Reconstructing the peacekeeper: the televised sense-making of Sweden’s shifting policy on the use of force after the military failure in Bosnia 1995

Abstract

This article interrogates how the shift to a more robust mandate in Bosnia was made intelligible to the Swedish TV audience. The turn to peace-enforcement and NATO command in December 1995 represented a clear break with Swedish tradition and identity, and essentially signified a turning point in Sweden’s policy on the use of force. The analysis reveals how four characterizations of the Swedish UN soldiers served to make sense of recent events and ultimately paved way for future policy changes; throughout the six-month period under scrutiny, the depictions, very broadly, moved from weak soldiers and failed warriors, to honourable peacekeepers and unique combat soldiers. The Swedish peacekeeper figure is thus reconstructed, essentially accommodating an increased involvement in activities of peace-enforcement and war-like operations.

Keywords:

• peacekeeping and peace-enforcement
• UNPROFOR and IFOR
• Swedish neutrality and nonalignment
• characterization of soldiers
• media and war
• discourse theory

Introduction

With the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995 the peacekeeping effort in Bosnia ultimately revealed itself as a military failure.¹ The UN mission called UNPROFOR, formed in 1992, clearly failed in its promise to protect the civilian population and the events spurred a massive international debate on the passivity of the UN forces. At the time, whilst the events in Srebrenica were still unfolding, there was an international outcry for an increased use of force, which brought questions of policy and identity to a head in most states contributing to the UN intervention in Bosnia.² For Sweden in particular, the events Bosnia in 1995 and the call for more robust means signified a challenge to all that Sweden had come to represent, and to its deep-rooted conception of national identity. The military failure essentially threw into question Swedish ideals of the peacekeeper and the neutral soldier.

In 1995, Sweden had not been in war for almost 200 years. With a long history of nonalignment and armed neutrality in case of war, Sweden had nourished an image of itself as an actor of non-violence, of being a nation of peace and a nation at peace.³ The Cold War period had been dominated by ‘the national military ideal of a protective and fundamentally defensive neutral soldier’ (Åse 2016, p. 116). However, Sweden had not taken a passive stance in international affairs; throughout contemporary history, it had pursued an active foreign policy and projected itself as a moral superpower (Dahl 2006). Accordingly, Sweden had been a substantial contributor to UN peacekeeping missions ever since the 1950s; throughout the Cold War, Sweden had been one of the ‘seven most active participants in international peacekeeping in the world’ (Björkdahl 2013, p. 326). Together with the concept of neutrality, peacekeeping thus became a key feature in the construction of Swedish identity as a military actor, and the peacekeeper has been seen as a bearer of Swedish progressive norms (e.g. Kronsell 2012, p. 72). In Swedish recruitment campaigns of the 2010s, the peacekeeper (as opposed to the warrior) was still projected as the ideal soldier figure (Strand and Berndtsson 2015). Thus, the peacekeeper figure has remained significant also in contemporary discourse.⁴

Although identifying itself with peacekeeping practices and neutrality norms, Sweden’s involvement in activities of peace-enforcement increased considerably from the mid-1990s onwards (Ericson Wolke 2019). Peace-enforcement, as opposed to peacekeeping, means the enforcement of peace by violent means, in many respects resembling what we traditionally conceive as war-fighting. From 1993 to 1995, Sweden had contributed troops to the UNPROFOR peacekeeping operation in Bosnia.⁵ Yet in December 1995 UNPROFOR was replaced by a NATO-led operation called IFOR, which was based on a mandate of peace-enforcement. When Sweden took the decision to join IFOR in December 1995, Swedish soldiers were for the first time to fully engage in a peace-enforcing operation and serve under NATO command in the context of a real combat mission. Thus, the shift from peacekeeping to peace-enforcement in the autumn of 1995, and the transition from UN to NATO, signified a radical shift in Sweden’s policy on the use of force. In effect, the events in 1995 constitute a turning point in Sweden’s long history of third party military engagements, preceding what Kronsell (2012) has called the turn to a ‘postnational defence’. Also, it was not until the 1990s, Cronqvist (2012, p. 198) argues, that ‘the credo of neutrality’ – as ‘a state of mind’ – came to be fundamentally contested.

The shift from UNPROFOR to IFOR, from UN to NATO command, and from peacekeeping to a mandate of peace-enforcement, was preceded by a public discussion on what Swedish soldiers should represent and do. As such, 1995 also represents one of those rare moments when the question of military violence was brought to the fore in Swedish public debate (Sandman 2019). This article will critically interrogate the narrative responses emerging in public service television Sveriges Television (SVT) from July up until December 1995, how it made sense of the events that unfolded and how the shift in policy was mediated to the Swedish public.⁶ It tracks the shifts and changes in the representation of Sweden as a military actor with respect to the Swedish military presence in Bosnia. Specifically, it will present an analysis of the characterizations of soldiers that took shape in televised evening news and morning shows, and thereby unravel how the peacekeeper figure was disrupted and ultimately reconstructed and restored. By analyzing the renegotiation of identity in Sweden’s most far-reaching TV channel and news outlet at the time,⁷ the article seeks to grasp how a nation may turn to practices of peace-enforcement and an increased use of force and still strongly identify with peacekeeping practices and non-violence (e.g. Åhäll 2016, p. 154, Egnell 2016, p. 187). In general, an analysis of the events in 1995 adds to our understanding of how the Swedish identification with neutrality and nonalignment has evolved over time, ultimately leading up to the decision in 2022 to finally apply for NATO membership.

