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Yesterday, at a meeting of the Global Foresight Council in Paris, we discussed security. War has changed dramatically over the past five years. At the start of the full-scale invasion, I refused to evacuate and remained in Kyiv, which the Russians were trying to encircle. Back then, the war took the form of a column of Russian tanks storming my city. But today, it’s a completely different war. It’s a war of unmanned vehicles, the use of AI, massive drone attacks, complete battlefield transparency, and rapid-fire long-range weapons. All the military experience of the last century is simply irrelevant. Today, it’s not just military power that takes center stage, but a society’s capacity for resistance. You can have modern equipment and weapons, but if the country lacks people willing to defend it, that won’t help you much. Likewise, if the people on the home front are unable to withstand the onslaught of war, even the most experienced army cannot hold back the enemy without support from the home front. This winter, with temperatures at minus 25 degrees, millions of people in Ukraine lived without heat, electricity, or water. It’s hard for me to convey just how difficult it was. But all the banks were open, parliament held sessions, classes took place in schools, and hospitals performed surgeries. This is what the world calls Ukrainian resilience. But in reality, this is “total defense” itself. When a simple action becomes an act of resistance. People matter. Without working with people - those who take their freedom and security for granted - neither a powerful economy, nor military potential, nor even nuclear weapons will save developed democracies. Because if you are rich and weak, in a world where the international system of peace and security is dysfunctional, you will be plundered. And I see almost no frank discussion of this in developed democracies. Only a few countries stand as rare exceptions. In the rest, a psychological mechanism of denial dominates - the idea that “we are unique, so something like that simply cannot happen to us.”

The other week at the Berlin Security Conference I had the great opportunity to make some reflections on the security situation but, first and foremost, among allies and partners share what we are now doing in Sweden. Drawing on lessons learned from the war in Ukraine is imperative. The threat landscape has become more complex, as well as the means by which an antagonist might seek to exploit the vulnerabilities embedded in our societies. In Sweden, the concept of total defence refers to the defence and the resilience of the whole of society. In this day and age, we stand at a pivotal time and place. Security cannot be regarded as a burden. It is a deterrent and an asset. For those that take an interest in this, you might find my speech interesting.