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This article examines the domestic deployment of the Czech Armed Forces during the COVID-19 pandemic, analysing both institutional and individual dimensions of military assistance to civil authorities. Drawing on two empirical surveys—one administered to deployed soldiers and another to representatives of beneficiary institutions—the study explores perceptions of operational effectiveness, interagency coordination, and public trust. Czech soldiers were critical in providing logistical and medical support, maintaining internal security, and assisting with strategic planning. Deployed personnel reported significant personal and professional development, while beneficiary institutions emphasised the military’s adaptability and responsiveness. Although challenges in coordination and communication emerged, the military’s contribution was widely regarded as indispensable. The results underscore the evolving role of armed forces in non-traditional security contexts, contributing to broader debates on civil–military relations, crisis governance, and the militarisation of public health responses.

Breaking Ranks brings a new and deeply personal perspective to the war in Iraq by looking into the lives of six veterans who turned against the war they helped to fight. Based on extensive interviews with each of the six, the book relates why they enlisted, their experiences in training and in early missions, their tours of combat, and what has happened to them since returning home. The compelling stories of this diverse cross section of the military recount how each journey to Iraq began with the sincere desire to do good. Matthew Gutmann and Catherine Anne Lutz show how each individual's experiences led to new moral and political understandings and ultimately to opposing the war.

The role of the Russian armed forces in the revolutionary upheavals of 1917 and the subsequent turmoil experienced in Russia is undoubtedly one of the most crucial factors in those events. Moreover, the revolutions and Civil War that followed had profoundly transformative effects on the military itself. While there is little debate over the importance of the military in the revolution, scholarly literature is far from consensus on specific causes and effects, the impact of the revolution on the military, and the ways in which the creation of the new Red Army presented continuity with the past or a significantly new means of military organization. This chapter explores the ways that historians have interpreted the military as a revolutionary phenomenon, assessing the continued validity of older scholarship that was often ideological charged (in both Soviet and Western sources) and considering more recent contributions, which reveal a more intricate picture of the intersection between the revolution and the Russian military and their reciprocal effects. Perhaps most importantly, it considers the extent to which the military was itself an actor with agency in these events, alternately serving to shore up the tsarist regime, while concomitantly working to unravel the trappings of autocratic empire, and ultimately laying the foundations for a new political system that was itself highly militarized.

Nimo, Maha, Safah, Shatha, Emma, Danielle, Kim, Charlene. In a book that once again blends her distinctive flair for capturing the texture of everyday life with shrewd political insights, Cynthia Enloe looks closely at the lives of eight ordinary women, four Iraqis and four Americans, during the Iraq War. Among others, Enloe profiles a Baghdad beauty parlor owner, a teenage girl who survived a massacre, an elected member of Parliament, the young wife of an Army sergeant, and an African American woman soldier. Each chapter begins with a close-up look at one woman’s experiences and widens into a dazzling examination of the larger canvas of war’s gendered dimensions. Bringing to light hidden and unexpected theaters of operation—prostitution, sexual assault, marriage, ethnic politics, sexist economies—these stories are a brilliant entryway into an eye-opening exploration of the actual causes, costs, and long-range consequences of war. This unique comparison of American and Iraqi women’s diverse and complex experiences sheds a powerful light on the different realities that together we call, perhaps too easily, “the Iraq war.”

Numerous studies describe the occurrence of post-traumatic stress disorder following disasters, but less is known about the risk of major depression. To review the risk of depressive disorder in people surviving disasters and in soldiers returning from military deployment. A systematic literature search combined with reference screening identified 23 controlled epidemiological studies. We used random effects models to compute pooled odds ratios (ORs). The average OR was significantly elevated following all types of exposures: natural disaster OR = 2.28 (95% CI 1.30-3.98), technological disaster OR = 1.44 (95% CI 1.21-1.70), terrorist acts OR = 1.80 (95% CI 1.38-2.34) and military combat OR = 1.60 (95% CI 1.09-2.35). In a subset of ten high-quality studies OR was 1.41 (95% CI 1.06-1.87). Disasters and combat experience substantially increase the risk of depression. Whether psychological trauma per se or bereavement is on the causal path is unresolved.

