Markus Göransson
Senior Lecturer
- Markus.Goransson@fhs.se
- +46 8-55342851
- Department of War Studies
- Land Operations Division
- War Studies
About Markus
- Engelsk beskrivning om dig själv
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I am a Senior Lecturer in War Studies at the Swedish Defence University and hold a PhD in International Politics from Aberystwyth University. My research focuses on military affairs in Soviet and post-Soviet Eurasia, including Russian/Soviet military debates, military culture and ground tactics. Since 2025, I am conducting a research project part-time at Södertörn University together with Associate Professor Piotr Wawrzeniuk about Ukrainian military culture, financed by the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies.
Prior to working at the Swedish Defence University, I completed a postdoc at the Stockholm School of Economics in 2017-2018, researching Syrian war refugees in Lebanon and their use of cell phones in their livelihood strategies. My PhD thesis, defended in 2016, concerned Soviet-Afghan War veterans in Tajikistan and their emergence as a social and political collective in the 1980s. It was runner up for the British International Studies Association’s prize for best doctoral thesis in international studies in the UK in that year.
I have published on Soviet-Afghan War veterans, Russian military discourse, Syrian war refugees in Lebanon and fieldwork methods in post-conflict research contexts. Much of my research is interview-based and has been undertaken in post-conflict and otherwise fragile contexts, including the Philippines, Burundi, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Lebanon. I have also done research on Soviet-Afghan War veterans in Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia. I have an MA in Conflict Studies and Human Rights from Utrecht University (cum laude) and a BA Hons. in Modern History from the University of Oxford.
Latest publications
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Russia’s thinking on new wars and its full-scale invasion of UkrainePart of Defence Studies
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Soviet-Afghan War Veterans as Violent Specialists amidst State Disintegration and Civil War in Tajikistan, 1990–1992Part of Journal of Slavic Military Studies
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A Strategy of Limited Actions : Russia’s Ground-based Forces in SyriaPart of Advanced Land Warfare : Tactics and Operations
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Peace pacts and contentious politics: The Chico River Dam struggle in the Philippines, 1974–82Part of Journal of Southeast Asian Studies