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Center for Militære StudiersProduktions- og ydelseskontrakt for 2014November, 2013.

Focus Areas

The Centre for Military Studies is a university research centre focusing on policy-relevantresearch and research-based information and innovation that identify options for Denmark’sdefence and security policy in a globalised world. Research at the Centre is thus a means toidentify policy options in a complex, interconnected security environment. For this reason theCentre’s research is always for someone and for some purpose. We work closely with theDanish Ministry of Defence, the Danish Armed Forces and the political level to investigateissues and develop ideas and options.We believe that democracies make better decisions, but only if the facts are presented topublic and policy-makers in ways that clearly identify choices and risks. Therefore, wecarefully consider the means by which we communicate our findings and the ways in whichwe facilitate dialogue. We use considerable resources to inform the public and policy-makerson our findings and comment on current affairs.A global environment that creates a complex social and political context of decision-makingincreasingly defines choices and risks, which means that neither decisions nor theirconsequences have a purely national context. Therefore creating a baseline for dialoguebetween different experiences with a complex environment becomes increasingly important.Foreign and security policy is no longer the purview of a select group of officers and officials,but includes NGOs, civil society actors, firms and others which a globalised world give a day-to-day experience with international affairs.The Centre seeks to bridge the inherently global nature of security issues and security actorsand the national Danish foreign, security and defence policy discourse. It does so by utilisingScandinavian traditions for a meaningful dialogue between industry, civil-society, parliament,officials and the armed forces. The Centre is a go-to-place for dialogue and policy-options. TheCentre harnesses concepts, trends and evidence into tools for understanding and acting onDanish defence and security issues.These general competences in harnessing concepts, trends and evidence into policy optionsgive the researchers at the Centre for Military Studieshorizontal competenceswhich can beapplied on timely challenges. These horizontal competences are based on in-depth knowledgeof Danish defence issues, innovation competences and extensive experience in developingpolicy-options.The Centre also seeks to developvertical competencesby focusing on four, mutuallyreinforcing, focus areas. These areas are listed below.

The Arctic, Global Commons and Maritime Strategy

Geopolitics is normally about the conditions for security that do not change in time: the waymountains or oceans define borders or how natural resources are distributed. In the Arctic,these timeless truths no longer stand. Climate change and technological development iscreating a ‘New North’ were natural resources can be utilised, goods transported from East toWest and the local populations get an unprecedented chance for development. Greenland is inthe middle of these developments and this raises a number of issues for the people ofGreenland in particular as well as for the Kingdom of Denmark in general which the Centre isparticularly well suited to address.Developments in the Arctic region should be studied in their prober political, historical andglobal context in order for a real evaluation of their impact to be made. Our challenge will beto place the exciting events in the Arctic in a context that translates them into more mundaneoptions of present action. Establishing such a baseline for action also entails the facilitation ofdialogue between actors in the region as well as actors within the Kingdom of Denmark. TheCentre’s competences in facilitating strategic dialogue and developing policy-options based onresearch is thus be able to be realised in this area because the Arctic is not regarded inisolation.The Centre will thus combine the focus on the Arctic with a focus on Maritime strategy ingeneral. As one of the world’s largest seafaring nations freedom of navigation and Maritimesecurity is a general Danish focus that has particular manifestations in the Arctic. The focus onMaritime Strategy includes Maritime Security Operations and maritime capacity building.

Small State Strategy, European Armed Forces in a time of Austerity

and the Danish Defence Model

How to punch above your weight is the key question in small state strategy that focuses onhow to create options and gain influence disproportionate to your national resources. TheCentre’s intimate knowledge of Danish security and defence policy makes us particularly well-qualified to investigate models of small state activism. Traditionally, small states have beenregarded as the pawns of the international system; however, globalisation, technologicaldevelopment and international institutionalisation have empowered small states, along withfirms, NGOs and individual actors in an increasingly complex international system. We seek todescribe these megatrends and identify the way in which they are redefining the role of smallstates.Defence studies traditionally focuses on great powers because, in the 20thcentury, the use andutility of armed force was defined in terms of economics of scale, which made the use ofarmed force prohibitive expensive for small states. In a time of austerity, however, the waysmall states have learned to generate capabilities from limited resources serves as importantexamples and inspiration for other countries. This is especially the case in Europe were themajority of the members of NATO and the EU are either small states or large states with asmall military. Since the end of the Cold War the Danish armed forces have developed a modelfor making military capabilities more effective on a shrinking budget.We study this Danish Defence Model in a comparative perspective. This means investigatingthe nexus between defence economics and military planning from a strategic perspective.

This also means a focus on how NATO and, increasingly, EU defence cooperation shapeoptions for national defence.

The Use and Utility of Force in Future Operations

Generals prepare to fight the last war, it is often said. In fact, technological development hasdefined the way future conflicts were perceived since the 19thcentury. The machine gun, theairship, nuclear weapons and a host of other inventions have guided the way we imagined thewars to come. The challenge has always been how to align these tools with the tasks providedby the current security environment. Unable to imagine why future wars would be foughtgenerals and engineers alike imagined how new weapons would have been used in oldconflicts rather than imagine how the nature of conflict itself would be transformed. Today,asking these questions have become even more important because the times are defined byrapid technological development and huge social changes.The number of interstate conflicts diminishes at the same time as intersocietal conflictsincreases. This means that the most likely battlefields of tomorrow are defined by the waysocieties develop rather than by international relations. Consequently, we approach to thestudy of military matters is such fundamentally sociologically focusing on how changes insociety changes the nature of military operations. The fact that most people on the planet willbe living in cities from 2020 is one example of how the make-up of society will change thenature of military operations.A sociological perspective enables us to regard armed force as one element of society’s total‘security capacity’ – the capacity to engage with security issues in ways favourable to a certainsociety or government. From this perspective non-military conflict prevent, stabilisationoperations etc becomes an important focus for us. In studying these issues a comparativeperspective, which includes experiences in the BRIC-countries, is very important.