Tröskelbegreppen och dess användande inom svensk försvars- och säkerhetspolitik : En analys av nyttjandet av begreppen tröskel, tröskeleffekt, tröskelförmåga och tröskelförsvar

Sammanfattning: The purpose of our essay is to examine how the threshold terms, regarding Swedish capacity, are used within Swedish security policy and whether the use of these terms differs within and between the Swedish Armed Forces and the Swedish Government and the parliament. We use a qualitative content analysis method and create an analysis instrument based on research from the Swedish Defence Research Agency. With this instrument we analyse strategic documents in Swedish security policy. The result highlights three main conclusions. The first conclusion is that there are many similarities in how the terms are used in Swedish security policy, but we have also found that there are both differences and confusion. We have also been able to demonstrate that the threshold terms are used as part of motivating and arguing for increasing various resources and assets to the Armed Forces. The second conclusion is that there are two distinct areas where there is uncertainty and a risk of misunderstanding regarding the use of the threshold terms. The first area is that within the Armed Forces there is an inconsistency and ambiguity as to what the actual threshold terms mean in different contexts. The other area that has shown uncertainties is the ability to specify the strength / size of the threshold term, which has occurred in the analysis units from both the political documents and the Armed Forces. As a part of this, our third conclusion is that the threshold terms are used in a way that creates a risk of misunderstanding. We can also conclude that this risk is higher in the Armed Forces compared to the political side.