For a long time, the Arctic has been regarded as a stable region with low tension. However, even though low tension prevails, it is a fact that the circumpolar region also encompasses some of the world's most capable and potent military capabilities. The key role of the Arctic regarding security issues, international relations and geopolitics, is sometimes underplayed or not fully understood. These aspects of security are investigated in this thematic issue of Arctic Review on Law and Politics.
Since the start of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, the Nordic states have sought to advance their defence cooperation "beyond peacetime" to also encompass operational military cooperation in crisis and armed conflict. Relations between the two Nordic non-NATO members, Sweden and Finland, have formed a vanguard, encompassing bilateral operational planning beyond peacetime. While no formal security policy guarantees have been exchanged, Sweden and Finland have created strong expectations that they will lend each other support in a crisis. In short, while no formal alliance treaty exists, the two states have nevertheless become closely aligned. In 2020, Sweden and Finland joined NATO member Norway in signalling their intention to strengthen their trilateral defence relationship. The following year, NATO members Norway and Denmark signed a similar agreement with Sweden. The goal of these documents was to coordinate their national operational plans – their "war plans" – and perhaps develop some common operational plans. In this article, it is argued that these agreements fall short of a formal military alliance, but that they represent an alignment policy between the Nordic states.
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which consists of military forces from more than 40 NATO and non-NATO countries, is now officially history. In combination with the Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), the international intervention in Afghanistan has been one of the most lengthy operations in modern times. Such overwhelming effort requires reflection and evaluation. What have we learned from being part of this intervention? In this focus article I will go into one of the most important and demanding elements of this intervention - the civil-military space. The civil-military interaction played a significant role and received much attention, theoretical and practical. The question was about how various actors can contribute to a successful, holistic effort. I should say something about the term 'civil-military coordination' which focuses on the relationship between different actors, and then look into the Norwegian approach to civil-military relations. I would argue that the Norwegian approach was based on important principles, but could appear as immature and inflexible. I justify my claim by lifting some challenges and contradictions that have emerged, either because of - or despite - the introduction of the model. The newly appointed Afghan committee will give us considerable insight and several lessons and will be useful in future policies and practices. Already, however, two things for sure; firstly, that we will be asked to contribute in future military operations without being able to predict what these will contain (we have other words prepare us for many different contingencies). Secondly, under virtually all military operations be civilians present, with greater or lesser degree of contact between them. This civil-military dynamics often understood within the concept of civil-military cooperation (Rietje & Bollen 2008; Hoogensen Gjorv 2014 Hoogensen Gjorv & Gjorv 2014). Adapted from the source document.
During the Cold War, the Norwegian Armed Forces were organized to fight an invasion against Norwegian territory. The end of this era should at least in principle imply changes not only in military practices on the ground but also in the training and education of officers. This article analyses the inertia in the internationalization of higher military education programs in Norway, where the strengthening of a subject like International Relations began only at the end of the 1990s. One explanation for the discrepancy between the military curriculum, on the one hand, and the new military environment facing the officers, on the other, is that existing practices were taken for granted and reproduced in social structures. The debate about military education also reflects a traditional conflict between those who have seen an academization of military education as an intervention into the monopoly of knowledge of the officer profession, and those who embraced such a development. Adapted from the source document.
