Bjørn Møller has written two books on non-offensive defence (NOD) that synthesize the core of the debate in the 1980s: its German character and its viability as a security instrument. It is a very good synthesis of this core, but as a synthesis it is not simply a reproduction of a debate but also a (re)interpretation. Two main dimensions of this (re)interpretation are examined in this essay. First, the particular way in which Bjørn Møller develops the argument that NOD is a credible security instrument, and, second, his understanding of politics. The essay concludes that the books close the debate in a double sense: on the one hand, they are a major synthesis of a debate for which the heyday is over, and, on the other hand, they attempt to lock the debate into a particular understanding of international relations and of politics.
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