There is an increasing interest, in urban studies, sociology, and archaeology, in military bunkers. The concept informed Paul Virilio's Bunker Archaeology (1994), for instance, and has been significant for the Brutalist tradition of European architects, including Le Corbusier. European cultural sociology has also expanded its themes and theorizing within particular militarized landscapes and bunkered urban locations, as has contemporary British archaeology.

Military bunkers, then, are a key component of the urban condition, if not always consciously acknowledged as such. Nevertheless, the concept has been reframed regarding the increasingly synchronized themes of postmodernity, war, and the emerging interests of the new subject of combat archaeology. The well-known characteristics of postmodern war—the worldwide scope of militarism, information warfare, unmanned aerial vehicles, compulsory or intentional urban mobility and confinement, ...