War Beyond the Military: Sweden's Total Defence and Its Implications for the Republic of Korea

Jeong-kyu LEE

Visiting Research Fellow

Sejong Institute

1. Introduction

ㅇ Sweden has maintained a policy of non-alignment for more than two centuries, and throughout this period has sustained a total defence system, relatively modest in scale but national in scope, as its principal means of preparing against external threats.

ㅇ Several historical and structural factors account for Sweden's development of a total defence system.

  - Firstly, Sweden's geographic proximity to Russia, a major military power, and the strategic imperatives that proximity entails generated a strong institutional recognition that the entire nation must be capable of mobilizing swiftly and comprehensively in the event of armed conflict.

  - Secondly, as a state that has refrained from joining military alliances since the post-Napoleonic order established by the Congress of Vienna in 1812 — adhering to the principle of military non-alignment in peacetime in order to preserve neutrality in wartime — Sweden developed a firm conviction that it must be capable of mounting an initial resistance through its own means should war break out.

  - Thirdly, although Sweden did not participate directly in the Second World War, it observed at close range the collapse of neighboring states under the pressures of conflict, and drew from that experience a clear recognition that a blockade of food supplies, energy, and industrial capacity could threaten national survival itself.

  - Lastly, Sweden's historically high levels of public trust in state institutions, combined with an institutionalized framework for cooperation among central government, local authorities, civil society, and the private sector, provided a cultural and institutional foundation well suited to a whole-of-society crisis response structure — a factor that also contributed to Sweden's sustained commitment to total defence.

ㅇ Sweden's total defence system was scaled back following the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, but Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 precipitated a sharp deterioration in the regional security environment, prompting its gradual restoration.

ㅇ This paper analyzes the structure and content of Sweden's total defence system and derives from that analysis policy implications and recommendations relevant to strengthening the Republic of Korea's defence posture in the face of North Korea's diverse and evolving threat landscape.

2. Structure of Sweden's Total Defence System

  A. Concept and Components

ㅇ Sweden's policy of non-alignment precluded reliance on alliance-based deterrence, leading the country to treat wartime societal resilience as the central variable in its deterrence and defence calculus.

  - This premise established that war could not be left to the military alone — the state, local governments, the civilian economy, and civil society would all need to sustain national functions and maintain resistance in an integrated manner.

  - The total defence system institutionalizes precisely this requirement, developing into a whole-of-society defence model that extends crisis management and disaster response capabilities into a wartime mobilization and resistance architecture.

ㅇ The Swedish government defines total defence as "the totality of activities necessary to prepare Sweden for war," and organizes its components into two distinct domains: military defence and civil defence.

ㅇ The core logic of total defence rests on a wartime resilience thesis: the operational sustainability of the armed forces is directly proportional to the length of time civilian society can hold out.

  - Should electric power, communications, transportation, healthcare, food supply, logistics, and public administration be paralyzed in the opening phase of a conflict, the projection and sustainment of military force would become impossible. Civil defence therefore functions not as a supplement to military defence but as its precondition.

ㅇ Total defence is not activated at the outbreak of war. Rather, it is embedded in law and institutional design in advance: the roles of citizens are defined in legislation, critical social infrastructure is designed to incorporate wartime operating scenarios, and every institution in society has clear guidance on what it is required to do when war breaks out. Practical public education is conducted on a continuous basis in peacetime, covering air raid evacuation, information verification, stockpiling of drinking water and food supplies, and countering disinformation, ensuring that a state of preparedness is maintained at all times.

ㅇ The institutional cornerstone of Sweden's total defence system is the total defence duty.

  - In Sweden, every resident from the calendar year in which they turn 16 through the end of the calendar year in which they turn 70 is incorporated into the total defence system and may be called upon to serve in the event of war or the threat of war.

  - The duty takes three forms: (1) military service; (2) civilian service, covering the maintenance of essential social functions such as firefighting, healthcare, and electricity supply; and (3) general public service, comprising tasks designated by the government in response to a national crisis.