Military failure as a moment of disruption

To understand the impact of the Srebrenica genocide on Swedish peacekeeping ideals, and how the turn to peace-enforcement and NATO ultimately is rendered intelligible through a reconstruction of the peacekeeper figure, this article will make use of the poststructuralist concepts of dislocatory events and narrative responses (see Glynos and Howarth 2007, Marchart 2014, Nabers 2015). Certain events make us question who we are and what we do, and the study takes as a point of departure the notion that the Srebrenica genocide truly was a moment of disruption, a dislocatory event that upended that which was taken for granted and challenged the business-as-usual way of doing and thinking. As such, the events in Bosnia in 1995 could be considered an identity crisis, but productive rather than necessarily destructive in its form; in essence, the shock and uncertainty that followed the events in July 1995 signified a possibility of thinking, doing and being something new. However, as Glynos and Howarth (2007, p. 117) note, moments of disruption may open up for new identifications, but might also trigger so-called ideological responses which serve to conceal or deny, repair or cover over the event and sense of dislocation.

In any case, dislocatory events, such as the military failure in Bosnia, call upon us to respond. The unexpected, that which deviates from normal routines, and which cannot be accommodated within current discourse or incorporated into the conception of Self, needs to be made intelligible. As Hansen (2006, p. 29) suggests, in the case of a perceived imbalance between representations of identity and policy there will be ‘an attempt to make an adjustment to recreate stability through modification of either the construction of identity or the proposed policy’. Thus, in short, in the event of a sudden perceived incoherence between identity and policy or practice, one expects discursive attempts seeking to restore a sense of coherence (Hansen 2006). The characterizations of soldiers taking shape in televised evening news and morning shows are here understood as acts of identification and as narrative responses to the dislocatory experience of the international community’s military failure in Bosnia. As the discourse of peacekeeping is clearly disrupted by the events in Bosnia, the link between identity and policy/practice suddenly seems to be difficult to reconcile, more so than at other times. To a certain extent, it also posed a gender dilemma for the Swedish ideal of the defensive, neutral, peacekeeping soldier as outlined above. The reconstruction of the ‘peacekeeper’ as a figure and self-image, which is outlined in the empirical analysis below, thus signifies an attempt to restore a sense of coherence between the conception of Swedish identity and the military practices that Swedish troops engage in or are about to engage in. In other words, the characterizations of soldiers – which largely shift over time – could essentially be considered a renegotiation of Swedish identity as a military actor.

Media, war and the reconstruction of soldier images

Representations or stories of war and military violence are not mere reflections of reality, but they fundamentally, through acts of repetition, constitute reality. Moving images (or photography, literature, radio documentaries and the like) no doubt bring us closer to the events, experiences and traumas of war. Yet the representations of military engagements obviously erase some aspects of war while foregrounding others. ‘[E]very image or sound that is accessed’, Hellmich and Purse (2017, p. 1) write, ‘has been produced, framed or selected, and edited by someone else, a partial view that leaves something out of sight, and that may also distort or misrepresent’. Decisions on what to include or exclude in stories on military engagements and representations of soldiers, what to render visible or invisible, essentially make certain political and military measures seem acceptable and reasonable, perhaps even natural and inevitable. For instance, it has been noted that the hypervisibility of war and the excess of war images in the public sphere (primarily in the US or UK) essentially serve to normalize the use of force, making war the norm rather than the exception (Simons and Lucaites 2017, Welland 2017). Recent debates have also critically interrogated the disappearances of war and military violence in public discourse and popular culture, and how such omissions ultimately make war-like activities possible (Hellmich and Purse 2017, Sandman 2023). Others have critically examined the emotional effects of war images – how they overwhelm us, shock us, haunt us, distract us, desensitize us, and/or leave us indifferent and bored (Gregory 2015, Engberg-Pedersen and Maurer 2018, Sontag 2019).

Thus, what is made seen and heard, known and felt, in the public sphere affects the conditions of possibility for the continuation of war and military violence; fundamentally, the media’s portrayal of military engagements creates certain frames of intelligibility that serve to make war and military violence possible, or indeed impossible (see e.g. Butler 2009, Åse and Wendt 2019). Accordingly, the characterization of soldiers on Swedish prime time television, and the reconstruction of the ‘peacekeeper’ as a figure and self-image, open up for new identifications with regard to the use of force.

This study adds to the scholarly discussion on the representation of military violence and the portrayal of soldiers in public discourse, and elucidates how shifting soldier characterizations serve to make sense of shifting policy on the use of force. Previous literature often tends to give a snap shot of how soldiers are portrayed or military violence represented, as in – for instance – one or a few movies (e.g. Hellmich and Purse 2017), one or a few memoirs (e.g. Dyvik 2016, Pomarède 2018), single exhibitions (e.g. McSorley 2012, Welland 2017, Wendt 2023), or on occasional commemorative ceremonies (e.g. Christensen 2015). When the representations of particular wars (or soldiers deployed) are discussed and examined, these representations often appear to have been uniform and coherent throughout. Rarely is the object of study the discontinuities in the portrayal of soldiers, how the characterization of soldiers fluctuates over time, and shapes the conditions of possibility for policy change.

