| 1. |
-
Representing conflicts in games : Antagonism, rivalry, and competition
- 2023
-
Editorial collection (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This book offers an overview of how conflicts are represented and enacted in games, in a variety of genres and game systems. Games are a cultural form apt at representing real world conflicts, and this edited volume highlights the intrinsic connection between games and conflict through a set of theoretical and empirical studies. It interrogates the nature and use of conflicts as a fundamental aspect of game design, and how a wide variety of conflicts can be represented in digital and analogue games. The book asks what we can learn from conflicts in games, how our understanding of conflicts change when we turn them into playful objects, and what types of conflicts are still not represented in games. It queries the way games make us think about armed conflict, and how games can help us understand such conflicts in new ways. Offering a deeper understanding of how games can serve political, pedagogical, or persuasive purposes, this volume will interest scholars and students working in fields such as game studies, media studies, and war studies.
|
|
| 2. |
-
Core values and the expeditionary mindset : armed forces in metamorphosis
- 2011. - 1
-
Editorial collection (peer-reviewed)abstract
- There is quite some consensus that today’s international security environment has substantially changed following the end of the Cold War in 1989/90 and that this requires the transformation of modern armed forces from conventional ones to something else. This ‘something else’ may indeed be an expeditionary military. The military metamorphosis that is needed seems to be nothing less than a substantial overhaul of the armed forces in various dimensions. One obvious dimension is organizational structure. The second dimension is technology and especially armament technology where weapons and equipment need to be adapted to present-day conflict and combat challenges including a shift in focus of procurement policies. The third dimension rests with the assumption that the given, current security political landscape necessitates a change not only in the military’s organizational format and technological posture, but also in mindset. Changing the conventional military mindset towards one that is focused on expeditionary operations calls into question how such a transformation will influence the core values of the military. The fourth and final dimension is educating and training the soldiers because expeditionary operations call for additional skills and expertise compared to those required for a Cold War military mission.The contributions to this book focus on the mindset and the core values of an expeditionary military and take different avenues to approach these themes. At times, they also reach out into the other dimensions. The book is divided into two parts. The first part covers concepts and conceptual approaches, while the second part contains contributions that basically carry case-study character. The contributors belong to a wide range of academic disciplines, which allows for different avenues and perspectives on our topic, thus enriching our knowledge of the problems involved. The book is of great interest and relevance to academia, military practitioners and political decision-makers.
|
|
| 3. |
|
|
| 4. |
|
|
| 5. |
- Bousquet, Antoine
(author)
-
Time Zero: Hiroshima, September 11 and Apocalyptic Revelations in Historical Consciousness
- 2006
-
In: Millennium. - : SAGE Publications. - 0305-8298 .- 1477-9021. ; 34:3, s. 739-764
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article considers the place of the Hiroshima bombing and the September 11 attacks as singular acts of violence constituting major points of rupture in the historical consciousness and chronological narratives of the Western world: Ground Zero is Time Zero. Geographically and temporally delineated instances of intense death and destruction, both acts have been construed as moments when the world `changed for ever'. Our schemata of interpretation — the mental frameworks through which we impose meaning and continuity on the world around us and determine the range of our expectations — were violently overthrown by those events, shattered by images that exceed our minds' capabilities of re presentation and symbols that challenge our liberal metanarratives of ineluctable progress. By bringing to the fo re their aesthetic dimension and reading them through the lens of the Kantian notion of the sublime, we can grasp those events in their original intensity as overwhelming revelatory experiences. Apocalyptic both in their imagery and the meaning attributed to them, those unprecedented acts of terror re p resent turning-points in our reconstituted historical narratives, marking a culmination of history leading to it as well as the start of a new era in which it is proclaimed that many previous assumptions no longer hold.
|
|
| 6. |
- Erdeniz, Robert
(author)
-
Approaches to Operational Art Revisited : Theoretical and Practical Implications of Methodology
- 2016
-
In: 21st International Command and Control Reserach and Technology Symposium (ICCRTS). - : International Command and Control Institute. ; , s. 1-32
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- U.S. doctrines have introduced a third approach within Operational Art, called the design approach, which has evoked military professional and academic debate as well as influenced NATO doctrines. Allied Joint Doctrine for Operational-level Planning (AJP 5) states that a Force Commander should choose one out of three approaches when conducting Operational Art and conducting operational planning: a traditional (causalist), a systemic or a design approach. The difference between the causalist- and the systemic- approach concerns the clash between reductionism and holism, but the difference between the design- and the systemic- approach is methodologically vague. Hence the following question concerning methodology and Operational Art arises:What methodological implications could constitute an argument for choosing the design approach when conducting Operational Art within a battlespace?Neither NATO doctrine, planning framework nor previous research offer any explicit methodological argument for choosing, or preferring, the design- over the systemic- approach. This article concludes that one possible argument for preferring a design approach is adherence to value-focused thinking, but this requires that the Force Commander can and is willing to focus on stakeholders’ values within the battlespace. This conclusion is implied by two methodological implications identified and discussed in this article. If the design approach is to be a relevant option, then further conceptual development, experimentation and education is required. To conclude, NATO should review the description of their approaches within Operational Art since the argument for preferring one approach over another is lacking and this could hamper the Force Commander’s management of the battlespace.
