Military thinkers, from Clausewitz and Liddell Hart to Grey and Dolman, reason around the meaning of the term strategy and its natural place in a nation’s efforts to plan for the worst-case scenario – war. At the same time, the term policy is used when aligning a nation’s effort. The debate in Sweden has for a long time included both these terms when discussing with what detail the government should direct its armed forces. This indistinctness in usage is analysed and operationalised in order to answer the question; Are the Swedish armed forces governed by policy or by strategy? Theories on policy from social studies are summarized together with the strategy term derived from war studies in order to operationalise their meaning in the Swedish governing system where parliament, consisting of Regering and Riksdag, make decisions regulating its armed forces.The analysis shows that decisions showing both policy and strategy is present, but that the detail in strategic decisions in certain cases overrides the overarching policy rendering the armed forces without freedom of strategic action.This study contributes to both the field of public policy as well as military strategy where they come together in the military-political arena in Sweden. It clarifies the level of detail in which the military is governed and determines whether decisions can be considered a strategic plan or a governing political policy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:fhs-8564 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Tornving, Mats Henrik Albin |
| Publisher | Försvarshögskolan |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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