Dictionary of Military Sociology

By Dr. George Kaffes

Although Moskos showed the way to this particular field of Military Sociology, Dr. George Kaffes, sociologist and teacher for over thirty years in the Hellenic Army Academy, felt the necessity of a first introductive but academic work in order to offer the Dictionary of Military Sociology terms.
From the small Greek island of Kastellorizo, where he finished this work, Dr. Kaffes’ goal is to give the opportunity by gathering all these terms, including military sociologists and researchers, some significative military leaders, a small but significative slang vocabulary, and some operational terms to every sociologist whose interest is about military and society to have this very special tool in hands. Another goal of Dictionary of Military Sociology is to show some terms of military slang, which is a colloquial language used by and associated with members of various military forces.

About the Author
Dr. George Kaffes is a Military Sociologist and has taught Military Sociology as a fulltime professor at the Hellenic Army Academy for more than thirty years. He focuses his research more on sociology of violence and war, sociology of terrorism, gender in the militaries, and army sociology. He is married with one daughter and he speaks more than his mother language, which includes Greek, French, Portuguese, English, and German. His book is destinated to all researchers, militaries, cadets, and everyone who is interested in the field of military sociology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
• Release date: May 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9798891274068

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Copyright © 2024 by Dr. George Kaffes

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SPECIAL THANKS

To my friend from Kastellorizo, Tsikos Magiafis,

for his support and appointment

To my wife

To my daughter for the linguistic support

INTRODUCTION

Sociology within militaries has been developed last years, not only as an academic field but also as a huge research field lately, especially in the so-called Western armed forces. This taking in account that military sociology is a subfield within sociology. Its theory corresponds to C. Wright Mills’ summons to connect the individual world to broader social structures. In Humanities military sociology aims toward the systematic study of the military as a social group rather than as a military organization. This highly specialized sub-discipline examines issues related to service personnel as a distinct group with coerced collective action based on shared interests linked to survival in vocation and combat, with purposes and values that are more defined and narrower than within civil society. Military sociology also concerns civil-military relations and interactions between other groups, leaders, strategists, or governmental agencies. Some basic questions of research are: What is exactly military sociology? What does it have to offer in understanding armed forces, wars, and societies? What basic tools are needed to ply sociological, or more broadly, social science perspectives for studying war and the military? What are the bio-social bases of war? What does the spectrum of such societally organized violence look like? How do societies raise and maintain formal militaries? What are variations in their social composition and in the profiles of civil-military relations? How and why is military organization and war changing so dramatically in the 21st century? What does the future hold? Is terrorism a special warfare?

Military sociology reflects the diversity of methods employed by sociology itself. Some international scientific organizations like ERGOMAS (European Research Group On Military and Society) and Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society have started to use and include largescale data analysis, participant observation, social network analysis, survey research, comparative history, case studies, etc. The methods of military sociology also include philosophical perspectives and arguments.

Regarding the creation of all these academic research organization as said above in the 80s or in the early 90s, contemporary military sociology was primarily a result of the World War II and Cold War era. These events initiated the systematic study of military sociology, though it stands to reason that the relationship between the military and society would predate these events. The dismantling of the Soviet Union, the trauma of the terrorist attack on 11 September 2001, the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the war between Ukraine and Russia also offered a huge field for research of sociology of war and violence, military sociology and, lately, sociology of terrorism. Of course, there were numerous topics within military sociology, and it is important to note that its scope is not exclusively limited to the military institution itself or to its members. Rather, military sociology encompasses areas such as civilian-military relations and the relationship between the military and other military groups or governmental agencies.

Some other topics within military sociology include the dominant assumptions held by those in the military, military members’ willingness or motivation to fight, unionization in the military and military professionalism, transition of veterans to civil life, the increased participation of women, the military industrial-academic complex and the military’s dependence on research, and the institutional and organizational structure of military. Last but not least, sociology of terrorism is another important field of military sociology. If war for Clausewitz «is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means» (On War (1943), p. 280), we sociologists could define¹ terrorism as the continuation of war by other means.

It was in the early 70s, shortly after the United States ended conscription and initiated the All-Volunteer Force, when a Greek-origin sociologist, Charles Moskos, introduced the Institutional and Occupational model of military organizations. He was wondering whether the military should be seen as more of an occupation rather than an institution. Although the military still retains institutional principles (national and patriotic values, historic and social traditions, etc.), the military is becoming more and more oriented to the principles of business and economics and could be fairly categorized as a profession. This can be explored in relating to other professions in the grouping of power and compensation. There are different ranks within the military, granting some people more power. Nowadays many young people look to the military for compensation benefits and the opportunity to attend college without enormous loans. Moskos used the United States as his point of reference for his research. The militaries of countries such as France, Great Britain, Germany, Netherlands, Israel, Greece and Australia also have elements of institutionalism. Moskos’ model has influenced the scholarship of enlistment and reenlistment, which looks at how occupational and institutional factors shape a recruit’s enlistment intention or the reenlistment decisions of active-duty personnel.

Although Moskos showed the way to this particular field of Military Sociology, I, a sociologist and teacher for over thirty years in the Hellenic Army Academy, felt the necessity of a first introductive but academic work in order to offer the Dictionary of Military Sociology terms. From the small Greek island of Kastellorizo, where I finished this work, my goal is to give the opportunity by gathering all these terms, including military sociologists and researchers, some significative military leaders, a small but significative slang vocabulary and some operational terms to every sociologist whose interest is about military and society to have this very special tool in hand.

Many of these terms are sociological but there are a lot of military, operational or strategic terms. Military uses many unique items and concepts that civilians are not exposed to. Because of this and the need for expedient, clear communication, service members are immersed in a linguistic world apart from the daily life of a civilian. Some are self-explanatory and others are completely cryptic, but they each have a specific and important (sometimes) meaning. It is not in our purposes to present a list of established strategic or military terms. Some of them have been in use for at least five decades. Since technology and doctrine have changed over time, not all of them are in current use, or they may have been superseded by more modern terms. However, they are still in current use in articles about previous military periods. Some of them like camouflet have been adapted to describe modern versions of old techniques. Our goal is also to show some terms of military slang, which is a colloquial language used by and associated with members of various military forces. Thus, there are some of the more significant slang words or phrases that originate with military forces, are used exclusively by military personnel or are strongly associated with military organizations, in order to facilitate all interested researchers, especially military sociologists.

