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This study examines how sociotechnical imaginaries expressed in Swedish governing documents between 2017 and 2025 shape the development of cyber as a domain of warfare. Drawing on Jasanoff and Kim’s framework of sociotechnical imaginaries, the study analyses how imaginaries take shape, become embedded, encounter resistance and are extended in relation to major security policy shifts, particularly Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 

The analysis shows that military capability development is a process in which capability is conceptually and institutionally shaped through the interaction of imaginaries, organisation and technology. 

Change following major security shifts is selective: strategic framings are revised comprehensively, while more fundamental understandings of cyber as a domain display greater stability. Institutionalisation through governing documents enables capability development but also constrains what can be re-imagined. 

The study also contributes an analytical model that shows how sociotechnical imaginaries shape the conditions under which military capability becomes thinkable, legitimate and actionable.