Emergent Postmodern US Military Culture

Abstract

This article examines recent cultural adaptations in the contemporary emergent postmodern American armed forces’ culture. First, the piece provides a concise working definition for culture, including a beneficial cultural toolkit concept. Second, the article discusses the concept of postmodernism and then explores applicable examples of contested, divergent, fragmented, and complementary cultural changes, currents, and new tools in US military culture. This study explains cases of cultural innovation linked to the global growth of ambiguity, movement toward greater multiculturalism, impact of the information age, growth of military civilians, increasing questioning of authority and ideas, and the emergence of a multimission military. This project illuminates the stark oppositional qualities and cultural tools of two currently prominent and highly relevant cultural orientations—the warrior and the peacekeeper–diplomat—which, along with other conflicted and necessary cultural spheres, ultimately coalesce and comprise emergent postmodern US military culture. Finally, the article argues that the postmodern military theory requires a new military culture variable.