Resilient Nations and Hybrid Threats: What Can the United States Learn from Sweden’s Civil-Military Defense Strategy? Published May 2, 2025 By Col. Pamela Stein, Air Force Fellows Wild Blue Yonder--Maxwell AFB -- As the third anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine conflict approaches, Ukraine continues to demonstrate remarkable resolve that underscores the assertion that national security requires more than military strength—it needs societal resilience.[1] Such a premise is not new. During the Cold War, Sweden implemented a “Total Defense” concept that involves the entire Swedish society engaging in military and civil defense activities to prepare the nation for war.[2] Sweden scaled back the program after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact but reintroduced Total Defense planning in 2015 following Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea.[3] With Russia’s intrusion into Ukraine in 2022, along with other factors such as increases in cyber disruptions and lessons from the pandemic, in 2023 Sweden accelerated rearmament for Total Defense.[4] Sweden and the United States share many similar security challenges. In a contest below the threshold of war or in the gray zone, both are facing hybrid threats or adversaries that employ a tailored mix of weapons, tactics, terrorism, and criminal behavior in the same time and battlespace to obtain their political objectives.[5] In November 2024, Swedish authorities investigated two severed underwater fiberoptic cables located in the Baltic Sea within the Swedish economic zone, one running between Finland and Germany and another between Sweden and Lithuania.[6] The severed cabled disrupted telecommunication and internet connectivity in Lithuania and Finland.[7] Just two months prior, US Department of Justice indicted two Russian nationals for conducting a $10 million scheme to create and distribute Russian government-curated content to US audiences. [8] These examples of hybrid threats demand enhanced societal defense. Sweden is answering these demands in a centralized, whole-of-society fashion under Total Defense. On October 15, 2024, the Swedish government introduced a new defense bill for 2025-2030 that included additional $16.4 billion in military defense expenditure and $3.3 billion in civil defense.[9] Stockholm regards functional society as vital for its armed forces to function. In line with this perspective, the new Swedish government expenditures are aimed at strengthening electronic communication, postal services, food supply, drinking water, medical care, welfare, transportation, energy and civil protection. In November 2024, the Swedish government sent out five million pamphlets to its residents.[10] The pamphlet is an update of Sweden’s civil emergency booklet, whose contents include urging residents to prepare for the possibility of war and information on how to seek shelter during a nuclear attack.[11] Of note is a message on psychological defense and spirit of resiliency. We live in uncertain times. Armed conflicts are currently being waged in our corner of the world. Terrorism, cyber attacks, and disinformation campaigns are being used to undermine and influence us. To resist these threats, we must stand united. If Sweden is attacked, everyone must do their part to defend Sweden’s independence – and our democracy. We build resilience every day, together with our loved ones, colleagues, friends and neighbors.[12] Like Sweden’s recent investments, U.S. expenditure in civil defense increased significantly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The events on September 11 shifted US civil defense priority toward counterterrorism and heightened civil security measures—a departure to prior years’ focus on preparing communities for natural disasters and providing disaster relief. The enduring lessons from 9/11 will forever shape how Americans and the US government think about security, war, and peace. The 911 attack was a watershed moment that spurred American whole-of-society actions and activities such as mobilizing the US military; changing U.S. laws and security practices at local, state, and federal levels; and spurring discourses on ethical treatments of prisoners. Today, where strategic competition is most heightened, defense against hybrid threats calls for an American whole-of-society response. Despite years of massive efforts to reorganize and improve efficiency in military-civil defense after 9/11, coordination and integration issues remain a persistent challenge. The current US civil defense responsibilities remained distributed across private sector stakeholders and many federal, state, and local governments entities. Disjointed governance creates inefficiencies, overlapping responsibilities, and gaps in coordination. Fragmentation also decreases response time and hampers efforts to project resilience, particularly when responding to hybrid threats like cyberattacks or other gray-zone aggressions. The integration of public-private entities is another obstacle. Some US critical infrastructure, such as energy, is largely owned and operated by the private sector.