Making sense of war

“Can’t you let Peter Viggo explain it? Then we’d understand it much better.”

This is something the maths teacher at Aarhus Cathedral School had to hear every once in a while. Yes, Peter Viggo Jakobsen would happily explain. And to this day, he still does. As one of the most cited experts in Denmark, he is regularly in the news explaining international conflicts and security policy. He sees it as his duty to make his expertise accessible to the public, and he realised early on that communicating complex ideas was something he was good at. 

“Where I came from, there weren’t others who had gone to university, so sometimes I would have to explain what I was doing in that mysterious place. Trying to do so in the locker room after a football match really tested my ability to express myself in a clear and engaging way. If I can’t explain my research in a way that everyone can understand, then I probably don’t understand it very well myself,” says Peter Viggo Jakobsen. Today, he is an associate professor at the Royal Danish Defence College. 

Loud as hell
As a child, Peter Viggo Jakobsen would sit in his room in Studstrup, north of Aarhus, and read books about the Second World War. He considered studying history, but eventually chose political science at Aarhus University. He moved into a flat in Trøjborg and started his degree programme, where his focus was on his academic work:

“Since I was from Aarhus, I already had a social network. I carried on doing what I was already doing: playing football and handball in Skødstrup and working in my part-time jobs. I didn’t prioritise the social side of university life in the ways many other people do,” says Peter Viggo Jakobsen. 

He also admits that he was “loud as hell” during lectures. Fellow students would be turning their heads whenever he opened his mouth to ask critical questions or complain if the lecture wasn’t interesting. 

“Even back then, there were probably quite a few people who knew who I was,” he continues. 

The good life as a PhD student
It wasn’t only his fellow students who noticed Peter Viggo Jakobsen.  He also raised eyebrows among his lecturers. He had a talent for academic work and was accepted onto the PhD programme. Lecturers became colleagues, and at a conference in England he realised just how good he had it; the PhD students in England were spending precious time serving coffee to the professors. That was not how it was in Aarhus.

“Back then, there were only a few PhD students at the department, and we were treated like colleagues on an equal footing with the others. We were taken seriously from day one, which was really great. That’s when I started taking it seriously myself. I was assigned a secretary, and the level of service was high. My working conditions as a PhD student at Aarhus university were better than they are in my current job,” he says. 

But today, he would think twice before embarking on a PhD:

“The world of academia has changed. Back then, you were likely to get a permanent position if you performed well. Now, there are many talented PhD students who end up in fixed-term positions that come with a high degree of uncertainty. So you need to think carefully before pursuing an academic career these days,” he concludes. 

Beyond theory
Peter Viggo Jakobsen has previously joked that academic jargon at universities makes him break out in hives. It was worst during his time at the University of Copenhagen, where he felt that they talked about theory for theory’s sake. In his view, the endless back and forth between theoretical schools was a waste of time. 

“I have always viewed theory as a tool to influence the world. Theories make sense when they enable concrete action and help steer the world in a better direction — not when they are reduced to internal power struggles over who is most right,” he says. 

This is why he has always prioritised policy advice and striven to contribute knowledge that has helped shape regulations, guidelines and policy decisions on both a national and an international level. This includes military doctrines in Denmark, the United Kingdom, the United States and the United Nations, as well as Danish strategies on defence and development policy, military deployments and defence agreements.

No need to panic
Many Danes are stocking their cupboards and cellars with bottles of water, tinned mackerel and batteries, and all across the country, rusty steel doors are being unlocked to reveal civil defence shelters from a bygone era. The need to be prepared has been revived as a result of rising geopolitical tensions, leaving many people worried about the future. What about Peter Viggo Jakobsen?

“I’m perhaps less worried that the average person, because I’m in a better position to see what’s really going on and separate the wheat from the chaff. At the moment, decision-makers are whipping it up so that voters are willing to accept a DKK 300 billion investment in defence. With that rhetoric, I can understand why people are worried. I also understand those who have turned off the news because it’s overwhelming. It’s vital to explain to people why this is important and what we can do about it, but at the same time to let them know that there is no need to panic,” he says.