Logo: to the web site of the Swedish Defence University

In response to the deteriorating security situation there is presently a rapid growth and development within the Swedish Armed Forces. New domains for warfare and territorial conflicts such as the cyber domain and space are getting more prominent, and technical systems gain increasing artificial intelligence and autonomy. Sweden is, as other nations, in the process of figuring out how to perform multidomain operation. An important part of this process is the harmonisation of doctrines. Sweden is also a new member of NATO, which requires analyses of correspondences between national and NATO doctrines. The Swedish Air Force has developed an air defence concept to meet the new challenges. This concept needs to be implemented in doctrine as well as technical-tactical development. Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) is a framework for the analysis, design, and evaluation of complex sociotechnical systems. The analysis focuses on the work the system is expected to perform, which enables considerations regarding work organisation and allocation of responsibilities to human or artificial agents. The CWA framework has been applied to a wide range of domains, while of particular interest for the present project is the application of CWA by Neelam Naikar and colleagues for theimprovement of doctrines for the Royal Australian Air Force. The envisioned project aim is to apply the CWA framework to the development of doctrines for the Swedish Air Force. While inspired by Naikar’s approach, the CWA framework will be applied somewhat differently, in the hope of contributing to developing it further.

Introduction

Who?

This guide is intended to be used by anyone with an interest in military English. You may be serving in the armed forces, a civilian in a company or organization working closely with the military, or a student.

Whatever your role, you may at times need to communicate in a military context in English. The contents of this book are aimed at making this easier for you.

You may use the book by yourself (self-study), choosing topics or skills which are useful to you, or it maybe used with a teacher in class.

The language covered in the book is an example of English for Specific Purposes, in this case military English. It is appropriate for readers with a language level of NATO Stanag 6001 Level 2 or above.

How?

Each unit covers either a type of communication (e.g., briefings, report writing, etc.) or a topic (e.g.,terrain, ranks, etc.). Units consist of language input and exercises. You can either work your way through the book in order or select units of specific interest to you.

The best way to use each unit is to read the input, attempt the practice activities, then read the input again. There is a wordlist at the end of each vocabulary unit, as well as space for your own notes, plus extra tasks which you will find by using the QR codes at the end of the book.

The language included in each unit aims to be an introduction to the topic. To help you find more detailed information, some units also list useful NATO documents related to types of communication or areas of interest. Learn more and access these at: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/publications.htm

This article analyzes the survivability of Russia’s second-strike capability in the Arctic through the lens of classical nuclear deterrence theory. Despite heavy commitments in Ukraine, Moscow continues to modernize its Northern Fleet and reinforce bastion defenses, underscoring the Arctic’s role as the cornerstone of its retaliatory deterrent. While these strategies mirror Cold War practices, they face unprecedented challenges from NATO expansion, multipolar competition, and advances in anti-submarine detection technologies. The study concludes that safeguarding Russia’s second-strike capability not only shapes regional security dynamics but also has broader implications for global strategic stability.

In the following study, six public, civil actors and their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic from an organizational perspective are examined. Additionally, Brehmer's (2013) theoretical framework is used to add nuance to the study's findings. There are a large number of differences and similarities in how organizations chose to organize themselves, including choice of organizational structure, decision-making, and how legitimacy has affected their work. By organizing themselves into a staff organization, crisis management should be streamlined, but the results of the study show that the choice of staff format affects the possibility of a unified handling. An analysis of the similarities and differences can provide incentives for how future crisis management can be developed for future crises. The study's results indicate that a needs-oriented staff structure based on purpose, form, and function is central to designing the civil crisis management system.

A new wave of organisations, primarily established after February 2022 in response to the Russian military aggression against Ukraine, provide aid to civilians while also contributing to Ukraine’s military defence. This hybrid set of activities challenges the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence, rendering the existing frameworks of humanitarianism and new humanitarianism inadequate to describe their operations. This paper tackles these conceptual shortcomings and the difficulties in finding appropriate terminology to characterise such activities by introducing the alternative framework of total defence. The research focuses on an organisation founded by Ukrainians in Sweden, active in both Sweden and Ukraine, and examines its approach in relation to the frameworks of humanitarianism, new humanitarianism and total defence. The findings indicate that this novel hybrid approach represents a paradigm shift in the discourse between humanitarianism and new humanitarianism, suggesting that the organisation is better characterised as part of a total defence mechanism rather than a conventional humanitarian response.

How do we understand the emerging world order under the twin shocks of war in Europe and an American president determined to put “America First”? A forum on the English School approach, organized under the aegis of the Institute for International Economic Affairs in Athens on 27 May 2025 (IIER 2025) considered the question in terms of changes in the primary institutions of international society, including the balance of power, diplomacy, the regulation of war, great power management and the market. A summary of the findings follows, with an introduction on how the English School theorizes change in international society. 

