Using a Clausewitzian framework and a broad interpretation of civil-military cooperation Ankersen has opened a door to civil-military cooperation in practice. From a valuable soldier's perspective (with experience in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Afghanistan), he shows that the Canadian forces and civilian partners drew on the culture of peacekeeping to understand the meaning of military-civilian interactions. - Michael Pugh, Emeritus Professor, University of Bradford and Visiting Professor, Radboud University, Nijmegen
Much has been written about the importance of improving civil-military relations in peace support operations over the past twenty years, though not enough of the literature on the subject has sought to test and develop sophisticated theoretical insights against a fine-grained analysis of actual operations. This fine book does just that. It represents an important contribution to the literature.
Mats Berdal, King's College London
This is not a how-to manual for civil-military cooperation. Instead, Ankersen provides an in-depth examination of the political processes that underpin an important aspect of contemporary military operations. The book sheds light on this topic and explains why what happens 'on the ground' is often based more on assumptions and myths than on objective, material conditions. This book will provide scholars, policy-makers and practitioners - in and out of uniform - a framework with which to analyze the real politics at play between the people, the government, and the military thousands of kilometres away from the battlefield. - Stuart Gordon, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
This book is a revealing account of what happens when soldiers try to be humanitarians and nation-builders without relevant training or doctrine and with high public expectations. The focus is Canadian but the story has considerable relevance for our understanding of what goes wrong in international interventions. - Mary Kaldor, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK