Based on narratives from Swedish officers' experiences from challenging situations, the article investigates the role of experience-based knowledge in military practice. Officers must be prepared to act in situations in which they do not have full control, make decisions under uncertain circumstances, and master tasks with conflicting rules, objectives, and means. These conditions apply in an overseas warfare environment, and also back home. The officers' ability to adequately interpret phenomena in a given situation includes a variety of inarticulable knowledge. The aim of this article is to examine two aspects of military practice: (I) what role experience plays when handling challenging situations, and (II) how different kinds of knowledge are active in forming a professional skill. Using a set of epistemological concepts (phronesis, knowledge of familiarity, skill acquisition model), the article presents an analytical framework that focuses on experience-based forms of knowledge. The results show that experience-based aspects of knowledge which are crucial in military practice run the risk of not being discussed, because established methods and research traditions are focusing on measurable forms of knowledge. Finally, the article discusses the risk of de-professionalization due to unilateral use of monitoring and evaluation methods that primarily focus on forms of knowledge that can be calculated and expressed explicitly.

See also Agrell (2013), describing Sweden's involvement in the Afghanistan mission as sort of sliding into "a war that just happened" that "the interventions were meant to stabilise and normalise." This was not what happened, however; rather, "the interventions brought about armed conflicts" and "stabilisation led to chaos " (p. 318)

In Swedish military policy, the concept of kompetens (competence) describes the skills and capability of military personnel. Furthermore, “competence-in-use,” a multidimensional conceptual tool, has been used for decades in Swedish military instruction and training without having ever been empirically proven. In this pilot study, designed as an exploratory case study, we will try to connect theory to practice by examining the actual situations in which military competence is used. This article has two aims: First, to examine the relevance of the concept of competence-in-use in Swedish military practice abroad, and second, to combine and evaluate two methods in an exploratory case study. To capture firsthand experiences of real combat situations, we selected a sample of 28 firsthand narratives from Swedish service members. Our mapping identifies the blurred transition between combat and noncombat situations. By way of conclusion, we suggest that our analysis tool is further tested, for example, in comparative studies between nations.

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What characterises the development and social transformation of the military profession in Scandinavia? Has the broadening of tasks, function and scope of the military profession lead to changes in the values, outlook and behaviour of groups of the armed forces? And what kind of changes are the cultural and structural interpenetration of civilian and military spheres, including hybrid forms of professionalism, generating and what are the significance and implications of such changes? Transformations of the Military Profession and Professionalism in Scandinavia brings together a number of expert scholars within Military Studies and related fields to provide timely and updated answers to these highly important questions – answers with potential implications far beyond the Scandinavian case.