This article investigates Australia’s relationship with the ‘Territory Papua New Guinea’ (TPNG) (today’s Papua New Guinea, PNG) to, in turn, shed light on why non-great powers seek to establish or maintain spheres of influence. Constellations where strong states wield exclusive control, or ‘predominant influence’, over external geographical space or smaller states, are frequently referred to as ‘spheres of influence’ (Bull 2002, 314; Kaufman 1976, 11; Keal 1983, 15; Resnick 2022, 566), which, despite its wide use in political discourse is an under-researched and ‘essentially contested concept’ in International Relations (IR) literature (Costa Buranelli 2018, 380). The phenomenon has competing conceptualisations, but this article defines spheres of influence as ‘hierarchical constellations characterised by practices of exclusion and control’ (Jackson 2020, 257). Despite suffering from under-theorisation (Etzioni 2015, 118; Hast 2014, 1; Jackson 2020, 255), it is quite well-established in the IR literature that great powers engage in sphere-of-influence practices and policies. Different traditions emphasise different things. In the constructivist tradition, for instance, ‘spheres of influence’ are considered a part of ‘great power identity’ (Murray 2019, 63–64; Recchia 2020, 515; Zala 2020). But upon closer scrutiny, this picture is somewhat incomplete. There are other states, not belonging to the category of ‘(self-identified) great powers’ which also articulate a desire to have some degree of exclusive control over adjacent external geographical space and pursue such policies.

Although there are disagreements regarding what type of country Australia is (Fern 2020), it has been identified as a ‘middle power’ by both scholars (Beeson 2011; Harijanto 2024; Widmaier 2019) and its own leaders (see Albanese 2024). Concomitantly, some of its leaders have also expressed views of its neighbouring region as Australia’s ‘patch’ (John Howard, quoted in McDougall 2019); an Australian sphere of influence (White 2019). There are two tensions one must keep in mind concerning Australia and spheres of influence. First, there is the one between the identification as a ‘middle power’ and the notion of spheres of influence. Second, there is the tension between Australia’s self-professed liberal principles and the notion of spheres of influence. These tensions have implications for two major IR schools of thought: constructivism and liberalism. Australia is a vocal advocate of the liberal (US-led) international order. Canberra frequently takes a stand in favour of a rules-based system and the self-determination of small states. However, as will be illustrated in a subsequent section, there is a parallel tendency in Australian foreign policy, as it simultaneously asserts that it has a special role in the region, the South Pacific, when it comes to maintaining order and its national interests.

Based on these insights, this article problematises the notion that a ‘sphere of influence’ primarily is an attribute for (self-identified) ‘great powers’. In problematising this ‘conventional wisdom’, the article sets out to address the following research problem: why do states which do not identify as great powers pursue spheres of influence in their geographical vicinity? To address this research problem the article investigates the case of Australia, seeking to answer the question: what explains Australian policy towards TPNG in the 1960s? By utilising digitalised archival material from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (henceforth ‘DFAT’), this article explores Australia’s view on TPNG/PNG which gained its recognition as independent and de facto self-determination from Australia in 1975 (Denoon 2012, 4–5). The period covered is from 1966 to 1969, and I use thematic analysis to establish prevailing perceptions.

The large schools of thought in IR simplify spheres of influence to the extent that they risk giving inadequate accounts of the phenomenon. Instead, I argue that an ‘actor-centric foreign policy’ approach is a more beneficial way of analysing spheres of influence and states’ motivations for establishing them. Importantly, however, the article does not analyse foreign policy outcomes per se. Instead, it focuses on what Gideon Rose calls the ‘intervening variables’; a state government’s perception of its surroundings and the origin of these (1998, 157–161), which in turn inform the government’s foreign policy.

The article’s study unearths that several actors within the Australian government perceived the maintenance of Australian exclusiveness over PNG as central to the national defence. These findings lead the article to suggest that Australia’s experiences from the world wars contributed to specific perceptions of PNG that subsequently were applied to the context of the Cold War. However, the article also shows that within the same foreign policy establishment, there was a wide range of perceptions of the strategic environment, informing different policy preferences. From this, a wider theoretical suggestion is derived: states, regardless of their (self-perceived) ‘identity’, pursue spheres of influence depending on the prevailing perceptions of and meaning ascribed to their strategic environment as shaped by previous experiences. The main contribution, outside the purely empirical, is that the article problematises the utility of the structural IR schools of thought in understanding why and how states seek to establish spheres of influence. Instead, it suggests an actor-centric to understand and explain this phenomenon of states seeking to establish and/or maintain exclusivity over geographical space external to their territory.

This article explains why self-identified great powers seek to provide a ‘sphere of influence meaning’ to geographical space when such narratives have the potential to insult the smaller actors in the space over which such powers seek exclusive influence. The article draws and expands on the ‘physical turn’ in ontological security studies by introducing the notion of a ‘geographical here’ as key to a great power that perceives its status as threatened. The argument is illustrated through a comparative analysis of three US presidential administrations. The article analyses (i) how the US’ status is perceived and narrated, and (ii) what meaning officials assign to the ‘geographical here’. 