George Kaffes

Kastellorizo, August 2023

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¹ Kaffes, G. 2010 «Sociology of Terrorism» (in Greek).

AUTHOR’S SHORT CV

EDUCATION AND QUALIFICATIONS

1991: University of Paris-X-Nanterre (France) Docteur en Sociologie (Ph.D. in Sociology) mention «très honorable»

1987: University of Paris-X-Nanterre (France) D.E.A. (Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies), postgraduate studies in Sociology

1986: University of Panteion (Athens, Greece), Master in Sociology

WORK EXPERIENCE:

Academic year 1992–1993 until now: Hellenic Army Academy,

Current position: Full Professor of Military Sociology

2017–2020: Head of the Humanities Department and Academic Programs in the Hellenic Army Academy

1991–1993: Responsible for interview and psycho-technical test for recruitment of the Greek military service

2015: Elected President of ERGOMAS

Regular Member of International Sociological Association (RC 01 Armed Forces and Conflict Resolutions)

Regular Member: French-speaking International Sociological Association (AISLF) of the WG 05 Armed Forces and Society, Hellenic Sociological Society, Hellenic Sociological Association since 1986, the American Eastern Sociological Association (military sociology group), ERGOMAS (European Research Group on Military and Society) and Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society, where he is publishing research works and papers.

Invited Professor of National Defense School of Greece since 2001

Languages: Greek (mother language), French, English, Portuguese, German

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abuse (military)

(noun) Abuse of authority and position is an arbitrary or capricious exercise of power by a military member, federal official or employee that injures or adversely affects the rights of a subordinate by tyrannical, careless or capricious conduct or continuous and/ or severe abusive language.

abortion (legal or illegal)

(noun) The intentional or unintentional termination of a foetus.

absolute monarchy (regime)

(noun) A monarchical government in which a ruler has unrestricted power over the State and its people due to lack of constitutional or legal restraints.

absolutism

(noun) A political doctrine and practice of unlimited centralized authority and absolute sovereignty, as vested especially in a monarch or dictator. The essence of an absolutist system is that the ruling power is not subject to regularized challenge or check by any other agency, be it judicial, legislative, religious, economic, or electoral. King Louis XIV (1643–1715) of France furnished the most familiar assertion of absolutism when he said, L’état, c’est moi (I am the state). Absolutism has existed in various forms in all parts of the world, including in Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler and in the Soviet Union under Stalin.

absurdity of moderation (war)

Clausewitz believed that the introduction of moderation into the theory of war itself would always lead to logical absurdity. Over the last decade, however, U.S. strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan have exposed a failure to balance political aspirations with appropriate consideration of the second-order effects of military action and have distracted attention from the human nature of war. Though it may not be physically possible or politically desirable to change the constraints under which military force currently operates, greater understanding and consideration of the resulting limitations and consequences will temper social and political expectation and ensure that the future demands of policy are socially and militarily acceptable, suitable, and feasible.

academy (military)

(noun) A place where soldiers are trained to become officers. Three types of academy exist: pre-collegiate-level institutions awarding academic qualifications, university-level institutions awarding Bachelor’s-degree-level qualifications, and those preparing Officer Cadets for commissioning into the armed services of the state. A naval academy is either a type of military academy (in the broad sense of that term) or is distinguished from one (in the narrow sense). In U.S. usage, the Military, Naval, Coast Guard, and the Air Force Academy serve as military academies under the categorization of service academies in that country.

The first military academies were established in the 18th century to provide future officers for technically specialized corps, such as military engineers and artillery, with scientific training. The first Italian Military Academy was inaugurated in Turin on January 1, 1678, as the Savoy Royal Academy, making it the oldest military academy in existence. The Royal Danish Naval Academy was set up in 1701. The Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, was set up in 1741, after a false start in 1720 because of a lack of funds, as the earliest military academy in Britain. Its original purpose was to train Cadets entering the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. In France, the École Royale du Génie at Mézières was founded in 1748, followed by a non-technical academy in 1751, the École Royale Militaire offering a general military education to the nobility. French military academies were widely copied in Prussia, Austria, Russia. The Norwegian Military Academy in Oslo educates officers of the Norwegian Army. The academy was established in 1750 and is the oldest institution for higher education in Norway.

By the turn of the century, under the impetus of the Napoleonic Wars and the strain that the armies of Europe subsequently came under, military academies for the training of commissioned officers of the army were set up in most of the combatant nations. These military schools had two functions: to provide instruction for serving officers in the functions of the efficient staff-officer, and to school youngsters before they gained an officer’s commission. The Kriegsakademie in Prussia was founded in 1801 and the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr was created by order of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 as a replacement for the École Royale Militaire of the Ancien Régime (the institution that Napoleon himself had graduated from). In this French spirit was founded the Hellenic Army Academy (Greek: Στρατιωτική Σχολή Ευελπίδων), commonly known as the Evelpidon, one of the oldest military academies in Europe. It is the Officer Cadet school of the Greek Army and the oldest third-level educational institution in Greece. It was founded in 1828 in Nafplio by Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first governor of the modern Greek state.

