Strategic communication is an important function for the Swedish Armed Forces to gain strategic effect and to achieve their goals. Well functional and proactive information is also addressed by the military as a means for protection against psychological warfare. This is pointed out as a serious threat against the Swedish defence will in times of peace and crises. In a democracy like Sweden it is however depending on medial power factors whether the communication will be effective or not. It is therefore useful to investigate how the Armed Forces strategic messages are presented when published in media. This essay will use media theories to investigate the outcome of the reporting of a specific case. The case is the decision that allows the Swedish Armed Forces to resume national service regarding refresher training of military units. This is an important tool for the Swedish Armed Forces, to be able to train in complete units, and also a chance to send strategic messages to its own population as well as neighbouring countries that the Swedish Armed Forces are increasing their ambitions. The investigation shows that the strategic messages were spread nationally both in press and on television. However, it could not be seen to have the impact enough to get people’s attention, in comparison to other news regarding the national defence. The reporting, in some cases, showed traces of what theories describe as undesirable “framing”, however the investigation cannot indicate any aggressive information campaign against the Armed Forces.

During the cold war small states Air Forces operated as tactical resources in coalitions led by superpowers. After the cold war small states face new threats where the ability to fight independently is crucial to survival. Most of today’s air power theories focus on superpowers and do not mention specific details about its applicability within the small state’s context which leave small states in a state of confusion regarding their creation of doctrinal focus. Shaun Clarkes air power theory focuses directly on small states Air Forces and constitutes factors that conforms to the war principle of surprise. Clarke’s theory and the principle of surprise are both in need of critical empirical studies. This study contributes by supplementing the theory with the principle and conduct a case study on the Israeli Air Force performance during the six-day war and Yom Kippur war.  The result of the study strengthens the explanatory power of the theory by the conformance of its aspects with the successful operations of the six-day war while not being able to explain the operations of the less successful Yom Kippur war. The observation of underlying variables that may have affected the outcome means that the result cannot be generalized to other cases but indicates that it is an interesting aspect for small states as Sweden to consider during the creation of a doctrinal orientation.

Denna uppsats granskar Shaun Clarkes teori om strategic persuation oriented targeting. Teorin beskriver hur strategisk påverkan av beslutsfattare ska ske genom utnyttjandet av luftmakt. En nation med begränsade resurser bör nyttomaximera användningen av stridsflyg. Israeliska offensiva flygoperationer analyseras i en jämförande studie av Sexdagarskriget, 1967 och Yom Kippurkriget 1973. Resultatet medger att framgången för Israel i luftkrigen delvis kan förklaras med Clarkes teori. Mätning av strategisk effekt och psykologisk påverkan är svår och kan ibland endast medges genom subjektiv bedömning. Detta påverkar förklaringskraften i teorin. Jämförelsen visar att specifika variabler i Clarkes teori kan verka till fördel för resultatet i enskilda fall. Enligt teorin är det den sammanlagda effekten som ska beaktas för nationer med begränsade resurser. Teoribildningen stärks genom studien och nationer med begränsade resurser kan med fördel analysera denna vid översyn av egen doktrin. Det viktiga är att göra det ur eget hot- och förmågeperspektiv. Fallstudien påvisar att undvikande av symmetriska konfrontationer och resurssplittring är en förutsättning som medger ökad möjlighet till framgång. Väl övervägda, planerade och effektiva offensiva företag tillsammans med riktad strategisk kommunikation kan innebära ökad psykologisk påverkan. Detta kan ge förutsättningar för en strategisk förändring. En instrumentell implementering av offensiva operationer kan dock ge motsatt effekt.