"Coordinating details can be harmful"

Hans Liwång is a new professor of Systems Science for Defence and Security, a subject at the nexus of technological development, defence and major societal issues. He believes in diversity and diversification to create robustness in critical infrastructure.

Systems Science for Defence and Security was established as a new subject at the Swedish Defence University in 2019, and Hans Liwång is the first to be appointed professor in the field.

"The unique thing is that we are interested in the interaction between technology and society, right where they meet within defence and security issues. There are many important societal challenges here, such as AI and developments in the space domain," says Hans Liwång.

The new position does not change much in everyday life, he believes. But as a professor for a new subject comes with a responsibility to represent it, while it is important to maintain a personal profile.

"I believe that balance is important, and difficult."

Challenges beneath the surface

Hans Liwång's research revolves around the relationship between defence and infrastructure, risk management, maritime affairs and maritime safety. The core of his interests is how the naval arena interacts with modern society, and defence and security is one area where this interaction occurs.

"Defence and security are important issues in relation to societal development. They are not important for their own sake, but in relation to other things we need to do," says Hans Liwång.

The marine arena poses different challenges for infrastructure than those on land. This can include, for example, cables for electricity or data traffic. Under the sea surface, it is easy to hide from potential hostile actors, partly because of the short range of sensors and difficulties in communication. Finding and stopping sabotage at sea is therefore extra resource-demanding. The same applies to accidents, which account for the majority of all disruptions.

"We need to understand the challenges better in order to be able to use the sea as a place for infrastructure," says Hans Liwång.

He began his career at the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration where he worked with military ships, such as the Visby corvette, where he was responsible for the signature adaptation. In 2015, he earned his PhD from Chalmers with a doctoral thesis on risk-based methods for ship and maritime security.

He also has a master's degree in engineering from KTH, and still works part-time there with marine systems.

Believes in diversity of solutions

The drone flights over Arlanda, the damages in the hull of the Estonia, patrol boats donated to Ukraine, and the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline are some of the topics Hans Liwång has been asked to comment on in the media in recent years.

The development of society has raised expectations of what the Swedish Defence University should deliver, he thinks.

"People no longer need to explain why they are dealing with defence and security issues, but suddenly it is considered to have intrinsic value. The Swedish Defence University has gone from being a small niche institution in the background to sometimes being seen as an institution that should solve all problems. This poses challenges in everyday work."

Swedish vital infrastructure is generally resilient, Hans Liwång believes. The fact that it is so varied benefits Sweden.

"The fact that there are different actors, technologies, places, makes the infrastructure robust and reduces the likelihood that it will be knocked out by an accident or by sabotage in war. At the same time, I think that we could diversify even more for the future."

At the national level, there is a lot of talk about coordinating and aligning, having a unified strategy for vital infrastructure. This is admittedly good when it comes to how the state should work with the issues in general. But that does not mean that technical solutions always have to be coordinated, points out Hans Liwång. It can counteract the imagination needed to achieve a diversity of solutions.

"If you coordinate in detail it can be harmful. It is important that others than those who have already thought also get to think, so that the solutions become robust," says Hans Liwång.

Important to evaluate future uncertainty

At the moment, Hans Liwång is working on an international and partly NATO-funded research project on the infrastructure of the future, HEIST. The purpose is to develop more durable ways of conducting telecommunications and data transfer, using already existing infrastructure on the seabed and in space.

The project involves cooperation between a handful of different international universities and disciplines, ranging from political scientists and lawyers to engineers and people who work with defence systems.

"People think that the technical question is the hardest to solve. But the hardest part is rather who has the right to make decisions. The function to send data traffic another way, where should it be placed?"

Another major area of interest for Hans Liwång is risk-based decision-making. He describes it as a way to find balanced solutions, where the core consists of examining the probabilities of something harmful happening and possible consequences of it, but also uncertainties in assessments about the future.

"A common flaw when we talk about societal development is that we look at the most recent crisis, such as a pandemic or war. With risk-based decision-making, you weigh knowledge from several events based on the same conditions, to avoid making quick decisions based on the latest crisis."

More about the Master's programme in Innovation, Defence and Security