The Royal Military College, Sandhurst, England, was the brainchild of John Le Marchant in 1801, who established schools for the military instruction of officers at High Wycombe and Great Marlow, with a grant of £30,000 from Parliament. The two original departments were later combined and moved to Sandhurst. In the United States, the United States Military Academy (USMA) in West Point, New York, was founded on March 16, 1802, and is one of five service academies in the nation.

achieved status

(noun) A status that is acquired or earned as the result of any personal accomplishment and merit that serves as a reflection of ability, choice, or personal effort.

achievement

(noun) Attaining status through competition (e.g., free market or standardized examination) by personal effort and accomplishment.

achievement motivation

(noun) An individual’s drive for accomplishment and prestige through the mastery of skills and entrepreneurship, often a significant factor in economic achievement.

acting crowd

(noun) A group of people focused on a shared action or goal.

action (military)

(noun) A military operation is the coordinated military actions of a state, or a non-state actor, in response to a developing situation. These actions are designed as a military plan to resolve the situation in the state or actor’s favor.

action research (sociology)

An overall approach to knowledge and inquiry, concerned with forging a direct link between intellectual knowledge and moment-to-moment personal and social action. Action research seeks to contribute directly to the flourishing of individuals, their communities, and the ecosystems of which they are part. Action research has two faces: One is practical, concerned with providing processes of inquiry that are useful to people in the everyday conduct of their lives; the other is philosophical and political, part of a movement to ensure that what is taken as knowledge is philosophically sound, participatory, and pragmatic. Action-research practices aim to open communicative spaces where people can come together in open dialogue to address issues of concern and to engage in cycles of action and reflection, so that ideas that are tentatively articulated in reflection can be examined systematically in phases of active experimentation. Action research can be described in more detail in terms of the following dimensions.

action sociology

(noun) Any use of sociological methods and theories to provide information to an individual or a group that is planning to decide or undertake a goal.

active defense

The employment of limited offensive action and counterattacks to deny a contested area or position to the enemy.

activity theory

(noun) Theory asserting that to feel satisfied and enjoy their lives, elderly individuals must stay engaged to maintain meaningful activities and replace roles or statuses lost due to age.

activity (military)

(noun) Actions and movements, as well as corresponding impacts pertaining to or conducted by armed forces.

acute disease

(noun) A disease that has a rapid onset or short duration, presenting with distinct symptoms and return to pre-onset condition is likely.

adelphogamy

1. (noun) From Greek αδελφός (adelfos, brother) and γάμος (gamos, marriage. Marriage in which brothers share one or more wives; 2. (noun) Marriage between a brother and sister.

adjustment sociology

(noun) Any use of sociological methods or theories to facilitate improved social interactions between people from different groups.

administrative sociology

(noun) Any use of sociological methods and theories to facilitate engagement between an authority and the people and groups under their purview.

adversary

A party acknowledged as potentially hostile to a friendly party and against which the use of force may be envisaged.

advocate

(noun) An individual that actively speaks out for a cause, group, or another individual.

advocate sociology

(noun) Any use of sociological methods and theories to support and empower an individual or group.

affairs (military)

(noun) Military affairs comprise a range of topics from military personnel and veterans to equipment and facilities—as well as the methods, doctrines, organizational concepts, and technologies that support the military’s strategic or tactical goals.

affective individualism

(noun) The formation of marriage through personal selection based on romantic and sexual attraction instead of custom or economic and political reasons.

affinity

(noun) Kinship established by marriage.

affirmative action

(noun) The act or practice of giving preferential treatment (e.g., education or employment opportunities) to underrepresented groups such as the disabled, the elderly, ethnic minorities, and women who have experienced discrimination in the past.

agamy

(noun) The absence of rules or norms dictating marriage inside (endogamy) or outside (exogamy) of a group.

age

(noun) The number of years an individual has lived.

age cohort

(noun) A group of people born around the same time period from a particular population that typically share certain events and experiences over their life course.

age norm

(noun) Culturally informed, formal and informal rules (norms) that determine appropriate ways of being and doing at a particular age.

age stratification theory

(noun) Stratification between age cohorts due to an unequal distribution of resources (e.g., wealth, power, and privilege) across the life course.

ageism

(noun) Discrimination or prejudice against an individual or group because of their age.

agency

(noun) The capacity of an individual to actively and independently choose and to effect change; a free will or a self-determination.

agent of socialization

(noun) The significant individuals, groups, or institutions that influence our sense of self and the behaviors, norms, and values that help us function in society.

aggregate

1. A collection of anonymous individuals who are temporarily in the same physical location, with minimum interaction and influence on each other and without a sense of group solidarity; 2. A collection of individuals that share a commonality and are combined to create a category for study.

aging

(noun) The physical, psychological, and social act or process of growing older. Gerontology, the study of the aging process, is devoted to the understanding and control of all factors contributing to the finitude of individual life.

agrarian society (agricultural society)

(noun) A society whose primary mode of production is largescale agriculture, which uses plows (ploughs) and draft animals to grow food.

agrarianism

(noun) In social and political philosophy, perspective that stresses the primacy of family farming, widespread property ownership, and political decentralization. Agrarian ideas are typically justified in terms of how they serve to cultivate moral character and to develop a full and responsible person. Many proponents of agrarianism revere nature (whether understood as natural phenomena or as God’s creation), respect tradition and experience, distrust ideology, and regard science and technology with skepticism. Proponents of agrarianism believe that when individuals attach themselves to farming and a rural way of life, the required labor enhances their existence. Family and locale are rooted, allowing stable associations to develop that enable people to experience, in a non-acquisitive way, the goods of a grounded community, including leisure, friendship, love, art, and religion. Agrarianism has strong roots in classical Greece and Rome. As early as the 8th century B.C.E., the Greek poet Hesiod, in his epic Works and Days, forged a link between moral improvement and farming. In the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C.E., the Roman orator Marcus Porcius Cato, in his only surviving work, De agri cultura (On Farming), defended the honor of farming, offering moral prescription and wisdom alongside advice on the tilling and managing of land. The Roman poet Virgil’s highly praised Georgics, written in the last century B.C.E. and influenced by Hesiod, expresses a love for the countryside and includes instruction in agriculture. The Roman poet Horace, a friend of Virgil and himself the recipient of a farm granted by a benefactor, also praised country life. In his Odes, he revisited the hills and woods of his childhood and set forth the rural life as the means to independence and self-reliance.

agreement reality

(noun) Ideas and beliefs that members of a group such as a society or culture typically accept as true.

aggression

(noun) It is a quality of anger and determination that makes you ready to attack other people. A war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense, usually for territorial gain and subjugation. For purposes of reparation or punishment after hostilities, aggression has been defined in international law as any use of armed force in international relations not justified by defensive necessity, international authority, or consent of the state in which force is used.

Numerous treaties and official declarations since World War I, including the Covenant of the League of Nations (article 10) and the Charter of the United Nations (article 39), have sought to prohibit acts of aggression to ensure collective security among nations. Since World War I the acceptance by most states of obligations to refrain from the use of force has often made it necessary for international forums to consider the problem of aggression in hostilities that have occurred. In such cases the League of Nations and the United Nations have usually followed the procedure of ordering a ceasefire and have considered a government an aggressor only if it failed to observe that order.

