This essay deals with the principle of surprise warfare and its development as well as the adaptation of military action that had to be made to surprise the opponent in the modern era.The concept of surprise is divided into its components in order to clarify what is required to implement a surprising maneuver, to understand the complex concept and form a theoretical framework for gathering facts in the case study.Development and adaption are demonstrated by a comparative case study where Pearl Harbor illustrates an example of historical surprise and Operation Desert Storm illustrates a modern surprise. The product will then be analyzed in order to detect the development and how military conduct is forced to adapt in order to carry out a surprising maneuver. The results shows that the military action of performing a surprise attack has had a major development and is now carried out in a different stage of the attack..

With the starting point in UN peacekeeping operations, this essay investigates the participation of the Swedish armed forces and how the Swedish soldiers perceive their role in those operations. The aim of the study was to explore different perceptions about the Swedish soldiers in international operations. Partly from the Swedish soldiers perspective and how they perceived their own role as soldiers. Partly from the perspective of civilians, like Swedish aid workers, and how they perceive the Swedish soldiers. The third perspective was from a person with mixed experiences from both the military and the civilian work.

There are several competing views on how to best utilize air power. Following his quantitative study of air power, Robert Pape developed a theory which focuses on undermining the target state's military strategy. According to Pape it is possible to explain the outcome as a result of military vulnerability. This essay seeks to determine if Pape's theory can predict the outcome of Operation Unified Protector. By using a mixed methods approach on four hypotheses, it will be determined if the operation was a successful case of coercion, if NATO acted according to Pape's model and whether this achieved the desired effects or not. The results reveal that the theory could not successfully predict the outcome of the conflict.

This essay aims to analyse if the Russian military operation carried out against Georgia between the 7th and 12th of august 2008 were executed with adherence to the Russian principles for military deception, maskirovka.   A superior purpose is to assess the situation according to the Swedish Armed Forces task of identifying possible needs for new or changed needs for abilities and competence.   The method used is two-alternative hypotheses which are tried by comparing actual events before and during the Russian-Georgian war with the ten methods of maskirovka, compiled from military analytical literature. Such traces of resemblance are further examined, both individually and as a part of a larger indication.   Further the essay describes the Russian art of war, the prerequisites for military surprise, information warfare in Russian doctrine, the disputed territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and the principles for maskirovka.   The conclusion is that the Russian operation was executed with some adherence to maskirovka, though unspecified of to what degree.   Author of this essay is Cadet Martin Svensson of the Swedish Army, currently a student at the Armed Forces Technical School in Halmstad..

This essay deals with the principle of surprise warfare and its development as well as the adaptation of military action that had to be made to surprise the opponent in the modern era.The concept of surprise is divided into its components in order to clarify what is required to implement a surprising maneuver, to understand the complex concept and form a theoretical framework for gathering facts in the case study.Development and adaption are demonstrated by a comparative case study where Pearl Harbor illustrates an example of historical surprise and Operation Desert Storm illustrates a modern surprise. The product will then be analyzed in order to detect the development and how military conduct is forced to adapt in order to carry out a surprising maneuver. The results shows that the military action of performing a surprise attack has had a major development and is now carried out in a different stage of the attack..

There are several competing views on how to best utilize air power. Following his quantitative study of air power, Robert Pape developed a theory which focuses on undermining the target state's military strategy. According to Pape it is possible to explain the outcome as a result of military vulnerability. This essay seeks to determine if Pape's theory can predict the outcome of Operation Unified Protector. By using a mixed methods approach on four hypotheses, it will be determined if the operation was a successful case of coercion, if NATO acted according to Pape's model and whether this achieved the desired effects or not. The results reveal that the theory could not successfully predict the outcome of the conflict.

This study revolves around the NATO-led Operation Unified Protector in Libya 2011. The military campaign was executed under a UN mandate to protect the Libyan civilian population. Despite the mandate civilians died because of NATO bombings. The purpose of this study is to identify inadequate measures in avoiding civilian casualties during the operation and to continue to work towards minimizing civilian casualties caused by military organizations in international interventions.Early in the operation, NATO?s objective altered from protecting the civilians to over­throwing the Libyan regime. At the same time NATO changed its military targeting.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate what kind of motives where behind the long term decisions for the Swedish military defense in 2000 and 2004. This leads to the questions that the essay is meant to answer; 1. Were the motives behind the two decisions for the Swedish military defense of economic character or an adjustment of security and defense policy? 2. Was the parliament united in the two decisions and if they were not, why? 3.

