Publications
Sahel – The Perfect Storm
The Sahel is the borderland of 3 million square kilometres between the Sahara Desert and the African savannah and forest lands further south. Much of this huge area is inhospitable. Insurgencies are common, as are migration and smuggling, jobs being as rare here as effective government intervention–state power extends only fitfully, and the region resists attempts to subdue militants, people-traffickers, nomadic herders or anyone excluded from power. The Western Sahel’s fragile states face growing popular discontent, complicated by both climate change and military intervention by France and other powers. Mali is the epicentre of the Sahel crisis: Morten Bøås charts the history of Mali and its fragile neighbours, identifying their current frailty as unsettled states, without legitimate social contracts or political consensus. This in turn has generated competing identities and economic interests, which spill over into resource conflicts over grazing, water, mineral reserves or smuggling routes. Such local contests have been manipulated by elites intent on their own preservation, and appropriated by jihadi insurgents eager to integrate into local communities. What will happen if all the ingredients of this perfect storm coalesce? What are the ramifications for the Sahel, its neighbours, Europe and the wider world?
Resilience, Peacebuilding, and Preventing Violent Extremism
This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the complex drivers of violent extremism, along with recommendations for strengthening social and institutional resilience through peacebuilding and development efforts.
Converging Global Norms and Institutional Policies with Bottom-Up Approaches to the Protection of Civilians
The participation of the United Nations (UN) and the African Union (AU) in the protection of civilians (PoC) has shown that their respective experiences have evolved and helped to support the ideals of PoC. PoC is considered a key indicator to the success of the UN mission, and the concept has grown in relevance across activities of the UN. Equally, over the last two decades, the AU Peace and Security Council has increasingly mandated and deployed Peace Support Operations (psos) to prevent and respond to human security threats and mass atrocities on the African continent. However, the existence of Ad hoc Security Initiatives (asis) and Enterprise Security Arrangements (esas) that are swifter at deploying to areas of insecurity allows affected states to use forces within and across their borders to attempt to deal rapidly with protection concerns. The use of asis and esas for protection concerns differs from large UN and AU operations, which rely on a clear mandate, policy, guidance, and principles developed from built-up experience. The article explores the nature and use of asis and esas and asks whether these new operations can provide better civilian protection outcomes. It explores how asis and esas can adopt PoC guidelines from the AU to allow for better protection and PoC in the specific environments where asis and esas operate. Finally, the article proposes ways asis and esas can integrate the AU PoC policy into their operations.
Europe must take responsibility in Ukraine
US efforts to mediate negotiations between Russia and Ukraine have stalled. Russia has reiterated its unrealistic demands and rejected the ceasefire proposed by Ukraine and the United States. With Donald Trump unwilling to exert pressure on Moscow, the process has effectively collapsed. Europe must now assume a leadership role in shaping a coherent strategy to counter Russian expansionism. This strategy must ensure not only that Ukraine does not lose the war, but that it succeeds in defending the security, political stability, and future development of the entire European continent. Ukraine cannot be expected to shoulder this burden alone – a shared destiny binds Europe and Ukraine together.
Securing the Frontlines: Experimentalist Governance for Critical Maritime Infrastructure in the Black Sea and North Sea
The proliferation of hybrid threats challenges both national security and the institutional foundations of governance. Nowhere is this tension more acute than in the maritime domain, where critical infrastructure such as undersea cables, offshore energy platforms, and subsea pipelines have become both economic lifelines and geopolitical fault lines. These infrastructures are increasingly exposed to hybrid operations designed to exploit legal ambiguity, attribution challenges, and the seams between civil, military, and private actors. Traditional security governance models premised on clear jurisdictional boundaries, centralized command structures, and rigid doctrinal templates, struggle to account for weaponized ambiguity and threats operating below thresholds of open conflicts. As sub-threshold threats continue to evolve and be refined, they reveal deep structural limitations in existing institutional responses, including sectoral silos, information-sharing deficits, and accountability systems illsuited for dynamic crisis environments. This paper explores the need for more adaptive governance frameworks capable of managing the uncertainty, complexity, and cross-sectoral interdependence that define today’s hybrid threat landscape. Specifically, it examines how experimentalist governance (EG) offers a promising architecture for coordinating the defense of critical maritime infrastructure (CMI) in the face of hybrid aggression. The paper analyzes two distinct cases: Norway, with its mature institutional capacity, dense subsea infrastructure, and strong integration with NATO and EU partners; and Romania, situated at the Black Sea frontier, where emerging offshore energy projects intersect with a fluid and contested security environment.
