Webinar: Mobilising the crisis: Covid-19 and the UK military
This webinar was recorded on 10 June 2020.
Leading critical military studies academics discuss the role and operation of the UK military in the COVID-19 crisis.
In the light of the #BlackLivesMatter protests, how does militarism intersects with racism and public control at home and abroad.
The UK military has taken a central role in the national response to Covid-19, helping to deliver PPE, build hospitals and staff testing stations. Yet the defence establishment have also been accused (Declassified, ForcesWatch) of using the crisis to push recruiting goals and forward the interests of the military. One senior MOD official went as far as suggesting that the pandemic presented an ‘opportunity’, while the 75th anniversary commemorations of VE Day saw the further conflation of the military with the National Health Service and the modern armed forces with those of World War Two.
With:
Professor Vron Ware of Kingston University, author of 'Military Migrants: Fighting for YOUR country’
Dr Victoria Basham of Cardiff University, editor-in-chief of the Critical Military Studies journal
Professor Paul Dixon of Birkbeck University, editor of 'The British approach to Counterinsurgency: From Malaya and Northern Ireland to Iraq and Afghanistan.’
