Researcher
Karsten Friis
Contactinfo and files
Summary
Dr. Karsten Friis is a Research Professor in NUPIs Research group on security and defence.
His research area is security and defense policies in Europe, with an emphasis on NATO, the Nordic region, the Arctic, transatlantic relations, intelligence, cyber security and the Western Balkans. He has published and led several major projects on these topics. Friis is also a frequently used commentator in the public discourse - not least in relation to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Friis is a political scientist with a PhD from the University of Groningen, a Cand. Polit from the University of Oslo and an MSc from the London School of Economics. Friis has been associated with NUPI since 2007. Before that, he was a political adviser to the OSCE Mission to Serbia (2004 to 2007), the OSCE in Montenegro (2001) and in Kosovo (1999). Friis was also part of the EU's negotiating team for the referendum on independence in Montenegro in 2006. In addition, Friis has worked for several years in the Norwegian Armed Forces and served at NATO/KFOR in Kosovo.
Expertise
Education
2018 PhD, University of Groningen
1998 Cand Polit, Political Science, University of Oslo
1995 Master, International Relations, London School of Economics
Work Experience
2007- Senior Research Fellow/Senior Advisor/Advisor, NUPI
2004-2007 Political advisor for OSCE, Serbia/Montenegro
2001-2004 Advisor, the Norwegian Armed Forces
2000-2001 Political advisor, OSCE, Montenegro
1999-2000 Analyst/E-off, NATO/KFOR HQ, Kosovo
1999 OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission
Aktivitet
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Lunch seminar: Peace, war and alliances in cyberspace
What are cyberspace operations? In what ways is conflict in this “domain” different from conflict in physical domain? And how do cyberspace operations relate to information warfare, what are the similarities and differences?
Ten Years On: Reassessing the Stoltenberg Report on Nordic Cooperation
Ten years ago, the report ‘Nordic cooperation on foreign and security policy’ was presented to the Nordic foreign ministers at an extraordinary meeting in Oslo, Norway. Penned and fronted by Norway’s former foreign minister Thorvald Stoltenberg, the report proposed thirteen ways in which Nordic cooperation in the foreign and security domain could be formalized and strengthened. Generally well-received in the Nordic capitals, today, the report is regularly referred to in assessments of Nordic foreign and security cooperation, or when Nordic heads of government meet in public to discuss past and future accomplishments.
Tre trender som utfordrer norsk utenrikspolitikk
(Available in Norwegian only): Denne policy briefen tar utgangspunkt i tre globale trender, og gir en analyse og vurderinger av hva trendene innebærer av utfordringer og muligheter for norsk utenrikspolitikk i tiden fremover: 1. Nye stormakter vokser frem. 2. Migrasjon brer om seg. 3. Utenrikspolitikk blir innenrikspolitikk.
Blikket i glasskulen: NATO de neste 70 år
What is the likely future of NATO? Will the alliance survive the next seventy years? Which challenges will it have to deal with? This article gazes into the future and attempts to identify some plausible scenarios for the years ahead. I argue that NATO will persist, but that is relevance is dependent on its adaptability to emerging challenges. Furthermore, the foundational values and the solidarity must be thriving. If not, NATO will be but a paper tiger. In the short term, the strains across the Atlantic is the most worrying tendency. However, climate change, migration and the digital revolution of our societies are long-term trends that eventually will challenge NATO more profoundly.
Breakfast seminar: Cyber threats and what to do about them?
Michael Sulmeyer, Director for Belfer Center's Cyber Project, is visiting NUPI to discuss cyber security and international politics.
Digital sovereignty and autonomy (GAIA)
NUPI in collaboration with Simula Research Lab will map global data flows and their impact on national autonomy and sovereignty....
Å gjøre ingenting er uansvarlig
Regjeringen la i høst frem et forslag til ny lov for Etterretningstjenesten ut på høring. Det viktigste i lovforslaget er det som tidligere har vært omtalt som et «digitalt grenseforsvar», men som i lovforslaget har fått den langt mer presise beskrivelsen «tilrettelagt tilgang til grenseoverskridende elektronisk kommunikasjon». Det handler kort fortalt om at Etterretningstjenesten skal få større tilgang til det digitale rom. Primært vil dette handle om å gjøre forhåndsgodkjente søk i datatrafikken som krysser landets grenser – for å kunne fange opp avanserte dataangrep eller terrorplanlegging. Nupi har nylig sendt inn en høringsuttalelse basert på vår forskning på cybersikkerhet og internasjonal sikkerhetspolitikk.
Chinese cyber security and consequences for Europe
Chinese tech giants are increasingly visible and established in the European market. Are we ready for all that this implies?
Critical Digital Infrastructures (KRIDI)
Protecting critical infrastructures from digital threats is a key challenge for modern states, how should the state approach and make sense of the security of privately owned infrastructures?...
Military-Civilian Relations in Interventions
It is frequently claimed that success in interventions hinges largely on military–civilian coherence. Nevertheless, despite high ambitions, coherence among intervening actors has proven challenging to achieve in practice. Why is this so? The thesis asks: How can we theorize and analyse the challenges facing intervening actors to achieve military–civilian coherence in post-Cold War interventions? The thesis firstly develops a holistic understanding of the various actors present in an intervention and their inter-relationships – and offers a taxonomy of various forms of relationships between them. It then focusses on the military actors and discusses how they differ significantly from conventional peacekeeping to robust counter-insurgencies. The thesis then discusses the relations between military and humanitarian actors. Based on the first chapters it is thereafter argued that there is a need for a comprehensive analytical framework to make deductive analyses of interventions possible. It argues that by studying the identification processes of the intervening actors, insights into how they regard their role and how they regard the other actors, international as well as local, can be generated. This analytical framework is then applied to the case of Afghanistan to analyse the identities of three sets of actors – the military, the humanitarians and the state-builders, finding that the three entities appeared largely ignorant of each other, operating in parallel but not in conjunction. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the applicability of the analytical framework on other cases and with other research questions.