Peter Viggo Jakobsen

Since the Great Recession in 2008, the academic debate has been flooded with literature that predicts the sunset of the liberal world order including the practice of humanitarian intervention as initiated at the United Nations (UN) in the early 1990s and regulated by the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in 2005. In contrast, this article argues that the practice of humanitarian intervention continues to operate under post-hegemonic and multipolar conditions, but in new ways. Based on a theorization of fundamental institutional change and exploratory case studies of the international reactions to the humanitarian crises in Libya, Côte d’Ivoire, Syria and Mali, and supportive evidence from Gambia and DR Congo, we show that contemporary humanitarian intervention is closely related to a normalization of the fundamental institution of great power management and a regionalization of international society. In this post-hegemonic world order, humanitarian intervention is shaped, facilitated or hampered by various practices of great power management including concert, soft balancing and hard balancing. The return of great-power competition means an inconsistent and sometimes counterproductive resort to humanitarian intervention far from the ideals of the R2P, but the growing importance of regional ownership affects the great powers, keeps this potential response to mass atrocity crimes on the table and adds to its legitimacy.

This article explains how and why limited use of force contributed to the surprising elimination of Somali piracy that no-one had expected. It proposes an analytical framework identifying four conditions for limited force success derived from the existing literature: (1) great power leadership, (2) Support at the international, regional and local levels, (3) Effective military forces capable of establishing escalation dominance, and (4) Limited use of force minimising collateral damage and adversary casualties. The analysis demonstrates that these four factors apply in the Somali case and explains how and why they were created even though implementation was costly and incentives for free-riding high. Although the Somali success will be hard to replicate, this case remains important because it improves our understanding of the conditions under which limited use of force can contribute to sustainable outcomes.

This special issue seeks to highlight the utility of military strategy for students and for practitioners, civilian and military alike. It seeks to dispel three myths: first, that military strategy is irrelevant for small states because they exist in an anarchic system in which “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” (Thucydides, ca. 400 B.C.E/1982, p. 351); second, that the “science” of causal theory is irrelevant to the “art” of strategic practice on account of the complex and inherently unpredictable nature of war; and, third, that military strategy is relevant only at the strategic level and should therefore not be taught to junior officers.

Taken together, the contributions to this special issue illustrate that military strategy is of “use,” and that the practical execution of the common Ends, Ways, and Means model will benefit from making explicit the assumption and causal hypotheses that inevitably underpin strategy. In this way, the underlying logic becomes easier to subject to critical scrutiny – both logical and empirical. The contributions demonstrate that it is a mistake to conceptualize military strategy as either theory/science or practice/art. It is more fruitful to view them as complementary. Indeed, the principal message conveyed by this special issue is that theory, science, and method serve as indispensable tools for enhancing the analytical quality of strategic practice/art.

The common assumptions-ends-ays-means-risk (AEWMR) military strategy model instructs its users to make reasonable assumptions, balance ends, ways and means, and control for risks. But it does not offer much practical guidance on how this should be done, or how to choose between relevant balanced strategies. To address this problem, recent scholarship has proposed the concept of theory of success as an analytical tool to enhance the ability of strategists to assess, formulate, and validate military strategies. This article seeks to take this body of scholarship to the next level by operationalizing the theory of success concept into a simple easy-to-use practical guide that helps its users to identify the assumptions and causal hypotheses underpinning any military strategy, and to validate it logically and empirically. The article is based on the assumption that greater analytical clarity and rigour is a prerequisite for better military strategy. It expects conceptually clear, logically consistent and empirically validated military strategies to stand a better chance of success than vague, inconsistent, and poorly validated ones. Use of the analytical tool proposed here will of course not guarantee successful outcomes. Politics, biases and flawed intelligence may still result in the adoption of flawed assumptions and formulation of ill-suited strategies. Military strategy from may also continue to fail in the execution phase as a result of clever enemy responses and unforeseen developments.

Formålet med dette temanummer er vise, hvordan teori og videnskabelig metode kan bruges til at forbedre den militære praksis. Målet med den akademisering som Forsvarets uddannelser gennemgår i disse år er at gøre Forsvarets befalingsmænd og officerer bedre i stand til at reflektere kritisk over de løsningsmodeller, som de anvender i deres daglige arbejde. En sådan refleksion er en forudsætning for at kunne forbedre modellerne og de løsninger, som de bidrager til at skabe. For at illustrere den merværdi som brug af teori og videnskabelig metode kan tilføre udøvelsen af det militære håndværk, har vi valgt at give Krigsførelsens Kredsløb et kritisk eftersyn. Modellen, der har været anvendt på Hærens Officersskole siden midt i 1960’erne, har siden bredt sig til hele Officerskorpset. Den bruges til at forstå, hvordan kampevne opstår som et resultat af et ikke nærmere defineret samspil mellem militær doktrin, organisation og teknologi. Som mange andre militære modeller har den været anvendt uden større teoretisk og metodisk bevidsthed. Modellen beskriver mulige sammenhænge mellem dens komponenter, men siger ikke noget om deres kausalitet. Hvis Krigsførelsens Kredsløb skal bruges til forklaring, skal den suppleres med teori, der angiver kausaliteten mellem dens komponenter. Gør man ikke det, ender man let med fejlagtige analyseresultater. De seks bidrag i dette temanummer afdækker modellens tilblivelseshistorie og viser, hvordan den har været anvendt på vidt forskellig vis af dens brugere, uden at de har været særligt bevidste omkring det. Bidragene viser, at større teoretisk og metodisk bevidsthed vil give bedre analyseresultater, og de giver konkrete eksempler på, hvordan modellen kan bruges til at levere bedre analyser og understøtte udøvelsen af det militære håndværk.

Formålet med denne artikel er at give et konkret bud på, hvad Rigsfællesskabet kan gøre for at undgå, at det kommer så vidt. Mit hovedbudskab er, at Rigsfællesskabet ikke vil kunne undgå øget amerikanske militær tilstedeværelse i Grønland. Den gode nyhed er imidlertid, at det ikke behøver at medføre øget spænding og våbenkapløb, hvis det gøres rigtigt. En rigtigt designet forøget amerikansk tilstedeværelse og øvelsesaktivitet kan tværtimod have en stabiliserende effekt, der kan bidrage til at bevare Grønland og Arktis som lavspændingsområde. Udfordringen er at afskrække russerne fra at angribe fly og radarinstallationer på Thulebasen uden at alarmere og provokere dem. Denne artikel viser, hvordan det kan gøres i praksis.

Over the past thirty years Denmark has become a capable and willing expeditionary ally, not least on account of an accelerated investment in new forces in the early to mid-2000s. With the 2005–2009 defence agreement the Danish Army scrapped its concept of conscripted mobilization and fully committed to deployable capacities; the navy became a ‘blue water’ navy given the commitment to build two combat support ships and three frigates and to scrap the submarine force; and the air force fully focused its organization on specialized and deployable ‘wings’. The literature suggests that external threats and technological innovation are key drivers of military change, which in broad strokes helps us understand Danish change—but not in full. As a small state, Denmark has been particularly attuned to the threat of abandonment by its NATO allies and the concomitant but rival desire to pay as little for defence as possible. NATO standing and money are thus the critical drivers of Danish military change and we are able to show how they have shaped three successive waves of military reform, beginning piecemeal in the 1990s and then continuing with deeper waves of reform in 2001 and 2014. Civil–military relations have throughout been quite solid and enabled change, which has to do with the political priority of securing Denmark's standing in NATO with as little money as possible, leaving it to the military services to figure out how to shape the toolkit.