The study examines the massacre of the garrison of the castle of Kalmar in 1525 and its causes. The goal of the investigation has been on the one hand to elucidate the most probable sequence of events, and on the other to identify as many different plausible explanations to the massacre as possible. For this end, four contemporary sources have been examined and compared in their details. To enable a broad basis for interpretation, the author has consulted various works on the themes of warfare, soldiers and violence in the late middle ages and the sixteenth century. Apart from political aspects, the study highlights social and cultural conditions as important factors in explaining how the massacre could be carried out without provoking any single part of society. Among these are found the idea of the perceived natural ferocity of siege warfare, the exposed position of soldiers in general and the low status of lansquenets in particular, as well as the increasing general acceptance of executions and retributional violence.The paper finishes with a discussion on the importance of the event under investigation as part of a greater whole, and asks whether or not it is worthy of the sparsely used label of ”blood bath”. In relation to this, the author inquires for an expanded historical debate on the relationship between cultural and social values and conditions, and the use of violence in society.

In today's modern society western countries have adopted a regular doctrine for future wars, even though an irregular method have been proven effective against the modern regular army. Due to a balance between the superpowers the doctrines stay the same, but for smaller nations the balance is of lesser importance. The aim of this thesis is to shine light on the problem, and try to give argu-ments for a discussion about how Sweden and other smaller nations can use irregular warfare in order to defend themselves against bigger nations. In order to do that this thesis will investigate how revolutionary guerrilla warfare theory can be applied on international conflicts. Guerilla warfare is the tactic of choice primarily since history show that small numbers can win against overwhelming-ming odds. By Using Robert Tabers theory about successful guerilla warfare, this thesis will compare the war in Vietnam and the second Boer war in order to see how Tabers theory was used or not. The research shows that Tabers theory indeed was used in both conflicts and can somewhat be used to describe the outcome of each conflict.

Different prerequisites for war exists and varies due to the terrain. Cities, mountains and covered terrain all creates their special conditions for the battle. The biggest difference in methods is found between the urban warfare and all the other ways of fighting in war. Combined arms constitutes the fundamentals of fighting a war, and organizing armed forces. But if the environment of the war is changing, the different prerequisites of combined arms need to change. The purpose of this study is to survey the distinguishing differences and prerequisites between the two kinds of environments, described in the invasion and fight in Rumaila oil field (2003) and Operation Phantom Fury (2004). By analyzing these cases, the purpose of this theory consuming case study is to explore and examine the use of combined arms in different environments during the Iraqi war in between 2003 and 2004. The analytical results reveal that the prerequisites before Operation Phantom Fury that made the operation successful was premonition to all the civilians in the city of Fallujah, the aggressive and massive use of indirect fire support, the reorganization of the divisions backbone, infantry, and finally the knowledge from earlier operations in Fallujah.

The wars in the Middle East (Afghanistan and Iraq) in which the United States has been involved are widely debated and often seen as asymmetrically full-scale wars. What is characteristic of these conflicts are that there is no research to map these conflicts regarding the US application of hybrid warfare. The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of US contemporary warfare by consuming the modern theory of New Generation Warfare (NGW) on the conflicts in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. The ambition is, therefore, to consuming the existing theoretical starting point to analyse existing research in the field to contribute to the war science research. The conclusions drawn from this study are that US contemporary warfare is moving in the same direction as Russia. It has shown that US contemporary warfare is a precursor to Russian contemporary warfare, which is characterized by military interventions with special operations forces and fewer conventional forces with great emphasis on psychological and information operations. Based on the analysis of the Middle East conflicts in which the United States has been involved.

Det operativa konceptet by-with-through beskrivs som ett legitimt och lämpligt sätt att omhänderta nutida konflikters komplexitet. Men forskningsfältet är delat i frågan om denna parterskapsbaserade ansats istället ska ses som en variant av proxykrig. I en fallstudie med teorikonsumerande ansats undersöker därför den här studien om ett fall av konceptet by-with-through kan förklaras med vad som teoretiskt förstås som proxykrig. Syftet med undersökningen är att dess bidrag ska leda till att minska polariseringen i forskningsfältet och öka förståelsen för den praktiska betydelsen av konceptet. Detta kan ske genom att utifrån teori om proxykrig vetenskapligt analysera vad som karaktäriserar konceptet by-with-through. Fallet, Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) anses representera ett nutida exempel av by-with-through. Fallstudiens analys genomförs med ett analytiskt verktyg som genom operationalisering skapats utifrån samtida teorier om proxykrig. Undersökningen visar att konceptet by-with-through, så som det tillämpades i OIR bygger på sammanflätade fysiska, konceptuella och moraliska aspekter som kan kopplas samman med proxykrig. Utifrån detta föreslås att vidare forskning genomförs i syfte att utveckla en teori om krigföring genom partnerskap.

