Making Warriors in a Global Era: An Ethnographic Study of the Norwegian Naval Special Operations Commando

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Description

To understand wars and armed conflicts, we need to understand the inner logic of military institutions and warrior culture. Making Warriors in a Global Era provides ethnography, analyses, and discussions to infuse new debates among both military personnel and academics about the rise of special operations forces (SOF) and the ways they impact how armed conflicts are dealt with and how wars are fought. Based on a decade of research and her unprecedented access inside a Norwegian Naval Special Operations Commando, Tone Danielsen describes the culture, experiences, and skill sets, of small state special operations unit as well as exploring the historical and political implications these types of units have, not just on modern warfare but on society as a whole.

Reviews

In an excellent in-depth ethnography Tone Danielsen describes and analyzes a unit of the Norwegian Special Forces. Combining keen anthropological insights and sensitive interpretation of empirical examples, she offers a model analysis of the kind of unit that is increasingly taking center stage today's globalized conflicts. -- Eyal Ben-Ari, Kinneret Center for Society, Security and Peace
Tone Danielsen accomplishes a remarkable feat in modern anthropology: gaining access to a remote and insular special operations tribe, the Marinejegerkommandoen, or the Norwegian version of the Navy SEALs. Few outsiders gain access, much less their trust. Her keen observations and penetrating insights, gained over more than a decade of field work, shed light on the units selection process, forging of identity, and their collective decision making processthe seamans council. In doing so, Danielsens work takes its place among the handful of serious, scholarly works in the emerging field of special operations. -- James Kiras, Air University
By using innovative qualitative methods and gaining unparalleled access to her research subjects, Dr. Danielsen has not only written a landmark study of the Norwegian special operations forces community but one which will also stand as a model for research on other countrys SOF. Making Warriors in a Global Era is a critical addition to the emerging literature on qualitative approaches to the study of the military in general and special operations forces in particular. -- Christopher Marsh, Joint Special Operations University

Author Bio

Tone Danielsen is principal researcher at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment with focus on special operations.