Feminist analyses of US military involvement in Afghanistan tend to centre on the civilizing and gendered underpinnings of such engagements. The inclusion of women soldiers in special teams for the purposes of pursuing inclusive dialogue and gathering intelligence is viewed as an exercise in American imperialism across borders. Similarly, the Afghan women who are party to gender-inspired dialogue are supposedly void of agency. While this analysis might indeed fit the US context it does not quite capture the military visions and subjectivities of all other states. To sustain this claim we provide an analysis of the military visions of Denmark and Sweden that centres on their adoption of a cosmopolitan-minded military logic, which is sensitive to gender equality and peace across borders. The two cases provide an opportunity to investigate how gender-sensitive dialogue in peacekeeping practice can offer a possibility to re-think the protector-protected image beyond its embedded binary dichotomy. We show how the dialogue in the local context is a dynamic space where cosmopolitan gender norms come to the fore, are reinforced but also challenged. Female peacekeepers’ agency is related to their position as interlocurs. Due to their hybrid status they acquire a more complete access to security information also by allowing the voice of marginalized local women shape the understanding of security needs. The Scandinavian militaries, although cosmopolitan minded and gender aware, have not been able to fully explore dialogic peacekeeping as they remain unsuccessful in recruiting but a few women to international missions.