Such ceasefire orders marked the ending of hostilities between Turkey and Iraq in 1925, between Greece and Bulgaria in 1925, between Peru and Colombia in 1933, between the Netherlands and Indonesia in 1947, between India and Pakistan in 1948, between Israel and its neighbors in 1949, between Israel, Great Britain, France, and Egypt in 1956, and between Israel, Jordan, and Egypt in 1970. None of these states was at the time declared an aggressor. On the other hand, Japan was found to be an aggressor in Manchuria in 1933, Paraguay in the Chaco area in 1935, North Korea and mainland China in Korea in 1950 and 1951, and the Soviet Union in Hungary in 1956, because they refused to observe ceasefire orders. Other instances of military intervention have been widely considered aggression by opponents although not pronounced such by an international forum. These include the U.S.-supported Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, U.S. military intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965, U.S. actions in Vietnam, North Vietnamese actions in South Vietnam and elsewhere in Indochina, and the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 by the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies.

agriculture

(noun) The largescale practice of cultivating permanent fields, growing crops, and raising livestock to meet needs such as food and raw materials.

agroterrorism

(noun) An act of terrorism from civilians or militaries intended to damage agriculture, malicious attempt to disrupt or destroy the agricultural industry and/or food supply system of a population through the malicious use of plant or animal pathogens to cause devastating disease in the agricultural sectors. It is closely related to the concepts of biological warfare, chemical warfare and entomological warfare, except carried out by non-state parties—a hostile attack toward an agricultural environment, including infrastructures and processes, in order to significantly damage national or international political interests. The terms agroterrorism, along with agroterror and agrosecurity, were coined by veterinarian pathologist Corrie Brown and writer Esmond Choueke in September 1999 as a means to spread the importance of this topic. The first public use of agroterrorism was in a report by Dr. Brown, which was then reprinted in a front-page article of The New York Times on September 22, 1999, by reporter Judith Miller. Dr. Brown’s article in 2000 for Emerging Diseases of Animals (American Society for Microbiology) made these words a permanent fixture, and they soon ended up as part of everyday use.

airborne

1. In relation to personnel, troops especially trained to effect, following transport by air, an assault debarkation, either by parachuting or touchdown. 2. In relation to equipment, pieces of equipment that have been especially designed for use by airborne troops during or after an assault debarkation, as well as some aeronautical equipment used to accomplish a particular mission. 3. When applied to material, items that form an integral part of the aircraft. 4. The state of an aircraft, from the instant it becomes entirely sustained by air until it ceases to be so sustained.

air interdiction

Air operations conducted to divert, disrupt, delay, or destroy the enemy’s military surface capabilities before it can be brought to bear effectively against friendly forces, or to otherwise achieve objectives that are conducted at such distances from friendly forces that detailed integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of friendly forces is not required. Also called AI.

airland operation

An operation involving movement by air with a designated destination for further ground deployment of units and personnel and/or further ground distribution of supplies. See also airland.

alcoholism

(noun) A chronic disease caused by compulsive, dependent, and excessive consumption of alcohol, leading to deterioration of mental and physical health, as well as social and vocational functioning.

alert (military)

(noun) An alert state or state of alert is an indication of the state of readiness of the armed forces for military action or a state against natural disasters, terrorism or military attack.

Alexander the Great

Commonly known as Alexander the Great, in Greek Μέγας Αλέξανδρος, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia. He succeeded his father Philip II to the throne in 336 B.C. at the age of twenty and spent most of his ruling years conducting a lengthy military campaign throughout Western Asia and Egypt. By the age of thirty he had created one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Greece to Northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered to be one of history’s greatest and most successful military commanders. Also known as Alexander III or Alexander of Macedonia, he was born in 356 B.C.E., Pella, Macedonia, northwest of Thessaloniki, Greece, and died June 13, 323 B.C.E., Babylon (near Al-Hillah, Iraq). He was king of Macedonia (336–323 B.C.E.) who overthrew the Persian empire, carried Greek arms to India, and laid the foundations for the Hellenistic world of territorial kingdoms. Already in his lifetime the subject of fabulous stories, he later became the hero of a full-scale legend bearing only the sketchiest resemblance to his historical career. He was born in 356 B.C.E. at Pella in Macedonia, the son of Philip II and Olympias. Until the age of sixteen, Alexander was tutored by the big Greek philosopher Aristotle. In 335 B.C., shortly after his assumption of kingship over Macedon, he campaigned in the Balkans and reasserted control over Thrace and Illyria before marching on the city of Thebes, which was subsequently destroyed in battle. Alexander then led the League of Corinth and used his authority to launch the Panhellenic project envisaged by his father, assuming leadership over all Greeks in their conquest of Persia. When Alexander was thirteen, Philip began to search for a tutor and considered such academics as Isocrates and Speusippus, the latter offering to resign from his stewardship of the Academy to take up the post. In the end, Philip chose Aristotle and provided the Temple of the Nymphs at Mieza as a classroom. In return for teaching Alexander, Philip agreed to rebuild Aristotle’s hometown of Stageira, which Philip had razed, and to repopulate it by buying and freeing the ex-citizens who were slaves, or pardoning those who were in exile. Mieza was like a boarding school for Alexander and the children of Macedonian nobles, such as Ptolemy, Hephaistion, and Cassander. Many of these students would become his friends and future generals and are often known as the Companions.

