About my background

Ola Tunander

After my Swedish Master in the History of Economics, Human Geography, and History of Ideas and after my doctoral studies in the History of Technology and Society, I wrote my doctoral thesis in the 1980s on geopolitics, weapons technology, and the body language of states, specifically on “the US Maritime Strategy”. I was appointed Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in 1987 and became Senior Researcher after my Doctoral degree in 1989. I lectured at the US Naval schools and institutes and at Swedish and Norwegian military colleges. In the 1990s, I headed PRIO's department on Foreign and Security Policy. In 2000, I was appointed Research Professor.

In 2000-01, I was a civilian expert to the official inquiry into foreign submarine activity in Swedish waters in the 1980s. I wrote several books on these submarine operations, which became the basis for German, French and Swedish TV-documentaries (ZDF, ARTE, and SVT) broadcast in several European countries, also on the British History Channel.

I have had numerous articles published in international academic journals, including the Review of International Studies, Intelligence and National Security, Geopolitics, and Cooperation & Conflict. I peer-reviewed articles for such journals asInternational Security (Harvard University), RUSI-Journal (Royal United Services Institute), and Journal of International Studies (London School of Economics), to whose Advisory Board I was subsequently appointed. I was a Norwegian representative on the Board of the Nordic International Studies Association.

While at PRIO, I headed strategic research programs, projects of the Research Council of Norway, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Defense, Norwegian-Russian dialogue projects (funded by the Defense Ministry), and the Nordic-Chinese International Studies Institute Roundtables for peace research and international affairs. I participated as a European representative in trilateral talks between European, American, and Chinese scholars and diplomats, and I lectured on security policy and military issues at military and international relations conferences all over the world. In 2008, I was evaluated as qualified for the position of Research Director for the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).

I have written and edited 15 books in Swedish, Norwegian and English, on geopolitics, military strategy and European security, on submarines, deception and psychological operations (with a foreword by the Secretary General of the official Swedish Submarine Inquiry), on the Libya War (with a foreword by Norway’s former Chief of Military Intelligence), and on Nordic-Russian collaboration in the High North (with a foreword and chapter by former Norwegian ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense). I wrote a chapter on “Dual State: Democratic State versus Deep State”, which was the historical origin of the latter concept in the Western world, while the submarine deception operations, which I analyzed in several books, were most likely the origin of the today’s political culture of deception.

My books and book chapters have been published by British-American publishers such as Sage Publications, Frank Cass (Naval Policy and History Series), Berghahn Books, Westview Press, Ashgate, and Pluto Press. Some of these books have been on the reading list of military colleges and universities in several countries, including the US Naval War College and Oxford University. Having retired in 2016, I currently hold the position of Research Professor Emeritus.