[13] Integrated civil defense policies often lack mechanisms to compel or incentivize private sector compliance. The private sector’s ability to address cybersecurity risks also varies. Smaller organizations often lack access to resources to thwart, investigate or recover from sophisticated cyberattacks. If these organizations are critical nodes in the supply chain, the adversaries could exploit these vulnerabilities and cause disruptions such as delayed emergency services to non-delivery of essential goods. Given widespread internet access in the United States, a single incident can have far reaching consequences, such as influencing public confidence, making preparedness more complex.[14] To exacerbate coordination and integration challenges, public awareness campaigns are often inconsistent or divided into silos. A 2022 MITRE-Harris poll revealed that 77 percent of US residents surveyed were concerned about ransomware and 86 percent agreed that cyberattacks on US infrastructure and manufacturing should be treated as acts of terrorism.[15] The poll shows that U.S. residents have some understanding of hybrid threat concepts. However, the 2023 Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA’s) national-level public awareness campaign “Secure our World,” singularly focused on cybersecurity awareness with little emphasis on hybrid warfare such as how cyber vulnerabilities can allow hackers access to accounts and contact databases to deliberately spread false information or how a computer virus can shut down a power grid.[16] An unprepared civilian population or inadequate individual awareness can amplify the effects of adversarial disinformation and disruption efforts. An additional challenge in using policy to build military-civil resilience in the United States is that in areas where legal dilemmas and societal discords exist, policy becomes a delicate and sensitive issue where expedited consensus is unlikely to happen. The tension between private vs. public goods, privacy vs. security, or disinformation vs. public trust are unique to communities and sectors across America. Policy solutions must consider a myriad of contexts which make planning and coordinating execution more intricate. To operate in the competition continuum, national resilience is as important as military strength. The United States must rethink its approach to civil-military defense especially in addressing hybrid threats. Although Sweden’s Total Defense provides a viable template for a nationally led whole-of-society solution for strengthening societal resiliency, full replication may be impractical for the United States given geographical, and scale issues. However, a heuristic approach to adopt certain elements from the Swedish model such as coordinated hybrid threat public awareness campaign and improved integration and coordination between private and public entities across all sectors, provides productive first steps in generating uniform resiliency. Will the United States rise to the challenge of building a more cohesive whole-of-society defense system, or will it remain vulnerable to the multifaceted threats of the twenty-first century? Col. Pamela Stein is an active-duty Air Force Foreign Area Officer. She is currently an Air Force Executive Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In coordination with Air War College and the Wilson Center, her 2024–2025 research focuses on the connection between warfighting doctrine and coalition and alliance confidence building. [1]. “Readout of President Biden’s Call with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine,” The White House, January 10, 2025. [2]. “Total Defense,” Government Offices of Sweden, accessed December 30, 2024. [3]. Swedish Government Offices, Sweden’s Defense Policy 2016-2020, June 1, 2015. [4]. The Defence Commission’s Secretariat, Excepts from The Swedish Defense Commission’s Report on Security Policy, June 19, 2023. [5]. Frank Hoffmann, “On Not-So-New Warfare: Political Warfare vs. Hybrid Threats,” War on the Rocks, July 2, 2014. [6]. Miranda Bryant, “Sweden Seeks Clarity from China about Suspected Sabotage of Undersea Cables,” The Guardian, November 28, 2024. [7]. Reuters, “Two Telecoms Cables in Baltic Sea Severed, Raising Suspicions of Sabotage,” The Guardian, November 18, 2024. [8]. “Two RT Employees Indicted for Covertly Funding and Directing U.S. Company that Published Thousands of Videos in Furtherance of Russian Interests,” U.S. Department of Justice, September 4, 2024. [9]. “New Total Defense Resolution for a Stronger Sweden,” Government Offices of Sweden, October 15, 2024. [10]. Alex Maxia, “Nordic Neighbors Release New Advice on Surviving War,” BBC, November 19, 2024. [11]. The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, In Case of Crisis or War. (Karlstad: The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, 2024). [12]. Ibid., 3. [13]. “Energy Sector,” Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, accessed December 22, 2024. [14]. Virginia Department of Emergency Management, Civil Defense: From the Cold War to Contemporary Threats, accessed December 29, 2024. [15]. “MITRE-Harris Poll: 77 Percent of U.S. Residents Concerned about Ransomware, IP Theft and Attacks on Critical Infrastructure,” MITRE, January 6, 2022. [16]. “Secure Our World,” Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Secure Agency, accessed December 30, 2024.