Is Sweden's Cold War 'hedgehog' strategy coming back

[Celerity]

In the Cold War, weapons were stashed in forests all over Sweden, in factories, and in citizens' homes, as part of the so-called 'hedgehog' strategy, meaning Sweden, although small, should be painful to attack. The Local spoke to Frej Welander, an analyst at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, about whether we might see this approach return.

https://www.thelocal.se/20220307/interview-is-swedens-cold-war-hedgehog-strategy-coming-back/



Sweden, like Ukraine, Switzerland, and several other countries, has a ‘total defence’ strategy, meaning individuals and civil institutions, as well as the Armed Forces, are responsible for defending the country. Military Defence and Civil Defence are supposed to work together, with every individual having a role. In recent years, the government has increased spending on the military dramatically, but the other arm — civil defence — has been slower to bounce back. According to Welander, a lot still needs to be done before Sweden’s defence preparations reach Cold War levels.

The Local: When was Sweden’s system of Total Defence established?

Frej Welander: It was a gradual development. I’d say the realisation of the need came shortly after the advent of flights and airpower. And then following this, in both of the World Wars, there was this realisation that war involved all of society. Anything was a target. The city was a target. So then there was a realisation that civil society also needed to have preparedness, that it was a component of warfare.

TL: To what extent was Sweden’s Cold War defence doctrine based around repelling an invasion, and to what extent was it aimed at simply making an invasion more costly?

FW: That was the whole point. if you look at our defence force back then, it was completely geared to just being a very tough nut to crack. Sweden was supposed to be a “hedgehog”, that was the metaphor we used: “Hedgehog Sweden”. So we were supposed to be a small but pointy force to be reckoned with. Obviously, we would never have been a match for the Soviet Army. But the point was not winning, it was making it so costly for anyone to mess with us that they wouldn’t want to.

TL: What exactly is Sweden’s Total Defence doctrine, and when was Sweden’s defence at its peak?

FW: ‘Total defence’ is just, essentially, that the whole of society needs to work together to overcome an enemy. In terms of manpower, we were the biggest, I think, at the height of the [Second World] War. We had 300,000 men under arms, just waiting at the borders. And at no point during the war, were there fewer than 60,000 people. But the 50s or 60s was really the heyday of the total defence doctrine. We had a much bigger army. At the beginning of the 1950s, according to some estimates, we had the fourth or fifth biggest airforce in the world — in actual numbers, not per capita.

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