This thesis critically examines how the International Criminal Court (ICC) evaluates open-source digital evidence (OSDE), including user-generated videos, images, and audio, in light of its growing prominence in atrocity international crime prosecutions. Drawing on doctrinal analysis of treaties, statutes, and case law from Nuremberg, the ICTY/ICTR, and the ICC, it assesses the ICC’s hybrid evidentiary framework and its three-part admissibility test (relevance, probative value, prejudice). The study finds significant inconsistency across Chambers regarding authentication and reliability, with flexible approaches in cases such as Lubanga contrasted by stricter thresholds in Katanga and exclusionary outcomes in Ntaganda. Technical vulnerabilities, including digital media metadata loss, anonymized sources, manipulation, and deepfakes, compound fairness risks, particularly for the defence, which often lacks access to the prosecution’s platforms, tools, and expertise. These asymmetries threaten equality of arms and may amplify visual bias in adjudication. The thesis concludes that, while existing rules allow pragmatic flexibility, they insufficiently safeguard fair trial rights in a digital environment. It recommends a unified OSDE protocol, early admissibility and authenticity rulings, enhanced digital literacy training for judges and counsel, resource parity for the defence, and transparent, structured reasoning on reliability and probative value to ensure consistent, rights-compliant adjudication.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly integrated into organizations. What was once an unprecedented novelty evolved into an essential tool for modern business practices. Although AI has the potential to be one of the most powerful tools for data analysis, its potential will be limited if users cannot understand it. This study explored the impact of textual explanations provided by an AI anomaly detector on human decision-making and end-user performance, through an experiment with eight Swedish Coast Guard command center operators. Participants, using an AI prototype system, were tasked with analyzing maritime activity to identify suspicious activity. The results indicate that textual explanations increase an end user’s decision accuracy in false-positive scenarios but decrease their decision accuracy in true-positive scenarios. The results also suggest that a higher level of an end-user’s perceived mental effort does not necessarily lead to decreased user performance. It should be noted that the sample size of this study (both in the number of participants and number of observed cases) is too small to arrive at robust, statistically significant results. Therefore, the quantitative results should be interpreted with caution. Nonetheless, this study provides valuable insights and is intended to serve as a foundation for future research.

This study aimed to identify additional safety climate factors by re-examining items previously excluded from two earlier studies on the Swedish Armed Forces. Several excluded items were originally designed to capture features of high-reliability organizations (HROs), particularly relevant in command and control (C2) environments. Using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), a new factor labeled Safety Improvement was identified and validated through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on a new sample drawn from a Swedish regiment. The CFA demonstrated acceptable model fit indices. The new factor was integrated into the Military Safety Climate Questionnaire (MSCQ), and its compatibility with the Nordic Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50) was tested. The Safety Improvement factor captures how military personnel engage in reflection, learning, and procedural adaptation—practices critical to effective and safe command and control. These findings underscore that safety climate tools designed for both military and civilian use may overlook key dimensions unique to the military, such as decentralized decision-making and adaptive coordination under pressure. As such, this revised instrument supports not only peacetime safety management but also enhances operational readiness by identifying safety-related vulnerabilities, reducing risk during crises and combat situations.

U137, the Soviet submarine that ran aground in Swedish territorial waters, set the scene for a tense episode in the recent history of the Swedish Armed Forces. The event saw a swift Swedish response to a perceived Soviet operation to recover the stranded submarine. It is generally believed that this response deterred the operation.

Previous research on the topic of small state deterrence has not focused on this particular case but generally finds that the most viable form of deterrence for a small state is deterrence by denial—historically and recently employed in Sweden’s national defense strategy.

This study identifies the lack of research on the deterrent impact of the Swedish Armed Forces during the U137 crisis. By using the theory of deterrence proposed by Lawrence Freedman, the role of the Swedish Armed Forces is analyzed in this study. The result finds that the role of the Swedish Armed Forces in the deterrence during the U137 crisis can be understood in the context of Sweden’s broad deterrence, but was clearly immediate during the crisis and aimed at denial.

Because the study focuses on the Swedish Armed Forces, the context of extended deterrence in this case cannot be addressed. Nor can the effect of the threat of force on the voluntary agent’s decision making—in this case, the Soviet Union—be fully understood. 

The paper introduces a prototype decision support system for rapid exploratory wargaming of ground combat together with a conceptual framework for human-machine teaming. An AlphaZero agent provides continuous, GPS-device-like advice on how blue/red should proceed from the current situation to meet/prevent the long-term mission objective for blue. A controlled experiment with 100+ senior officers provides concrete evidence that the utility of wargaming in a digital environment improves with an AlphaZero agent in the team of players.