Logo: to the web site of the Swedish Defence University

There are different discourses about the dominance of the offensive, the offensive dominates in a small state like Sweden as well, especially in the tactical thinking, through the military culture and education. Yet it is proven that military culture consists of hegemonic masculinity. Sweden and its armed forces are at the forefront of gender equality work in relation to other states and armed forces, as can be seen with the Swedish armed forces gender manual, and that Sweden have the world´s first feminist government. But if a small state like Sweden, dominated by offensive tactics, have gendered the offensive and the defensive through its military culture, it is likely other states, that haven’t gone that far in their gender equality work, have gendered the offensive and the defensive. This could cause a problem if decisions are made upon the will to appear brave or aggressive instead of good judgement from intelligence. The study aims to examine how the offensive cult can be understood through masculinities theory. This study is conducted on the basis of group interviews with three groups of army officers in the Swedish armed forces, where the groups military culture, thoughts and experience about the offensive and the defensive were sought.

This study examines that the offensive is given its dominance through gendering by the military culture in the army. By gendering the offensive as masculine, in terms of being brave, aggressive and historical successful offensive operations. While the defensive been gendered as feminine, in terms of passivity and cowardice. This makes the offensive as the accepted answer to its legitimacy, and the defensive is ought to be sub-ordinated.