During the past decades, the process of militarization that characterized Sweden after the Second World War has been replaced by a process of demilitarization. With the debates following the war in Georgia 2008 and the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, this process of demilitarization appears under challenge. This raises questions about the nature of these processes and the problems facing the attempts at turning them around. The article introduces a framework for analysing the influence of the military upon politics and society in the twenty-first-century European context with the aim of better understanding the various traits, their interconnections and relation to broader trends in Europe and the West. The analysis shows that traits of demilitarization are still dominating in Sweden, although some indications of remilitarization can be found.