After a prolonged focus on the pandemic, security policy has penetrated the media noise more noticeably since late 2021 than in a long time. A parliamentary election is now approaching, a defense committee is being convened, a national security strategy is to be updated, and Sweden is preparing for its EU presidency in 2023.
At the same time, global developments are more difficult to understand and forecast than we thought they were during the first optimistic years after the Cold War. Much is happening at different levels and in different dimensions, East-West and North-South. At the same time, it is becoming clearer that what is far away from Sweden can sometimes have great significance for our security, as the failure in Afghanistan illustrates.
The last few years have been marked by seemingly unlikely developments, the election of Trump, Brexit, the pandemic, etc. We must assume that the time for surprises is not over and take into account various possible developments even in the near future, as the Ukraine crisis points to. The demand on Swedish and other state leaders to balance wisely between different considerations is extremely high, as the illustration on the cover suggests. At the same time, excessive caution can lead to imbalances that destabilize Sweden.
This places dramatic new demands on both the military and civilian dimensions of our security, as well as clarifying how decisions are made at different levels about our security and who takes responsibility for what.
At a time when Russian threats must be met on a broad scale, also with economic and other non-military means of power, the European dimension is playing a greatly increased role for Swedish security. A newly published report from the Academy of War Sciences' so-called SES project, Security in Tomorrow's Europe - Swedish Perspectives, deals with these highly topical issues. The report, "Strategic balancing act 2.0" is the final report of the security policy sub-project, which also forms the basis of the project's overall final report later this spring.
A previous report from the security policy subproject, "Engulfed in Flames" published in the autumn of 2020, focused the spotlight on the southern dimension of European security policy. The present report takes a holistic approach to the entire security policy field, with an emphasis on the East-West dimension and on current and future demands for a realistic Nordic defence and security policy.
In the forward-looking chapter on security and security policy in the Nordic countries – now squeezed between Russian security policy offensive, European division and lingering uncertainty about the strength of the transatlantic link – the possible and desirable continued development of an already far-reaching, security policy-motivated, defense cooperation is discussed, based on integration into Western defense structures and on mutual general political trust, aiming for “dynamic complementarity”.
The report recommends a comprehensive educational initiative in Sweden to broaden analytical capacity in the security policy area. Hopefully, this publication can contribute to providing a basis for such an initiative.
File dr Michael Sahlin (read more) is a former State Secretary in the Ministry of Defense, Director General of the Swedish Armed Forces and Ambassador. Ph.D. Lars Erik Lundin has served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the EU, including as EU Ambassador to the international organizations in Vienna. Both are also Distinguished Associate Fellows in SIPRI.
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