Samenvatting

After the end of the Cold War, several crucial changes took place in the military field. It could be argued that the work of military personnel has become more similar to that of other public service providers through the introduction of what has been called the ‘human security’ paradigm (Kaldor, 2007). At the same time, military deployment and the profession itself remain fundamentally distinct from other frontline occupations. In this contribution I will explore to what extent this leads to idiosyncratic tensions in military work. These can partly be understood through the lens of street-level bureaucracy theory, and partly with the trauma concept of ‘moral injury’. Yet, an important part of military work escapes these perspectives. To this end, a third, contextual perspective is introduced, arguing that many of the tensions in military work essentially arise from ambiguity in terms of organisation, deployment and political views.