Journal on Baltic Security

The development of capabilities for national defence among land forces in the Baltic region underscores the need for mission command as a guiding principle of leadership and command. However, the practice of mission command in the contemporary military context is far from straightforward. This article presents the results of a survey conducted with Swedish Army officers, examining their perspectives on positive as well as negative influences on their ability to utilize mission in their contemporary working environment. While mission command is envisioned to become increasingly important in the future, several obstacles are identified to its utilization and development.

The article discusses the idea of comprehensive national defence from a wide historical and geographical perspective. Countries facing different security challenges have used the concept of involving the entire society in state defence. From a historical perspective, ‘total defence’, with an emphasis on military components, was used primarily by non-aligned states during the Cold War; the breakdown of the Soviet Union reduced the importance of ‘total defence’; however, the emergence of hybrid threats in the 21st century has contributed to the rebirth of the concept in the form of ‘comprehensive national defence’, for application in circumstances wherein potential adversaries use military and non-military means in an integrated manner.

This article first traces the origin of hybrid warfare and the label game surrounding the concept, asking