Defence and security related issues are constantly changing. Many of the current platforms which encourage international cooperation between countries was created during the end of previous wars. This has also strengthened a will to maintain stability and peace through collective defence. Nato is today an organisation that plays an intricate role of importance of further investments towards a better global security, and the initiation of Smart Defence was a way to achieve that. This thesis focuses on the concept of Smart Defence in a Scandinavian context. The aim of the thesis is to examine to what extent the concept is to be found in the Scandinavian countries’ defence and security strategies, in what ways this concept is manifested and how relevant the concept is to Scandinavia. With the outset of examining strategic documents, the thesis is performing a qualitative concept analysis. Adopting the concept definition of Carl Lagerström, the analysis is performed by a constructed coding and analysis scheme, in which separate categories have been created to represent the crucial ideas of the concept. The results show that even though the Scandinavian countries are similar in many ways, they differ in terms of their relationship to Nato. While none of the Scandinavian countries entirely correspond to concept in a Scandinavian context, it is notable that Sweden is the only country to be in line with more than one category of the conceptual framework. Norway and Denmark, in the light of their commitment to Nato, show none or little correspondence to the concept from a Scandinavian point of view. Regarding the relevance of the concept, we consider it to be potentially high because of their common threat scenarios and the emphasis on improving the effective use of resources.

The present Master Thesis is a macro-level comparative case study that addresses the problem of most member states' lack of adequate motivation to acquire innovative military capabilities and contribute them to the North Atlantic Alliance. There has been a significant gap between NATO's ambition and its military capability since at least the 1999 Kosovo Crisis. Even today, a couple of years after the adoption of the longawaited new Strategic Concept, which confirmed NATO's role in crisis management beyond its borders, the evaluations of the recent NATO operation in Libya hint to fact that the gap persists. The question is: what factors play the most significant role in shaping state behaviour within NATO and what can be done to stimulate the member states' proactive attitude? The problem is addressed through the prism of Neorealism, which emphasizes structural constraints of state behaviour, and Constructivism, which, for its part, highlights the importance of domestic factors, namely state identity. Based on the results of the fuzzy-set analysis, it is argued that the harmonization of NATO's and EU's capability development initiatives, as well as the eventual military integration of lower-capability NATO member states is most likely to reset the balance between the Alliance's ambition and available...