There are notable exceptions, of course, which analyze how soldier images shift and change, focusing – for instance – on the transformation of perceived identity (Huebner 2008, Siebrecht 2012), or evolution in acts of commemoration (King 2010) and historical remembrance (McCartney 2014). McCartney (2011), for one, discusses how contemporary depictions of British soldiers in the media fluctuate and evolve – from/to hero, victim, villain – and how it impacts the perceived legitimacy of military use of force overseas (as well as future recruitment). Åse (2016, p. 130) similarly illustrates how subjectivities may shift and be reconstructed in a short amount of time; studying the Swedish media discourses on the submarine crisis in October-November 1981,⁸ she demonstrates how the ‘neutral soldier’ came into crisis and was reinstated, first ‘through gendered and corporeal representations and images’ of the Soviet intruders and then through a display of the hero-masculinity of the neutral soldier himself. As Åse (2016, p. 120) notes: ‘An analysis of media representations and narrative of dramatic events can shed light on the framing and reframing of social identities and subjectivities’.

The collection and reading of public service broadcasts

The analysis builds on 31 television reports and studio debates broadcast on Swedish public service television (SVT) in the period between July 1995, when the genocide in Srebrenica took place, and December 1995, when NATO officially replaced the UN in Bosnia. In terms of collected empirical material, only reports or studio debates dealing with Sweden’s military involvement in Bosnia have been included in the empirical sample; hence, reports dealing exclusively with other countries’ military contributions to UNPROFOR/IFOR have been excluded. Furthermore, the focus of the study has been the Swedish military presence in Bosnia, which means that reports or studio debates on, say, the peace negotiations, the refugee situation, or on the conflict in general, have been discarded. The sample (see Appendix) predominantly consists of national evening news broadcasts (Aktuellt or Rapport), but it also includes SVT’s morning show (Gomorron Sverige), and – in one instance – a local news broadcast (Mittnytt) and a studio debate show (Kvällsöppet). The sample has been collected through a systematic search in SVT’s own digital archive.⁹

All articulations related to Sweden and the use of force broadcast between July and December 1995 have been scrutinized; the reports and shows have been reviewed, transcribed, and carefully analyzed. However, the analysis outlined below does not give a full account of the televised reports on Bosnia in 1995, but focuses on the characterization of soldiers which forms part of the narratives emerging throughout the six-month period.¹⁰ Soldier characterizations have been understood as a key feature in the narrative responses emerging after the genocide in Srebrenica to initially make sense of the military failure and subsequently make sense of a shifting policy on the use of force.

The analysis is based on the assumption that identity is constituted through acts of identification, always in the making, and fundamentally relational (Laclau and Mouffe 2014). The methodology of reading in the analysis of soldier characterizations has focused on identifying processes of linking and differentiation (Hansen, 2006). In short, the analysis focuses on and reveals how the peacekeeper as a figure is reconstructed through narrative formations that link the Swedish soldiers to certain practices and attributes, and at the same time differentiate them from other types of practices and attributes. Put differently, the analysis has looked for positive and negative ascriptions, and articulations of what Swedish soldiers represent and in turn do not represent. As the identity of Self typically is constituted in relation to a series of Others (Hansen 2006), the analysis has been attentive to articulations of Otherness, whether it be something associated with one’s own past and self-conception, or something associated with the external and unknown, either perceived as threatening or non-threatening (Kinnvall 2004, Nabers 2015). In these processes of defining oneself as a military actor, the issue of gender also becomes significant. The analysis has thus been attentive to gendered representations, especially allusions to (masculine) strength or (feminized) weakness.

As Chouliaraki (2007, p. 131) points out, television is a site ‘of what is seen as well as heard’; thus, visual content as well as text have been analyzed. Numerous aspects have been deemed relevant: single statements, the use of specific words or images, the combination of voiceover and (moving) images, accentuations and tone of voice, the absence of specific words or images. The reading of public service broadcastings has thus been attentive to details but also charted the general narrative patterns.

The characterization of soldiers on prime time television

This section presents the empirical analysis of how the Swedish soldiers came to be portrayed throughout the period between July and December 1995. As argued, the narrative on the Swedish military involvement in Bosnia moves from depictions of weak soldiers and failed warriors to honourable peacekeepers and unique combat soldiers. Hence, the empirical analysis is structured accordingly, and these four characterizations are outlined below. Overall, the narrative that is presented in public service broadcasting, and how it comes to evolve, represents a renegotiation of Swedish identity as a military actor and a reconstruction of the Swedish peacekeeper figure.

Weak soldiers

As a direct response to the UN’s failure to protect the Safe Areas in Bosnia, a particular characterization of the UN soldiers emerges in mid-July. The general depiction of the UN soldiers is initially that they are weak, that they lack combativeness and that they give up without a fight (Rapport 15.07.1995, Rapport 16.07.1995). This particular characterization serves to reinforce the call for action and for more robust means, as it becomes obvious that a new military strategy is urgent and of the essence.

Reporter: But the main question is: there are Safe Areas that obviously are not protected, should they be protected?

