Co-ordinators: Irina Goldenberg, Ph. D. & Joakim Berndtsson, Ph. D.
About
Defence workforces are complex, comprising regular force military members, reservists, defence civil servants, and contractors working for private military and security companies. These groups of personnel are employed towards the same overarching goals related to national and international security, and are often highly integrated in the performance of their complementary functions. At the same time, despite the often-high levels of partnership and integration, these groups of personnel are governed by different personnel management systems, and have distinct cultures. These factors affect their integration, the nature and quality of their collaboration, and ultimately influence personnel outcomes and organisational and operational effectiveness. Defence organizations around the world are increasingly recognizing the importance of optimizing the intragroup employment, as well as the intergroup integration, of these groups of defence personnel, with many adopting organizational terms implying that these sub-workforces form a cohesive whole [select examples include, the Defence Team (Canada), the Whole Force Concept (United Kingdom), One Defence Team (Sweden), Total Defence Workforce (New Zealand), Total Force Concept (United States), and the Adaptable Force (Netherlands)].
Given the evolving security landscape affecting the nature of military and security operations, resources, and driving the push towards adopting or developing integrative, whole-of-society approaches, the Working Group (WG) will focus on the key considerations related to total defence workforces. Since most research has traditionally focused on regular force military personnel, gaps in research on personnel in the other components – that is, research focused on reservists, defence civilians, and contractors, will be a central focus of this WG. A multidisciplinary approach, including quantitative and qualitative methods, will be adopted. Key questions include: What is the right mix of these groups in delivering on the defence mandate? In what roles? How should they be optimally employed and integrated into a cohesive whole to meet the defence mandate? What is the role of culture, identity, and other relational issues in facilitating optimal whole force integration and wider military-society relations? What are the main personnel management factors affecting these workforces in defence organizations? Overall, what are the challenges and enablers both within and between these components, including both intergroup and intragroup topics? What are the best practices, strategies, programmes and policies for effective management related to Total Defence Forces?
Current Projects
Reserves at the Ready: Transforming Total Defence Forces in War and Peace
Edited volume titled Reserves at the Ready: Transforming Total Defence Forces in War and Peace (working title), which will include an authors’ workshop, to be held in Kingston, Canada, in the July 2026 timeframe.
The book will be published in the Springer Military and Society series: https://link.springer.com/series/17399
Project Description:
Reserve forces are increasingly seen as vital for strengthening national defence, contributing to personnel-intensive responses to national and international crises, as well as reinforcing the links between defence institutions and the wider society. As states seek to adapt their defence policies and practices to new and emerging security challenges, questions about the organization, role and mandate of reserves take on a new sense of urgency and relevance. The aim of this book is to contribute to our understanding of reserve force models, in relation to the organization and development of Total Defence Forces and inform reserve force generation and employment in the NATO context. We are interested in the prospects and challenges of reserve forces within defence and security, as well as the role of reserves for military-society relations.
In addition to introducing different and evolving reserve force models, this edited volume will showcase country case studies that serve to illustrate why and how these models have emerged (e.g. part-time service, home guard, operational reserve, conscription based). Beyond NATO cases, we explore other models that have informed NATO policy discussions on reserve forces, before ending with a conclusion that summarizes key findings and proposes recommendations for the Alliance and its member states. Key questions include:
- What are the main characteristics of the featured reserve force model(s), how have these been developed, and what is their relationship to regular armed forces and wider society?
- What are the main institutional mechanisms by which these reserve forces are generated and employed?
- What are the benefits and challenges of the reserve force model(s), from a national perspective and from a NATO perspective (e.g. capacity, capability, flexibility, cost effectiveness, political dynamics, policy and legislative issues, etc)?
- What are the anticipated effects for optimal reserve force employment in relation to these risks and challenges (readiness, interoperability, societal resilience, etc)?
