An application of a combined framework to set the future direction of the Norwegian Home Guard

ABSTRACT

In 2017, the Norwegian Ministry of Defence and the Norwegian Home Guard commissioned a research project to help set a future identity and direction for the reserve-based Home Guard. Using a combination of frameworks, we consider major threats against Norway and, in light of this analysis, suggest a future identity and direction. Our analysis says that, while conventional warfare still poses the most difficult challenge to the country, irregular warfare can be harder to defend against, in that it is often covert, non-attributional, directed at the civilian sector and in the grey zone between war and peace. Limited situational understanding, limited civilian–military coordination, and a limited ability to deal with situations over time contribute to this. We conclude that the Home Guard has the potential to contribute to increased national resilience, in that it has local anchoring, a distributed structure to provide flexible support and the ability to cooperate with civilian organizations. The combined framework we introduce in this paper can be employed to conduct a variety of defence analyses in a coherent fashion, increasing the credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability of such analyses.

KEYWORDS:

• Direction setting
• comprehensive defence analysis
• organizational systems framework
• design thinking
• home guard

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the 36 informants for generously giving of their time, as well as two anonymous referees for their comments on the paper.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Notes

1. See also Norheim-Martinsen (2016) for a discussion of armed forces as “normal” organizations.

2. The Norwegian term is “samfunnssikkerhet”. For a comparison between the Norwegian-specific term and the societal security term as used in literature, see, for example, Høyland (2018).

3. The definition of total defence reads: “The modernised total defence concept encompasses mutual support and cooperation between the Norwegian Armed Forces and civil society in connection with contingency planning, crisis management and consequence management across the entire crisis spectrum – from peace via security policy crisis to armed conflict.” (Norwegian Ministry of Defence, and Norwegian Ministry of Justice and Public Security 2018). Similar systems exist in other Nordic countries (see Wither 2020).

4. There are also other civilian emergency organizations in operation, chiefly the Civil Defence (“Sivilforsvaret”), whose main aim is to protect the civilian population in crisis or war. The Civil Defence is under the command of the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection, (“Direktoratet for samfunnssikkerhet og beredskap”, DSB), whose chief task is to maintain a complete overview of various risks and vulnerabilities in society.

5. Local territorial responsibility (“lokalt territorielt ansvar”) includes day-to-day responsibility for planning and management of operations in peace, crisis and war, as well as local cooperation and networking with civilian partners and local government.

6. Territorial operations (“territorielle operasjoner”) aim to protect military capabilities, critical infrastructure and the population. Main elements include securing and guarding infrastructure, surveillance and control, facilitating and receiving allied support, host nation support, and military–civilian cooperation.

7. For a more thorough review of the roots of military change in Norway over the last 30 years, see Bogen and Magnus (2017).

8. Indeed, Bjerga and Gjeseth themselves proposed merging the Home Guard and the Army.

9. The Organizational Systems Framework is based on Roberts (2000). The model is a military adaptation of a tradition stretching back at least to the congruence model of Nadler and Tushman (1980). An example of a military application is Berg-Knutsen and Roberts (2015).

10. See, for example, Reichborn-Kjennerud and Cullen (2016) for a discussion of what hybrid warfare is.

11. See, for example, Galeotti (2016) and Veljovski et al. (2017) for a discussion of the Russian hybrid approach in Crimea.

12. According to the principle of responsibility (“Ansvarsprinsippet”), responsibility in a crisis lies with the same organization as it does in everyday operations. Each government department has a responsibility to handle a crisis that concerns its area of responsibility, including coordinating with other government departments.

Additional information

Funding

The research project is funded by the Home Guard and the Norwegian Ministry of Defence.

Notes on contributors

Kjetil Hatlebakk Hove

Kjetil Hatlebakk Hove is a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI). He has ten years of experience at FFI, mainly within the fields of long-term planning and defence economics. He holds masters degrees in economics and business administration from the Norwegian School of Economics and in management from the Norwegian Business School.

Espen Berg-Knutsen

Espen Berg-Knutsen is a director of research at FFI. He has worked in a variety of subjects, from special operations to long-term planning. He is also a two-time rifle-shooting world champion (1998 and 2006) and has competed in three Olympic Games. He holds a masters degree in economics and business administration from the Norwegian School of Economics.

Per Kristian Dahl

Per Kristian Dahl is a lieutenant colonel in the Norwegian Armed Forces. He has a background in the Army, the Norwegian Joint Headquarters and the Home Guard, including as a commander at district level. He has been deployed to Afghanistan and the Balkans. He was also part of the working group for the most recent analysis of the Norwegian land-based force structure.

Nina Rones

Dr Nina Rones is a senior research fellow at FFI. She has an interdisciplinary academic background, including a masters degree in outdoor education and pedagogics, and a PhD in military sociology from the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. She has served as a contracted part-time soldier in the Home Guard Rapid Reaction Force. She has worked at FFI for five years, and before that as a researcher at the Norwegian Defence University College.