Making Warriors in a Global Era - by Tone Danielsen (Paperback)

About the Book

Making Warriors in a Global Era provides ethnographic data, analyses, and discussions to infuse new debates among both military personnel and academics about the rise of special operations forces and the ways they impact how armed conflicts are dealt with and how wars are fought.

Book Synopsis

To understand wars and armed conflicts, we need to understand the inner logic of military institutions and warrior culture. In Making Warriors in a Global Era, Tone Danielsen employs ethnographic methods to analyze and discuss current debates among both military personnel and academics about the rise of the special operations forces and their effects on how armed conflicts are handled and wars are fought. Based on a decade of research and Danielsen's unprecedented access inside a Norwegian Naval Special Operations Commando, Danielsen describes the culture, experiences, and skill sets of a special operations unit and explores the historical and political implications these types of units have on modern warfare and society as a whole.

Review Quotes

"The real value of Making Warriors is that it is an outstanding ethnography, a professional deep-dive into what the Norwegian Naval Special Operations Commando (Marinejegerkommandoen, MJK) is all about. . . . Danielsen's work makes a significant contribution to the scholarly literature on continuity and change within the armed forces, specifically SOF, and thus achieves her primary aim. Written in an engaging and accessible style, with the occasional sprinkle of humour, she provides rich descriptions of the MJKculture and how it functions as a learning organization. . . . Overall, Making Warriors is an excellent book that offers insightful micro-and meso-level analyses, and it is replete with thick descriptions of life within MJK. It will be useful to readers with diverse backgrounds and interests, including military scholars and social scientists, anthropology students, and anyone interested in learning about small-nation Special Operations Forces or how to conduct top-notch ethnography. It is accessible to undergraduate readers and could easily be used as an exemplar text in a course on qualitative methods.Danielsennever brags about her accomplishments or flaunts her unprecedented access for the readers. She doesn't have to.It is implicit as the reader follows along. Making Warriors is better than a tell-all book, it is a richly informative story written by a consummate professional and worth every minute spent reading it." --Res Militaris: European Journal of Military Studies

"Danielson has done nothing short of open the doors to a modern anthropological study of armed forces and provide a clear, meticulous methodology. This leads to some stunning conclusions. . . . anthropology allows for an outsider who has been expertly trained to examine the make-up of a particular culture in order for us to be self-reflective enough as individuals, communities and organisations alike to ask the eternal and fundamentally hard questions: who are we, where did we come from and, most importantly, where are we going? Making Warriors in a Global Era makes an important contribution to answering these questions. May we continue that work." --Australian Army Journal

"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 unit's selection process, forging of identity, and their collective decision making process--the seaman's council. In doing so, Danielsen's 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 country's 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

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 country's 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.

Danielson has done nothing short of open the doors to a modern anthropological study of armed forces and provide a clear, meticulous methodology. This leads to some stunning conclusions. . . . anthropology allows for an outsider who has been expertly trained to examine the make-up of a particular culture in order for us to be self-reflective enough as individuals, communities and organisations alike to ask the eternal and fundamentally hard questions: who are we, where did we come from and, most importantly, where are we going? Making Warriors in a Global Era makes an important contribution to answering these questions. May we continue that work.

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 unit's selection process, forging of identity, and their collective decision making process--the seaman's council. In doing so, Danielsen's work takes its place among the handful of serious, scholarly works in the emerging field of special operations.

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.

The real value of Making Warriors is that it is an outstanding ethnography, a professional deep-dive into what the Norwegian Naval Special Operations Commando (Marinejegerkommandoen, MJK) is all about. . . . Danielsen's work makes a significant contribution to the scholarly literature on continuity and change within the armed forces, specifically SOF, and thus achieves her primary aim. Written in an engaging and accessible style, with the occasional sprinkle of humour, she provides rich descriptions of the MJKculture and how it functions as a learning organization. . . . Overall, Making Warriors is an excellent book that offers insightful micro-and meso-level analyses, and it is replete with thick descriptions of life within MJK. It will be useful to readers with diverse backgrounds and interests, including military scholars and social scientists, anthropology students, and anyone interested in learning about small-nation Special Operations Forces or how to conduct top-notch ethnography. It is accessible to undergraduate readers and could easily be used as an exemplar text in a course on qualitative methods.Danielsennever brags about her accomplishments or flaunts her unprecedented access for the readers. She doesn't have to.It is implicit as the reader follows along. Making Warriors is better than a tell-all book, it is a richly informative story written by a consummate professional and worth every minute spent reading it.

About the Author

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