Introduction: Mission formations and a new agenda for the study of military units in action

The study of military action by behavioral scientists is usually constrained for reasons of difficulty getting access and doing the research on processes of action. The first part of this chapter explores several approaches to the study of combat formations. The second part presents empirical information based on the personal experiences of the author. It briefly covers four distinct case studies on the micro, meso and macro levels of operational activities. The first two case studies cover unintended formations during terror attacks; the third case study covers air-ground combat formations; the fourth case study covers ad hoc military-police formations during internal policing in the disengagement from Gaza in 2005. The chapter presents the knowledge, research design and a variety of methods that are required for the proper analysis of mission formations.