Making military policy sustainable? : An analysis of military policy from a critical environmental perspective

Abstract: This study examines the framing of environmental policies within two military organisations;the Swedish Armed Forces and the United States’ Department of Defence. Additionally, key similarities and differences between the two were described and discussed, as well as which possibilities and challenges each organisation faces moving forward. By using a two-part method consisting partly of a content analysis performed through the chosen theoretical framework of Human Nature Relationships (HNR), along with Carol Bacchi’s policy analysis tool ‘What’s the problem represented to be’ (WPR) when examining both organisation’s respective sustainability reports from 2020, underlying problems were identified and analysed from a critical environmental perspective. The results show that the two policy documents were framed seemingly differently, where the SAF derives their sustainable efforts from the UN Sustainable Development Goals with these being clearly integrated into the operations internal goals, and the DoD mainly mentions sustainability in relation to a bigger picture of cost efficiency. Despite these differences, at their core the organisations both show signs of upholding environmental worldviews which place humans as more valuable than nature, which can be identified through the recurring priority of fulfilling military interests and thereby perceiving sustainable efforts as important, but inevitably, less than. Therein, the main challenge for both organisations stems from the task of balancing differing interests – military interests contra the needs of nature. Possibilities here arise partly from already existing developments, on part of the SAF, and from financial resources on part of the DoD. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of these aspects along with recommendations for future research.