This volume explores and develops new social-scientific tools for the analysis and understanding of contemporary military missions in theatre.

Thomas Vladimir Brønd is an Assistant Professor at the Royal Danish Defence College.

Uzi Ben-Shalom is chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ariel University, Israel.

Eyal Ben-Ari is a Research Fellow at the Kinneret Center for Society, Security and Peace, Israel.

Part I: Introduction and Reflections on the Field 1. Mission Formations and a New Agenda for the Study of Military Units in Action Eyal Ben-Ari, Uzi Ben-Shalom, Thomas Brønd and Carmit Padan 2. New Directions in Military Sociology: Reflections on a Book Project Fifteen Years Later Eric Ouellet Part II: New Organizational Forms and Processes 3. Organizational Adaptations in the Hunt for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. A Review of Concepts for Analyzing Their Usefulness Wilbur Scott 4. Bureaucracies, Networks and Warfare in a Fluid Operating Environment Jessica Glicken Turnley 5. From Leading Combat Units to Leading Combat Formations: Modularity, Loose Systems, and Temporariness Eyal Ben-Ari Part III: Methodologies for the Study of Military Formations 6. Research Approaches for the Study of Combat Formations - A Personal Note Uzi Ben-Shalom Part IV: Glocalized Mission Formations 7. Institutional Isomorphic Change in South Korea's UNPKO Mission Formation Insoo Kim and Young-Il Choi 8. 'Democracy... 120 mm at a Time': Mission Formations and Operational Entrapments in Post-9/11 Afghanistan Thomas Randrup Pedersen 9. Logics battlefield: IT Contracting and Military Reserves in the Dutch Army Joseph Soeters, Gerold de Gooijer, Paul C. van Fenema and Nuno Oliveira Part V: Bringing it all Together 10. Integrative Epilogue: What's New About the Mission Formations Approach? Thinking Through the Military-Academic Juncture Thomas Crosbie