Bibliographic details and abstracts are available to all. Downloads of full-text dissertations are restricted to University of Portsmouth members who must login. MPhils may be accessed by all.

Abstract

Warfare is by nature a complex business where decisions are made at the higher strategic, middle operational and lower tactical level by soldiers of all ranks. Throughout evidential history humans have fought conflicts and although the character of conflict has changed with the development of technology, geopolitics and society, the decisions made by commanders have remained inherently risky. This paper aims to explore the risk appetite of modern soldiers; how risk perception makes soldiers unique from the society from which they are recruited, and how individual risk perceptions may differ amongst types of soldiers. Existing documents detailing studies into risk perception, least-worst decision making and colliding sacred values have been analysed. Included in the study are differences in decision making under threat of improvised explosive devices (IED) as experienced in the recent Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts as well as risk perceptions from Israeli soldiers in the modern context in their area of operations. Papers exploring UK MoD risk policy and wider texts on societal risk and enterprise risk management have been used to test the theories explored through a grounded theory approach to test tentative hypotheses proposed during the study. Based on this phased analysis through the papers selected for the study, this paper identifies a number of factors demonstrating where there is evidence that soldiers are unique in their risk perspectives, have specific sacred values that set them apart from at least some other groups in society and are influenced by both organisational and societal factors.

Course: Risk and Security Management - BSc (Hons) - C1565

Date Deposited: 2022-09-21

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14021.html