Nordic Synthetic Training Series
From Three Articles to a Conference Paper: Closing the Nordic Synthetic Training Gap
Three pieces on this site made the same argument about Nordic synthetic training from three angles. A paper accepted to I/ITSEC 2026 is where that argument gets tested outside Norway.
This is a preview essay, not the I/ITSEC 2026 paper itself. The paper is under embargo until after the conference, per I/ITSEC’s publication rules. The formal citation, status and dates are maintained on Publications.
Why a Paper, Not Just Another Article
A paper built from the Nordic Synthetic Training Gap argument has been accepted for the I/ITSEC 2026 Conference Proceedings and for podium presentation in Orlando. That’s a different kind of validation than publishing three articles on my own site under my own authority. I/ITSEC runs its submissions through a conference committee and a peer-review process before anything gets a slot in the proceedings. Historically only around a third of submitted abstracts make it to the published-and-presented stage.
This is the argument surviving a process I don’t control, in front of an international training and simulation community that has no reason to agree with a Norwegian consultant’s read on Nordic defence training.
The Argument
The paper’s title is Closing the Nordic Synthetic Training Gap: From Exercises to Persistent LVC Environments, and the core claim is the one Cold Response 2026 already demonstrated in practice. Nordic defence organisations know how to build a sophisticated LVC environment for a major exercise, and then take it apart again once the exercise ends.
Terrain databases, federation agreements, interoperability between allied systems — built over months, then dismantled, then largely rebuilt from scratch for the next exercise. The paper argues that’s the actual bottleneck. Not the technology. The fact that LVC infrastructure gets treated as temporary exercise scaffolding instead of standing capability that a training organisation owns and maintains between exercises.
Why This Is a Nordic Problem
Finland and Sweden’s NATO accession turned interoperability from an aspiration into a requirement almost overnight, and the region runs enough joint exercises — Cold Response, Nordic Response, and the rest of the NORDEFCO calendar — that the cost of rebuilding from zero each time is now large enough to notice.
A single country building a persistent environment on its own doesn’t solve this. A shared, standing NORDEFCO ecosystem does, which is exactly the case From Gap to Architecture made back in March.
Related Reading
The first three pieces in this line of work: Synthetic Integration — The Nordic Opportunity, Governance Is the Hidden Competitive Advantage, and The Nordic Synthetic Training Gap with its follow-up, From Gap to Architecture. The operational evidence is in Cold Response 2026: Training a Division with Live-Constructive Integration.
The author used Claude (Anthropic) as a research and editorial tool in preparing this piece. Claude assisted with structuring the argument and iterative drafting. All claims, professional judgements and conclusions are the author’s own. The author reviewed, corrected, and revised all AI-assisted content throughout the drafting process. Any errors are the responsibility of the author.
Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Ken-Tore Saade Eriksen retired from the Norwegian Army after 38 years of service. He served as Head of the Norwegian Army Training and Simulation Centre from 2018 to 2026, with national-level responsibility for integrating Army-wide simulation capabilities.
He has been a member of two NATO Modelling and Simulation Group (NMSG) sub-working groups: Simulation for Training and Operations – Land (STOG-L) and Urban Combat Advanced Training Technologies – Live Simulation Standards (UCATT-LSS). He was the author of the keynote address by the Chief of the Norwegian Army at ITEC 2025, and a panel speaker at ITEC 2025 and ITEC 2026.
He is the Founder of and Strategic Advisor at Eriksen LiveSim Consult, an independent advisory firm specialising in the integration of synthetic training and defence training modernisation.
