My thinking about 'the political' starts with a personal puzzle: On 5 November, 2013Sven-Göran Eriksson-the former coach of the England football team-is a guest on BBC One's Breakfast television show. Sven -as the Brits like to call him-is promoting his biography but the reason this brief moment caught my attention and subsequently sparked an interest in militarisation is, firstly, that Sven is, just like me, Swedish. We both come from a cultural background that in 2014 celebrated '200 years without war', that prides itself on its 'neutral', 'alliance-free' and peace-loving history no matter how questionable such statements are. Secondly, Eriksson is a football coach; a role that one would think has got nothing to do with the Armed Forces or even the study of global politics. But, the interview happens to take place during Remembrance Week and he is sitting on the BBC sofa wearing a poppy, the pin that is sold and bought as part of the Remembrance events in the UK. As a Swede, or perhaps just an outsider, I have always found the events and activities around Remembrance Week intriguing but to see My personal puzzle -my own awkwardness -led to a research interest in the political puzzle of militarisation: how militarisation as a security practice forms part of sensemaking in the everyday. Intrigued by the political puzzle of militarisation, it is precisely the notion of 'common sense', that which we tend to accept as 'normal' and that which is deemed apolitical that takes centre-stage and moves me towards an analytical focus on 1 I wish to thank the editors of this Special Issue for the invitation to participate, the anonymous reviewers for excellent feedback on the first version of this article, and also audience members at ECPR 2014, ISA 2015 and EISA 2015 where I presented previous versions of this article. Special thanks are also due to Emil Edenborg, Jamie Johnson and Moran Mandelbaum for feedback and support.