This groundbreaking work challenges modernist military science and explores how a more open design epistemology is becoming an attractive alternative to a military staff culture rooted in a monistic scientific paradigm. The author offers fresh sociological avenues to become more institutionally reflexive - to offer a variety of design frames of reference, beyond those typified by modern military doctrine. Modernist military knowledge has been institutionalized to the point that blinds militaries to alternative designs organizationally and in their interventions. This book seeks to reconstruct strategy and operations in "designing ways" and develops theories of action through multifaceted contextualizations and recontextualizations of situations, showing that Military Design does not have to rely on set rational-analytic decision-making schemes, but on seeking alternative meanings in- and on-action. The work offers an alternative philosophy of practice that embraces the unpredictability of tasks to be accomplished. Written by Colonel Paparone (U.S. Army, Ret., PhD) with a special chapter by two active duty officers, it will appeal to all in military and security studies, including professionals and policymakers.

DivThis groundbreaking work challenges modernist military science and explores how a more open design epistemology is becoming an attractive alternative to a military staff culture rooted in a monistic scientific paradigm. The author offers fresh sociological avenues to become more institutionally reflexive - to offer a variety of design frames of reference, beyond those typified by modern military doctrine. Modernist military knowledge has been institutionalized to the point that blinds militaries to alternative designs organizationally and in their interventions. This book seeks to reconstruct strategy and operations in "designing ways" and develops theories of action through multifaceted contextualizations and recontextualizations of situations, showing that Military Design does not have to rely on set rational-analytic decision-making schemes, but on seeking alternative meanings in- and on-action. The work offers an alternative philosophy of practice that embraces the unpredictability of tasks to be accomplished. Written by Colonel Paparone (U.S. Army, Ret., PhD) with a special chapter by two active duty officers, it will appeal to all in military and security studies, including professionals and policymakers. /div

This book examines the connection between sociology and the challenges faced by the modern military. Military sociology has received little attention in the broader academic world, and is mostly focused on civil-military relations. This book seeks to address this gap and combines ideas, theories and insights from sociology’s founding authors, with each chapter focusing on a specific thinker. There are chapters on Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Georg Simmel, Jane Addams, W. E. B. Du Bois, Erving Goffman, Michel Foucault, Morris Janowitz, Norbert Elias, Cornelis Lammers, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Cynthia Enloe and Bruno Latour, and each essay discusses their ideas and theories in relation to topics that are of concern in and around the military today. Military studies are taken in a broad sense here, so the volume encompasses a wide range of issues, including civil-military relations, military-political affairs, performance and outcomes of military operations, and organizational arrangements including technology and the composition, performance and well-being of personnel. The book intends to provide views and insights that will help the military to innovate their organizations and practices, not necessarily in the usual functional way of innovating (i.e. faster, more precise, etc.) but in a broader way. This book will be of great interest to students of sociology, military studies, civil-military relations, war and conflict studies, and IR in general.

This book examines the methodology of qualitative research in military studies. Since the end of the Cold War, the number of studies on military and society has grown substantially in substance, size and impact. However, only a tiny part of this bibliography deals in depth with the research methods used, especially in relation to qualitative methods. The data that form the basis of the researchers' analyses are often presented as if they were immediately available, rather than as a product of interaction between the researcher and those who participated in the research. Comprising essays by international scholars, the volume discusses the methodological questions raised by the use of qualitative research methodology in military settings. On the one hand, it focuses on the specificity of the military as a social context for research: the authors single out and discuss the particular field effects produced by institutional arrangements, norms and practices of the military. On the other, the authors proceed in an empirical manner: all methodological questions are addressed with regard to concrete situations of field research. This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, research methods, sociology, anthropology, war and conflict studies and security studies in general.

This book has as its subject matter the academic education of officers and builds on the signing of the Bologna Declaration in 1999 by twenty-nine European ministers for Education and Science, who thereby agreed to coordinate higher education across Europe, by, for instance, the implementation of the Bachelor's and Master's system. In the meantime, military academies have also introduced the BaMa system into their programs for officers’ education, which marks a transition from the old days, when officers’ education took place within a national military system, under military command, and was firmly grounded in principles, traditions and needs, as professed by the Ministries of Defence and the armed forces in particular. So the Bologna Declaration can be seen as crucial leverage for the development of in-house academic degree programs as a fundamental part of officers’ education. With this volume, the editors of NL ARMS 2019 strive to offer a platform to both academics and military and civilian practitioners, as well as to combinations of these, to reflect and share their thoughts on officers’ education `before and after' Bologna, both in The Netherlands and abroad. To this end, controversies and challenges, affecting various aspects and systems of officers’ education, have been grouped into five themes. Respectively, the first four themes comprise institutional settings and change; educational philosophy; educational challenges and reflective practices; and didactical solutions. The fifth theme, international perspectives, provides insights into the strategic environments and challenges faced by sister-academies, as well as ways to further officers' education across Europe, such as offered by Erasmus programs. All the editors of this year's volume are affiliated with the Faculty of Military Sciences of the Netherlands Defence Academy in Breda, The Netherlands.

This volume offers an overview of the methodologies of research in the field of military studies. As an institution relying on individuals and resources provided by society, the military has been studied by scholars from a wide range of disciplines: political science, sociology, history, psychology, anthropology, economics and administrative studies. The methodological approaches in these disciplines vary from computational modelling of conflicts and surveys of military performance, to the qualitative study of military stories from the battlefield and veterans experiences. Rapidly developing technological facilities (more powerful hardware, more sophisticated software, digitalization of documents and pictures) render the methodologies in use more dynamic than ever. The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in Military Studies offers a comprehensive and dynamic overview of these developments as they emerge in the many approaches to military studies. The chapters in this Handbook are divided over four parts: starting research, qualitative methods, quantitative methods, and finalizing a study, and every chapter starts with the description of a well-published study illustrating the methodological issues that will be dealt with in that particular chapter. Hence, this Handbook not only provides methodological know-how, but also offers a useful overview of military studies from a variety of research perspectives. This Handbook will be of much interest to students of military studies, security and war studies, civil-military relations, military sociology, political science and research methods in general.

The Encyclopedia of Military Science provides a comprehensive, ready-reference on the organization, traditions, training, purpose, and functions of today’s military. Entries in this four-volume work include coverage of the duties, responsibilities, and authority of military personnel and an understanding of strategies and tactics of the modern military and how they interface with political, social, legal, economic, and technological factors. A large component is devoted to issues of leadership, group dynamics, motivation, problem-solving, and decision making in the military context. Finally, this work also covers recent American military history since the end of the Cold War with a special emphasis on peacekeeping and peacemaking operations, the First Persian Gulf War, the events surrounding 9/11, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and how the military has been changing in relation to these events. Click here to read an article on The Daily Beast by Encyclopedia editor G. Kurt Piehler, "Why Don't We Build Statues For Our War Heroes Anymore?"

This new edition of the volume is presented on the wave of the success which had its first edition (2003). It is entirely updated to the current situation of the disciplines covered, and expanded with particular regard to the new missions, that have become the main challenge for the armed forces in these first decades of the new millennium, with new insights to technological development toward so-called cyborg warriors, new forms of leadership and changes in soldier's identity and organisational culture. It is compiled of documents coming from various researchers at universities around the world as well as military officers devoted to the sector of study. Covered in this volume is a historical excursus of studies prior to contemporary research, interpretive models and theoretical approaches developed specifically for this topic, civic-military relations including issues surrounding democratic control of the armed forces, military culture, professional training, conditions and problems of minorities in the armed forces, an examination of the structural change within the military over the years including new duties and functions following the Cold War.