Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen

Knowledge of languages

English
German
Scandinavian Languages 

Teaching

My offie hours for students are Mondays 9-10. Not during holidays and only during term

Current research

What if the military was a business? Military strategy normally deals with winning a campaign, but seldom deals with the organisation and costs of the military organisation itself. In a time of austerity that question is more relevant than ever. Taking my point of departure in American and British examples my research projects deals with what strategic studies can learn from business studies

Primary fields of research

Strategy is something you do; and doing strategy is increasingly a challenge in and of itself for those politicians, officials and military officers tasked with strategizing.

Based on my recent concrete experiences with the challenges in strategizing and utilising business theories of strategy, this project will analyse the current problem of strategy and seek to enable more coherent and effective strategizing.

The projects aim to have a high impact in terms of academic publication as well as in policy terms. I will use my experience and expertise to engage policy-makers and shape ideas and innovate policy on the basis of my findings. This engagement will include writing op-eds, using social media and be available to interviews etc. in electronic media.

Strategic Leadership: Design and Decisions

This work package focuses on the crisis of strategic leadership in Western national security and explains the rise of design strategy as attempt to address this crisis. I will have a special focus on military affairs, with a point of departure in the US military. The point of departure will be the understanding that strategic leadership in national security, particularly in defence, can benefit from insights gained from the study of strategic leadership in business. As such, this work package engages the recent trend of merging insights business and military strategy.

Strategizing by Numbers: Metrics and Management

The NATO countries commitment to spending two percent of GNP on defence and twenty percent of the defence budget on procurement is framing the debate on the European allies ability to address current security challenges and risks, including Russia, and has become the centre for the traditional burden sharing debate between the United States and Europe. This work package will analyse how such metrics shape the notions of what is an adequate defence posture arguing that it reinforces entrenched ways of conceptualising military force. Instead of being a yardstick of defence reform, the two percent commitment becomes an argument for ring-fencing existing structures and procurement patterns. This work package engages with the literature on evaluation and management by metrics arguing that insights from how metrics is used in public governance in general can fruitfully be used for the study of military/security governance.

The History of Global Strategy: Scenarios and Security

Global warming, the rise of China, Russian resurgence and a number of other trends are defining security discourse. The future is present in a security discourse that focuses on scenarios for how trends become threats. This work package will trace how this way of thinking was born in the beginning of the twentieth century when an increase in global interconnectedness and technological development made strategizing about what might be the result of these developments. At that time the concern was the rise of Russia, Germany and the United States, and the telegraph, the railway and rapid industrialisation were the driving force between the concerns in the London and Paris of how the balance of power was shifting. It is the concern with these shifts in power and the strategies developed to deal with them which is the focus of this project as it tracks the history of global strategy. This work package will give a conceptual and historical perspective to current debates about scenarios and security placing these debates on a more coherent theoretical footing as well as using a historical perceptive to address the more alarmist scenarios.

Strategizing Europe and the High North

The resurgence of Russian power has put a number of changes in the security landscape of Northern Europe and the High North into focus. This work package will use insight from the other work packages to a number of specific, policy-studies of challenges and opportunities for European and Danish security strategy. A particular focus will be deterrence in the Baltic and developments in the Arctic.

CV

LinkedIn Profil
Twitter: @mikkelvedby

He was born in 1973 in Gentofte, Denmark, and he lives in Copenhagen with his wife and their three children.

From 2014-15 Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen was the head of the Strategy and Policy Office in the Danish Ministry of Defence. As such, Professor Rasmussen’s task was to advice the Ministry’s leadership on strategic issues and he is responsible for developing policy initiatives. He is also responsible for a number of network and out-reach activities. From 2009 to 2014 Professor Rasmussen was the director of the Centre for Military Studies. During this time the Centre became the number 20 Global Go-To Think Tank on National Security and Defence according to the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2015, Professor Rasmussen published The Military's Business with Cambridge University Press. In 2011 he published a book on Denmark’s engagement in the ISAF-operation in Afghanistan. He has published on security and strategy, for example The Risk Society at War (Cambridge University Press, 2006)  as well on patterns of peace-making, for example The West, Civil Society and the Construction of Peace (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).

In 2012, Professor Rasmussen was lead-author on an analysis of strategic choices for Danish defence policy written at the request of the political parties behind the Defence Bill 2010-15. In 2011-12 Professor Rasmussen was a member of a government committee that produced a white book on the future of conscription in Denmark. He was a member the Danish Defence Commission of 2008 and he was a co-writer of the Danish white paper on defence in 2004. In 2007-8 he was part of a Ministry of Defence commission on emergency services. He has given testimony to the foreign affairs and defence committees at the Danish Parliament. Furthermore, in 2007 the Norwegian Foreign Ministry asked him to write a position paper on the future of foreign policy. In 2009, Professor Rasmussen gave a presentation to the NATO military committee and briefed the NATO Secretary General.

Professor Rasmussen has published extensively in peer reviewed journals as well as published policy papers and given advise to the Danish Ministry of Defence as well as other foreign policy and military institutions. He has published on Denmark’s procurement of fighter aircraft, on the Danish defence posture in the Arctic, strategic adaptation in Afghanistan, NATO issues as well as risk management and strategy.

Professor Rasmussen has taught classes at the University of Copenhagen and the Royal Danish Defence College. Since 2009 he has, together with his colleague Henrik Breitenbauch, taught a summer school on Danish Defence Policy and Strategic Studies. He has recently lectured at, for example, Chatham House, the Baltic Defence College, the Norwegian Air War College, Norwegian Institute for International Affairs, St. Andrews University, the Finish National Defence University, London School of Economics and the NATO Defence College.

Professor Rasmussen writes a column in the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende and is often used as a commentator in the Danish media.

From 2006 to 2009 Professor Rasmussen was the Head of the Danish Institute for Military Studies, while on leave from his position at the University of Copenhagen. Previously, he worked at the Danish Institute for International Affairs as a Project Director for a large MoD funded project on defence and security issues. He is an Adjunct Professor of the Baltic Defence College and member of the board of the Danish Foreign Policy Society. He is listed in the Danish Who is Who (Karks Blå Bog).

Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen got his Ph.D. from the University of Copenhagen and holds an MSc in Political Science from that university as well as an MSc in Dr. Rasmussen has published widely on strategic issues of international relations.