The Swedish word for what happened is that the country is 'fredsskadat', i.e. 'damaged by peace'. The country has not seen a major conflict in more than 2 centu

The Swedish word for what happened is that the country is 'fredsskadat', i.e. 'damaged by peace'. The country has not seen a major conflict in more than 2 centuries which has created a zeitgeist in which it has left that sort of problems behind it and does not really need to prepare for the eventuality. The narrative goes along these lines: Why spend time and money in preparation for conflict when you can just talk your way out of it? If people just listened to all the reasonable arguments put forward they'll see reason and refrain from whatever nefarious plan they were hatching. The money spent on defence - civil and military - is so much better spent on improving the world at large, in spreading the blessings of the Swedish model abroad. This is not the whole story of course since Sweden does have a sizeable arms industry which exports to all sorts of countries which stray very far from the above narrative. Conscription into the Swedish army was reinstated a few years ago, conscripts are now being called upon to help managing the SARS2 crisis. Depending on how the country emerges from the crisis there might be a chance of rebuilding part of the total defence system starting with the civil defence aspects.