60. Dr Tony Ingesson - On military sub-cultures and their impact on behaviour

My guest today in Dr Tony Ingesson, who is an Assistant Professor of Intelligence Analysis at the Department of Political Science at Lund University in Sweden. His current research interests are decision-making, organisational cultures and technological aspects related to intelligence and counterintelligence. For his PhD dissertation, Tony studied tactical decision-making in high-stress situations in several different military units conducting operations in wars ranging from WWII to the UN mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 90s.

He joins me today to discuss organisational culture, sub-cultures and their impact on group behaviour. Some of the topics we discussed are:

• Tony’s background and service in all three arms of the Swedish Armed Forces
• Conscription in Sweden
• Cultures within Armed Forces
• Defining ‘culture’ and its influence on behaviour
• Culture as a tool for management of ‘Stress’ and ‘Uncertainty’
• The role of symbols and tradition
• Nordbat 2 in Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Swedish ‘Mission Command’ and its origin
• Reality of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Nordbat 2 in combat despite restrictive UN Rules Of Engagement
• Swedish high-trust culture and its impact on the Swedish Armed Forces
• Training against bias in intelligence analysis
• Why members of a military are not ‘professionals’
• Exploring whether we are asking too much from our soldiers

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