Minister for Foreign Affairs: Yes, of course they should be protected.

Reporter: Also by using force?

Minister for Foreign Affairs: Yes, that is part of the UN troops’ mandate, that they may use force.

Reporter: But they don’t … 

Minister for Foreign Affairs: No [sigh] … 

(Rapport 15.07.1995)¹¹

In mid-July, the UN mission in Bosnia is portrayed as a complete and utter failure; the general image is that the UN troops in general and the Dutch¹² in particular have not even tried to protect the Safe Areas, and that they are not armed even to protect themselves (Rapport 15.07.1995, Rapport 16.07.1995). Within the narrative framework of ‘total UN failure’, public service broadcasting also offers a critical look at what the Swedish soldiers are good for, and what they stand for. The news anchor of the evening news reports that a political dispute has erupted, about whether Swedish soldiers should be part of combat units. As moving images portray how fully-equipped Swedish soldiers are pushing back a crowd of civilians, and later how they practice shooting on a training field, the reporter states that:

This is as close to battle as they get, our over 1,000 UN soldiers in Bosnia. To facilitate the humanitarian aid, that is the main task. But they are soldiers, there to protect civilians. So why won’t they do their job and become more offensive? (Rapport 16.07.1995)

Here, the news clearly foregrounds the non-violent character of the Swedish military undertaking, and points to the discrepancy between the work one may expect the military to perform and the actual tasks of the Swedish battalion, at first glance resembling the work of a police force. The general impression that the news report thus leaves is that the Armed Forces are defined by incapability and uselessness, as they do not seem to live up to the duties of a protective military force. As one of many questions posed to the head of SWEDINT, who is responsible for the training of the Swedish UN soldiers, the reporter asks: If the Swedish army cannot put up a fight against their opponents in Bosnia, does it mean they also cannot protect Sweden? Moving images show UN soldiers wearing shirts with short sleeves, who relax on the top of the UN tanks, sitting back with their legs up. Simultaneously, the reporter concludes that the colonel (just interviewed) admits that the UN troops probably could get a little tougher (Rapport 16.07.1995).

Throughout these first couple of days following the breakdown of the UN Safe Areas, Swedish soldiers are clearly linked to passivity and inaction, although projected as the best-equipped UN battalion active in Bosnia – armed with missiles, mortars and army tanks (Rapport 16.07.1995). The images of them ‘doing nothing’ thus seem to disrupt the conception of Swedishness and of what to expect. Military activities, public service broadcasting implies, should simply be characterized by combat and a willingness to fight, not relaxation or facilitation of humanitarian aid.

Failed warriors

Throughout the week that follows, in late July, another characterization emerges and comes to dominate the narrative outlined in public service broadcasting. What is now foregrounded is how the Swedish soldiers indeed want to act proactively, but generally have been restrained from doing so. In two news reports the audience gets to witness how individual Swedish soldiers react to the events in Bosnia, and their testimonies seem to serve as a contrast to the statements of politicians and official army representatives (Aktuellt 18.07.1995, Rapport 20.07.1995). While politicians and army representatives have stressed that the Swedish UN soldiers are not trained for combat and have been recruited on other grounds (Rapport 16.07.1995, Rapport 20.07.1995), the soldiers themselves now voice their discontent. These news reports essentially communicate that the decision makers devalue the Swedish soldiers and are unwilling to let them do their job, although the soldiers consider themselves capable, willing and ready (Rapport 15.07.1995, Aktuellt 18.07.1995, Rapport 20.07.1995).¹³ Essentially, the soldiers have thus been failed by the political and military command.

Reporter: … the Prime Minister does not think that Swedish UN soldiers have the capability that is required and seems to trust that David and his colleagues are capable of neither defence combat nor offensives to liberate the enclaves. (Rapport 20.07.1995)

Throughout the summer of 1995, the news stories broadcast on television often suggest that everyday life at the Swedish military camp in Tuzla is characterised by great frustration. While the soldiers wish they could do more for the Bosnian people, they are held back and forced into inactivity, either by the UN, the Bosnian authorities or the battalion commanders (Rapport 02.08.1995, Aktuellt 25.08.1995, Kvällsöppet 29.08.1995, Mittnytt 01.09.1995). As an illustration of frustration, moving images show how Danish army tanks drive round and round in circles inside the camp, forbidden to leave the area. These images are followed by a scene of soldiers lined up in two rows, throwing their machine guns back and forth between each other, as if killing time. Next, pictures show a UN soldier petting a cat (Aktuellt 25.08.1995).

Soldier: It feels rather awful.

Reporter: In what way?

Soldier: That you have the will, you have the mandate, you have the capability, but you are not allowed. (Aktuellt 18.07.1995)

With the narrative characterization of failed warriors, the soldiers are portrayed as potential heroes. Whereas the military performance in Bosnia generally seems to be defined by cowardice and weakness, the individual soldiers are here foregrounded as capable, courageous and willing to engage in combat. ‘Aren’t you scared?’ a reporter asks a captain who will be one of the officers leading the soldiers in the next Swedish UN battalion, and who himself does not hesitate to be part of combat units; ‘No, I wouldn’t say that I am’ (Rapport 20.07.1995). Thus, all in all, the soldiers position themselves as potential warriors, both willing and able to kill and risk their lives in combat (see Henriksen 2007). Regrettably, however, they have now been reduced to actors of non-violence.

