles. In addition, Weber’s notion of perspective refers to an intellectual objectivity; to ‘the knowledge of tragedy with which all action, but especially political action, is truly interwoven’ (Muir, 1977, p. 51). Thus, this Weberian perspective comes down to the ‘tragic perspective’ described above. Conversely, a lack of such perspective comes down to a cynical worldview that justifies violence out of a lack of conscience and ethical concerns of civilization. In sum, Muir uses the Weberian notion of a professional politician to define a ‘good policeman’ as someone who ‘felt morally reconciled to using coercion [i.e. having passion/an integrated morality—TE] and at the same time […] reflected empathetically upon the condition of mankind [i.e. having perspective/a tragic perspective—TE]’ (ibid., p. 54). In terms of the typology used above, a good policeman (what Muir calls ‘the professional’) is someone who has both an integrated morality and a tragic perspective.

Soldiers as Street-Level Bureaucrats?

The question is, what is the relevance of this analysis for (new) military contexts? In this section, I try to answer that question in three parts: (1) does a constabularization of military missions mean that soldiers develop similar (moral) work styles?, (2) what could this analysis mean for military moral professionalism?, and (3) to what extent are military (organizational) conditions suitable for embedding possible lessons from such a comparison?

One question that follows from the above exploration is the following: can the police work styles described above be used to understand responses of military personnel to moral demands? After all, although Muir appears to have specific (normative) ideas about the ‘true police professional’ (see below), his model is primarily grounded in an empirical analysis: all four work styles can be found among police officers.

For one thing, several authors have noted that various social identities permeate military praxis and point out that these identities or roles are uncorrelated or even conflict (see for instance op den Buijs et al., 2019; Franke, 2003; Janowitz, 1964). Franke (2003), for instance, points to the opposition between warrior and peacekeeper roles and presents an analysis of four cognitive strategies soldiers might employ to navigate and resolve the resulting cognitive inconsistencies between these roles (ibid., p. 41). For the point made here, Franke’s fourth model is most interesting: the ‘post-Cold War military professional’ in which ‘the peacekeeper subidentity [is viewed] as an integral part of [soldiers’] professional self-conceptions rather than merely as “a job that it takes a soldier to do”’ (ibid., p. 46).

However, as Franke himself also notes, the integration of a ‘peacekeeper sub-identity’ into a soldier’s self-image does not resolve the moral dilemmas that come with it, and does not clarify moral demands and issues of moral judgement. As such, analyses such as these do not go much further than the oppositions between different ‘cognitive frames’ or ‘roles’, and, in Franke’s case, stop at describing a mere two roles. Interesting as these may be, these roles seem rather reductive of the present-day military praxis. As such, they say but little about moral dispositions and interpretations of discretion. Moreover, cognitive strategies say little about how soldiers deal with changing (moral) circumstances. In this respect, the exploration presented here might also serve as a suggestion for a new framework to (empirically) explore contemporary military discretion and work styles.

Another question that follows from these explorations is a normative one: can this typology be used to reflect on and maybe improve moral professionalism among military personnel? In this connection, Muir labels only one of the four work styles as ‘professional’. The others are thus ‘nonprofessional policemen’ (Muir, 1977, p. 55). Interesting in this respect is that other authors apply the label ‘professional’ to other work styles. Reiner (1978, in: Reiner, 2010), for instance, uses the same two virtues to devise a fourfold typology, but reserves the label professional for those police officers with a tragic perspective but a conflicted morality (what Muir calls a ‘reciprocator’). Hence, officers who hesitate to use coercion, even when appropriate, are considered by Reiner to be ‘professionals’. All in all, both these ‘virtues’ invite reflections on soldiers’ moral professionalism.

First of all, if soldiers carry out more police-like work, it might mean a different relation to the role of coercion. Although soldiers cannot be seen as killing machines that blindly follow orders, and moral considerations on the application of violence are part and parcel of the military profession, new types of missions and police-like work imply a specific relationship to violence. As such, ‘traditional’, stereotypical notions of military work might be in line with an ‘integrated morality’ towards coercion in which coercion is an integral part of an overall moral code. Perhaps new police-like deployments also require work styles with a more conflicted morality and military personnel with a different moral attitude towards the use of violence, especially since the use of force is less central. As such, the refuted claim that the uniqueness of the military professional resides in his expertise in ‘war-making and in the organized use of violence’ (Janowitz, 1964, p. 15) has still not led to the ultimate conclusion, namely that the military profession might be less and less about the use of force and that this might call for a different military moral professionalism. Consequently, dealing with problems of ‘human security’ and gaining insight into local communities and their needs might require military personnel whose professionalism is also defined by a conflicted morality towards violence. This calls for a new perspective on military moral professionalism.