Aristotle taught Alexander and his companions in Greek language all about medicine, philosophy, morals, religion, logic, and art. Under Aristotle’s tutelage, Alexander developed a passion for the works of Homer, and in particular The Iliad; Aristotle gave him an annotated copy, which Alexander later carried on his campaigns. Alexander was able to quote Euripides from memory. During his youth, Alexander was also acquainted with Persian exiles at the Macedonian court, who received the protection of Philip II for several years as they opposed Artaxerxes III. Among them were Artabazos II and his daughter Barsine, possible future mistress of Alexander, who resided at the Macedonian court from 352 to 342 B.C., as well as Amminapes, future satrap of Alexander, or a Persian nobleman named Sisines. This gave the Macedonian court a good knowledge of Persian issues and may even have influenced some of the innovations in the management of the Macedonian state. Alexander’s legacy extended beyond his military conquests, and his reign marked a turning point in European and Asian history. His campaigns greatly increased contacts and trade between East and West, and vast areas to the east were significantly exposed to Greek civilization and influence. Some of the cities he founded became major cultural centers, many surviving into the 21st century. His chroniclers recorded valuable information about the areas through which he marched, while the Greeks themselves got a sense of belonging to a world beyond the Mediterranean.

Some leadership lessons from Alexander the Great could be cited: 1. Believe in yourself. From a very young age, his parents instilled in Alexander a belief that it was his destiny to conquer the Persian Empire. This belief would stay with Alexander until his deathbed. At a few points in his life, Alexander even believed that he was the Son of Zeus and was to be worshiped. This demonstrates the depth of his self-belief. Although such extreme egoism is harmful, it is important to believe in yourself. To lead successfully, you need to have a considerable amount of self-belief to inspire the same level of faith in your team. Do you truly believe in your own ability to succeed? If you can’t give an outright yes, take a closer look at what beliefs are holding you back. 2. Leverage your team’s strengths. Alexander was a brilliant and cunning tactician in battle. He knew that the disorganized Persian army would not be able to withstand his phalanxes (a body of troops in formation). So he used them to their best effect each time, breaking through enemy ranks and forcing the Persians to retreat. A good leader understands the strengths and weaknesses of his team and he puts them in positions where they are more likely to succeed. You might liken it to being a chess player. You have a variety of resources at your disposal: people of differing skills and abilities. The key is to always learn how to position each person in a role that leverages their own strengths. 3. Make yourself an unnecessary part of the team. Although Alexander conquered much of the known world during his time, his empire never survived him. His strength when he was alive became a weakness after his death. After Alexander passed away, no one had the charisma or leadership to rule such a huge empire. Civil war soon broke out, and what Alexander built in one generation was destroyed in the next. A good leader makes himself indispensable to the team, but a great leader makes himself fully dispensable! He can step out of the team and still have them perform at full capacity. So find a way to position your team such that you become an unnecessary part of it. When your team is still able to perform at a high level even when you remove yourself from the equation, you have done your part as a leader.

alienation

(noun) The estrangement of individuals from themselves and others; a feeling of normlessness and powerlessness caused by separation and isolation from an individual’s sense of self, society, and work.

Al-Ashad, Bashar

Born September 11, 1965, Damascus, Syria, Syrian president from 2000. He succeeded his father, Hafiz al-Assad, who had ruled Syria since 1971. In spite of early hopes that his presidency would usher in an era of democratic reform and economic revival, Bashar al-Assad largely continued his father’s authoritarian methods. Beginning in 2011, Assad faced a major uprising in Syria that evolved into civil war.

Al-Ashad, Hafez

Hafez, also spelled Hafiz (born October 6, 1930, Qardāḥa, Syria—died June 10, 2000, Damascus), president of Syria (1971–2000) who brought stability to the country and established it as a powerful presence in the Middle East. Born into a poor family of Alawites, a minority Islamic sect, Assad joined the Syrian wing of the Baath Party in 1946 as a student activist. In 1952 he entered the Homs Military Academy, graduating three years later as an air force pilot. While exiled to Egypt (1959–61) during Syria’s short-lived union with Egypt in the United Arab Republic, Assad and other military officers formed a committee to resurrect the fortunes of the Syrian Baath Party. After the Baathists took power in 1963, Assad became commander of the air force. In 1966, after taking part in a coup that overthrew the civilian leadership of the party and sent its founders into exile, he became minister of defense. During Assad’s ministry Syria lost the Golan Heights to Israel in the Six-Day War (June 1967), dealing Assad a blow that shaped much of his future political career. Assad then engaged in a protracted power struggle with Salah al-Jadid—chief of staff of the armed forces, Assad’s political mentor, and effective leader of Syria—until finally in November 1970 Assad seized control, arresting Jadid and other members of the government. He became prime minister and in 1971 was elected president.

Assad set about building up the Syrian military with Soviet aid and gaining the loyalty of the Syrian populace with public works funded by Arab donors and international lending institutions. Political dissenters were eliminated by arrest, torture, and execution, and when the Muslim Brotherhood mounted a rebellion in Hama in 1982, Assad ruthlessly suppressed it at a cost of some 20,000 lives and the near destruction of the city. In foreign affairs Assad tried to establish Syria as a leader of the Arab world. A new alliance with Egypt culminated in a surprise attack on Israel in October 1973 (see October War), but Egypt’s unexpected cessation of hostilities exposed Syria to military defeat and earned Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat, Assad’s enduring resentment. In 1976, with Lebanon racked by a bloody civil war, Assad dispatched several divisions to that country and secured their permanent presence there as part of a peacekeeping force sponsored by the Arab League. After Israel’s invasion and occupation of Southern Lebanon in 1982–85, Assad was able to reassert control of the country, eventually compelling Lebanese Christians to accept constitutional changes increasing the representation of Muslims in the government. Assad also aided several militant groups that had been involved in the conflict.

His rivalry with the Iraqi wing of the Baath Party underlay Assad’s longstanding enmity toward the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Assad supported Iran in its war against Iraq (1980–88; see Iran-Iraq War), and he readily joined the U.S.-led alliance against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War of 1990–91. This cooperation resulted in more cordial relations with Western governments, which previously had condemned his sponsoring of terrorism. Assad sought to establish peaceful relations with Israel in the mid-1990s, but talks remained at an impasse over the status of the Golan Heights. In 1998 he cultivated closer ties with Iraq in light of Israel’s growing strategic partnership with Turkey. Assad died in 2000 and was succeeded by his son Bashar.