The struggle to usurp the reign over nations amongst local africans in the post-colonial era was affecting countries all over the continent. Some times the transfer of power were conducted in the absence of war. In some countries the end of colonialism brought with it bloody conflicts that would battere the stability for a nation in years to come. Some countries fought the colonial empire for independence and other was granted the freedom. Some european settlers hade made their colony their home and a source of income, and though the empire that onces conquer the land no longer had means to rule it, some of its settlers did. Whilst in other cases, tribes native to the once colonized land created unrest due to their lack of believe in the new regim and had a wish for governance over their own lands. Noriyuki Katagiri’s theory on how insurgents win wars against a state is based mainly on studies conducted on conflicts between colonial empires and insurgents. This study aims to examine wether Katagiris theory is applicable in conflicts between previous colonies which gained independence but still is ruled by an unpopular government rather than the local natives. The results of this study will perhaps bring new understandings of the outcome of conflicts by examining the rebellion in the region Katanga in Congo in the early 1960s aswell as the conflict in Rhodesia between 1965 and 1979.

No description available.

On the 24 of February 2022 Russia launched an operation to seize control of Hostomel Airport, a few miles from Kyiv. Although Russia is the military superior state in the war with Ukraine, they failed to achieve the strategic purpose of the operation. The operation is an example of the classic, empirical puzzle of how relatively superior military actors can still lose armed conflictsagainst a weaker opponent. The aim of this study is to make a contribution to the research on asymmetric warfare, focusing on why a military stronger, state actor sometimes fails to achieve strategic victory in a conflict with another state actor. The more specific aim is to increase the understanding of why Russia, the military stronger state, did not achieve the strategic objective of the operation at Hostomel Airport in February 2022. The study was carried out as a single case study, using the method “structured, focused comparison”. Two theories were used to increase the understanding of the outcome, Warden´s theory of Air Superiority and Leonhard´s theory of Combined Arms. The results of the study shows that both Warden´s and Leonhard´s theories contributed to a more comprehensive understanding of the outcome of the operation. Russian forces lack of air superiority resulted in several consequences and frictions to the Russian assault. Russian forcescould not operate freely in the air and both the Ukrainian air defence and air force were able toaffect the Russian forces throughout the operation. One of the most important conclusions of the study was that the Russian forces lack of air superiority enabled the Ukrainian air force to bomb and destroy the runways, making them impossible to land heavy aircraft on. Russia did notimplement the principles of combined arms during most of the operation, and never at the critical moments. One consequence of this could be that the initial attack was prolonged, making it impossible for Russian reinforcements to land on the runways.

The military concept of asymmetric warfare has become both popular and ambiguous in military scientific discourse. Even though the debate amongst scholars has been focused on what kinds of power may cause a conflict to become asymmetric, the concept is also often used to describe unconventional war against former colonial nations.   The purpose of this study is to compare how asymmetric warfare has been described by the Swedish Armed Forces, in military theory literature and the article which founded the concept. By concept analysis, asymmetric warfare is analysed through John Gerrings metatheory.   The result shows that the concept is indeed ambiguous and broad in its meaning. The scientific literature describes the concept as debated and imprecise; the Swedish Armed Forces describe asymmetry in warfare as inequality of motives between two actors. This study contributes to the military discourse by highlighting the concept of asymmetric warfare as uncertain in its meaning. It also explains what approach the Swedish Armed Forces takes to the concept.

<p>Uppsatsen är skriven som en del i de studier i krigsvetenskap jag erhållit på Yrkesofficersprogrammets sista termin.</p><p>Syftet med uppsatsen är att bidra till utvecklingen av de soldatutbildningshänvisningar som nyttjas vid Artilleriregementet. </p><p>Frågeställningarna lyder: </p><p>-          Tränas soldaterna vid Artilleriregementet, enligt utbildningsdokumenten som nyttjas, för att klara av de krav som ”Three block war” ställer? </p><p>-          Kompletteras eventuella brister vid utbildningen på Artilleriregementet, genom utbildningen som sker inför internationell tjänst? </p><p>Metoden som använts är deskription med tekniken litteraturstudier. Begreppet "Three block war" beskrivs därefter analyseras utbildningsdokumenten för att besvara frågeställningarna.  </p><p>Analysen visar att soldater som gjort värnplikten på Artilleriregementet och därefter genomgått den gemensamma utbildningen som ges utlandsstyrkan fortfarande har ett behov av utbildning. Detta kopplat till om soldaterna skall klara av att verka i ett område som karaktäriseras av "Three block war".</p>