Former child soldiers wrestle with mental health, social adjustment, and reconciliation challenges as reported by Denov (International Social Work 53(6):791–806, 2010). While research has focused on the impacts of child soldering, little attention has been paid to their lives and experiences beyond disarmament and reintegration activities, with even less focus on girl child soldiers. Focused ethnography was utilized to explore resilience, including challenges and coping resources of 8 Liberian former girl child soldiers living in Ghana. In-depth interviews, participant observations, and group discussions were conducted in a refugee camp and analyzed thematically. Adversity during conflict in Liberia included forced recruitment, sexual abuse in rebel groups, and witnessing multiple deaths. Reintegration challenges in Ghana included lack of basic needs, language barriers, and psychosocial and adjustment difficulties. Resilience-building resources used by participants in conflict and post-conflict settings included social supports, spiritual practices and beliefs, and individual agency. Implications for policies, programs, and interventions for former girl child soldiers are discussed.

What explains combat motivation in warfare? Scholars argue that monitoring, material rewards, and punishment alone are insufficient explanations. Further, competing ideological accounts of motivation are also problematic because ideas are difficult to operationalize and measure. To solve this puzzle, the authors combine extensive information from World War II about German soldiers’ combat performance with data about conditionally exogenous potential exposure to Nazi radio propaganda. They find evidence that soldiers with higher potential exposure to propaganda were more likely to be decorated for valor even after controlling for individual socioeconomic factors, home district characteristics like urbanization, and proxies for combat exposure.

Unit cohesion may protect service member mental health by mitigating effects of combat exposure; however, questions remain about the origins of potential stress-buffering effects. We examined buffering effects associated with two forms of unit cohesion (peer-oriented horizontal cohesion and subordinate-leader vertical cohesion) defined as either individual-level or aggregated unit-level variables. Longitudinal survey data from US Army soldiers who deployed to Afghanistan in 2012 were analyzed using mixed-effects regression. Models evaluated individual- and unit-level interaction effects of combat exposure and cohesion during deployment on symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and suicidal ideation reported at 3 months post-deployment (model 's = 6684 to 6826). Given the small effective sample size ( = 89), the significance of unit-level interactions was evaluated at a 90% confidence level. At the individual-level, buffering effects of horizontal cohesion were found for PTSD symptoms [ = -0.11, 95% CI (-0.18 to -0.04), < 0.01] and depressive symptoms [ = -0.06, 95% CI (-0.10 to -0.01), < 0.05]; while a buffering effect of vertical cohesion was observed for PTSD symptoms only [ = -0.03, 95% CI (-0.06 to -0.0001), < 0.05]. At the unit-level, buffering effects of horizontal (but not vertical) cohesion were observed for PTSD symptoms [ = -0.91, 90% CI (-1.70 to -0.11), = 0.06], depressive symptoms [ = -0.83, 90% CI (-1.24 to -0.41), < 0.01], and suicidal ideation [ = -0.32, 90% CI (-0.62 to -0.01), = 0.08]. Policies and interventions that enhance horizontal cohesion may protect combat-exposed units against post-deployment mental health problems. Efforts to support individual soldiers who report low levels of horizontal or vertical cohesion may also yield mental health benefits.

Definition of disorder subtypes may facilitate precision treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We aimed to identify PTSD subtypes and evaluate their associations with genetic risk factors, types of stress exposures, comorbidity, and course of PTSD. Data came from a prospective study of three U.S. Army Brigade Combat Teams that deployed to Afghanistan in 2012. Soldiers with probable PTSD (PTSD Checklist for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth Edition ≥31) at three months postdeployment comprised the sample (N = 423) for latent profile analysis using Gaussian mixture modeling and PTSD symptom ratings as indicators. PTSD profiles were compared on polygenic risk scores (derived from external genomewide association study summary statistics), experiences during deployment, comorbidity at three months postdeployment, and persistence of PTSD at nine months postdeployment. Latent profile analysis revealed profiles characterized by prominent intrusions, avoidance, and hyperarousal (threat-reactivity profile; n = 129), anhedonia and negative affect (dysphoric profile; n = 195), and high levels of all PTSD symptoms (high-symptom profile; n = 99). The threat-reactivity profile had the most combat exposure and the least comorbidity. The dysphoric profile had the highest polygenic risk for major depression, and more personal life stress and co-occurring major depression than the threat-reactivity profile. The high-symptom profile had the highest rates of concurrent mental disorders and persistence of PTSD. Genetic and trauma-related factors likely contribute to PTSD heterogeneity, which can be parsed into subtypes that differ in symptom expression, comorbidity, and course. Future studies should evaluate whether PTSD typology modifies treatment response and should clarify distinctions between the dysphoric profile and depressive disorders.