Who’s going to look after our critical national infrastructure in case of a crisis or even a war? Don’t suggest the army: the armed forces will be busy attending to duties for which only the military possesses the necessary expertise.
This is exactly the dilemma that the government sought to solve when, in the Integrated Review 2021, it promised to “explore options for a wider civilian reserve”.
Now Sweden is showing us how to do it. In January, the government reactivated the civil defence duty that existed alongside military defence duty during the Cold War. In its new iteration, the civil defence duty obliges citizens to assist first-responder agencies — and the national grid. Last week the government said that about 1,000 Swedes would be