Al-Qaeda

Arabic al-Qāeidah (the Base), broad-based militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s. Al-Qaeda began as a logistical network to support Muslims fighting against the Soviet Union during the Afghan War; members were recruited throughout the Islamic world. When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the organization dispersed but continued to oppose what its leaders considered corrupt Islamic regimes and foreign (i.e., U.S.) presence in Islamic lands. Based in Sudan for a period in the early 1990s, the group eventually reestablished its headquarters in Afghanistan (c. 1996) under the patronage of the Taliban militia. Al-Qaeda merged with several other militant Islamist organizations, including Egypt’s Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Group, and on several occasions its leaders declared holy war against the United States. The organization established camps for Muslim militants from throughout the world, training tens of thousands in paramilitary skills, and its agents engaged in numerous terrorist attacks, including the destruction of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (1998), and a suicide bomb attack against the U.S. warship Cole in Aden, Yemen (2000; see USS Cole attack). In 2001, nineteen militants associated with al-Qaeda staged the September 11 attacks against the United States. Within weeks the U.S. Government responded by attacking Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. Thousands of militants were killed or captured, among them several key members (including the militant who allegedly planned and organized the September 11 attacks), and the remainder and their leaders were driven into hiding.

The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 challenged that country’s viability as an al-Qaeda sanctuary and training ground and compromised communication, operational, and financial linkages between al-Qaeda leadership and its militants. Rather than significantly weakening al-Qaeda, however, these realities prompted a structural evolution and the growth of franchising. Increasingly, attacks were orchestrated not only from above by the centralized leadership (after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, based in the Afghan-Pakistani border regions) but also by the localized, relatively autonomous cells it encouraged. Such grassroots independent groups—coalesced locally around a common agenda but subscribing to the al-Qaeda name and its broader ideology—thus meant a diffuse form of militancy, and one far more difficult to confront.

With this organizational shift, al-Qaeda was linked—whether directly or indirectly—to more attacks in the six years following September 11 than it had been in the six years prior, including attacks in Jordan, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Israel, Algeria, and elsewhere. At the same time, al-Qaeda increasingly utilized the Internet as an expansive venue for communication and recruitment and as a mouthpiece for video messages, broadcasts, and propaganda. Meanwhile, some observers expressed concern that U.S. strategy—centered primarily on attempts to overwhelm al-Qaeda militarily—was ineffectual, and at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, al-Qaeda was thought to have reached its greatest strength since the attacks of September 2001. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was killed by U.S. military forces after U.S. intelligence located him residing in a secure compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, 31 miles (50 km) from Islamabad. The operation was carried out by a small team that reached the compound in Abbottabad by helicopter. After bin Laden’s death was confirmed, it was announced by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, who hailed the operation as a major success in the fight against al-Qaeda. On June 16, 2011, al-Qaeda released a statement announcing that Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s long-serving deputy, had been appointed to replace bin Laden as the organization’s leader.

alliance

(noun) 1. A social relationship established by marriage; 2. (noun) A social relationship created for common cause or interest. A military alliance is a formal agreement between nations concerning national security. Nations in a military alliance agree to active participation and contribution to the defense of others in the alliance in the event of a crisis. 3. In international relations, a formal agreement between two or more states for mutual support in case of war. Contemporary alliances provide for combined action on the part of two or more independent states and are generally defensive in nature, obligating allies to join forces if one or more of them is attacked by another state or coalition. Although alliances may be informal, they are typically formalized by a treaty of alliance, the most critical clauses of which are those that define the casus foederis, or the circumstances under which the treaty obligates an ally to aid a fellow member.

Alliances arise from states’ attempts to maintain a balance of power with each other. In a system composed of several medium-size countries, such as that in Europe since the Middle Ages, no single state is able to establish a lasting hegemony over all the others, largely because the other states join together in alliances against it. Thus, the repeated attempts by King Louis XIV of France (reigned 1643–1715) to dominate continental Europe led to a coalition in opposition to France and eventually to the War of the Grand Alliance, and the ambitions of Napoleon were similarly thwarted by a series of alliances formed against him. Although typically associated with the Westphalian states system and the European balance of power, alliances have taken shape on other continents and in other eras. In his classic work Artha-shastra (The Science of Material Gain), Kautilya, an adviser to the Indian King Chandragupta (reigned c. 321–c. 297 B.C.E.), argued that in pursuing alliances countries should seek support and assistance from distant states against the menace of neighboring ones (according to the logic that the enemy of one’s enemy must be one’s friend). The legacy of colonialism in Africa retarded the development of collective-defense schemes there, but elsewhere in the developing world alliances played a critical role in the evolving regional balance. For example, in the 1865–70 Paraguayan War, the Triple Alliance of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay devastated Paraguay, reducing its territorial possessions as well as its population by about 60 percent. Until the Cold War in the last half of the 20th century, ideology was not usually a significant factor in the formation of such coalitions. For example, in 1536 Francis I, the Roman Catholic king of France, joined with the Ottoman sultan Süleyman I, who was a Muslim, against the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, another Catholic, because Charles’ possessions almost encircled France. Similarly, in World War II (1939–45) Great Britain and the United States allied themselves with the communist Soviet Union in order to defeat Nazi Germany.

A new level of alliance building in Europe was reached in the late 19th century, when enmity between Germany and France polarized Europe into two rival alliances. By 1910 most of the major states of Europe belonged to one or the other of these great opposing alliances: the Central Powers, whose principal members were Germany and Austria-Hungary, and the Allies, composed of France, Russia, and Great Britain. This bipolar system had a destabilizing effect, since conflict between any two members of opposing blocs carried the threat of general war. Eventually, a dispute between Russia and Austria-Hungary in 1914 quickly drew their fellow bloc members into the general conflict that became known as World War I (1914–18). The war’s outcome was effectively decided when the United States abandoned its traditional isolationism and joined the Allied side in 1917 as one of several Associated Powers.

The Allied victors sought to ensure the postwar peace by forming the League of Nations, which operated as a collective security agreement calling for joint action by all its members to defend any individual member or members against an aggressor. A collective security agreement differs from an alliance in several ways: (a) It is more inclusive in its membership, (b) the target of the agreement is unnamed and can be any potential aggressor, including even one of the signatories, and (c) the object of the agreement is the deterrence of a potential aggressor by the prospect that preponderant power will be organized and brought to bear against it. The League of Nations became demonstrably ineffective by the mid-1930s, however, after its members declined to use force to stop aggressive acts by Japan, Italy, and Germany.

