Hubert Annen - Böcker

The essays presented in this issue provide an international overview of military-pedagogical thinking and acting. They reflect the sometimes close correspondence between the answers provided by military scholars to questions related to the content and function of military ethics and morale. These answers are so comprehensive as to suggest themselves as a starting point for further deliberations on military pedagogy but also in the fields of other applied pedagogic specialties. The authors who have contributed to this book make it clear, as a group, how the national defence of peace and freedom may be transformed into a pertinent international responsibility and competence for the safeguarding of world peace.

Military pedagogical research and teaching has made headways. There is still no internationally accepted unified field theory, but the diversity and heterogeneity of military pedagogy reflects the complexity of modern military tasks and enables the scientific debate on military ethics and morale, military education and interculturality. While political and educational developments have caught up with some of the topics addressed, changes in the military and the political and educational landscape will always necessitate this branch of academia to continuously adapt to the needs of the armed forces and their servicemen and -women. Insofar, the diverse contributions in this volume offer valuable insights into current military pedagogical thinking and acting.

This book brings together non-Western viewpoints on military pedagogy and professional military education (PME). In doing so, it seeks to provide a counterbalance to the predominantly European and North American bias found within the research field, as well as generating new insights on Latin American, African and Asian pedagogical commentaries and critiques. The collection contains essays from PME researchers and practitioners across fourteen countries, on subjects including large-scale educational reform, civil-military and academic influences on military pedagogy, internationalisation, cross-cultural collaboration, and interoperability within military education.

Values and virtues play an important role in military organizations. In par-ticular, armies can be understood as institutions that are guided by values and virtues, endeavoring to promote them. A common understanding within the military organization relating the relevant values and virtues is therefore essential. In many armed forces, there are lists of relevant values and virtues that have mostly grown historically. In the context of this vol-ume, special emphasis has been devoted to the value and virtue culture and its importance within a military organization. Specifically, the dimen-sional structure of values and virtues was analyzed. Through a systematic survey of the military target groups and a factor analytical assessment within the Swiss Armed Forces, the core values and virtues were catego-rized and defined. These values and virtues describe the current culture of the Swiss Armed Forces and contribute to a binding support of the objectives of military education.