Total defence: four French frigates, and Sweden's first psychological defence strategy
Sweden treats its military and civil defence as a single whole, totalförsvar. It has signed a 4.3 billion euro contract for four French frigates, the first due in 2030, and its government has presented the country's first national strategy for psychological defence. According to the armed forces, the targets for the new Himars rocket artillery lie hundreds of kilometres behind the front lines of a potential war.
In a piece SVT labels an analysis, its security reporter John Granlund wrote on 7 September 2026 that the new Himars rocket artillery will let Sweden strike targets far behind the front lines. He writes that more and more of Sweden's defence looks like this: a defensive war fought far from Sweden rather than at its own border. The armed forces name the targets: weapons depots and logistics hubs, hundreds of kilometres behind the front lines in a potential war.
On 1 September 2026, aboard the French frigate Amiral Ronarc'h moored in Stockholm, President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson signed a 4.3 billion euro contract for four French frigates. The Local reports that the first is due for delivery in 2030. Macron said the ships will carry Aster 30 air-defence interceptors and possibly naval cruise missiles for long-range strikes. He also said Sweden would help support a Paris-led nuclear deterrence scheme.
In March 2026 Macron had unveiled a programme under which France, the EU's only nuclear-armed state, would protect allies with its atomic stockpile, Sweden included. Kristersson said NATO's European pillar keeps strengthening. Macron called the deal a major strategic partnership, with Franco-Swedish cooperation becoming an essential component of the European pillar of defence. European NATO allies worry about Washington's wavering commitment under President Donald Trump, The Local reports, with Russia's war against Ukraine in its fifth year. Sweden joined NATO in 2024, two years after Russia invaded Ukraine.
On 28 July 2026 Kristersson's government presented Sweden's first national strategy for psychological defence. Mandates went to the agencies for psychological defence and for civil defence, the armed forces and the conscription agency. Hostile actors work systematically to create unease and division within and between countries, the government writes. The strategy came weeks before the general election of 13 September 2026, a vote the government had said needed protecting from improper influence by a foreign power. That election removed the government, and Kristersson resigned on 17 September.
Frigates, rocket artillery and a strategy for the population all sit under one word, totalförsvar. The government defines it as the work needed to prepare Sweden for war, in two parts, military defence and civil defence. Carl-Oskar Bohlin, the minister for civil defence, calls psychological defence one of the instruments of total defence, and the strategy's own goal is to fit it more firmly into that whole. No source here connects the frigates to the strategy.
”We are sealing a major strategic partnership, one that is reciprocal, respectful and ambitious.”
The numbers
What the comparison shows
Where they agree
The Local's report of the signing says Macron and Kristersson both stressed the need for greater European autonomy in defence, and both used the phrase European pillar. Bohlin's subject is the home front rather than Europe.
Where they split
Macron's European pillar of defence and Kristersson's European pillar of NATO are not the same institution: one stands in Europe, the other inside the alliance. Macron alone offered allies protection from France's nuclear arsenal.
What nobody is saying
No source here prices the Himars purchase. SVT calls Himars American rocket artillery and gives no maker, no cost and no date for the buy, so the frigates' 4.3 billion euros is the only price on the page. Nobody says how the will to defend is to be measured, although it is one of the four areas the strategy covers.
Who says what
States and state-like actors are constantly challenging Swedes' trust in their own society, he says. He presents the strategy as the answer, one plan to strengthen resilience in what he calls the cognitive domain.
”Vår försvarsvilja sitter mellan öronen.”Our will to defend is in our heads.
Puts the frigate purchase in a European frame rather than a transatlantic one. The pillar he names is the European pillar of NATO, something growing inside the alliance rather than alongside it.
”Everyone now knows that in Europe we must take greater responsibility for our own security.”Everyone now knows that in Europe we must take greater responsibility for our own security.
Presents the contract as a partnership rather than a sale, and places it inside a European pillar of defence. He also offered allies protection from France's atomic stockpile, Sweden included.
”We are sealing a major strategic partnership, one that is reciprocal, respectful and ambitious.”We are sealing a major strategic partnership, one that is reciprocal, respectful and ambitious.
Our coverage
- Swedish military doctrine shifts from border defence to striking targets in RussiaTuesday, 8 September 2026
- Macron in Stockholm as Sweden buys French frigates in strategic partnershipWednesday, 2 September 2026
- Sweden's government presents its first national strategy for psychological defenceTuesday, 28 July 2026