Paal Sigurd Hilde

Paal Sigurd Hilde (b. 1970) is professor of war studies and has worked at IFS since 2008. He obtained his PhD in political science from the University of Oxford (St Antony’s College) in 2003. Before joining IFS, Paal was a senior adviser in the Security Policy Department at the Ministry of Defence from 2004, where he was seconded as civilian secretary to the Norwegian Defence Commission (Forsvarspolitisk utvalg) from 2006 to 2007. From November 2021 to July 2022, Paal returned to the Ministry of Defence to support preparations for the 2022 NATO summit.

In 2015–2016 and again in 2024–2025, Paal led the secretariat of the government-appointed Norwegian Commission on Afghanistan, which was chaired on both occasions by former minister of foreign affairs, defence and trade, Bjørn Tore Godal.  The first committee evaluated Norway’s engagement in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014, and the second that of the period 2015–2021.

At the IFS, Paal led the Centre for Norwegian security Policy from 2008 to 2013. In 2017–2018, he was a member of the project group that put forward proposals for reform of military education, and in spring 2018 he served as an adviser to the dean (and for a period as acting dean).

Paal’s research interests include Norwegian security and defence policy, NATO and the Arctic. Among other roles, Paal is the Norway Chair at the Ted Stevens Centre for Arctic Security Studies and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the research programme Netherlands in Afghanistan 2001–2021.

• Security policies
• NATO
• Civil protection and crisis management
• Military science
• High North
• Defence politics