From Lessons to Strategic Choices: Implications for long-term defence planning (StratLess)

Strategic lessons guide long-term defence planning, shaping military doctrines, technological innovation, and procurement in preparation for future wars. The intention is to upend the traditional way of studying strategic lessons by taking a different starting point than the most common understandings. Rather than asking what lessons should be drawn from ongoing wars and technological developments, StratLess investigates how such lessons are drawn and how learning processes shape strategic choices and long-term defence planning. The aim to show how these processes shape strategic choices and ultimately long-term defence planning.

Together with the Swedish Defence University, we will zoom in on how Norway and Sweden and its alliances in NATO and EU navigate a complex relationship between military needs, industrial capacity, and emerging and disruptive technologies (EDTs). This is especially important in a world increasingly marked by great power rivalry, destabilization and the use of hybrid instruments. StratLess ultimately seeks to convey a non-linear, relational way of understanding strategic learning and choices and their implications for defence innovation and capability development.

By recognizing the interplay of doctrinal innovation, military imaginaries, and technological factors, we aim to offer reflective tools for the Norwegian Armed Forces and the defence sector to decipher what constitutes substantive strategic relevance for Norway from what merely reflects military technological ‘noise’ or hype. This will support militaries to ‘learn the right way’ in order to navigate an increasingly complex security landscape.

This project is financed by the Norwegian Ministry of Defence.