In the autumn of 2025, the Swedish Armed Forces and the Civil Defence Agency published the document “Starting points for the total defence 2025–2030”. The document is a basis for the actors within the total defence to implement their parts of the development of the total defence. This means that planning can be carried out towards common goals.
The document presents, among other things, seven dimensioning typical situations that we will jointly plan for:
- Hybrid threats
- Host country support
- Attack on northern Sweden
- Attack on Gotland
- Remote attack
- Reinforcement of the Alliance's northern flank
- Strengthening the alliance in the Baltics
It is very surprising that the document does not include attacks against eastern Svealand, including the Stockholm area and air and naval bases, or Götaland, including the air and naval bases in Blekinge and the Baltic Sea outlets. The consequence of these being omitted is that the total defense will by definition not take these situations into account, but will focus on the seven specified in the documents.
In military science, the concept of mirror thinking is sometimes used, where one wrongly assumes that an opponent thinks and acts in the same way as oneself. This can lead to fatal mistakes and also entice an opponent to choose the course of action that one has chosen not to take. This is not least because one has chosen not to take them and has thus not prepared for them, but has focused one's energy on other things. Another factor is surprise, one of the basic concepts of military science. If one can do something that an opponent has chosen not to take in his or her world of thought, one achieves a surprise that in itself can make one superior, despite otherwise weak conditions.
We learned during this year's Almedalen Week, when the head of MUST was interviewed on the stage of the newspaper Expressen, that the strongest single reason why MUST missed the large-scale Russian attack in February 2022 was that MUST did not see any conditions for Russia to succeed in an attack and neutralize Ukraine. That is a clear answer, but unfortunately to the wrong question. The relevant question was not whether Russia will succeed but whether Russia will choose to attack Ukraine on a large scale. This is completely regardless of what we assess about the possibilities that such an attack would succeed. Assuming that Russia acts according to our assessments of the conditions for them to succeed is a manifestation of the mirror thinking described above.
Back to Starting points for the total defense 2025–2030. I believe that choosing to eliminate two Russian options that could be extremely dangerous for us is too risky a measure. Even if Russia's options to attack eastern Svealand and Götaland, according to our way of seeing it today, do not exist, these options may again be relevant in the future. This is according to Russia and its decision-makers, not our perceptions of the risks and possibilities for success with such attacks. Again, it is important not to fall into mirror thinking but instead to answer the question of what Russia actually has the ability to do.
Someone may argue that you can't have too many dimensioning type situations. That is correct in itself, but in this case the limit should not be between seven and nine.
I hope these issues can continue to be discussed within the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences, the Armed Forces, the Civil Defense Agency, and others. In our planning, we need to base our thinking on Russia's capabilities and intentions, not how we would have done, what we hope will happen, or what we judge to be likely. Enough with the incorrect assessments regarding the large-scale Russian attack on Ukraine in 2022. We should not put ourselves in the same situation when it comes to assessing whether, when, how, and where Russia will attack Sweden.