Michel Foucault’s analysis of military power, drill and the ‘docile body’ is fundamental to Discipline and Punish. It has been deeply influential but is in need of challenge. His account suggests that in the army the self is replaced by the automaton. Although there is deep individuation and increasingly local autonomy of action, there is also a passive dependence upon authority. Drawing on military sociology the paper proposes an alternative logic of military organization, training and power. This suggests a continuing role for meaning and subjectivity that is broadly consistent with Durkheimian theory. Military effectiveness depends on small group solidarity, the construction of a soldierly identity, and the enlistment and control of emotions. We should perhaps rethink the relationship of discipline to meaning and power in modernity.