Logo: to the web site of the Swedish Defence University

According to the Swedish Military Intelligence and Security Service (Sw: Must), the threats against Sweden have assumed a broader and more complex form in recent years. The threats are described as simultaneous, i.e., new, and old threats coexist. This study intends to examine how this new context affected the civilmilitary relationship between the Swedish Armed Forces and the Government Office.

Based on literature studies and qualitative thematic analysis of self-collected interview data, the study has abductively explored the Swedish Armed Forces' experiences and their collaboration with the Government Office during recent years. By exploring these experiences with the help of concepts derived from civilmilitary theories and Principal-Agent theory, the study established close-to-practice knowledge about how the threats have affected the civil-military relationship in Sweden.

The results of the study show that the threat context brought employees of the Swedish Armed Forces and their stakeholders at the Government Office closer together. However, the result points to how the closer relationship has led to both barriers and adjustments, which in turn have led to various effects. Altogether, the analysis points to two seemingly dominant perspectives: the organic adaptation in lower-level cooperation, and the integrity aspect, both of which can potentially have far-reaching consequences.