In November of 2024, The Department of Scandinavian Studies and the Jackson School of International Studies hosted Minna Ålander, an associate fellow in the Chatham House Europe Program, a non-resident fellow in the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis, and a senior fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum. Previously, she worked as a research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
Ålander visited several UW classrooms and gave public lectures at the UW and at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle. Ålander shared her latest research on international security in the Nordic-Baltic region, which examines acts of aggression that fall below the threshold for ‘war.’ Ålander and her research colleagues have termed such acts ‘hybrid warfare,’ and she examined recent cases of damaged data cables, dual-use properties, and prank phone calls. In addition to these public talks, Ålander also gave an interview on Episode 29 of the UW Scandinavian Studies podcast, Crossing North, which is available with a transcript.