Honourable peacekeepers

Throughout the period between July and December, the Swedish soldiers in Bosnia are praised for their work and achievements by everyone appearing on public service television, especially by military representatives and politicians (Kvällsöppet 29.08.1995, Mittnytt 01.09.1995, Gomorron Sverige 13.11.1995). However, their role in Bosnia, and their capabilities are continually discussed; a particular characterization of the soldiers as honourable peacekeepers comes to serve as a counterweight to the general depiction of inaction and passivity.

The political debate on whether Swedish troops should engage in combat units culminates in late November prior to the announcement of the government decision to join IFOR is announced, yet the issue is brought up occasionally throughout the whole period under scrutiny. A prominent figure in these debates, which appears regularly in televised news and talk shows, is the Minister for Defence, who advocates that Swedish troops should be kept out of combat units (Aktuellt 11.08.1995, Kvällsöppet 29.08.1995). Together with an army representative, he insists that Swedish soldiers are more suitable for peacekeeping; they emphasize the value of peacekeeping practices, that it is in the capacity of peacekeepers that Swedish soldiers have achieved great results, and that their tasks are meaningful. The army representative stresses that Sweden is a leading state when it comes to peacekeeping after its 40 years of experience, and Tuzla (where the Swedish battalion is stationed) is now relatively quiet and calm thanks to the Swedish soldiers' sophisticated ‘de-escalating techniques’ (Kvällsöppet 29.08.1995). In essence, these utterances are a reaction to the competing narrative that is salient in the televised representation of and debates on the events in Bosnia, namely that peacekeeping as a practice is hopelessly out of date, and represents a gutless and even silly ambition. Within this narrative framework, the position of the Minister for Defence and the army representatives supporting him tends to appear reactionary.

In late November, just days before the government announced its decision to join the NATO-led peace-enforcement mission called IFOR without any national caveats¹⁴, the Minister for Defence visits the Swedish battalion’s camp in Bosnia (NORDBAT). This is one of the most well reported events throughout the whole period between July and December. In the days leading up to the visit, a debate on the mandate of IFOR has begun to take shape, and television reports attempt to clarify the difference between peacekeeping and peace-enforcement (Gomorron Sverige 22.11.1995, Rapport 22.11.1995). Although the mission of the regular war units, NATO units, appears straightforward and settled – they have the right to shoot back, and they will be fully armed – the role of the Swedish former peacekeepers is yet to be specified. With the visit of the Minister for Defence to NORDBAT, the question of what the Swedish soldiers should represent is truly brought to a head. If the television audience has been given the impression a few days earlier that fully armed Swedish troops will operate alongside NATO war units, the television reports from the NORDBAT camp now reveal that the Swedish government has no such intentions. As the Minister for Defence clarifies, Swedish troops will not take part in any offensive operations once they serve under NATO command, as they are neither armed nor trained to engage in attacks (Rapport 24.11.1995, Aktuellt 25.11.1995, Aktuellt 28.11.1995, 2100 hrs). At the same time, it is emphasized that the Swedish military undertaking in Bosnia is far from risk-free; it has been and henceforth will be perilous and risky (Aktuellt 28.11.1995, 2100 hrs). High-ranking military representatives also appear on breakfast television a few days later explaining that the capability to engage in combat operations has not been requested; yet, this does not mean that the Swedish troops will not perform violence (Gomorron Sverige 29.11.1995).

However, just a day later the government announces that Sweden will join IFOR with no national caveats. The Minister for Defence has lost the political battle, it is claimed. Yet again the television news coverage draws on and reinforces the notion of peacekeeping as hopelessly out of date. While reporting that the Minister for Defence is ‘more or less alone’ in his conviction that Swedish soldiers cannot take part in attack operations (Aktuellt 28.11.1995, 1800 hrs), the evening news portray him almost like a silly-billy; moving images show him wearing a blue UN helmet, looking unhappy, and at a press briefing, he is shown to awkwardly tipping over a microphone (Rapport 30.11.1995).

Unique combat soldiers

Already in early October it is reported that the government and the opposition have agreed that Swedish troops will participate in a NATO mission once the peace agreement has been settled (Rapport 11.10.1995). And while the most prominent proponent of improving the practice of peacekeeping (i.e. the Minister for Defence) at this point generally is depicted as a deviant, the engagement in a NATO-led combat mission is rarely portrayed as a particularly outstanding decision. In fact, as the news demonstrates with its report from a NATO-led joint military exercise, Sweden is deeply involved in NATO activities already, and these activities appear combinable with Sweden’s peacekeeping identity. The reporter describes how the Swedish Air Force has participated with two rescue helicopters and how a Swedish Hercules plane has dropped cargo to ‘people in need’. However, the request to send a pair of Viggen jet fighters to the exercise was denied, as these could not ‘solve peacekeeping missions’ (Rapport 11.10.1995).