ㅇ This obligation is established in law as applicable not only to Swedish citizens but also to foreign nationals residing in Sweden.

  - Foreign nationals who are not subject to conscription may nonetheless be required to continue working in their existing occupations — such as healthcare or transportation — in order to sustain critical social systems, or to participate in civilian relief activities as directed by the government.

ㅇ The central objective of Sweden's total defence system is not the rapid defeat of an adversary in the field. It is to deny the adversary the ability to penetrate and seize control of Swedish territory, and to enable the state and society to endure without collapse for a sufficient period to sustain the war effort. Accordingly, total defence is not a military institution. It is a national survival strategy.

  B. Military Defence

ㅇ Sweden's military defence is organized around three components: the regular armed forces (Swedish Armed Forces, Försvarsmakten), the reserve forces, and the Home Guard (Hemvärnet).

  - In a crisis, force mobilization and reserve deployment are available, and conscription is maintained as the principal instrument for sustaining military defence capacity.

  - While the regular armed forces constitute the operational backbone responsible for primary front-line combat, the mobilization capacity provided by the reserve forces, responsible for force reinforcement, and the Home Guard, responsible for territorial and societal defence and augmentation, plays a central role in sustaining wartime operational continuity.

ㅇ On the military defence side, peacetime organization, training, and reserve mobilization systems are of paramount importance. Personnel returning from service, reservists, and trained reserve manpower are assigned to designated wartime units, and the government has established mobilization procedures and reserve organization plans accordingly. 

ㅇ Sweden has invested in armored, air, and naval capabilities since the Cold War era, and the recent intensification of military threats from neighboring states has prompted a renewed and active push for equipment modernization and force expansion.

  C. Civil Defence and Societal Resilience

ㅇ Civil defence focuses on the protection of individuals and installations, while societal resilience is oriented toward sustaining the functioning of society as a whole. Civil defence addresses the question of how to survive, concerned with physical survival and direct protection in wartime, while societal resilience addresses the question of how to keep society functioning, centering on systems, institutions, and public trust in both wartime and peacetime.

ㅇ Civil defence encompasses a broad range of responsibilities, including the protection of civilian defence installations and critical infrastructure such as electric power, water supply, communications, and transportation, as well as public preparedness and crisis management and recovery capabilities.

ㅇ In Sweden, all residents between the ages of 16 and 70 are subject to the total defence duty under the Total Defence Duty Act, and are assigned to military service, civilian service, or national service respectively. Those assigned to civilian service are directed to functions that must remain operational during a crisis, including rescue operations, healthcare, and child protection.

  - The inclusion of older residents in the total defence duty reflects the reality that, given Sweden's relatively modest population, every skilled member of the workforce is of value. Older residents bring field experience and decision-making capacity, and serve in roles such as members of local and regional crisis management committees, disaster response coordinators, and civil-military liaison points, functions essential to keeping systems operational in wartime and crisis conditions.

  - Public preparedness campaigns are conducted to ensure that citizens are capable of self-sufficiency for a minimum of one week in the event of a crisis. Since the 2020s, the government has distributed a wartime preparedness public guidebook entitled “If Crisis or War Comes”.

ㅇ Sweden maintains preparations to ensure that essential infrastructure, including energy, food supply, healthcare, communications, and transportation, remains operational even under crisis conditions. The Swedish government provides guidance to the general public to prepare to sustain themselves at home for a minimum of one week in the event of a crisis or war, and actively encourages readiness measures including access to bomb shelters, participation in civil defence training, and the stockpiling of food supplies.

  D. Integration and Operational Mechanism

ㅇ The total defence duty assigns to each individual not only military responsibilities but also a defined wartime role in maintaining essential social functions.

ㅇ Total defence treats private enterprises and industry not as peripheral contributors to wartime preparedness but as integral components of the system. The industrial base contributes directly to the sustainability of military defence through equipment procurement, maintenance, logistics, energy, and communications; on the civil defence side, it serves as a cornerstone of societal resilience through supply chains and the production and distribution of essential goods.

