Protecting Populations: Military Officers Navigating Boundaries Between Soldiering and Policing
Journal: Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies
Year: 2026

This paper explores how military officers interpret responsibilities for protecting civilian populations in volatile environments. Drawing on qualitative interviews with Norwegian military officers, the study examines how officers invoke and contest security references to justify their roles at the intersection of soldiering and policing. Two opposing orientations emerge; one reinforces traditional security constructs to differentiate military and police roles, grounded in binaries including war