As noted previously, the television audience has throughout the autumn of 1995 was given mixed messages on the future role of Swedish troops in the NATO-led mission IFOR. When the government decision is approaching in late November, a new characterization of the Swedish soldiers is salient in the televised representations of the events surrounding Bosnia, which highlights their unique set of skills. This characterization has appeared previously, but is clearly accentuated around the time of the government decision. What now is foregrounded is the dual identity of Swedish soldiers – that they are peacekeepers at heart and still skilled combat soldiers. They are firm, but also humble; they are willing to fight, but they have patience and prefer to negotiate (Aktuellt 29.11.1995, 2100 hrs, Rapport 30.11.1995).

Reporter: NORDBAT has a good reputation in Bosnia: well trained, calm but not cowardly, hitting back when it’s necessary. (Aktuellt 28.11.1995, 2100 hrs)

Remarks about the Swedish soldiers’ willingness to ‘hit back’ clearly serve to counter the previously striking narrative of the UN as nothing but passive and depictions of other nations’ soldiers as reluctant, even incapable, to fight back. Already in late August, a reporter emphasizes that the Swedish battalion has received recognition for its forceful conduct (‘this is the battalion that shoots back’) (Aktuellt 25.08.1995). In late November, the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces¹⁵ completely refutes the previous representation of Swedish soldiers as predominantly serving as aid workers or a police force. They have acted ‘very, very robustly in combat situations’, he asserts; they have been ‘under almost constant fire’, and been acclaimed by his foreign colleagues (Aktuellt 28.11.1995, 1800 hrs). Clearly, the Swedish soldiers have been anything but weak. To make sense of the Swedish soldiers’ role in Bosnia and further reinforce the notion of firmness, the term velour is now suddenly introduced and used repeatedly. The term velour clearly alludes to the soft, comfortable fabric that was highly popular in the Swedish unisex fashion of the 1970s; in Sweden, ‘velour men’ or ‘velour dads’ have been used as derogatory phrases referring to ‘soft’ and ‘weak’ men or dads who engage in house work or childcare and the like.

The Supreme Commander, for one, believes that the debate has given the impression that the Swedish battalion in Bosnia is ‘some sort of velour military unit’, that needs to be ‘wrapped up in cotton wool’ (Aktuellt 28.11.1995, 1800 hrs). One may interpret the Supreme Commanders’ utterances as an attempt to restore honour to his men, who previously have been disqualified as combat soldiers.

Reporter: ‘We don’t want to be perceived as velour-boys’ the soldiers say. (Aktuellt 28.11.1995, 2100 hrs)

News anchor: The Swedish battalion, which will be under NATO command in Bosnia, will not have any restrictions. This means that Sweden will not dispatch any velour-soldiers after all. (Rapport 30.11.1995)

Unmistakeably, velour-soldiers or velour-boys allude to soft soldiers or weak boys, a characterization that may have been associated with the Swedish past, but not the present. The term ‘velour’, clearly heavily gendered, thus serves as an antithesis of what the Swedish soldiers in Bosnia are thought to represent. Like the failure to protect the Swedish border in the 1981 submarine crisis became a masculine shortcoming and thus a challenge to the ideal of the neutral soldier (Åse 2016, p. 130), the term ‘velour’ similarly calls for a display of masculine qualities. The term signals that capability and willingness to fight are superior qualities; if the alternative to engaging in NATO combat units is to be weak and soft, not ready for the true challenges of military activities, the engagement in peace-enforcement appears as a given choice. Yet, the dual identity of the Swedish soldiers is continuously stressed; generally, they have shown great robustness in the past, they are willing to fight, but they have the ability to stay calm and prefer to negotiate. The evening news on the day of the government decision presents an illustration of how a soldier’s helmet switches from a blue UN helmet to a camouflage coloured; moving images are showing fully-equipped soldiers and army tanks, and how machine guns are being handed over to soldiers. The Swedish soldiers will face great changes, it appears, and turn into ‘proper’ combat soldiers. However, quite ironically, the reporter emphasizes that the battalion’s activities are expected to be more or less the same as during the UN mission (Rapport 30.11.1995).

Minister for Foreign Affairs: … the Swedish soldiers have already today, as NORDBAT, shown that they can hit back if it’s necessary. But the good thing about Swedish soldiers is that you negotiate first, you don’t start with the use of … of … of force, but you negotiate first. (Rapport 30.11.1995)

Making sense of shifting policy

In late November, the news stories broadcast in public service television suggest that the new military mission essentially will not bring much that is new. Whereas the violent element of UNPROFOR previously slipped from view, it is now brought to the fore; suddenly, it is emphasized that the Swedish soldiers have already been involved in violent conduct throughout the UNPROFOR mission, and been praised for it (Aktuellt 28.11.1995, 2100 hrs, Rapport 30.11.1995). And when the future military duties do not appear to bring much new, the IFOR/NATO engagement comes to signify a continuation, rather than a break with old practices and routines. Peace-enforcement is thus suddenly represented as business-as-usual, although truly representing a shift in Sweden’s policy on the use of force.