These three countries soon formed the Axis, an offensive alliance that contested for world dominion in World War II with a defensive alliance led by Great Britain, France, China, and, beginning in 1941, the Soviet Union and the United States. With the defeat of the Axis powers in 1945, the victorious Allies formed the United Nations (UN), a worldwide organization devoted to the principles of collective security and international cooperation. The UN coexisted rather ineffectively, however, with the robust military alliances formed by the United States and the Soviet Union along sharp ideological lines after the war. In 1949 the United States and Canada joined with Britain and other Western European countries to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and in 1955 the Soviet Union and its Central and Eastern European satellites formed the Warsaw Pact following West Germany’s accession to NATO. The Cold War rivalry between these two alliances, which also included other treaty organizations established by the United States (e.g., the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, the Central Treaty Organization, and the ANZUS Pact), ended with the Soviet Union’s collapse and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991.

allocation of resources

(noun) How ownership rights and asset use are determined.

ally

(noun) 1. An individual with a privileged status that supports efforts to eliminate the systemic oppression that grants them greater power and privilege. 2. A country that has agreed officially to give help and support to another one, especially during a war: ally of sb During the First World War, Turkey was an ally of Germany. The U.S. is one of Britain’s staunchest allies.

almoner

(noun) An almoner is a chaplain or church officer who originally was in charge of distributing money to the deserving poor. The title almoner has to some extent fallen out of use in English, but its equivalents in other languages are often used for many pastoral functions exercised by chaplains or pastors. The word derives from the Ancient Greek ἐλεημοσύνη (eleēmosynē alms), via the popular Latin almosinarius. Christians have historically been encouraged to donate one-tenth of their income as a tithe to their church and additional offerings as needed for the poor. The first deacons, mentioned in Acts 6:1–4, dealt with the distribution of the charity of the early Christian churches to needy members. Popes, bishops and Christian monarchs and organizations have since employed their own officers to organize their donations to the poor and needy. Such donations were referred to as alms and the officers as almoners and the position was one of considerable status.

alternative movement (alternative social movement)

(noun) A social movement focused on the self-improvement of individuals.

altruism

(noun) The tendency of some people to value the health and wellbeing of others, often above their own self-interest. In ethics, a theory of conduct that regards the good of others as the end of moral action. The term (French altruisme, derived from Latin alter, other) was coined in the 19th century by Auguste Comte, the founder of Positivism, and adopted generally as a convenient antithesis to egoism. As a theory of conduct, its adequacy depends on an interpretation of the good. If the term is taken to mean pleasure and the absence of pain, most altruists have agreed that a moral agent has an obligation to further the pleasures and alleviate the pains of other people. The same argument holds if happiness is taken as the end of life. Some critics have asked, if no one has a moral obligation to procure his own happiness, why should anyone else have an obligation to procure happiness for him? Other conflicts have arisen between immediate pain and long-range good, especially when the good envisioned by the doer does not coincide with the vision of the beneficiary. Some British Utilitarians, such as Herbert Spencer and Leslie Stephen, attacked the distinction between self and others that is basic to both altruism and egoism. Such Utilitarians viewed the end of moral activity as the welfare of society, the social organism.

amalgamation

(noun) The act or process through which a dominant group combines with a subordinate group to form a new group. The process in which separate organizations unite to form a larger organization or group, or an organization or group formed in this way: The association was formed by the amalgamation of several regional environmental organizations. The company began as an amalgamation of small family firms.

ambilineal descent

(noun) Tracing an individual’s descent either through the father or mother as chosen by the individual.

American Dream

(noun) In the United States of America, the notion that through determination and hard work anyone can achieve success.

amphibious advance force

A temporary support force assigned to the amphibious force that conducts shaping operations in the amphibious objective area or operational area prior to the arrival of the amphibious force.

amphibious squadron

A tactical and administrative organization composed of amphibious warfare ships used to transport troops and their equipment for an amphibious operation. Also called PHIBRON.

analysis

(noun) The process of separating a whole into its parts for discussion, interpretation, or study. The act of studying or examining something in detail, in order to discover or understand more about it, or your opinion and judgment after doing this. The frame analysis is a broadly applied, relatively flexible label for a variety of approaches to studying social constructions of reality.

It was first the sociologist Erving Goffman, credited with coining the term in his 1974 book Frame Analysis, who understood the idea of the frame to mean the culturally determined definitions of reality that allow people to make sense of objects and events. For example, a car advertisement might seek to frame driving as an essentially pleasurable activity by associating it with recognizable symbols of play and leisure (in the target culture) such as a beach. Goffman envisioned frame analysis to be an element of ethnographic research that would allow analysts to read identifiable chunks of social behavior, or strips, in order to understand the frames that participants use to make sense of the behavior (whether they apprehend their reality, for instance, through a religious or a secular frame). The study of framing and its role in social life has had wide effects across a broad spectrum of the social sciences.

Social psychology and economics found common ground in Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky’s Nobel Prize-winning research into how the framing of problems influences decision-making. Social movement researchers developed more-specific uses for frame analysis, turning the general ethnographic method into a more-specified tool for understanding the particular dynamics of activist movements. Media scholars emphasized the political role played by frames in mass communication, examining the use of frames to guide audiences to preferred conclusions by simultaneously highlighting particular aspects of reality and hiding others.

Social movement research and political communication have been the two main subfields of political science to consider the role of frames. However, work in both areas has moved substantially away from Goffman’s formulation by reconsidering the role of intentionality in framing. Goffman saw frames as being either primary frameworks—the product of larger culture and shared by all within a culture—or as intentionally fabricated by individuals—a transformation of the primary frameworks. Individuals who intentionally deploy frames transform a culturally constructed social reality and do so either in play or to deceive. Goffman’s reading of intentional framing thus cast it as a move away from a more authentic reality rather than as an element that revealed the struggles for power constituting or maintaining that reality. Meanwhile, both social movement and political communication scholars viewed the question of intentionality in framing in a substantially different way. Both lines of research saw frames as relevant to politics precisely because they can be intentionally deployed to create a change in attitudes.

