René Moelker – författare

This book focuses on the key issues that affect military families when soldiers are deployed overseas, focusing on the support given to military personnel and families before, during and after missions.

Today’s postmodern armies are expected to provide social-psychological support both to their personnel in military operations abroad and to their families at home. Since the end of the Cold War and even more so after 9/11, separations between military personnel and their families have become more frequent as there has been a multitude of missions carried out by multinational task forces all over the world. The book focuses on three central questions affecting military families. First, how do changing missions and tasks of the military affect soldiers and families? Second, what is the effect of deployments on the ones left behind? Third, what is the national structure of family support systems and its evolution?

The book employs a multidisciplinary approach, with contributions from psychology, sociology, history, anthropology and others. In addition, it covers all the services, Army, Navy/Marines, Air Force, spanning a wide range of countries, including UK, USA, Belgium, Turkey, Australia and Japan. At the same time it takes a multitude of perspectives such as the theoretical, empirical, reflective, life events (narrative) approach, national and the global, and uses approaches from different disciplines and perspectives, combining them to produce a volume that enhances our knowledge and understanding of military families.

This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, sociology, war and conflict studies and IR/political science in general.

This book focuses on the key issues that affect military families when soldiers are deployed overseas, focusing on the support given to military personnel and families before, during and after missions.

Today’s postmodern armies are expected to provide social-psychological support both to their personnel in military operations abroad and to their families at home. Since the end of the Cold War and even more so after 9/11, separations between military personnel and their families have become more frequent as there has been a multitude of missions carried out by multinational task forces all over the world. The book focuses on three central questions affecting military families. First, how do changing missions and tasks of the military affect soldiers and families? Second, what is the effect of deployments on the ones left behind? Third, what is the national structure of family support systems and its evolution?

The book employs a multidisciplinary approach, with contributions from psychology, sociology, history, anthropology and others. In addition, it covers all the services, Army, Navy/Marines, Air Force, spanning a wide range of countries, including UK, USA, Belgium, Turkey, Australia and Japan. At the same time it takes a multitude of perspectives such as the theoretical, empirical, reflective, life events (narrative) approach, national and the global, and uses approaches from different disciplines and perspectives, combining them to produce a volume that enhances our knowledge and understanding of military families.

This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, sociology, war and conflict studies and IR/political science in general.

This book examines change processes and the challenge of ambidexterity in military organizations. It discusses how military organizations can better adapt to the complex, and at times chaotic, environments they operate in by developing organizational ambidexterity. The authors identify various multiple tasks and functions of military organizations that require multi-dimensional and often contradictory operational, technological, cultural, and social skills. In analogy to the often-opposed functions performed by the right and left hand of the body, modern military organizations are no longer one-dimensional fighting machines, but characterized by a duality of tasks, such as fighting and peacekeeping which often make part and parcel of one and the same mission. The military is both a “hot” and a “cold” organization (a crisis management organization and a bureaucracy). As such, the book argues that these dualities are not necessarily opposed but can serve as complementary forces, likethe yin and yang, to better the overall performance of these organizations. As a consequence, ambidextrous organizations excel at complex tasking and are adaptable to new challenges. Divided into four parts: 1) structures and networks; 2) cultural issues; 3) tasks and roles; 4) nations and allies, it appeals to scholars of military studies and organization studies as well as professionals working for governmental or military organizations. 

This book explores the variety of forms that individual heroism and sacrifice can take in the context of contemporary military conflicts. It addresses three key questions: How has an enduring ideal of heroism been transformed by the nature of modern warfare? Are we now witnessing the emergence of new forms of exemplary military behavior? And, have new ideals of heroism (and by association, sacrifice or bravery) been added to older forms in the recent past? The book advocates viewing the concept of military heroism as a moral category, in which its theoretical definition and empirical practice reflect those factors that are seen as being vital for society itself. The key theoretical and topical challenges addressed in the respective chapters focus on how ideas of heroism become entwined with issues of individualization (bolstered by the cultural assumptions of neo-Liberalism), the spread of the human rights discourse, and the judicialization, marketization and mediatization of armedforces. The book was written by experts on military studies, including many who are currently active military personnel. It includes contributions from a variety of disciplines, e.g. anthropology, sociology, psychology, and political science.