Still, even though the violent element of UNPROFOR suddenly is brought to light in November, highlighting the similarities between the two missions, the peacekeeping identity of Swedish soldiers is also foregrounded. And as the peaceful character of the Swedish soldiers seems to persist, and they still seem to have a particular and unique role to play in military engagements abroad, the IFOR engagement does not really appear to threaten the Swedish self-image of a nation of peace/at peace, despite the change of military command and mandate. Ultimately, in December 1995, when the engagement in IFOR is becoming a reality, the soldiers’ will to fight and their ability to hit back is toned down in the news reports from Bosnia. Instead, soldiers are now depicted as hesitant about serving under NATO command, and the Swedes are clearly being differentiated from other nations’ troops, especially the US soldiers. One soldier being interviewed worries that the NATO and US forces will imply ‘too much macho, too little modesty’ (Rapport 01.12.1995). This particular soldier has been on watch all night, inside an observation tower, and – as the news reporter explains – he thinks that this is what peacekeeping missions should be all about, not attacking targets.

Soldier: At first, I was hesitant [about signing the new contract], because the major part of my work time is dedicated to humanitarian help and it will be less of that during IFOR. But at the same time, if I go home, I can’t provide any humanitarian help at all. It’s just wait and see. (Aktuellt 18.12.1995)

The four characterizations outlined above primarily represent a chronology and a process; essentially, they illustrate how ‘the peacekeeper’, as a figure, is reconstructed in Swedish public service broadcasting between July and December 1995. The narrative characterization of the UN and Swedish soldiers as weak ought to be understood as a direct response to the dislocatory experience of the UN failure in Srebrenica and elsewhere in Bosnia; peacekeeping clearly appears outdated and cowardly. However, once an engagement in peace-enforcement is on the horizon, the peacekeeping image of the Swedish soldiers is foregrounded and commended. On the whole, the narrative presented in public service broadcasting, which evolves with time, initially put emphasis on the passivity of the UN soldiers, while highlighting the soldiers’ true warrior ideals, all in all pushing for more robustness. Gradually, when more robust means are actually mandated, it is rather the unique and dual set of skills and the peacekeeping ‘essence’ of the Swedish soldiers that comes into light. Overall, the analysis has thus shed light on how the dualistic division between warrior and peacekeeper (see Kaspersen 2021, p. 5) becomes blurred in the narrative unfolding in public service broadcasting in 1995. Just like a display of ‘physical strength and the capability to use military force and violence’ was necessary to ‘reinstate the neutral soldier’ in 1981 (Åse 2016, p. 130), the peacekeeper as a figure had to become more robust in 1995 to remain a key feature in the construction of Swedish identity.

Conclusion

As Chouliaraki (2007, p. 130) has noted: ‘A crucial player in the struggle over the legitimacy of war / … / is television’. Accordingly, this article has empirically and critically interrogated how the 1995 shift from peacekeeping to peace-enforcement, from UN command to NATO command, was depicted and made intelligible in Swedish public service broadcasting. Through the narrative characterization of the Swedish soldiers, and how the narrative unfolded, one may argue that public service broadcasting facilitated, rather than challenged, the turn to peace-enforcement. Essentially, the characterization of Swedish soldiers served to normalize an increased use of force; while roughly moving from weak soldiers and failed warriors, to honourable peacekeepers and unique combat soldiers, an engagement in IFOR came to appear as a natural continuation of Sweden’s long history of third party military engagements, rather than a clear break with the Swedish peacekeeping tradition. Suddenly, peace-enforcement appeared to be in line with Swedish history and identity.

Drawing on the poststructuralist concept of dislocatory events and the idea of narrative responses mitigating the experience of dislocation, the analysis has thus uncovered how the characterization of soldiers served to reconcile the link between policy and identity, and made sense of the Swedish shift in policy; essentially, the identifications in public service broadcasting make it possible to take part in robust military missions whilst still identifying with non-violent resolutions to conflict. The analysis illustrates how identity is renegotiated throughout an ongoing shift in policy; not in hindsight, through historical narratives and the reshaping of collective memory, but as events unfolded in Bosnia and the outcome was still unclear. The analysis thus adds to our understanding of how depictions of soldiers in the media may fluctuate and evolve, also in a very short amount of time, shaping the conditions of possibility for policy change in the wake of dramatic and disruptive events.

Given that the conflict parties in Bosnia held to the Dayton Peace Agreement (which was reached in November, signed in December of 1995), the robust mandate of IFOR never came to materialize. Nevertheless, the turn to peace-enforcement and NATO command signified a turning point in Sweden’s involvement in third party military interventions. Representing one of those rare moments during which the issue of using force was brought to a head, the reconstruction of the peacekeeper as a figure throughout the period between July and December 1995 indeed signifies a decisive point in Sweden’s becoming as a military actor. Since then, Sweden has increased its engagement in peace-enforcement considerably and contributed to NATO operations numerous times. At the time of writing, almost 30 years after the military failure in Bosnia, Sweden has applied for NATO membership, which will mark the final end point of its long history of military nonalignment. On the whole, the reconstruction of the peacekeeper in 1995 may thus in retrospect be considered the first step in a gradual process of moving towards formal military alignment and of leaving behind the cultural heritage of neutrality norms and a self-identification with non-violence.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tua Sandman

Tua Sandman is Associate Senior Lecturer in War Studies at the Swedish Defence University. Her research covers the representation of war; discourses on violence; war as experience. She has previously published in Critical Military Studies and Crime, Media, Culture.