ㅇ In preparation for war or crisis, the Swedish government has developed alert systems, mobilization procedures, command structures, and operational sustainment capabilities. This encompasses the issuance of public alerts, the call-up of military and civil defence reserves, centralized government command, and the activation of regional operational coordination centers.

ㅇ Sweden's total defence system is designed not solely against conventional armed invasion but encompasses a broad range of threats, including cyberattacks, information operations, economic disruption, infrastructure destruction, terrorism, and hybrid warfare. The general response sequence is as follows:

   (1) Threat recognition and alert (government or civil defence authorities) → (2) Public preparedness and civil defence coordination (securing food, shelter, and communications) → (3) Military defence preparation (reserve mobilization and force deployment) → (4) Integrated military and civil defence operations (military operations combined with civilian infrastructure protection) → (5) Recovery and stabilization (sustained defence and restoration activities)

  E. Governance: Networked Coordination Across Central Government, Specialized Agencies, Local Authorities, and the Private Sector

ㅇ Total defence operates as a system in which ministries, agencies, local governments, private enterprises, and citizens act in concert. The Swedish government presents total defence as a unit of government policy and emphasizes that societal wartime preparedness is a responsibility of society as a whole.

ㅇ On the civil defence side, the principal institutional anchor is the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB). 

  - MSB carries out the mission of supporting society in preparing for major accidents, crises, and war. It also provides public guidance emphasizing that total defence comprises both military and civilian components, and that "everyone who lives here" forms the foundation of the defence effort.

ㅇ Local governments — municipalities (kommuner) and regions (regioner) — occupy a particularly important role within total defence. A substantial share of the functions that sustain daily life, including healthcare provision, water and sanitation, local transportation, social care and welfare, and local administration, are operated at the local rather than central government level.

  F. The Substance of Civil Defence: Continuity of Essential Functions and a "Functioning Society"

ㅇ The objective of civil defence is to sustain essential social functions so that the state does not collapse even under wartime conditions. Swedish public guidance on total defence makes explicit that society as a whole must participate in the defence effort. This positions civil defence not merely as evacuation and relief but as a wartime operating system carried out jointly by government, local authorities, businesses, and citizens.

ㅇ Civil defence is concretely organized around the following areas:

  - (1) Continuity of government functions, including command, administration, law enforcement, and the maintenance of public services; (2) protection of life and provision of relief, including evacuation, healthcare, and emergency response; (3) protection and restoration of critical infrastructure, covering electric power, communications, transportation, and water resources; (4) sustainment of supplies and supply chains, including food, fuel, medicines, and logistics; (5) maintenance of social order, encompassing public security and social services; and (6) informational and psychological resilience, including countering disinformation and sustaining public trust.

  - This configuration extends the concept of "the capacity to endure war" beyond military power to encompass the functioning of the state and the cohesion of society.

  G. The Institutionalization of Psychological and Information Defence: The Psychological Defence Agency and Societal Cognitive Resilience

ㅇ Sweden designates psychological defence as a core element of its total defence system. To this end, it formally established the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency (Myndigheten för psykologiskt försvar) in 2022. Within the total defence framework, war is understood as extending beyond physical conflict: threats in the cognitive and information domain, including disinformation, propaganda, and malign foreign information influence, can generate social distrust and division, thereby undermining wartime mobilization and the will to sustain resistance. The establishment of the Psychological Defence Agency has accordingly built institutional capacity to identify, analyze, and counter malign foreign information influence designed to fracture social cohesion.

3. Restructuring of Total Defence: Institutional Reforms, Structural Limitations, and Costs

ㅇ Following the end of the Cold War, Sweden scaled back elements of its wartime preparedness system, and civil defence preparations were comparatively neglected during this period. In response to the growing Russian military threat and the proliferation of cyber and hybrid threats, Sweden began restructuring its total defence system from 2015 onward, undertaking multilayered reforms spanning the military, civilian, and industrial sectors and developing plans for systematic future expansion.

