Swedish military neutrality in the post‐cold war: ‘old habits die hard’

Abstract

Founded on an empirically informed investigation, this article aims to elucidate the evolving thinking and rationale of doctrinal military non‐alliance as the basic tenet of Sweden's post‐1989 security policy. To this end, it will attempt to illuminate the major political and strategic reasons behind the reluctance of the Swedish political leadership to alter the country's security policy paradigm in abandoning its long‐established loyalty to military neutrality and joining NATO. In this article it is argued that in the course of the 1990s, a departure from the principle of freedom from alliances did not come about, mostly given the Social Democrat Party's identification with and public opinion's support towards the traditional ’en alliansfri politik syftande till neutralitet i krig’. The present study outlines the general hesitation of Stockholm's political elite to elicit a clear‐cut security course of action which threw the NATO accession issue into a sort of limbo.