Preparedness to act: Lessons for the future from civilian defence exercises 1937-1997

This report provides an overview of types of exercises that were used in the previous civil defence in Sweden. It is shown that a broad spectrum of threat scenarios were considered in the development of exercises. While war constituted a fundamental threat for the Swedish total defence system as a whole, the report shows that the civil defence also developed exercises in relation to a spectrum of nonmilitary threat scenarios. For example, exercises within the economic defence (a branch of the civil defence) focused neither on war nor on well-defined crisisscenarios, but rather on deteriorating conditions for trade and commerce (caused by trade wars or other types of disturbances) that would ultimately threaten Sweden's security of supply - and hence the total defence. Based on this historical overview, the report concludes with an analysis of current and future challenges and possibilities in terms of civil defence exercises.