What led Sweden to set up an agency dedicated to psychological defence in 2022?

Sweden has had the concept of psychological defence for over 70 years. However, the earlier agency that dealt with psychological defence was decommissioned in 2008. At the time, the pendulum of attention in government was swinging from the Cold War to crisis management. With no perceived threat to Sweden, many agencies related to the Cold War were shut down as a matter of efficiency. A Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) was set up instead.

All this changed with the 2007 cyber attacks in Estonia, the 2008 invasion of Georgia, and the many events leading up to the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea. I was head of global monitoring and analysis in the MSB at the time. We were tasked by the government to assess what impact the Crimean situation might have on Swedish crisis management. Our report found evidence of an organised disinformation campaign being conducted. We realised Sweden was under threat. As a result of the annexation of Crimea, the government made a U-turn and began a concerted effort to reevaluate and restore our national defence.

As part of renewed national efforts to strengthen different aspects of defence, my agency was formally tasked in 2016 with developing the capability to identify and counter foreign malign information influences. This was a function we had already spent two years preparing for, when we had found evidence of such influences targeting Sweden. I became Head of the Counter Information Influence Section at the MSB.

Following a reorganisation, the government decided to set up a dedicated agency for this work in 2018. After going through Sweden’s due process the Psychological Defence Agency (Myndigheten för psykologiskt försvar in Swedish, or MPF) was established in 2022.

What does psychological defence mean for Sweden today, and how does it differ from the way it was approached in the past?

The Cold War-era organisation that prepared Sweden for psychological warfare was designed in anticipation of actual warfare. It did not have an operational mandate in peacetime.

What we learnt from our findings in 2014 was that when it comes to the psychological arena, the threat begins long before we are aware of it. Furthermore, threats do not always end up with war. We may also be able to defuse conflict with action.

So we do not have to prepare for war per se, because that is not necessarily the intended end state. The end state of an aggressor is to control us, prevent us from doing anything that is against their interests, and perhaps make us do things that they will benefit from.

During the Cold War, the approach was to prepare for armed conflict. Today our aim is to protect our democratic process, our freedom of speech, our individual rights, and so on. If we do not uphold our core values, then we will not need psychological defence, because there will be nothing to protect.

Our agency’s mission is to coordinate the work of psychological defence in Sweden, and to support the actors who are part of that. This means we are not psychological defence ourselves, but we help drive and structure psychological defence in partnership with the whole of society.

We also seek to increase the resilience of the population. We develop knowledge in this field—for our own effectiveness as well as to build capacity in society—through research, training, and exercises. We also have a role in supporting media—free, independent media in Sweden—when they need our help to address disinformation.

Since we are an agency under the Ministry of Defence, our mandate is to protect Sweden against foreign threats—we do not look at internal actors spreading disinformation. This also means we have a mandate not just to defend Sweden, but to support the government and the armed forces, if we were at war or risk of war, in striking against threats. This is where we differ from our colleagues in civil defence, whose priority is national resilience and taking care of the effects of war.

When it comes to the psychological arena, the threat begins long before we are aware of it.

How does the MPF navigate the balance between countering disinformation while also upholding Sweden’s democratic values such as freedom of speech?

Researchers and other experts who ask me this question claim it is impossible. I say it is straightforward.

First, you have to take a step back and fundamentally understand that freedom of speech implies the right to be wrong. Freedom of speech therefore also implies protection of the rights of people who are wrong. We do not know if someone has malign intentions. Being wrong could be due to being sincerely misinformed.

So if someone in Sweden is spreading misinformation, we treat them as a vulnerability. What we do with vulnerabilities is to mitigate them—in this case, through positive dialogue and correct information. If we cannot stop them from spreading disinformation, we need to inform everyone else. But we do not treat them as a threat.

Foreign powers who are not part of our democracy and do not enjoy our rights can be treated as a threat. By foreign power, I mean any entity that can negatively affect Sweden’s national security goals, or our sovereign decision making, or our fundamental values. They could be either misinformed or malign, but since we do not have to accept their behaviour, we can treat them accordingly. So there are different tools to use in each situation.

But how can we finesse our actions given that the ecosystem of information is the same? What we learnt from 2014 is that if you are going to influence someone, you need to reach them first. Over the years, we have studied the different methods, capabilities, narratives, and activities being used to target Sweden.

If someone in Sweden is spreading misinformation, we treat them as a vulnerability. What we do with vulnerabilities is to mitigate them.

When we encounter disinformation, we do not risk infringing upon the rights of Swedes exercising their freedom of speech anonymously by digging for its source. Instead, we look for liabilities: vulnerabilities in our society, topics that generate fear or that create polarisation, or deficiencies in our information environment. We keep regular track of harmful narratives, misunderstanding, and potential areas of social tension, without focusing on who originated this information. Then we see what our rival foreign powers are also saying about these vulnerabilities, and when we find reason to believe that there is an organised threat to exploit them, we develop a plan to counter the threat.

In fact, the first thing we do when we see an influence operation is to do absolutely nothing. People do not have time to scroll through everything. In a week or two, people often stop caring about which contradictory lie is being spread. Most of the time, disinformation becomes diluted in the broader information environment, dies out, and is forgotten. If we cannot eliminate it from the system, we certainly do not want to help spread it. If we have to resort to fighting it, we will, but the best approach is not to get to that point, which is where malign actors want us to be.

Is there an example of how your agency has stopped disinformation from causing harm in Sweden?