Notes

1 The Srebrenica genocide occurred between the 11th and 22d July 1995 in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica and its close surroundings. More than 8300 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were murdered by armed forces of the Republika Srpska. Srebrenica was at the time one of the so-called Safe Areas as declared by several UN Security Council resolutions. The Safe Areas had been placed under the protection of UN forces. In July 1995, Srebrenica was guarded by a Dutch UN battalion called Dutchbat. Swedish UN forces, part of the Nordbat 2, were responsible for the area around the city of Tuzla, which also was a designated UN Safe Area. For further details of the Yugoslav wars, the Srebrenica genocide and the protection of the Safe Areas, see e.g. Baker (2015) and Markusen and Mennecke (2004).

2 The pluralist discourse of sovereignty and non-interference, which up until then had governed the activities of the international community (Finnemore 2003, 6; Håkansson 2011, 78/83), was fundamentally disrupted by these events. Ultimately, the international community adopted the responsibility to protect doctrine in 2005 as a response to the historic failures to avert mass slaughter of civilians, most prominently the Srebrenica genocide and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

3 At the same time, ‘the militarization of everyday life’ in Sweden ‘surpassed that of many other countries’ (Cronqvist 2012, p. 191).

4 Traditionally, as a soldier conceptualization, the peacekeeper has been associated with being ‘capable of conducting supervisory tasks within a protective view, exercising noncoercive impartiality, and limiting the use of force to self-defense’ (Kaspersen 2021, p. 4). In recent decades however, the warrior-peacekeeper dichotomy has largely been blurred (Kaspersen 2021, p. 5).

5 UNPROFOR was intended to be a traditional peacekeeping operation in line with Chapter VI in the UN Charter; however, it quickly came to operate within a grey zone between peacekeeping and peace-enforcement (Agrell 2013, 31; Dalsjö 1995, 105). Adapting to the conditions on the ground, its mandate was gradually expanded, and eventually included elements in line with Chapter VII in the UN Charter.

6 SVT is a public service media channel, which means that their content is produced in the public’s interest, with an ambition of neutrality and objectivity (although this, of course, by some and at times is disputed). In 1996, SVT was the most trusted source of information in Sweden (MedieAkademin 1997).

7 SVT had 87% of the total viewings in 1990 and still as much as 48% by 1997 (Fogelberg 2004, p. 181). Throughout the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, the Swedish population had far more trust in TV and radio than the daily press (Hadenius and Weibull 2003, p. 437). At least in the 1990s, before the age of the internet, the Swedish public service broadcasting reached larger parts of the population than for instance printed material and newspapers.

8 When a Soviet submarine ran aground in the Karlskrona archipelago in southern Sweden.

9 The database search was: (Sverige* OR svensk*) AND (Bosnia OR UNPROFOR) AND (bataljon* OR styrk* OR trupp* OR förband* OR soldat* OR roll* OR strid* OR anfall*). This database is not publicly available; hence, staff members at SVT have conducted the database search and provided the author with the list. As the archive of SVT is not an official archive, they are not obliged to register and/or save all that has ever been broadcast; hence, the author cannot guarantee that the empirical material truly covers all that was broadcast on Sweden’s military role in Bosnia between July and December of 1995.

10 For a chronological and more thorough account of the debates on Sweden’s military role in Bosnia in public service broadcasting, see Sandman (2019).

11 For all quotations, all emphases in original and translation by author.

12 See e.g. Sion (2006) for an elaboration on how the Srebrenica genocide affected identifications within the Dutch army.

13 Cf. McCartney’s (2011) discussion on the portrayal of soldiers as victims of government policy.

14 Meaning a restriction placed on the use of one’s forces.

15 The highest-ranking officer in Sweden.

Appendix

Full list of collected TV shows from the Swedish Media Database (National Library of Sweden), and selected references (*)

Rapport, 12.07.1995. 1930 hrs

Aktuellt, 13.07.1995. 2100 hrs

Rapport, 15.07.1995. 1930 hrs*

Rapport, 16.07.1995. 1930 hrs*

Aktuellt, 18.07.1995. 2100 hrs*

Rapport, 20.07.1995. 1930 hrs*

Rapport, 02.08.1995. 1930 hrs*

Aktuellt, 11.08.1995. 2100 hrs*

Aktuellt, 25.08.1995. 2100 hrs*

Kvällsöppet, 29.08.1995*

Mittnytt, 01.09.1995*

Aktuellt, 07.10.1995. 2100 hrs

Aktuellt, 08.10.1995. 1800 hrs

Rapport, 11.10.1995. 1930 hrs*

Gomorron Sverige, 13.11.1995*

Gomorron Sverige, 22.11.1995*

Rapport, 22.11.1995. 1930 hrs*

Rapport, 24.11.1995. 1930 hrs*

Aktuellt, 25.11.1995. 1800 hrs*

Aktuellt, 28.11.1995. 1800 hrs*

Aktuellt, 28.11.1995. 2100 hrs*

Gomorron Sverige, 29.11.1995 *

Rapport, 30.11.1995. 1930 hrs*

Aktuellt, 30.11.1995. 2100 hrs

Rapport, 01.12.1995. 1930 hrs*

Aktuellt, 10.12.1995. 1800 hrs

Rapport, 14.12.1995. 1930 hrs

Rapport, 15.12.1995. 1930 hrs

Aktuellt, 18.12.1995. 2100 hrs*

Rapport, 20.12.1995. 1930 hrs

Rapport, 20.12.1995. 2300 hrs