Sweden's government says in the bill 2008/09: 140 that military service should be suspended and replaced with a system based on voluntary recruitment. In the essay, I will make an argument analysis of the parliamentary debate on the bill from the 12th of June 2009 with the following questions: On what is the different side?s argument based on? Are the arguments essentially and factually substantiated? Is there a clear political party tendency among the for-/counter arguments? The method is a "Pro et contra" analysis, a logical systematization of the arguments. The analysis will take start in the headline; Conscription should be suspended in favour of a voluntary system based on contract employed soldiers. The presentation of arguments in the analysis will be guided by the chronological order.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how swedishness is constructed and narrated in two Swedish documentary series that picture the Swedish participation in the international ISAF mission in Afghanistan. The main focus lies on how the Swedish soldier as such is portrayed, on which values, characteristics and qualities that they are said to embody and how these are linked to notions of swedishness, particularly the strong historical narrative, formed during the second half of the twentieth century, that defines Sweden as a peaceful, neutral and humanitarian state, with peaceful, enlightened and democratically minded citizens. Theoretically it draws on the concept of metanarrative to explain how ideas of shared national origin translates in to a broad organizing discourse, that defines, interprets and communicates notions of what it means to be a Swede and what is needed to make claims on swedishness. Another concept, that of national bodyscape, is also used to further define and explain how ideas of nationality are embodied and take the form of specific characteristics and  personal qualities. The meaning-making in these two series makes use of the above mentioned definition of swedishness as defined by humanitarian concerns, democratic ideals and moral superiority to construct an image of the Swedish soldiers as on the one hand soft, humanitarians, who are needed in Afghanistan because of their especially strong sense of justice and moral, and, on the other, as tough soldiers, who are able to participate in every aspect of the war as fighters.

The study examines the massacre of the garrison of the castle of Kalmar in 1525 and its causes. The goal of the investigation has been on the one hand to elucidate the most probable sequence of events, and on the other to identify as many different plausible explanations to the massacre as possible. For this end, four contemporary sources have been examined and compared in their details. To enable a broad basis for interpretation, the author has consulted various works on the themes of warfare, soldiers and violence in the late middle ages and the sixteenth century. Apart from political aspects, the study highlights social and cultural conditions as important factors in explaining how the massacre could be carried out without provoking any single part of society.

The main purpose of this study is to show how narrative can be understood as cultural practice, how it can be said to function both internally and externally, and to ask questions about how the narrating subject, through the organizing of narrative, positions it self and mediates between the different discoursive contexts of which it is a part. This is done by an analisys of how six swedish soldiers tells the tale of how they came to choose a military carrer and why they have served or want to serve in peace-keeping missions abroad. The source material is primarily collected through unstructured interviews with theese soldiers, but also through textual analysis of a soldier blog. Theoretically the study draws on a combination of the discourse theory of Michel Foucault, narrative theory, Richard Jenkins theory of the internal-external dialectic of identifikation and intersectionality to construct a framework that allows the narratives to be deconstructed and understood as discoursive products of both the military contexts as such and the larger cultrual context that surrounds it. The conclusions of this study suggests that the organizing of soldier narratives are a complex and multifaceted process, in which the soliders must balance between the ideals, values and norms of the military context while also taking into account how society at large views and interprets the practices and forms of military life.

This study draws from Zygmunt Bauman´s theory that a governmental policy of values can reduce the personal responsibility and moral choices for employees, to focus only on maintaining the government?s internal rules and regulations. The apparent risk with this type of moral attenuation is that the employee is deprived of the possibility to react morally on conduct of the government?s external misuse of power. In this study, this theory is connected to the Swedish Armed Forces? policy of values, as these values do not include a critical standpoint for officers and soldiers.

This essay have its main focus on understanding how the usual naval battle under the viking agelooked like. The timeline in question is the year 793 to the middle of 11th century. The main sourceof information are taken from the sources that have the runes and scaldic verses as their referecepoint. The study will take a brief look at the viking ships used in those battles and the weapons andarmor the soldiers would use. And then try to understand their part on the battlefield..

This examination paper is an energy-inventory of Soldathemmet at the regement in Halmstad, in colaboration with Fortifikationsverket in Halmstad. The building is first an foremost for the soldiers, where they can go for a cup of coffee or watch TV. There is also a museum and a drivers school in the building. Calculations have been done with two computerprograms; VIP+ and ISOVER Energy. The results were well matched with the statistics that were provided by Fortifikationsverket.

