The paper examines Swedish deterrence and its credibility as confronted with Russia as a challenger. Previous studies has shown a lack of a clear strategy in the political guidance of the Swedish armed forces and therefore this paper aims to clarify if there is a shared view between these two parts on what type of deterrence Sweden should strive to achieve. The investigation is done as a single case study with qualitative text analysis of contemporary Swedish political and military documents.
The result from the analysis show that both the political and military documents contain the same two types of deterrence in the shape of central/denial and extended/denial. The analysis further reveals that both these types fulfill the criteria of credibility to some extent, but the lack of quantity in military capability leads to the result that it’s doubtful whether any of the two types can be seen as credible against Russia.