On 18-21 September Major Jonas Björkqvist (Land Operations Division), Patrik Wiklund (Military History Division) and I led a Staff Ride to the Netherlands and Germany studying Operation Market Garden and Operationn Veritable. This tour was part of the skill development of the Land Operations Division at the Swedish Defence University. Besides studying the two operations, the aim was to test a new pedagogical approach to Staff Rides and to study the new Swedish Army Tactical Regulations.
From 17 June to 16 August, I will be a Visiting Fellow at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) in Belgrade, Serbia. During my stay, I will conduct fieldwork for a range of projects across the Balkans with a focus on Serbia, Hungary and North Macedonia. I will also do pre-recognisance for future Staff Rides and battlefield tours.
Recently, I had the opportunity to be part of a wargame in Sweden that was part of an elective course on Land Operations in our Higher Joint Command and Staff Programme taking place in Skåne in the south of Sweden. It was an intense learning experience that required careful planning and tactical thinking from our students.
This week I have co-organised a Staff-Ride for a course on land operations and tactics for the Joint Higher Command and Staff Program at the Swedish Defence University together with Lt Col Per Lindahl, Head of the Land Operations Division. It has been a very successful trip where we used four different themes – Technology, Logistics, Urban Warfare and Tactics – as a starting point for discussions and seminars at various themed terrain locations.
We also spent a day studying and reflecting on the consequences of the profession, leadership, courage and symbolic values during a visit to Verdun.
Together with colleges at among others the Swedish Defence University, RISE and the Swedish Institute of International Affairs and partners in Denmark, Ukraine and Finland we have won research funding from the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency for major research project on Building Resilience and Psychological Defence: Countering hybrid threats and foreign influence and interference. The project will run over three years and includes four parallel modules focusing on respectively 1) Case studies, 2) International actors and cooperation bodies, 3) Sweden and psychological defence, and 4) Synthesis. More information about the project can be found here: [URL]
My new co-edited volume on Advamced Land Warfare: Tactics and Operations is just out on Oxford University Press. Download full volume or chapters here: https://academic.oup.com/book/45784 (OPEN ACCESS)
The book:
March 15th – 18th I attended the International Studies Association’s Annual Convention in Montreal, Canada together with our research group. We organised a panel on “Future challenges for the intelligence and security services” which I co-chaired with Dr Cris Matei of the Naval Postgraduate School. The panel included four presentations:
Intelligence as Policy Impact – is it measurable?
by Per Thunholm (Centre for Total Defence, Swedish Defence University)
Hybrid Threats and the Intelligence Community
by Bjorn Palmertz (Research Institutes of Sweden, RISE)
Current operations intelligence and intelligence assessments: information flows and the tension between quality and speed
by Niklas Nilsson and Mikael Weissmann (Swedish Defence University)
Future threats: what is to be expected?
by Mikael Weissmann (Swedish Defence University)
During 1-4 March I conducted a staff ride in the Netherlands with a focus on urban combat and resistance under occupation together with Patrik Wiklund from the Military History Division of the Swedish Defence University. Special focus was put on the Battle of Nijmegen and the Battle of Arnhem in September 1944 and the experiences of German occupation in Amsterdam during the second world war.
We also visit Eben-Emael and Grebbeberg to discuss innovation and creativity in war, the importance of willingness to fight and the role of history and war games in PME.
On 27 Feb – 1 Mar a team from the Land Operations Divisions, with support from the Military History Division, conducted a reconnaissance and experience-sharing exercise in Belgium and France. During the trip, we studied examples from both world wars, studying the 1940 Spring Offensive, the Battle of Somme 1916 and the Battle of Amiens 1918. The aim was to draw lessons from previous executions within the Staff Course of the Swedish Defence University.
On 2 March I visited the Netherlands Defence Academy/Royal Military Academy in Breda together with Patrik Wiklund from the Military History Division of the Swedish Defence University. We had meetings with representatives from the academy, discussing staff rides and other areas of shared concerns including urban warfare and staff rides with representatives from the Military History & Strategy Division and the Military Operational Sciences Division.
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