This paper examines how the ideal of manhood is portrayed and constructed and how the participation of Swedish soldier volunteers are motivated and legitimatized. The purpose of this examination is to gain understanding and knowledge about the Swedish soldiers in the Swedish brigade, how they legitimatize and motivate their participation and how the ideal of manhood is portrayed and constructed. The study is based on material from the war archive in Stockholm. The empirical material is composed by letters and propaganda material. In the analysis of the empirical study, there have been two theories used which are Eric Hobsbawms historical method and theory about invented traditions and Peter Aronssons historical method and theory about ?historiebruk? and legitimacy.

Syftet med denna studie är att i sex amerikanska filmer som tar upp kriget i Vietnam undersöka hur den västerländska och den orientaliska kulturen skildras i relation till varandra utifrån ett postkolonialt perspektiv. Både framställningen av såväl amerikanerna, fienden och sydvietnameserna har studerats ur detta perspektiv. Detta undersöks genom att koppla till teorier och begrepp såsom semiotik och ideologi och metoder såsom diskurs och diskursanalys, mise-en-scéne och filmanalys. Studien undersöker om det skett någon förändring av det postkoloniala perspektivet i filmernas framställning. Undersökningen inkluderar: Gröna Baskrarna, The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now Redux, Plutonen, Full Metal Jacket och We Were Soldiers.

The Swedish Military Defence is about to make a large reorganization. Surplus, everything from tanks to personal underwear, enough to equip 800,000 soldiers will be destroyed or sold to the highest bidder. This thesis is a discourse analysis about the argumentation in media between the Military and the enthusiast, who are interested in military vehicles and military surplus..

The topic of this essay is the strategic importance of the Golan Heights during the period 1967-1973, specifically targeting the following questions;-          Why were the heights strategically important?-          What are the gains of either of the states in controlling the Golan Heights?A theoretical framework based on Jerker Widén´s and Jan Ångström´s Militärteorins grunder (The fundamentals in Military Theory) and its chapter regarding the strategic context will be used as an analytical framework.The framework has been applied on the specific conditions of the Golan Heights during a given and limited period of time; stretching from 1967 to 1973, however, the study will not deal with the war of attrition in 1970 as the impact on the Golan Heights and the surrounding geographical strategically important area was limited if at all. The two wars waged during this particular time are used in an attempt to give a somewhat objective picture of the strategic importance of the area.The conclusions are that the importance of the Golan heights during the selected period was significant as the Golan Heights provided a ?strategic lock? both ways and provides a favourable area to deploy artillery, intelligence and surveillance sensors..

The aim of this study about post-conflict economic, social and political reintegration of ex-combatants is to understand how such a process should be prepared for in order to help as many traumatized and sometimes destructive or disabled soldiers as possible to re-establish themselves as functioning civilians as well as preparing communities for their return. In order to do this I have focused on Africa and in particular the DDR-process of post war Sierra Leone. My study concludes that the relation between ex-combatants and civilians and the prospect of a positive future are crucial to a successful reintegration process..

Will the discourse in a country effect the way an event is presented in the media? And will the event be presented in similar ways in different countries? These are the questions my paper aims to answer. By using critical discourse analysis I have analyzed the reporting of the Iraqi War in three big newspapers; one from USA, one from Sweden and one from Great Britain. The results show that the discourse in each country play a big part in how the news get presented in the media, and this is shown in how the news gets reported. The three countries had three different views on the same war.

?No one leaves behind? är en uppsats som diskuterar vilka berättarstrukturer och ideologier som kan urskiljas i de amerikanska krigsfilmerna Behind Enemy Lines (2001), Black Hawk Down (2001), We Were Soldiers (2001) och Saving Private Ryan (1998), med hjälp av teoretiska metoder från strukturalismen och teoretikern John Fiske. Dessutom behandlas även begreppet nationell identitet för att undersöka om man kan se någon tendens till nationella identiteter i de amerikanska krigsfilmerna. Slutsatsen är att filmerna har en gemensam berättarstruktur och gemensamma teman som är viktiga för de ideologiska tankar och värderingar som kan urskiljas i filmerna. Teman såsom ära, mod och heder, det manliga förhållandet som i uppsatsen benämns brödraskap, och dessutom temat No one leaves behind vilket är mycket centralt i en del av filmerna. Ingen av soldaterna i filmerna skall lämnas kvar i en krigszon, levande eller död..

Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka varför kvinnor som gått militär grundutbildning väljer att vidareutbilda sig till specialistofficerare. Respondenterna utgjorde fem kvinnliga specialistofficerare i åldrarna 22 till 34. Tre av dem hade gjort allmän värnplikt och två av dem hade gått grundläggande militär utbildning (GMU). Av demografiska skäl genomförde jag telefonintervjuer med respondenterna. Jag följde principerna för induktiv tematisk analys när jag analyserade intervjuerna.