In 2021 and 2022, Sweden was targeted by a massive influence campaign. It started when an outlet based in Egypt spread disinformation that Swedish social services were kidnapping Muslim children for nefarious purposes. Many people in Sweden, especially among our large migrant community, believed this because they did not know what was going on, nor how our system works. The story was complete nonsense, but it spread like wildfire, becoming amplified even internationally. Social tensions soared. There were demonstrations that were on the verge of becoming violent.

At this time, the MPF had existed as an agency for only two months. We decided that the most important first step was to stop the Swedish public from being fooled by this disinformation campaign. In Sweden, people do have the right to demonstrate for any reason—what we wanted was for people to know that this incident was based on disinformation.

So we went public and let the people know about the active threat, the vulnerabilities that were being exploited, and the negative consequences they posed to our nation. We relied on transparency as part of our defence. From that very moment, things changed. Some media outlets began to investigate the malign actions. Many organisers of the demonstrations started disassociating themselves from the campaign. Having initially lost control of the narrative, we took action to seize it again. This helped the Swedish Institute and other authorities to begin the long process of correcting information for domestic and international audiences.

How do you engage with media and other stakeholders for the media and information literacy aspect of your work?

We are very transparent in what we do. Twice a year, we invite the editors of major media houses to a meeting and share information with them: about our operations, the present environment, current vulnerabilities and threats, as well as new techniques, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and social media, being used to target Sweden. They can request for special presentations on particular topics, ask us questions, and discuss issues with us and among themselves. We invite them to tell us if they want something from us. The basic principle is to share knowledge.

We also finance a research institute at Linnaeus University to train accredited journalists on understanding and identifying information influence. If a journalist or media house is attacked, they can call us for advice, and we can call in the right authorities to make sure they are supported.

We have an open-door policy with the media and try to give as many interviews as possible. On my part, I believe that the best way to talk about our issues is to tell the media what we see. We depend on the media to be our filters and distributors of quality knowledge, to reach out to the public. We have handled many crises simply by conducting interviews.

The fact is the information environment has changed dramatically. With social media, the changing patterns of media consumption are becoming problematic, especially among particular groups, including the young, and older people. Our population is consuming news that is completely unfiltered. It is not reasonable to expect our public to be experts in every field—but as a result, people are being fooled because they do not have the knowledge and understanding of the topic to be able to evaluate everything they read or receive. The more critical concern is that the understanding of how our society works is deteriorating. And if you do not understand how society works, you cannot appreciate the impact of the news you receive.

The best way to make things happen is through knowledge and engagement. Through these, we can build capability, create standards, as well as broaden and deepen discussion of issues to do with psychological defence. To this end, we have set up a Cooperation Council for psychological defence, including a small number of public agencies: the military, security, and police services, as well as the civil defence and crisis management agencies, representatives involved in media literacy, the Swedish Institute, embassies, and other civic and business institutions. This council meets at least twice a year to discuss how best to develop resilience and capabilities to do with psychological defence. There is also an operational forum where we can gather these parties to address specific issues.

How is the nature of foreign interference changing, and what developments may be important to pay attention to, looking ahead?

There are many more actors now conducting influence activities. In the old days, there were state actors using different proxies. Today, you have companies for hire—mercenaries conducting these operations—which makes it even more complicated to find out who is behind an operation and what direction it might come from. Information weapons are now available for anyone to use, which makes it a more multipolar, messier environment.

That said, today, we have much better awareness of incipient threats, and Swedes have become fairly resilient to foreign influence campaigns. The war in Ukraine has led to sanctions against Russian propaganda outlets, which means these cannot be used to reach into our societies. As a result, they have refocused efforts on other countries, in Latin America, Africa, or parts of Asia, where the crude methods they used in 2016 and before can still have an effect to promote toxic narratives.

In terms of new developments, we have been keeping our eyes on machine learning. Generative AI brings brand new information risks because it can produce imagery that is incorrect but looks real. However, for a piece of false information to actually cause harm, it needs to reach you. So our analyst who is working with AI is also working with the analysts dealing with social media and with gaming, which are two different vectors for AI.

Public institutions need to talk about what they are doing and be clear about informing the public if there are changes to policies.

Based on Sweden’s experience, how can governments proactively address these challenges?

In general, the main issue is still one of vulnerabilities. Disinformation works because of vulnerability in society. As government officials, we need to step up and decrease these vulnerabilities. The best way to counter disinformation is good governance.

I believe most public organisations do indeed do a good job, but the public may not know about it. Public institutions need to talk about what they are doing and be clear about informing the public if there are changes to policies. Society is always changing. We need to constantly re-educate the people and remind them about how the system works.

We need to help our population understand what they are vulnerable to; what key issues will make them believe disinformation. We need to increase coordination and cooperation, and have people help each other find and counter disinformation. And we need to educate all officials on what to do in the face of an active threat.

The backbone of psychological defence is an informed population. This is a job not just for the public agencies but also the education system and the municipal outfits in direct contact with the public: everyone must work together on this.

Governments can build up resilience by paying attention to strategic communication. Public institutions need to have a communication plan to increase resilience: to inform the population about what is going on, and to also think about the potential impact of information we give out.

This is where transparency is crucial. To give an example: if you are not afraid to talk to the media about something, you are probably doing a good job. If you are afraid to talk about an issue, why is that? What are you protecting? You open up a vulnerability for threat actors to exploit. So the more active you are in the information space, the less space malign actors have to play in.

Thinking strategically in communication is a vital part of psychological defence. In the end, it is a race to reach the target audience with the right information.