Peter Viggo Jakobsen

In 2024 and 2025, Peter Viggo Jakobsen was Denmark’s most cited expert on defense and security policy. He is a lecturer at the Defence Academy, a man who analyzes war for a living, and who describes his own approach to life as a “great need to analyze everything.” In this conversation, host Sørine asks whether that rational toolkit, however effective for understanding Russia’s next move, leaves him unprepared for the parts of life that resist explanation—love, death, meaning, and the irrational in other people.

The rational toolkit and its limits

Jakobsen is explicit about how he operates. When faced with something confusing—whether Donald Trump’s behavior or Putin’s strategic calculus—his instinct is to “try to understand what the fuck is going on.” He builds explanatory models, lays his premises open, and presents his best guess. He knows he can be wrong: he predicted the full-scale invasion of Ukraine three days before it happened, but he also misjudged Putin’s willingness to attempt a quick decapitation strike on Kyiv. When he is wrong, he analyzes why and moves on. “You can’t just get over it,” he says of mistakes like the NATO mission in Afghanistan, where Denmark lost 44 soldiers and spent 20 billion kroner. “You have to get on with it.”