Finland, Sweden and Operation Unified Protector: The impact of strategic culture

Abstract

This article investigates the Swedish decision to participate in Operation Unified Protector in Libya and the Finnish decision to refrain from the same operation. It takes as its theoretical point of departure the concept of strategic culture and argues that differences in the strategic culture of the two countries contributed to the differences in behavior toward the Libya intervention. The Finnish and Swedish strategic cultures differ with respect to the core tasks of the armed forces, willingness to use force, and with respect to what types of operations and organizational frameworks Finland and Sweden find it appropriate to participate in.

Was something rotten in the state of Denmark? Three narratives of the active internationalism in Danish foreign policy

“…This is more specifically manifested in a debate about the nature of and explanation for small states', for example the Nordic countries', involvement in international operations such as ISAF and Unified Protector, and whether participation can be interpreted as change or continuity in relation to the foreign policy traditions (e.g. Agrell, 2013;Doeser, 2014Doeser, , 2016Noreen et al, 2017;Saideman and Auerswald, 2011). 2 One of the arguments in this article has been that the debate over the status of the Danish doctrine of international activism reflects upon a broader tendency in the literature where the relationship between different assumed ideational drivers has been less reflected, which might ultimately lead to different interpretations of how we identify change and continuity due to the lack of conceptual clarity about how we understand the relationship between ideational drivers as either complementary or non-complementary.…”

O papel trinitário do Exército Brasileiro

“…A cultura estratégica seria constituída por elementos ideacionais de longa duração -mas não imutável -como tradição, percepções e preferências. Nesse sentido, a geografia e a história de um país constituem os fatores mais importantes na formação da sua cultura estratégica (DOESER, 2016). Pode-se definir cultura estratégica como o ambiente ideacional que condiciona o comportamento dos atores na tomada de decisão sobre as opções estratégicas consideradas mais apropriadas e eficazes (DOESER, 2016;LANTIS, 2002).…”

Historical experiences, strategic culture, and strategic behavior: Poland in the anti-ISIS coalition

“…The author applies a similar definition of strategic culture in previous works (Doeser 2016b, Doeser and Eidenfalk 2018. 2.…”

“…They have also used strategic culture to explain strategic behavior, which also is the purpose of this article. Previous research includes attempts to explain the choice between defensive and offensive military doctrines (Kier 1995), Germany's reluctance to use military force (Duffield 1999), the organization of strategic decision-making in Britain and Germany (Freuding 2010), differences in the way that small states escalate in military operations (Angstrom and Honig 2012), and the willingness of different states to participate in military operations (O'Connor and Vucetic 2010, Britz 2016, Doeser 2016b, Mirow 2016, Becker 2017.…”