Social movement theorists also recognized framing as a pillar of organizational activity. These theorists moved quickly to recognize that the intentional deployment of frames is an important function played by organizations to mobilize adherents and constituents. They recognized the process of frame alignment—the linkage of individual and organizational interpretive frames—to be not a deception enacted between two people but rather a legitimate means to organizational ends.

Theorists of political communication studied frames as one way that media (or the elites who manipulate them) can influence audiences’ political attitudes. Although audiences can potentially interpret texts in a number of different ways, people are most likely, in the absence of having additional information, to interpret problems, causes, and solutions for issues in terms of the way that those issues have been framed.

anarchy

(noun) The absence of any authority superior to nation-states and capable of arbitrating their disputes and enforcing international law. The term anarchy is derived from the ancient Greek root ἂναρχος (anarchos, without authority), denoting the absence of the rule of law or of settled government. The prevalence of anarchy in the relations between states is the basic assumption of realism, a prominent school of thought in international relations theory. According to realists, international law in practice imposes few direct constraints on the behavior of states, in part because there is almost no way of enforcing it. In the absence of a suprastate power or arbiter, there are no enforceable rules of conduct, especially for strong states. The harsh interstate environment is anarchic both in the strict sense of lacking enforceable international law and in the broader sense of being violently chaotic. The prevalence of this environment in turn requires that the primary goals of individual states be survival and security. Some scholars, especially those associated with the liberal approach to international relations, believe that anarchy can be overcome, or exited, through international institutions such as the United Nations (UN) and through the widespread acceptance of international law, especially by strong states. For realists, however, the UN, at least in its present form, is incapable of fulfilling that promise, since it has no coercive power that is independent of the will of the major powers. Thus, according to realists, unless the UN is fundamentally transformed or a genuine world state is created, the state of anarchy will endure.

ancestor

(noun) An individual from whom you are descended.

androcentrism

(noun) The tendency to place the male or masculine viewpoint and experience at the center of a society or culture.

androcracy

1. (noun) Authority, government, or rule by men; 2. (noun) Any society or culture that is controlled by men.

androgyny

(noun) Combining masculine and feminine characteristics in regards to appearance, gender identity or sexual identity.

androsexuality

(noun) Attraction toward males, masculinity, or men.

animatism

(noun) The belief that all things (objects) animate and inanimate are endowed with an impersonal, supernatural life force that influences people and events.

animism

(noun) The belief that all things animate and inanimate have an individual soul or are inhabited by a spirit. Animism (from Latin: anima meaning breath, spirit, life) is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork, and in some cases words—as animated and alive. Animism is used in anthropology of religion as a term for the belief system of many Indigenous peoples, in contrast to the relatively more recent development of organized religions. Animism focuses on the metaphysical universe, with a specific focus on the concept of the immaterial soul. Although each culture has its own mythologies and rituals, animism is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples’ spiritual or supernatural perspectives. The animistic perspective is so widely held and inherent to most indigenous peoples that they often do not even have a word in their languages that corresponds to animism (or even religion). The term animism is an anthropological construct. Largely due to such ethnolinguistic and cultural discrepancies, opinions differ on whether animism refers to an ancestral mode of experience common to indigenous peoples around the world or to a full-fledged religion in its own right.

The currently accepted definition of animism was only developed in the late-19th century (1871) by Edward Tylor. It is one of anthropology’s earliest concepts, if not the first. Animism encompasses the beliefs that all material phenomena have agency, that there exists no categorical distinction between the spiritual and physical world, and that soul, spirit, or sentience exists not only in humans but also in other animals, plants, rocks, geographic features (such as mountains and rivers), and other entities of the natural environment. Examples include water sprites, vegetation deities, and tree spirits, among others. Animism may further attribute a life force to abstract concepts such as words, true names, or metaphors in mythology. Some members of the non-tribal world also consider themselves animists, such as author Daniel Quinn, sculptor Lawson Oyekan, and many contemporary Pagans. English anthropologist Sir Edward Tylor initially wanted to describe the phenomenon as spiritualism, but he realized that such would cause confusion with the modern religion of spiritualism, which was then prevalent across Western nations. He adopted the term animism from the writings of German scientist Georg Ernst Stahl, who had developed the term animismus in 1708 as a biological theory that souls formed the vital principle, and that the normal phenomena of life and the abnormal phenomena of disease could be traced to spiritual causes. The origin of the word comes from the Latin word anima, which means life or soul. The first known usage in English appeared in 1819.

anomie

(noun) 1. For Emile Durkheim it is normlessness or social instability caused by the erosion or absence of morals, norms, standards, and values in a society; Émile Durkheim in his study of suicide believed that one type of suicide (anomic) resulted from the breakdown of the social standards necessary for regulating behavior. When a social system is in a state of anomie, common values and common meanings are no longer understood or accepted, and new values and meanings have not developed. According to Durkheim, such a society produces, in many of its members, psychological states characterized by a sense of futility, lack of purpose, and emotional emptiness and despair. Striving is considered useless, because there is no accepted definition of what is desirable. 2. (noun) A personal state of alienation, anxiety, and purposelessness caused by social instability. 3. A state of no moral or social principles in a person or in society.

anonymity

(noun) A research protocol in which neither the researcher or the reader of the findings can identify a respondent based on their responses; the state of being anonymous.

Anonymous

(noun) From the Greek word ανώνυμος (anonymous, without name), Anonymous is a decentralized international activist and hacktivist collective and movement primarily known for its various cyberattacks against several governments, government institutions and government agencies, corporations and the Church of Scientology. After Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February 2022, a Twitter account with 7.9 million followers named Anonymous declared a cyber war against Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. Since then, the group has claimed responsibility for various cyberattacks that disabled websites and leaked data from Russian government agencies, as well as state-run news outlets and corporations. Often called hacktivists, Anonymous employs coordinated cyberattacks against various world governments, corporations or other groups, often in the name of social or political causes.

anthropology

(noun) 1. The holistic study of humanity, past and present, typically divided into four sub-fields: archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, and physical anthropology. 2. Military anthropology is the anthropological analysis of social and cultural concerns related to (and derived from) the armed forces, war, and the provision for national security. Ranging from the British colonial era in Africa to the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Military anthropology illustrates the