ㅇ On the military defence side, the 2015 Defence Bill provided the basis for enhancing military defence capabilities through a comprehensive service-wide overhaul, including the establishment of mechanized brigades, the strengthening of amphibious forces, and the modernization of air and naval equipment. The conscription system was also reinforced through the reintroduction of selective conscription and the expansion of reserve forces.

  - In 2017, Sweden ended its six-year experiment with a volunteer professional military modeled on the American system, which had consistently produced annual shortfalls of 30 to 40 percent of required personnel, and restored conscription. The reinstated system introduced gender-neutral conscription, making both men and women liable for military service.

  - Service duration ranges from six to fifteen months depending on occupational specialty, and women account for 15 to 20 percent of conscripts. Sweden was the first country in Europe to implement a gender-equal conscription system.

ㅇ On supply chains, industry, and infrastructure, efforts were made to strengthen the resilience of industry and supply chains — covering electric power, fuel, food, and healthcare — in preparation for national emergencies, and a new defence industry strategy was adopted, reorienting policy toward the revitalization of domestic defence industrial capacity.

ㅇ On the budgetary and institutional front, the government declared an unprecedented level of investment, citing the deteriorating security environment, and issued planning guidance and directives to total defence-related agencies to promote integrated planning across institutions.

ㅇ Following its accession to NATO, Sweden has integrated its total defence system into NATO's collective defence architecture with a high degree of coherence.

  - Total defence, focused on strengthening internal national capabilities, and NATO's collective defence, providing external support and combined operations, are understood as mutually complementary.

  - The scope of total defence was expanded to include the maintenance of port and aviation facilities, the securing of force movement corridors, and the establishment of allied fuel and ammunition support systems, positioning the total defence system as a platform capable of receiving and supporting NATO forces.

ㅇ Sweden's total defence has evolved within the NATO strategic framework into a NATO-compatible resilience system. Since accession, Sweden has strengthened total defence through increased budgets and resources, restructured its full-spectrum capabilities within the total defence context, enhanced civil defence and societal resilience, and deepened strategic integration with NATO. NATO membership has thus served as a significant catalyst for the restructuring of Sweden's total defence system.

ㅇ In sum, Sweden's accession to NATO has become a driving force compelling further reform of Sweden's internal defence system through NATO's mutual defence guarantees, capability requirements, and alliance responsibilities, resulting in a substantial increase in total defence budgets and the simultaneous strengthening of both military and civilian capabilities.

ㅇ Sweden's total defence system nonetheless entails structural limitations and considerable costs.

  - Limitations include: (1) the risk of being broadly prepared for everything while achieving complete readiness for nothing, given that total preparedness across all contingencies is unattainable; (2) the fact that the system's effectiveness declines sharply if public consensus weakens; and (3) the system's strength in sustaining endurance while remaining limited in its capacity to generate decisive turning points.

  - Costs include: (1) the "invisible defence expenditure" — whole-of-society costs beyond the formal defence budget, encompassing dual-use infrastructure construction, stockpiling, and training; (2) the opportunity costs borne by young people and businesses as a result of the conscription and reserve system; (3) the ongoing costs of maintaining a state of readiness that must be sustained every year regardless of whether war occurs; and (4) persistent political and social costs, including restrictions on peacetime freedoms and the cumulative burden of security fatigue.

4. Comparative Assessment of National Mobilization and Civil Defence Systems: Sweden and the Republic of Korea

ㅇ Sweden's total defence system is structured around whole-of-society preparedness, whereas the Republic of Korea's defence system is centered on the state and the military.

  - South Korea has maintained its security through robust military power and conscription, but comparatively limited attention has been paid to the roles civilians are expected to perform in a crisis, and preparedness in this area cannot be considered adequate. South Korean society exhibits a strong cultural tendency to assign responsibility for crisis response exclusively to the state, while civic participation and individual accountability remain relatively underdeveloped. This dynamic constitutes a structural weakness in societal resilience and security sustainability.

