Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide insight in how military expeditionary task forces cope with the dual challenge of organizing and learning, by reflecting on the experiences of Dutch expeditionary task forces in post-conflict missions in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Design/methodology/approach: This paper reflects on the outcomes…

While there have been myriad and significant changes in technology, geopolitical relations, environmental shifts and political upheaval, we are still plagued with social inequalities, injustice, warfare and xenophobia, all of which frames our context and contextual analysis. September 11 was a global event or moment because it happened in the…

Perhaps now more than ever before the U.S. military is called on to perform tasks that are outside its normal/traditional purview. Recent wars--Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, for example--have demonstrated the need for the U.S. military to do more than find and defeat a clearly defined enemy. At all levels of the war theater (conflict area), the…

Temperatures exceeded 115 degrees on July 11 during the five-hour mission in the city of Amerli. More than 50 soldiers were on site and tensions were high; Amerli was the scene of a massive suicide truck bombing just four days earlier. Soldiers kept alert but visibly struggled under the weight of dozens of pounds of battle gear. Throughout the…

In an article in 2004 on Islamist movements in Iraq, "Social Education" pointed out that Iraq might be headed toward a juncture from which "one road leads to sectarian and ethnic strife and the other to the establishment of a new Islamic republic in the Middle East." The events of 2005 propelled Iraq further in that direction.…

Many American high school students from lower socio-economic backgrounds see military service as a vehicle for advancement. Various branches of the Armed Forces have consistently provided underprivileged youths enlisting in the military with a means to escape poverty. Generous benefits, adequate pay, college tuition, and specialized training in…

A survey of the status of language usage in Iraq begins with an overview of the usage patterns of Arabic and Kurdish, especially in the context of recent political events and the agreement to make Kurdish a second official language in the Kurdish autonomous region, and to allow limited use of Kurdish in instruction and public communication. A…