The Routledge Handbook of War and Society

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan represent two of the most interesting and potentially troubling events of recent decades. In the wake of 9/11, the United States and other nations went to war in Afghanistan presumably to find and either capture or kill Osama bin Laden and other leaders of Al Qaeda. Following on the heels of the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. and other nations embarked on a war in Iraq, ostensibly to find and destroy Saddam Husseins stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and eventually as the rationale evolved, to free Iraq and create a democratic government. These two warsso similar in their beginningsgenerated different responses from various publics and the mass media; they have had profound effects on the members of the armed services, on their families and relatives, and on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. The wars, particularly the war in Iraq, have created conditions and situations of interest to sociologists of the media, military sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists, military strategists, political scientists, students of humanitarian aid, social psychologists, scholars of social movements, and theorists of globalization. In short, this edited volume will provide an introduction to current sociological and behavioral research on the effects of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This book will be of interest to students of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, miltiary sociology, war studies, anthropology, US politics and psychology.