Recognition of soldiers in Nordic and the Baltic countries

Denne udgivelse er udgivet på engelsk i et samarbejde med vores nordiske samarbejdspartnere i NORDEFCO.

This report is published by Nordic Defence Cooperation, Working Group on Veteran Issues. 

In 2014, the NORDEFCO Working Group on Veteran Issus assigned a Focus group to attempt to clarify the concept of recognition. The mission given divided recognition within the terms of internal and external recognition:

1. Discuss and document all contributing nations programs for internal recognition. I.e. ceremonies, medals etc.
2. Discuss external recognition: i.e. «Support our troops», public recognition, translating military skills into civilian merits etc. This part shall also include one part debating public recognition: what is a both realistic and reasonable level in the Nordic and Baltic countries.

The Focus group was established during the NORDEFCO meeting in Tallinn in September 2014. Excluding Iceland, all Nordic and Baltic countries assigned members to the group. The result of the work was presented during the NORDEFCO Veteran Conference in Sweden on September 26, 2016.

Conclusions

The Focus group see the concept of Recognition as a diverse and multifaceted term. When addressing the term itself through the theoretical work of Axel Honneth, it can give a common language and understanding of how this important issue can be further developed within the NORDEFCO countries.

Our report could, hopefully, be a starting point for a further development of measures on recognising our troops.

This report was first published in June 2017 and does not follow the standards of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.