Glossary of military terminology and acronyms -- Basic rank structure of the British Armed Forces -- Introduction -- the geopolitics of the everyday in the Armed Forces -- "In the flesh": an introductory tale -- War, identity and the liberal state -- Researching the geopolitics of the everyday: an invitation to fieldwork -- Theorising the geopolitics of the everyday: from experience to performance -- Visualising intra-activity -- Outline of the book -- Materialising identity and the British warfare state -- British society must be defended -- Mind the gap -- Support the troops -- This green and pleasant land -- Securing the peace -- Welfare state, warfare state -- For Queen and country? -- A man's duty? -- Intimacies of war and gender: the politics of women's bodies in war -- Gender-in-the-making -- The biopolitics of gender and the war on terror -- "Just warriors" and "beautiful souls" -- Beautiful bodies -- Natural born killers? -- Sexy bodies -- Reproductive bodies -- Weak and leaky bodies -- Deploying beautiful souls -- The body resists -- Forbidden intimacies: rethinking military masculinities through heteronormativity and desire -- A brief history of sexuality in the British military -- Here and queer -- Heteronormativity and the limits of tolerance -- Heterosexual potency -- Military masculinities, homoeroticism and desire -- Military masculinities and the geopolitics of desire -- Imperial encounters and the structural privileging of whiteness -- Protectors of the realm -- Who are the "ethnics"? -- Political (in)correctness? -- "Martial races" -- The "War on Terror" -- Racisms -- old and new -- Concluding thoughts -- the march of progress?