Jan Angstrom

Mapping the Competing Historical Analogies of the War on Terrorism : The Bush Presidency

This article maps the historical analogies of the war on terrorism used by the Bush administration. It identifies four historical analogies of the war on terrorism present in the US political and academic discourse since the attacks on 11 September 2001. These are the war on terrorism as: (a) the Second World War; (b) the Crusades; (c) the Vietnam War; and (d) the Cold War. These analogies have been a constant presence in the US discourse, although the analogy with the Crusades has been more prominent in the academic discourse than in the political. There is, moreover, no conclusive pattern of when and how these analogies have been used, suggesting that we cannot use them to evaluate how well the war on terrorism is progressing. This also indicates that the Bush administration, with one exception, was not successful in framing the policy agenda in a certain direction regarding the war on terrorism. Understanding the war on terrorism as a new Cold War, for example, still implies different policy measures such as roll-back and containment.

Regaining Strategy: Small Powers, Strategic Culture, and Escalation in Afghanistan

Abstract In Western operations in Afghanistan, small European powers escalate in different ways. While Denmark and the Netherlands have contributed to Western escalation through integration with British and US forces, Norway and Sweden have done so by creating a division of labour allowing US and British combat forces to concentrate their efforts in the south. These variations in strategic behaviour suggest that the strategic choice of small powers is more diversified than usually assumed. We argue that strategic culture can explain the variation in strategic behaviour of the small allies in Afghanistan. In particular, Dutch and Danish internationalism have reconciled the use of force in the national and international domains, while in Sweden and Norway there is still a sharp distinction between national interest and humanitarianism.

Inviting the Leviathan: external forces, war, and state-building in Afghanistan

This article examines the role of intervening forces in state-building efforts after state-collapse and civil wars. Based upon a case study from the 30 years of war in Afghanistan, it develops an explanation for failure of state-building attempts drawing upon bargaining theory, macrosociological state-building theory, and strategic thought. The explanation suggests that international state-building attempts condition and shapes a new strategic environment for the local actors. In doing so, the mode of state-building can create incentives for continuing the war or, carried out differently, create incentives for the parties to contribute in building a legitimate state from the rubble of the old state.

Towards a typology of internal armed conflict: Synthesising a decade of conceptual turmoil

The rejuvenated study of internal armed conflict after the Cold War has been plagued with conceptual turmoil. This article argues that this lack of consensus can be explained by the variable nature of the topic itself and that the topic has fallen between disciplinary boundaries. The lack of consensus itself can have damaging effects on our understanding of internal armed conflict. The article therefore outlines a suggested, partly modified, typology of internal armed conflict encompassing ideological, leadership, ethnic, and resource conflicts as Weberian ideal‐types to manage some of the problems with classifying internal armed conflicts. This typology opens up a partly new research agenda for students of internal armed conflict as it specifies and synthesises new paths along which analysis of internal armed conflict can be pursued.

The changing norms of civil and military and civil-military relations theory

The dichotomy between civil and military is well-established in international political practice. International law, international order, and war are but some of the institutions that rely upon making a distinction between civil and military. The distinction, arguably, is also central for analyses of conflicts worldwide. Almost daily, we are fed stories of atrocities against civilians in conflict-ridden parts of the world. In academic discourse, similarly, several fields of study including most of the debate centering on interpreting modern war relies upon a distinction between civil and military. Both research and practice, however, tend to treat these categories as fixed and global. In this article, I argue – to the contrary – that what constitutes civil and military are malleable norms. This forms a particular challenge to analyses of civil–military relations and it calls for a different categorization of civil–military relations in Weberian ideal types.

Religion or Reason? Exploring Alternative Ways to Measure the Quality of Doctrine

ABSTRACT In this article, we address the often ignored issue of quality standards for doctrine. In doing so, we contribute to the existing literature on military doctrine, since much of previous research has focused on outlining the effects of doctrine or the causes of particular doctrinal content, rather than how we should measure its quality. The predominant way of understanding quality of doctrine is based on the rationalist understanding of doctrine as a force multiplier. However, rationalist aims do not necessarily tell us anything about the contents of doctrine. Hence, a doctrine can be seemingly of high quality, but ultimately impede or lead armed forces astray. Rather than focusing on the utilitarian side of doctrine, we suggest that doctrine should mainly be understood as articles of faith or a belief system. And thus the quality of doctrine becomes inextricably linked to military norms and military identity. Writing doctrine thus becomes part of ritual, rather than reason.

Why small states join big wars: The case of Sweden in Afghanistan 2002–2014

The security behavior of small states has traditionally been explained by different takes of realism, liberalism, or constructivism – focusing on the behavior that aims toward safeguarding sovereignty or engaging in peace policies. The issue of why states with limited military capacities and little or no military alignments or engagements decide to participate in an international mission has received limited attention by previous research. In contrast, this article argues that a three-layered discursive model can make the choices of small states more precisely explained and thereby contribute to an increased understanding of small states’ security behavior beyond threat balancing and interdependence. Analyzing a deviant case of a non-aligned small state, this article explains why Sweden became increasingly involved in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan. By focusing on the domestic political discourses regarding the Swedish involvement in this mission, it is suggested that a narrative shapes public perception of a particular policy and establishes interpretative dominance of how a particular event should be understood. This dominant domestic discourse makes a certain international behavior possible and even impossible to alter once established. In the Swedish case, it is demonstrated that this discourse assumed a ‘catch-all’ ambition, satisfying both domestic and international demands. In general terms, it should thus be emphasized that certain discourses and narratives are required in order to make it possible for a country to participate in a mission such as ISAF and prolong the mission for several years.

Contemporary Military Theory : The dynamics of war

1. Military Theory: An Introduction 2. What is War? 3. What is Strategy? 4. What is Operational Art? 5. The Principles of War 6. Theories of Joint Operations 7. Theories of Land Operations 8. Theories of Sea Operations 9. Theories of Air Operations 10. The Dynamics of War: Some Conclusions

Adopting a Recipe for Success: Modern Armed Forces and the Institutionalization of the Principles of War

The prevailing explanation of the institutionalization of the principles of war is misleading. Although the introduction of the principles into Western doctrine coincided with total war and the need to train unprecedented numbers of soldiers and junior officers in tactics, the fact that the principles disappeared from doctrines immediately prior to and during the Second World War suggests that they were not institutionalized to meet an increased need to educate the military. Instead, we test two other explanations: one drawing on the principles’ military effectiveness and one drawing upon the principles’ explanatory power. We find that neither one of these hypotheses stand. Instead, we conclude by elaborating on how the institutionalization of the principles of war can be made understandable using non-rationalist frameworks, in particular the growth of a particular kind of identity of staff officers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. According to this framework, the two world wars interrupted—rather than promoted—the institutionalization of the principles, since the wars with their large death tolls and mass recruitment increased the difficulties of creating a separate and unique identity for the burgeoning corps of staff officers.

The sociology of studies of ethnic conflict: Explaining the causal status of development

Is security a pre‐condition for development or is development a precondition for security? Since World War II, scholars studying ethnic conflict have answered this question differently. In reviewing the literature on development and ethnic conflict, this article introduces ideas derived from the sociology of science to explain the lack of consensus. Accordingly, the article suggests that this variation should not be understood as a reflection of the growth of cumulative knowledge but rather as a reflection of the fact that ethnic conflict has been studied by many social science disciplines.