Events
Modern Military Professionalism – Total Defence, Crisis Management and Collaboration in a New Strategic Context Conference
Swedish Center for Studies of Armed Forces and Society (CSMS) are – in collaboration with the Swedish Armed Forces (HKV, LEDS, INRI) – hosting a conference at Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden. June 14-15 2022
Defence Forces in the 21st Century Workshop
6-7 May 2021 – International Workshop on Total Defence Workforces (Virtual)
Book Launch Chateau Laurier – 17 April 2024, Ottawa Ontario
Book launch – Centre for International Defence Policy (CIDP), Queen’s University, Kingston Ontario Canada – 18 April 2024
NATO Science and Technology Human Factors and Medicine Panel Research Workshop on Reserves (NATO STO HFM)
NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium
27-29 January 2025
Canadian Defence and Security Network Year Ahead Conference
9 December 2025, Ottawa, Canada
Select Publications
BERNDTSSON, J., GOLDENBERG, I., & VON HLATKY, S., Total defence forces in the 21st century, McGill-Queens University Press. 2023. https://www.mqup.ca/Books/T/Total-Defence-Forces-in-the-Twenty-First-Century2
GOLDENBERG, I., Febbraro, A., & Dean, W.H. The Defence Team: Military and civilian partnership in the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence, 2015, 177-202. https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2023/mdn-dnd/D2-352-1-2015-eng.pdf
Victor Tillberg, L., BERNDTSSON, J. and Tillberg, P. (2025) ‘Navigating Collaboration: Understanding Civil-Military Interactions in Swedish Total Defence From a Security Network Perspective’, Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies, 8(1), p. 40–56. https://sjms.nu/articles/10.31374/sjms.288
GOLDENBERG, I., & Febbrarro, A.R., Challenges and relevance to NATO and national security – Technical Report. NATO Science and Technology Organization. 2025. HFM-390-TER. https://publications.sto.nato.int/publications/STO%20Meeting%20Proceedings/STO-MP-HFM-390/$MP-HFM-390-TER.pdf
Ben-Ari, E., & Connelly, V. Contemporary Military Reserves. 2023. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Contemporary-Military-Reserves-Between-the-Civilian-and-Military-Worlds/Ben-Ari-Connelly/p/book/9781032307213
GOLDENBERG, I., Chamberland, J., & Skomorovsky, A. Military-Civilian Personnel Integration and Collaboration: DND Civilians’ Perspectives. Journal of Military, Veteran, and Family Health 8, Special Issue 1, 2024. https://www.queensu.ca/cidp/sites/cidpwww/files/uploaded_files/jmvfh.2022.8.issue-s1.pdf
BERNDTSSON, J., GOLDENBERG, I., and VON HLATKY, S., Primacy of total defence forces in the 21st century. Euro-Atlantic Bulletin. Vol. 5 No. 2, 2024. https://en.euroatlantic.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Primacy-of-total-defence-forces-in-the-21st-century-Berndtsson-Goldenberg-von-Hlatky-ENG.pdf
GOLDENBERG, I. NATO Science and Technology HFM-390 Research Workshop on Reserve Forces: Challenges and relevance to NATO and national security – Technical Report. NATO Science and Technology Organization. 2025. HFM-390-TER. https://publications.sto.nato.int/publications/STO%20Meeting%20Proceedings/STO-MP-HFM-390/$MP-HFM-390-TER.pdf
GOLDENBERG, I., Andres, M., Österberg, J., James-Yates, S., Johansson, E., & Pearce, S., Integrated defence workforces: Challenges and enablers of military–civilian personnel collaboration, Journal of Military Studies, 29, DRDC-RDDC-2020-P001, 2020, 28-45.https://reference-global.com/article/10.2478/jms-2019-0004
SOETERS, J., & Goldenberg, I., Information sharing in multinational security and military operations. Why and why not? With whom and with whom not? Optimizing civilian-military diversity in defence organizations. Defence Studies, 19(1). DRDC-RDDC-2019-P249, 2019, 37-48.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14702436.2018.1558055
ANDERSON, J. E., Goldenberg, I., & Charles, J.C., Retention in the Reserve Force: Unique considerations and a comparison with Regular Force issues. Contemporary Military Challenges, 20, 95-112. https://dk.mors.si/info/images/SVI/PDF/2018_2/Anderson_et_all.pdf
ANDERSON, J. E., & Goldenberg, I., Doing it all: The unique challenges of serving in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve Force. In R. Moelker, & M. Andres (Eds.), The politics of military families, 2017-P133. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9780429026492/politics-military-families-ren%C3%A9-moelker-manon-andres-nina-rones