In the essay, the view of mistakes and disciplinary sanctions within the military aviation and health and medical service, are compared. The comparison shows that military aviation and health and medical service could have several points in common on how mistakes may occur, but that the present view of mistakes is different betwen the sectors. The view of mistakes and disciplinary sanctions is explicit within military aviation, and is based on a clear ideology on how mistakes occur, which is characterised of a systematic approach. Within health and medical service, an explicit and unequivocal ideology on how mistakes occur is missing, but, however, there are implicit ideas about infallibility and perfection. The comparison indicates that the view of mistakes is also, possibly directed by a bureaucratic model (instead of an ideology on mistakes), which aims to legitimacy, but that this may happen on the expense of not taking surrounding circumstances into consideration.

Shelters and Nuclear weaponsA discourse analysis of the Swedish defense and civil defense debate during the Cold warSweden during the Cold War set into motion one of the world?slargest civil defense policies at the time, second only to neutral Switzerland. The governments expenditure was far greater per capita than both that of USA and Soviet Union and included massive evacuation plans for Stockholm and other large cities in Sweden, with the hopeful expectation to bring down the amount of people in each of them to 15000 in case of a foreign hostile nuclear attack. The policies included construction of shelters with room for 2,5 million of about 7 million citizens in total at the time along with gasmasks for the whole population. Not only this, Sweden was considered one of the biggest military powers of that time in relation to its size and population.

North Korea is considered to be the most autocratic dictatorship in the world today. Its citizens are denied their most basic human rights and North Koreas ambition to pursue nuclear weapons is looked upon with great fear from the international community and the US in particular. Some experts say that the threat from North Korea is far greater than the one possessed by Saddam Hussein. Although North Korea seems to inhabit all the necessary criteria for an US military intervention the United States has openly declared its diplomatic ambitions with the state. Why?With the use of realist and social construction theory this study will bring clarity to why the United States prefers diplomacy instead of a military intervention.

The writer has attempted to discuss the distinction between the necessary and the contingent. It begins with a criticism against the possibility for a so-called ?a possible worlds realism? to give a ?philosophical explanation? of this distinction. The writer argues that this is impossible, since it requires that a notion of this distinction be already accepted (more precisely that the necessity of such a theory is already accepted).After this specific criticism, the writer intends to show that this is a more general problem that follows any explanation of the contingent/necessary distinction.The writer then discusses the counter-argument that the requirements placed on these explanations are set to high, therefore the writer shows in theory the problem can be solved and sketches a more specific way how to explain and show the basis for this distinction..

This thesis is an attempt to understand how the traditional female gender identity is constructed and what kind of structures that are maintaining it. I also study how this identity is reflected in young women's conception of themselves and in their views upon whether they should sign in to the military service or not.The theoretical framework that I use mainly consists of theories about gender construction, male dominance and the woman's role in the nation-state.The purpose of using this theoretical approach is to illustrate that the traditional female gender identity consists of characteristics that are in opposition to the male ones. The woman should be weaker, less aggressive and more caretaking than men- in sum she is defined as the Other. The structures that constructs this identity is the male dominance, also known as the gender system and the patriarchy.This traditional female gender identity and citizenship role that historically has been allotted to women in the nation-state is still today very vivant in Sweden and is reflected in the fact that the military service is optional for women. Certain parts of this identity is also reflected in the young women that I interview, in their sense of probably not fitting in to the military service, because of their sex and the characteristics discussed above, that are associated with it..

This Thesis in Military Technology deals with experiences drawn from the forced introduction of Weapons Station 01, 2009. The work aims to identify the experiences regarding the forced procurement of military equipment to see how they can develop normal and fast procurement of equipment. The main conclusions of  this work, is to achieve greater capability and increase the military utility, are: -          Common objectives and priorities of stakeholders-          Response and joint types shall determine requirements for system-          Ensure an integrated project team also at lower levels-          Engage the integrated logistic support early in the materiel process-          Include Armed Forces staff as early as possible in the testing and validation-          Prioritize work to facilitate the rapid development of decision on use (BOA)-          Provide back up for increased redundancy in the mission area .

The transformation of the Swedish Armed Forces is bringing about major changes in many areas. Indirect fire is one capability affected by these changes. Financial savings, a shrinking organization and higher eligibility requirements mean that fewer soldiers will gain access to exclusive high-tech support resources such as the JAS 39 Gripen aircraft and the ARCHER artillery system. This thesis aims to examine whether access to indirect fire capability can be increased through the use of civilian products and communication networks. Technology development in the civilian mobile communications area is exponential and nations such as the USA, facing challenges similar to those of the Swedish Armed Forces, devote substantial resources to research and development.