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Informationen zum Autor Anthony King is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Exeter. He has written on sport, social theory, and the armed forces including his most recent books The Transformation of Europe's Armed Forces (Cambridge University Press 2011) and The Combat Soldier (Oxford University Press 2013). He is currently working on a book on divisional headquarters. He has acted as a mentor and adviser to the armed forces for a number of years including membership of NATO's ISAF RC (South) Prism Cell in 2009-10 in Kandahar. Klappentext The volume examines the experiences of professional Western combat soldiers' training and operations in Iraq, and seeks to explain the culture, motivations, and capabilities of the professional soldier in the twenty-first century. Zusammenfassung Since 2001, Western forces have been involved in a series of major military campaigns, primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan but also in Africa. For all the sophistication of the contemporary Western way of war with its digital technologies and precision weapons, infantry soldier have been frequently involved in close combat of an intensity which is comparable to the wars of the twentieth century. At the small unit level, combat has been as brutal as ever. Yet, in many cases, they have prevailed even when they were surprised or disadvantaged. How and why have professional Western soldiers been willing and able to fight effectively together during these campaigns? Through a series of rich historical and ethnographic case-studies, this collection seeks to analyse the experience of combat soldiers on operations in the last decade. The book explores the motivation, training, and culture of the professional Western soldier, highlighting differences and commonalities between the troops of different nations. This book is a project of the Changing Character of War programme at the University of Oxford. Inhaltsverzeichnis Part I Concepts 1: Anthony King: On Cohesion 2: Tarak Barkawi: Subaltern Soldiers: Essentialism, Eurocentricism and the Nation-State in the Combat Motivation Debates 3: Rob Johnson: On Killing: historiography and conceptual issues: contexts and concepts from the First World War to the present Part II: Current Debates 4: Eyal Ben Ari: From a Sociology of Units to a Sociology of Combat Formations: Militaries in Urban Combat 5: Anthony King: Discipline and Punish: EncouragingCombat Performance in the Citizen and Professional Army Part III: Historical Experience 6: Antulio Echevarria: Combat and Cohesion in the First World War 7: Jonathan Fennell: Re-evaluating Combat Cohesion: The British Second Army in the North-west Europe Campaign of the Second World War Part IV: Case Studies 8: Garth Pratten: New Model Diggers? Australian Identity, Motivation, and Cohesion in Afghanistan 9: Patrick Bury and Anthony King: A Profession of Love: Cohesion in a British Infantry Platoon in Afghanistan 10: Mikaela Sundberg: Hierarchy, Status, and Combat Motivation in the French Foreign Legion 11: Pascal Vennesson: Cohesion and Misconduct: The French Army and the Mahé Affair 12: Chiara Ruffa: Cohesion, Political Motivation, and Military Performance in the Italian Alpini Part V: The Home Front 13: Leonard Wong and Steven Gerras: Of FOBS and Families 14: Christopher Dandeker and Simon Wessely: Beyond a Battlefield 15: Anthony King: The Future of Cohesion ...
