The promised futures of military protection

This short piece problematises the politics of the British military’s protection promises. In it, we explore how the future is instrumentalised to govern in the present and how this shapes the military’s response to sexual violence perpetrated by its personnel. First, we consider protection as a negotiated attachment to future security. We show how the military’s promise to protect women within its ranks through the eradication of sexual violence works to substitute crises in the present for an investment in tomorrow. Second, we argue that through this promise of a future untainted by sexual violence, the figure of the female soldier is sustained and re-integrated into a future imagination of a progressive military and, in turn, a more gender-equal national public. Third, through a discussion of the enduring temporalities of sexual violence we reveal the fragile and illusory efforts underpinning these promises of protection. In recognising the diverse temporal patterns contained within military sexual violence discourse, then, we highlight the everyday violence inflicted upon servicewomen whilst problematising the tacit formations of military power reproduced through promises of protection.