Tag: War Studies

By Major Jonas Björkqvist & Docent Dr Mikael Weissmann
Swedish Defence University Report Series 2025:6
DOWNLOAD | Open Access

This new handbook presents a comprehensive framework for conducting staff rides and field exercises on the Battle of Ortona (1943)—a historical case offering vital lessons for modern urban warfare. Combining history, wargaming, and pedagogy, it introduces a hybrid model linking tactical and operational insights from past battles with today’s and tomorrow’s conflicts.

Designed for Professional Military Education (PME), it provides practical guidance, thematic modules, and an integrated card-driven wargame to strengthen decision-making and leadership in complex urban operations.

Read the publication (Open Access): FULL TEXT

STAFF-RIDE IN THE ARDENNES 2023

By mikaelweissmann

On 1 June 2023

In Staff Ride, Staff Ride, Teaching and Learning

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.

Docent Dr Mikael Weissmann is an Associate Professor at the Department of Systems Science for Defence and Security at the Swedish Defence University. He currently serves as Deputy Director of the Swedish Defence University Centre for Land Warfare. He is also an Associate Professor in War Studies and Affiliated Researcher at the university’s Centre for Wargaming (CWG). He co-convenes the Hybrid Threats Research Group (HTRG) and serves as the Principal Investigator of the project “Building Resilience and Psychological Defence: Countering Hybrid Threats and Foreign Influence and Interference.”

Weissmann’s research focuses on Security, Strategy and Intelligence. His work is structured around six themes:
1. Hybrid Threats
2. Resilience & Psychological Defence
3. Strategic Intelligence
4. Technology & Defence
5. Modern Warfare
6. China and the Indo-Pacific

In addition, Weissmann is interested in Teaching & Learning within Professional Military Education (PME), particularly practical and scenario-based exercises and assessments with special emphasis on staff rides and wargames.

He currently pursues research in a number of areas, including:
- Teaching & Learning in PME, focusing on staff rides, wargames, and scenario-based learning approaches.
- Hybrid threats and whole-of-society defence, focusing on foreign influence and interference.
- Psychological Defence, focusing on the building resilience and psychological defence
- Strategic Intelligence, particularly the role of AI and the private sector and the dissemination of intelligence in the information environment in Strategic Early Warning.
- Technology and Defence, focusing on military innovation and the role of AI and autonomous systems in warfare.
- Russian Warfare and Influence, with a particular interest in Ukraine, the Balkans and Central Asia.
- Military Operations and Tactics, in particularly Urban Warfare and the ole of technology.
- China’s foreign policy and role in the world (including its role in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Global South, and the implication of the second Trump Administration).
- Security and Strategy in the Indo-Pacific.
- Foreign Influence and Local Adaptation in Post-Colonial States under Great-Power Influence (focusing on Central Asia and the Middle Corridor).

ABOUT
Dr Mikael Weissmann is an Associate Professor in War Studies and Academic Head & Deputy Head of the Land Operations Division at the Swedish Defence University. He is co-convenor of the Land Warfare Research Group (LWRG) and the Hybrid Threats Research Group (HTRG). He is also a member of CSCAP-EU.

Weissmann’s research on security, strategy and warfare focuses on four research themes:
1) Hybrid Threats and Foreign Interference, 2) Intelligence Analysis, 3) Land Operations and Tactics, and 4) China and East Asian Security and Strategy.

He is also interested in Teaching & Learning with a special interest in practical and scenario-based exercises and examinations as well as Professional Military Education (PME).

His expertise includes:
- Hybrid threats- and warfare
- Land Warfare
- Urban Warfare
- Intelligence analysis
- Russian warfare and influence (particular interest in the Balkans and Eastern Europe)
- Military operations and tactics
- Military tactical thinking
- China and East Asian security and strategy broadly defined.
- Practical and scenario-based exercises and examinations (including staff rides, war games, case studies, scenario exercises, simulations and roleplaying games)
- Professional Military Education (PME)

His research on China and East Asia focuses on:
- China’s foreign policy and role in the world
- the South China Sea
- the North Korean nuclear conflict
- the Taiwan Issue
- Regional and Global Power Shift
- the Belt and Road initiative

Weissmann has also pursued research on track-two diplomacy, conflict management and peacebuilding as well as Sino-Russian and Europe’s relations with China and East Asia.

Hybrid Threats | Psychological Defence | Strategic Intelligence | Technology & Defence | Modern Warfare | Urban Warfare | Staff Rides | Wargames | China and the Indo-Pacific | the Balkans | Central Asia

Tag: War Studies

New Publication: Staff Ride Handbook – The Battle of Ortona 1943

By Major Jonas Björkqvist & Docent Dr Mikael Weissmann
Swedish Defence University Report Series 2025:6
DOWNLOAD | Open Access

STAFF-RIDE IN THE ARDENNES 2023

Tag: War Studies

New Publication: Staff Ride Handbook – The Battle of Ortona 1943

By Major Jonas Björkqvist & Docent Dr Mikael WeissmannSwedish Defence University Report Series 2025:6DOWNLOAD | Open Access

STAFF-RIDE IN THE ARDENNES 2023

By Major Jonas Björkqvist & Docent Dr Mikael Weissmann
Swedish Defence University Report Series 2025:6
DOWNLOAD | Open Access