Sverige och kärnvapen

Today, Sweden is well-known as a nation with a strong voice for non-proliferation and disarmament. This has not always been the case though, during the 1950´s the country was on its way to develop nuclear weapons of its own. This paper seeks to examine how this shift of direction happened during the 1960´s, and how it has affected Swedish security and defence policy as of today. This paper aims to explain the shift in policy using Allison and Zelikow’s Rational Actor and Government Politics models. The study shows that there is a connection between the Swedish policy during the cold war and that of today. A balance is kept between the Swedish foreign policy of non-aligned and support of non-proliferation, and the cooperation in security policy with NATO and USA. The support of the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has sent Sweden on a collision course with many of its closest cooperative partners in security policy matters. Here, Sweden might have stretched the non-proliferation and disarmament policy one step too far