5. Implications for the Republic of Korea's Security and Policy Recommendations

​  A. Implications​​

ㅇ While Sweden long maintained a policy of non-alignment, it developed a whole-of-society total defence system to prepare against external aggression. The Korean Peninsula, by contrast, has lived with a condition of sustained high-intensity military tension stemming from national division, and has relied primarily on military-centric deterrence.

ㅇ Sweden's total defence system offers instructive lessons for the Republic of Korea as it seeks to strengthen the sustainability and societal resilience of its security posture across several dimensions.

  (1) The Need for a Civil-Military Integrated Security Paradigm

   Sweden designed military defence and civil defence as a single integrated system in which the nation as a whole serves as the subject of defence. On the Korean Peninsula, by contrast, war preparedness is concentrated primarily in the military sector, and the roles of civilian society, local governments, and industry remain limited.

  (2) The Institutionalization of Societal Resilience

   Sweden prepares each citizen to be self-sufficient for a minimum of one week in a crisis, and the government, local authorities, and private enterprises conduct crisis management exercises jointly. South Korea similarly needs to place greater emphasis on building resilience capable of sustaining social functions in wartime and disaster scenarios, beyond reliance on military deterrence alone. This is also a practical imperative in light of the real possibility that North Korean conventional or asymmetric attacks — including electromagnetic pulse, cyber, and missile strikes — could paralyze social infrastructure.

  (3) Substantive Reform of Reserve and Civil Defence Personnel Systems

   Under Sweden's Total Defence Duty (Totalförsvarsplikt), all residents between the ages of 16 and 70 are incorporated into the wartime mobilization system. South Korea's reserve forces system similarly needs to evolve beyond a personnel-heavy quantitative structure into a community-based civil-military cooperation network.

  (4) Strengthening Resilience Against Hybrid Threats

   Sweden's total defence system encompasses non-military threats including cyber warfare, information operations, economic warfare, and psychological operations. On the Korean Peninsula as well, North Korea's cyberattacks, public opinion manipulation, and disruption of power and financial networks constitute real and present threats, alongside the risk of conventional military conflict.

  (5) Cultivating a Culture of Public Participation in Security

   Swedish citizens receive sustained education conveying the message that "in a crisis, you too are part of total defence." In South Korea, civil defence drills have become largely perfunctory, and public awareness of disaster and wartime preparedness remains low.

  (6) Security Sustainability: Integrating Total Defence with Economic Security

   Sweden designed its total defence system in conjunction with national economic and industrial policy to ensure the maintenance of production, logistics, and energy supply in a crisis. South Korea similarly needs to recognize strategic industries — including semiconductors, petroleum refining, food, and pharmaceuticals — as integral components of national defence.

  (7) Implications for Inter-Korean Relations and the Peace Process

   Sweden's total defence system has also served to build diplomatic credibility through the unambiguous demonstration of the will to defend. It sends a clear deterrent signal to potential adversaries that the costs of attacking Sweden would be prohibitively high, while conveying to allies and partners the assurance that Sweden is prepared to defend itself. On the Korean Peninsula as well, a robust defence posture carries a constructive effect: it is not mere confrontation but the preservation of peace through deterrence. The stronger the defensive posture, the greater the practical space for negotiation, and the greater the potential for expanding non-military areas of inter-Korean cooperation such as public health, environmental management, and disaster response.

ㅇ Directly transplanting Sweden's total defence system to the South Korean context, however, faces significant constraints for the following reasons.

   (1) Fundamental differences in the security environment, including a condition of sustained high-intensity threat and the acute vulnerability created by the extreme concentration of the population and key assets in the Seoul metropolitan area; (2) social and mobilization constraints, including accumulated conscription fatigue and the practical limitations of mobilizing civilian specialists; (3) political and institutional constraints, including democratic resistance to the concentration of authority and the challenge of maintaining policy continuity under a single-term presidential structure; (4) military-structural constraints, including potential friction with the combined defence architecture and a military force structure oriented toward maneuver warfare; and (5) economic and fiscal constraints, including an already high defence burden and the vulnerabilities inherent in a highly sophisticated and specialized economic structure.

