Public Lecture: The Challenges of Defence Planning – Uncertainty and the Armed Forces

As part of a partnership with the French Institute and the French Embassy in Latvia, SSE Riga is honored to welcome Olivier Schmitt for a guest lecture on defense planning.

Olivier Schmitt is a Professor at the Center for War Studies, University of Southern Denmark, and a non-resident senior associate fellow at the NATO Defence College. His work focuses on alliance politics, military power, and geoeconomics.

Defence planning sits at the intersection of “downstream” political activities (related to key strategic decisions about foreign policy and the use of force) and “upstream” bureaucratic practices (related to forecasting, budgeting, training, etc.). It is also a point of encounter between civilian and military expertise about security policy and the armed forces. Because of these tensions, defence planning is an inherently challenging process with enormous stakes, since it involves the readiness of the armed forces and a country’s survival capabilities.

This talk will explore those tensions, and discuss the consequences of the current security situation for European defence planning capabilities.

Everyone is welcome to attend.