Tormod Heier

Tormod Heier is Professor in Military Strategy and Operations, and Associate Professor at the Swedish Defence University in Stockholm. Heier is currently Guest Researcher at Boston University, USA, leading a research project on security and defence cooperation between the United States and Europe. Heier served 32 years as Officer in Norway’s Armed Forces, 32 of them as Lieutenant Colonel in the Army. He was Professor II at University of Inland Norway from 2020 to 2025. 

As an officer, he worked, among other things, in the Norwegian Army’s Brigade Nord in Troms, in the Norwegian Intelligence Service, in the Ministry of Defence, and in Mazar-e-Sharif, northern Afghanistan. Heier has one doctorate and two master's degrees in Political Science and War Studies, respectively, from the University of Oslo and King's College, London. He has published a number of books, including on hybrid warfare against civic societies, as well as Norwegian, allied and Russian military operations in the High North, Afghanistan, Libya and Ukraine. Heier has also written and edited books in the field of social science methods and strategic competence management. He regularly gives lectures and talks for universities and the Norwegian state apparatus, as well as for a number of private and voluntary institutions around the country.

Heier is regularly used as an expert member for NOKUT's sister organizations in Sweden and Denmark in connection with quality assurance of military education at Nordic defense colleges. He is a member of the No to Nuclear Weapon’s Academic Council and had a visiting scholarship at the University of Oxford in 2017. Heier was awarded the Ossietzky Prize by Norwegian PEN for outstanding efforts for freedom of expression the same year. In 2023, he received the Army's Medal of Merit for informing the public on the Ukraine War.

His books number 16 and 17 are Preparing for Hybrid Threats to Security (Palgrave, 2024) edited with Odd Jarl Borch, and The Role of Military Power in Norwegian Crisis Management Operations (Cappelen Damm Akademisk, 2024) edited with Ann-Karin Larssen.