  B. Policy Recommendations

ㅇ Rather than transplanting Sweden's total defence system wholesale, a selective and supplementary approach that adapts its strengths to South Korean realities while avoiding its limitations is the more appropriate course.

   (1) South Korea should institutionalize a civil-military integrated crisis management system capable of responding to complex threats — including cyber warfare, terrorism, hybrid warfare, and information operations — as well as full-scale conventional conflict. This would encompass the development of integrated operational plans covering civil defence, disaster response, cybersecurity, and communications and energy infrastructure.

   (2) Beyond military deterrence, South Korea needs to prioritize the strengthening of societal resilience to sustain social functions in wartime and disaster scenarios. Concrete measures include enhancing the restoration capabilities of critical infrastructure such as electric power, water supply, food, and communications; developing continuity plans for healthcare, logistics, and public services; establishing crisis response manuals for private enterprises; and institutionalizing public crisis preparedness education.

   (3) The reserve forces system should be developed into a community-based civil-military cooperation network. This requires strengthening joint training among local reserve units, municipal governments, and fire, medical, and communications agencies; building a system through which civilian infrastructure managers in peacetime are automatically incorporated as non-military personnel in wartime; and establishing the legal basis for such arrangements through legislation such as a Wartime Local Government Roles Act.

   (4) An integrated crisis response center spanning the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, and the Ministry of Science and ICT should be established; joint public-private cyber defence exercises should be mandated; and a legal basis for crisis information-sharing platforms should be created.

   (5) Following Sweden's example, public participation campaigns should be strengthened, security and crisis response education for youth and students should be incorporated into regular curricula, and a transparent crisis communication system operating through media and social networks should be developed. A security culture grounded in public participation simultaneously reduces psychological vulnerability and strengthens the population's cognitive resilience.

   (6) A joint wartime economic control tower co-led by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of National Defense should be established; strategic materials and food stockpiling systems should be reinforced; and regular supply chain risk simulations should be conducted. This architecture extends the concept of national security beyond conventional military defence toward a framework of total national survival.

ㅇ The realistic approach that reflects the lessons of Sweden's total defence system while accounting for its structural limitations, its costs, and the distinct characteristics of the Korean Peninsula security environment can be summarized as follows: alliance maintenance, combined with selective total defence and the strengthening of civilian resilience.

  - Military defence should continue to rest on the alliance framework; civil defence should introduce a selective total defence system concentrated on the cyber, information, energy, and healthcare domains; and national mobilization should be pursued not through an expansion of mandatory obligations but through the clarification of roles and responsibilities.

6. Conclusion

ㅇ Sweden's total defence system is a whole-of-society national defence model developed to fill the strategic gap created by its policy of non-alignment. It integrates military defence and civil defence, and centers its objectives on the continuity of state operations and the sustainment of essential social functions in wartime.

ㅇ The institutional engine of the system is the legal framework of the total defence duty, covering all residents from age 16 to 70, through which wartime mobilization extends beyond the reinforcement of military manpower to encompass the mobilization of national functions including healthcare, infrastructure, logistics, and administration.

ㅇ Psychological and information defence incorporates societal resilience against disinformation, propaganda, and foreign information influence into the scope of defence, reflecting the contemporary expansion of what total defence entails.

ㅇ Since Sweden's accession to NATO, total defence has functioned not as a substitute for alliance membership but as the foundation upon which alliance deterrence rests. Sweden's security model can accordingly be characterized as an integrated system combining military power with societal resilience.

ㅇ Sweden's total defence system embodies the conviction that even a small state is never truly vulnerable if its entire population is prepared.

ㅇ Even within the distinctive security environment of the Korean Peninsula, a defence posture that combines military deterrence with societal resilience, civil-military integration, public participation, and industrial security would be substantially more sustainable and durable than one relying on military power alone.

ㅇ Sweden's total defence model, as a peace-through-defence system designed to prevent war, offers genuine and practical inspiration for a long-term paradigm shift in the Republic of Korea's approach to national security.​