In this chapter, we present an analysis of the decision to apply for membership in NATO based on the Swedish government’s changing threat perceptions and assessments of the strategic landscape and corresponding strategic priorities related to asymmetrical power relationships. In the argument we link the scholarship of Sweden’s position and strategic priorities in the post-Cold War with the emerging research on the process and drivers for Sweden to join NATO. There are mainly two contributions from this move: (i) it provides a summary of Sweden’s position and changing military strategic priorities in the post-Cold War era, and (ii) it builds on these findings to hypothesize and contextualize why the Social Democratic government realized that its security policy doctrine had run its course in spring 2022.