Sweden launches national strategy for psychological defence

The Swedish government presented a new national strategy for psychological defence after an extra cabinet meeting, aiming to boost societal resilience against disinformation, influence campaigns and other hybrid threats. Civil defence minister Carl‑Oskar Bohlin emphasized that the strategy expands psychological defence from a single‑agency task to a whole‑society effort, involving state authorities, municipalities, regions, businesses, media and civil society. It outlines four pillars – countering undue information influence, strengthening defence will, enhancing media preparedness and leveraging artificial intelligence to identify foreign threat actors. The plan seeks to raise public awareness of influence operations, improve coordination among stakeholders and ensure Sweden can resist attempts to undermine trust in its democratic institutions.

Implementation tasks have been assigned to several agencies to operationalise the strategy.