Hybrid Frontlines: Russian Threats and the Future of Maritime Infrastructure in the Black Sea and the North Sea
This study analyzes the risks facing critical maritime infrastructure in two regions essential to European energy security: the Black Sea and the North Sea. The study highlights how the Russian Federation employs hybrid tactics — ranging from sabotage and cyberattacks to influence operations — to advance its geopolitical interests, undermining the stability and security of undersea energy and communication infrastructure. This comparative research examines the responses of Romania and Norway — two NATO member states on the frontlines of this strategic competition — and offers concrete policy recommendations for strengthening the resilience of critical maritime infrastructure. The study is part of the Strategic Initiative for Defending Critical Maritime Infrastructure (SIDMI) project conducted jointly by the New Strategy Center and Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.
The World According to Military Targeting
A revealing account of the prevalence—and alarming ubiquity—of military targeting, and how it has become a self-propelling worldview driven by dominance, violence, and power. The World According to Military Targeting engages directly with our grave world condition, asking how we ended up in a “closed world” made for military targeting by military targeting. In this book, NUPI researcher Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud explores how the operational logics and seductive forces of targeting produce a world in which the only ways to think about politics and security is through military supremacy, endless war, and global domination, with serious implications for social and political life. Offering a critical investigation of military targeting through the lenses of its historical formation, current operations, and future implications, the author presents an innovative investigation into targeting’s radical knowledge production, how it abstracts and brings into being new worlds, and the violence and destructive effects it generates. Through an interdisciplinary lens, the book draws attention to military doctrine and methodologies; statistical thought and practice; the mathematical and computational techniques of data production, processing, and modeling; and the so-called machine-learning algorithms and AI of today. The resulting narrative provides novel insights into how imagining the world, producing the world, and operationalizing the world are always wrapped up in each other and profoundly embedded in sociotechnical systems.
Norwegian Russia policy in times of war: Hidden but unavoidable dilemmas
This chapter is a part of the book 'Dilemmaer i norsk utenrikspolitikk'. The book is in Norwegian only.
Governing nature and the making of world order
How have efforts to govern nature and address urgent global environmental challenges shaped, transformed or undermined processes of world ordering? Chapters in this book explore how efforts to govern nature have transformed – or are transforming – how we understand and practice world politics. Bringing together a team of contributors from around the world, the book traces this inquiry across diverse international policy fields, from security and peacebuilding through science cooperation and governing ecosystems to the politics of economic growth. Taken together, the book offers a conceptually ambitious and empirically grounded account of how the governance of nature and the making of world order intertwine and calls for a research agenda to attend to the growing impact of this interrelationship.
Storbritannias Strategic Defence Review 2025
Storbritannias Strategic Defence Review 2025 (SDR25) er en del av en gradvis prosess hvor øystaten knytter seg sterkere tilbake til Europa igjen. Etter Brexit satset Storbritannia på en global rolle med strategien «Globale Storbritannia», særlig rettet mot Asia-Stillehavet. Etter Russlands invasjon av Ukraina i 2022 endret fokuset seg mot europeisk sikkerhet. Den nye strategien SDR25, lansert i 2025, styrker både militær og sivil beredskap, med vekt på modernisering, teknologi og samarbeid i NATO. Storbritannia planlegger å øke forsvarsbudsjettet til 2,5 prosent av BNP, men møter press for å gjøre mer. Samtidig opprettholdes global tilstedeværelse, blant annet gjennom militæroperasjoner i Stillehavet.