Armed forces and society in Europe

by Anthony Forster

In the post-Cold War era, militaries across the world are engaged in an ongoing redefinition of their roles, organisation and financing. This adaptation is challenging often long-standing relations between armed forces and the societies they serve. Nowhere is this more striking than across the whole of Europe, a continent that was divided into opposing camps for much of the post-1945 period. This book offers an innovative conceptual framework to critically evaluate contemporary civil-military relations across the continent of Europe. It analyses 8 key issues in armed forces and society relations, to explore the scale and intensity of these changes. In doing so it highlights the major challenges of contemporary civil-military relations and takes issue with the conventional wisdom that a postmodern military has emerged in Europe. Anthony Forster suggests that 15 years after the end of the Cold War militaries across Europe are surprisingly resilient in terms of their modernist foundations