|
|
| 7. |
-
Mod i strid och filosofi : Dygdetiska perspektiv från Aristoteles till drönarkriget
- 2017
-
Editorial collection (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Mod är en egenskap som hyllats i alla krigförande kulturer. Konsten, litteraturen och filosofin har ofta tagit upp modet som tema, både för att befästa ett militärt ideal och för att problematisera denna egenskap. Men vad är egentligen mod? Var går gränsen till övermod? Vad utmärker mod i strid, och kan man träna soldater att bli modiga? Dessa frågeställningar tar plats även i vår tid där krig och försvar diskuteras i dagens militära miljöer, och frågor om etik är lika aktuella som frågor om effektivitet.I Mod i strid och filosofi studerar författarna historiska perspektiv på mod och dagsaktuell forskning kring strid och militär utbildning. Förr talade man om mod eller tapperhet som en av flera eftersträvansvärda dygder – idag talar man hellre om professionalism. Men hur mycket skiljer sig egentligen den moderna tidens militära ideal från de historiska? Kan vi lära oss något av den dygdetik som i århundraden användes för att forma modiga individer och tappra krigare?
|
|
| 8. |
- Sandman, Tua, 1985-
(author)
-
‘The grey everyday of guard duty’ : tracing military boredom in field reports of Swedish military chaplains 1940–45
- 2024
-
In: War & Society. - 0729-2473 .- 2042-4345.
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article constitutes an addition to the scant literature on military boredom. It offers a close reading of field reports written by Swedish military chaplains during the Second World War and seeks to explore the lived experience of waiting for war. It analyses how the military inactivity of Swedish soldiers were depicted and how it was thought to impact morale and motivation. This article showcases how military boredom may be studied through archival research and how the study of boredom as a military phenomenon benefits from an exploration of various kinds of experiences, on as well as (far) off the battlefield.
|
|
| 9. |
- Schüler, Martin, et al.
(author)
-
Speed vs thought
- 2021
-
In: 26th ICCRTS International Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium. - Washington. ; , s. 1-8
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The purpose of this paper is to discuss the conception of speed in command and control (C2) systems’ impact on human thought and to introduce the notion of “Combat Integrated Learning” (CIL). In a context of increased complexity, unpredictability and ambiguity, adaptation not only concerns agility in terms of speed, but through resilience, self- healing and – in lack of calculable consequence ethics – an Aristotelian notion of virtue as a stable equilibrium of the soul as a basis for choice of action “knowingly and for its own sake”. As humans we have many cognitive functions which impact how we perceive information i.e., sensemaking and situation awareness. But the essence of thinking is a philosophical issue where philosophers like Arendt previously explained the emergence of banal evil as ordinary men having lost their ability to think. C2 systems that make us reactive to a piece of information, inciting speed to act, minimize human reflection and learning. Developing time effective C2 systems could in fact lead to the creation of military stupidity. Authority, organizational and administrative procedures may lead to normalization of risk, morally questionable attitudes and actions, routinized humiliation and behavior that ultimately break down sensemaking and the sense of “self” in degraded environments. C2 systems and their uses may hamper intelligent action through the loss of an active agency of the individual, thus impede understanding and management of the battlespace, especially in the light of deception and disinformation, and unclear causal relations of events in constrained environments. This paper points at potential good practices in the face of ambiguity.
|
|
| 10. |
- Weissmann, Mikael, 1977-, et al.
(author)
-
Offensivens roll i taktiskt tänkande : Slaget vid Caporetto 1917
- 2018
-
In: Tankar om defensiven. - Stockholm : Kungl Krigsvetenskapsakademien och Försvarshögskolan. - 9789188581051 ; , s. 14-24
-
Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- I detta kapitel studerar vi offensivens roll i det taktiska tänkandet vid tolfte slaget om Isonzo, mer känt som slaget vid Caporetto, i oktober 1917. Underlag har utgjorts av litteraturen kring slaget samt av erfarenheter från en fältövning på plats i Slovenien. Författarna, tillsammans med lärarna på sektionen för markoperationer och chefen för militärhistoriska avdelningen vid Försvarshögskolan, analyserade på plats slaget och följde i fotspåren på dåvarande löjtnanten Erwin Rommel för att förstå de taktiska förutsättningarna, vägvalen, besluten och dess effekter.I detta kapitel utgår vi från resultaten av vår egen forskning kring militärt taktiskt tänkande bland svenska officerare, från existerande forskning kring taktiskt tänkande samt från svensk doktrin och reglementen med betoning på Arméreglemente taktik (ART).När man studerar slaget vid Caporetto finner man att det är uppenbart att offensiven och offensivt tänkande har varit förhärskande. Detta gäller såväl Caporetto som de föregående elva slagen om Isonzo liksom den efterföljande jakten efter de italienska trupperna mot Tagliamento. Men varför var offensiven förhärskande? De militära målen och operationsmiljön ger förstås en grundförklaring – då italienarna ville nå Trieste behövde de gå på offensiven, och när Österrike-Ungerns försvar närmade sig kollaps och det operativa rummet saknades var motoffensiv att föredra (i alla fall om tyskt stöd kunde uppbådas). Samtidigt står det klart att offensiven var dominerande i det militära taktiska tänkandet hos såväl italienare som tyskar – de två huvudaktörerna i det studerade fallet.
|
|
