Växande underrättelsebehov mot väst grund till central utveckling : En studie om svensk militär underrättelseverksamhets professionalisering och organisatoriska förändring mellan 1905 och 1918

Sammanfattning: The purpose of the study is to investigate and report on the origins and evolution of the Swedish intelligence organisation during the period 1905 to 1918. The study trail starts at the Swedish/Norwegian union crisis. According to Harald L. Wilensky's theories about intelligence organisations' ability to succeed primarily through professionalisation and centralisation, the security-policy situation during that crisis can be seen as a catalyst for the Swedish intelligence organisation's evolution. The study uses a qualitative text analysis with a hermeneutic approach. Through this method, an analysis of already written texts as well as new empirical data in the Swedish war archive in Stockholm has been made.The used material has been confronted to how the Swedish intelligence organisation has developed its interest and focus regarding information gathering and reporting, in order to meet its needs from Norway between the years 1905 to 1918.By addressing this issue, the study will show how collected image material evolved from being simply acquired material, to own produced photographs with detailed information, and that the initial deficit of mapping material of Norway was complemented and brought together with that same collected image material.The theoretical approach is confirmed through the reorganisation that takes place in 1908. When the Swedish intelligence agency is formed, the centralisation and professionalisation are, according to Wilensky, key to a successful intelligence organisation. This change, however, also comes with a great impact on how the Swedish military attachés report back to Sweden. Through the period 1905 to 1918, the Swedish military attaché reports are reshaped and over time, go from their bureaucratic structure towards the so-called handbrev[1]. This made it possible for the attachés to communicate in a more efficient and informal way with the Swedish foreign department at the General Staff, without the potentially wrong people gaining access to the material.This study has therefore broadened the previously existing perspective which is clearly Russia-oriented, to highlighting and accounting for how the Western threat from Norway made Sweden aware of the lack of intelligence that prevailed. The study shows that it was this growing need towards the West that caused the key evolution of intelligence. It thus clarifies a military-historical void within the Swedish intelligence organisation's emergence and evolution.  [1] In English called Hand letters