Svenska cybersoldater och traditionella krigarideal

Sammanfattning: There is a scholarly debate regarding in what ways traditional martial values are relevant for contemporary, technological military trades that in various aspects are different from traditional military professions. Some scholars argue that certain martial virtues and values, e.g. courage, loyalty, strength, and honour, occur in most military organisations and societies regardless of historical and cultural context. Others argue that as the characteristics of military operations change, so does what skills and virtues that are held desirable for soldiers. The purpose of this thesis was to contribute with insights on how Swedish cyber soldiers are represented in relation to traditional martial values within a Swedish context. This was achieved by conducting a qualitative text analysis using ideal types, reviewing material from the Swedish Armed Forces as well as Swedish newspapers. The main analytical results were that traditional martial values are only reflected to a limited extent in repre- sentations of Swedish cyber soldiers. The cyber soldiers were not explicitly portrayed as courageous, loyal, strong, nor honourable. Instead, they were primarily depicted as intelligent keyboard-warriors that are proficient in IT, which has little relation to traditional martial values.