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CV

Cell # +45 608 70 608

Director, Centre for Military Studies, Department of Political Science since 2015. 

Senior Researcher, Centre for Military Studies, Department of Political Science since 2010. Senior Nonresident Fellow, Atlantic Council, Washington, D.C. since 2014. Nonresident Fellow, Center for Transatlantic Relations (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University since 2014.

Deputy Head of Institute ad interim, Senior Researcher, and Researcher at the Danish Institute for Military Studies (2006-2010). In 2008 on loan to Defence Command Denmark; from there sent as voluntary national contribution to NATO's Allied Command Transformation. Served here as lead writer at the Command's Multiple Futures Project, a futures study serving as basis for the Alliance's long-term defence planning. Before this, he worked for the Danish Institute for International Studies' Department for Defence and Security Studies, and was graduate student and Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. 

Guest researcher Centre européen de sociologie et de science politique (CESSP), Université Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne (2014-2015), Resident Fellow, Center for Transatlantic Relations, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University (2014), Visiting Research Fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies (2002-2003) and auditeur libre at Science Po's Ecole doctorale (2003-2004).

Has briefed NATO's Secretary General and in the Pentagon (J5) among others; organised workshops at the highest international level including long-term defence planning workshop with 19 participating nations for NATO Allied Command Transformation (Strategic Foresight Analysis and Framework for Future Allied Operations) in Copenhagen (February 2012), to speech writing for General James Mattis, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation; spoken at IISS (London), RUSI (London), Atlantic Council US (Washington, DC), NATO Defence College (Rom), Baltic Defence College (Tartu, Estland), Royal Danish Defence College (Copenhagen), CJEX/Combined Joint Exercise (Defence Command Denmark), Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University (Providence, RI), Master of Disaster Management (University of Copenhagen), and participated in expert hearings for the Defence Commission in the Danish Parliament.

Co-founded and co-ran Nyhedsmagasinet Ræson (2001-2005); blogged profligately on international politics at Draconian Observations (2005-2008); contributed to running and shaping the Danish Institute for Military Studies (2006-2010). 

PhD in Political Science (International Relations) from the University of Copenhagen, MA in European Studies from Aarhus University and graduated from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences-Po) with a Cycle Internationale d'Etudes Politiques, Section Internationale (CIEP/SI).

Primary fields of research

Researcher and policy analyst with a track record of international and domestic agenda setting in defence and security, strategy processes, national security and defence planning as well as strategic foresight and futures studies. Extensive experience with political and strategic analysis, policy development, policy formulation and quality control in a timely manner. Wide exposure to electronic and print media as expert commentator.

STRATEGY AND POLICY DEVELOPMENT

Strategy is my primary research focus. From a political science perspective strategy is seen as a particular field of practice evolving around knowledge about the conditions for and characteristics of the use of armed force, including how political decisions are and ought to be taken, optimised and evaluated. I have a special interest in how policy is developed (from concrete initiatives to general ambitions and motives) by central actors, such as the US, the UN and European actors; the security dimension of the North-South relationship in international politics; and the strategic and security challenges facing Denmark, NATO, and the EU.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC PRACTICES

My secondary research focus is the discipline of International Relations (IR) from a sociology-of-science perspective with both comparative and historical dimensions.  What particularly interests me here is the French and the transnational-American IR disciplines and their history and formal, content related and institutional development; the emergence and development of the social sciences from other knowledge domains and non-scientific discourses; and finally form related aspects of social scientific practice as an analytical approach to the sociology of science. Common to the two foci is state-building as historical and contemporary process in terms of both institutions and thought forms.

EXPERT SUBJECTS

- Danish defence policy in an international context
- The convergence of security and development
- Complex operations in current conflicts
- Strategy and processes of strategy, including national security strategies
- The theoretical, conceptual and institutional history of strategy

Current research

Thanks to generous support from the Gerda Henkel Stiftung and the Carlsberg Foundation, my current larger research project concerns national security strategies and security strategies on which I prepare a monograph as well as an anthology.

A grant from the Danish Research Council’s International Network Programme supports my research network programme on Brazil’s emerging approach to stabilisation.

In April 2015, a Danish language monograph on the evolving Danish and international agenda on stabilisation in global conflicts was published ("Uendelig krig? Danmark, samtænkning og stabilisering af globale konflikter, editor Dansk Jurist og Økonomforbunds Forlag).

Knowledge of languages