Women and Gender Perspectives in the Military compares the integration of women, gender perspectives, and the women, peace, and security agenda into the armed forces of eight countries plus NATO and United Nations peacekeeping operations. This book brings a much-needed crossnational analysis of how militaries have or have not improved gender balance, what has worked and what has not, and who have been the agents for change.The country cases examined are Sweden, the Netherl...

Long considered the masters of counterinsurgency, the British military encountered significant problems in Iraq and Afghanistan when confronted with insurgent violence. In their effort to apply the principles and doctrines of past campaigns, they failed to prevent Basra and Helmand from descending into lawlessness, criminality, and violence.By juxtaposing the deterioration of these situations against Britain's celebrated legacy of counterinsurgency, this investigation identifies bo...

This volume connects the study of statebuilding to broader aspects of social theory and the historical study of the state, bringing forth new questions and starting-points, both academically and practically, for the field.Building states has become a highly prioritized issue in international politics. Since the 1990s, mainly Western countries and international institutions have invested large sums of money, vast amounts of manpower, and considerable political capital in ventures of...

This book explores the impact of different civil-military structures on operational effectiveness in complex peace operations. Recent operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia are examples of grand failures to enforce peace and to promote democracy and development through international interventions. A missing variable in analyses of these conflicts hitherto has been the nature of the civil-military interface and its impact.The principal argument of this book is that the civil-mi...

Modern warfare is almost always multilateral to one degree or another, requiring countries to cooperate as allies or coalition partners. Yet as the war in Afghanistan has made abundantly clear, multilateral cooperation is neither straightforward nor guaranteed. Countries differ significantly in what they are willing to do and how and where they are willing to do it. Some refuse to participate in dangerous or offensive missions. Others change tactical objectives with each new commander. Som...

When NATO took charge of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for Afghanistan in 2003, ISAF conceptualized its mission largely as a stabilization and reconstruction deployment. However, as the campaign has evolved and the insurgency has proved to more resistant and capable, key operational imperatives have emerged, including military support to the civilian development effort, closer partnering with Afghan security forces, and greater military restraint. All participating mil...

Canada’s six-year military mission in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province was one of the most intense and challenging moments in Canadian foreign affairs since the Korean War. A complex war fought in an inhospitable environment, the Afghanistan mission tested the mettle not just of Canada’s soldiers but also of its politicians, public servants, and policy makers. In Adapting in the Dust, Stephen M. Saideman considers how well the Canadian government, media, and public managed the chal...

The Human Terrain System (HTS) was catapulted into existence in 2006 by the US military's urgent need for knowledge of the human dimension of the battlespace in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its centrepiece was embedded groups of mixed military and civilian personnel, known as Human Terrain Teams (HTTs), whose mission was to conduct social science research and analysis and to advise military commanders about the local population. Bringing social science - and actual social scientists - to the wars...

A Guide to National Security offers an analysis of the threats and policy responses facing the UK, presented within the framework of the Government's National Security Strategy and the Strategic Defence and Security Review. It explores the processes and developments which have shaped the transformation of national security over the last three decades, and critically examines the processes of politicisation and securitisation that have delivered the new strategic vision. Presented in three ...

The Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) has sent U.S. diplomats and troops around the world. In the current security environment, understanding foreign cultures is crucial to defeating adversaries and working with allies. Lt. Col. William D. Wunderle explains how U.S. soldiers and commanders can look at military interventions-from preparation to execution-through the lens of cultural awareness, while always minding post-conflict stability operations. He also suggests much-needed changes to the ...

The Oxford Handbook of War is the definitive analysis of war in the twenty-first century. With over forty senior authors from academia, government and the armed forces world-wide the Handbook explores the history, theory, ethics and practice of war. The Handbook first considers the fundamental causes of war, before reflecting on the moral and legal aspects of war. Theories on the practice of war lead into an analysis of the strategic conduct of war and ...

Featuring chapters from social scientists directly engaged with the process, this volume offers a concise introduction to the U.S. military's effort to account for culture and increase its cultural capacity over the last decade. Contributors to this work consider some of the key challenges, lessons learned, and the limits of such efforts.