“the contradiction between the belligerent posture the army enticed all recruits to embrace and
what military service actually entailed for noncombatants precipitated an unforeseen crisis of
identity for noncombatants in the wartime army” (2001, 36). For example, according to a War
Department investigator at the time, soldiers complained that “their manpower was wanted but
not their manhood” (Keene 2001, 40). What is key here is that this perceived disconnect on the
part of conscripted soldiers only existed insofar as military service was associated with
masculinity—a vice versa.
Due to the long history of armed masculinity in the Western tradition, it is not surprising
that this link has been a tenacious one. In spite of integration of women into the modern military,
the association of soldiering with masculinity continues to prevail (Melissa Herbert, 1998;
Snyder, 2003 article; Susan Faludi). In fact, the posture assumed by the United States in foreign
policy under the George W. Bush administration has had the effect of invigorating the tradition
of armed masculinity. It is undeniable that the armed forces play a critical role at the forefront of
what many have come to term American empire. To make sense of this aspect of the military
today requires unpacking the symbolic politics that produce and reinforce the hypermasculinity
that is assigned to American soldiers. As I have suggested, the structure of outsourcing
reproductive labor to migrant men serves to reinforce this energized narrative of masculinity on
the frontlines of the American empire.
The Neo-Liberal American Empire
The twenty-first century U.S. military looks quite different from its early twentieth-
century progenitor. For one thing, it is a vastly smaller army made up of an all-volunteer force.
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Convention