Secondly, new types of missions might also have consequences in terms of the second virtue described above; that is, the extent to which frontline personnel grasp the nature of human suffering. If new missions increasingly revolve around ‘significant others’ who cannot and should not be reduced to enemies, a thorough rethinking of what Kulcera and Gulpers (2018) dub the outward orientation of the military ethic may be needed. Where they make a case for ‘humanitarizing’ the military, another way of framing this imperative is by subscribing to what has above been named the ‘tragic perspective’. This does not stop at ‘more respect’ for others outside the organization (ibid., p. 369). It might go as far as meaning that the intellectual grasping (and moral judging) of the world outside the gates of the compound should be inherently tragic. Thus, an outward ethic that is truly humanitarian perhaps starts with a tragic foundation and the acknowledgement of ‘a sense of the meaning of human conduct – a comprehension of the suffering of each inhabitant of the earth, a sensitivity to man’s yearning for dignity, and, ultimately, “some kind of faith” that no individual is worthless’ (Muir, 1977, p. 51). For the military, the challenge might be obvious here, especially since the ‘cynical perspective’ and its common ‘intellectual grasping’ of enemies and civilians as savages is all too familiar to many soldiers (Bandura, 2002; Ivie, 1980).

A third matter for consideration is whether present military conditions are suitable for organizationally embedding such views on military moral professionalism. For one thing, within the police, there are many forces that hamper moral professionalism and restrict police officers in the daily execution of their jobs. As early as 1966, Skolnick already noted how police reforms tended to bureaucratization and reduced police work to a machine-like execution of predictable tasks. Such bureaucratizing tendencies have received ample academic attention since then. Also in recent years, police organizations in multiple countries have apparently tended to curtail police discretionary autonomy (Terpstra et al., 2019).

In view of the foregoing, an interesting question is how developments towards politicization and the associated possible changes in discretionary autonomy, moral demands and the moral professionalism of soldiers fit within a military organization that still fosters traditional ethics and expects obedience and loyalty. It would appear that soldiers have to face new demands while still operating within an institution that seems in part to be stuck in traditional structures. For instance, new expectations are at odds with the control exercised by higher ranking officers (Manigart, 2018, p. 421), and soldiers are still by and large trained along the lines of their functional units, whereas ad hoc mission compositions require that they think outside of that particular box (De Graaff & Kramer, 2012; Kramer & Moorkamp, 2019). It appears that these structures can lead to ambivalence in practice, and soldiers are expected to be able to cope with confusion and ambiguity (Manigart, 2018, p. 420). Some authors frame this lack of clarity and preparation and training for situations that require improvisation in terms of a ‘double bind’: servicemen and women are expected to follow orders but are at the same time required to improvise and to be creative (cf. De Graaff & Kramer, 2012; Kramer & Moorkamp, 2019).

This double bind may only become worse when soldiers experience a need for more discretion, while they work for an organization that in spite of recent changes maintains elements of a ‘greedy institution’ with high demands on commitment (Coser, 1974). In this respect, it remains to be seen how a traditional morality of seclusion and loyalty will fit with new types of work that require discretionary autonomy, openness, interaction, a different relationship to violence and a different perspective on civilians. In addition, the notions described here can help to create a more versatile image of military frontline work, but this obviously has important implications for training, recruitment and command structure, as ‘there will need to be an additional “broadening” of the education base of the military establishment in order to equip military professionals with expertise in areas beyond core war-fighting skills and to develop a capacity for flexibility in these turbulent New Times’ (Dandeker, 1994; cf. Kucera & Gulpers, 2018). As such, a rethinking of military morality also requires a rethinking of how this morality can be instilled through training, supported and developed.

Conclusion

The purpose of this contribution was to provide a specific perspective on developments in the military profession. Basically, this contribution consisted of a reflection on what the consequences of a politicization of military work might be for military discretionary autonomy, moral demands and moral professionalism.

Resolving the tensions this chapter opened with perhaps starts with truly acknowledging the discretion needed in contemporary military missions. Part of this acknowledgement concerns the new police-like moral demands that come with them and the provision of the training and organizational conditions needed for the development towards a new moral military professionalism. In other words, if being a soldier increasingly resembles being a police officer, it should also be acknowledged that this implies having to negotiate situations that require other forms of moral thinking, judging and acting.

Obviously, it remains to be seen what the exact implications of these developments will be for (moral) professionalism within the military. A detached reflection like the one presented here raises more questions than it provides answers. An adaptation of the military ethic might be necessary to gear soldiers to human security tasks, but what does a further politicization mean exactly for selection, education and training? What does it mean for recruitment? How do you present working for the military, and what sentiments do you trigger when you want to draw the right military professional, if this ‘good soldier’ should resemble a ‘good police officer’ with a ‘tragic perspective’ and an ‘integrated morality’, or maybe actually a ‘conflicted morality’ (cf. Franke, 2003; Janowitz, 1964)? What does it mean for military organizations when various moral demands and expectations have to be balanced (the ‘traditional inward and upward ethics’ in case of combat-ready warrior roles versus the moral demands of police-like forms of military work)? Can these various ethics be part of one organization at all? And of one ethic?

A key conclusion does perhaps follow from what Franke (2003, p. 45) calls the transcending or integrative model to resolve the tension between warrior and peacekeeping roles; that is, instead of trying to deny the peacekeeper role, this role could be accepted as being a part of the ‘post-Cold War military professional’. First and foremost, this means that military socialization and training should contribute to the acceptance of multiple roles as integral parts of the professional identity. Furthermore, such training could prepare soldiers for the moral challenges, moral judgements and moral entrepreneurship that are all a part of military discretionary autonomy—without having the pretence that anyone other than the member of the military on the front line can meet these moral demands.