A Doctoral Dissertation Produces a Handbook for Planning Comprehensive National Defence in Small States
On 15 December 2025, Ivo Peets will defend his doctoral dissertation at Tallinn University. The dissertation analyses defence planning in small states in situations where limited resources must cover an increasingly broad spectrum of hybrid and military threats.
The thesis focuses on the question of how comprehensive national defence can be substantively guided and linked to decision-making logic, rather than remaining merely a strategic slogan.
The doctoral dissertation proposes a comprehensive national defence planning framework suitable for small states, which integrates military and non-military capabilities into a unified whole and supports informed decisions about which capabilities to develop, when to develop them and at what cost. The practically applicable framework is based on consolidated approaches to defence and force planning that are systematically linked to the context of comprehensive national defence, considering the needs and constraints of small states. Over the course of the research, defence planning practices were analysed over several years to understand how existing planning practices can be applied flexibly and purposefully.
“The key issue is not the creation of new systems, but the clarity of the decision-making framework: how strategic objectives, priorities and constraints are integrated into a coherent whole,” Ivo Peets highlights as an important conclusion of the research. In practice, this means the simultaneous planning of capabilities across different domains, the sharing of results and the consistent alignment of decisions with common objectives. Clear and comprehensible terminology, agreed standards and high-quality data play a crucial role in making comprehensive national defence more substantive.
A holistic approach to defence planning enables the most efficient use of existing resources and allows comprehensive national defence to function as a coordinated and transparent system.
The Thesis Defence
Ivo Peets is a doctoral student at the School of Governance, Law and Society at Tallinn University. The title of his doctoral dissertation is “Comprehensive National Defence Planning for Small States – Capability-Oriented and Resource-Conscious.”
Public defence of the thesis will take place on 15 December 2025, starting at 10:00 in room M648 at Tallinn University. You can also follow the defence and ask the degree candidate questions through Zoom.
The supervisors are Peeter Selg, Professor at Tallinn University, and Jaan Murumets, Dean of the Baltic Defence College.
The consultant is Thomas-Durell Young, Senior Lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School.
The opponents are Ieva Bērziņa, Senior Researcher at the Latvian National Defence Academy, and Andrey Makarychev, Professor at the University of Tartu.
The thesis is available in the Tallinn University Academic Library environment ETERA.
