The Rise and Fall of the Submarine Threat: Threat Politics and Submarine Intrusions in Sweden 1980-2002

Fredrik Bynander

(Uppsala University, 2003)

In a time when threats inherent to the Cold War have been largely forgotten, and replaced with fears of terrorist attacks and epidemics, this book returns to the not so distant past in search for knowledge on how threats grow and decline in a societal context. The repeated submarine hunts that took place along the Swedish coast throughout the 1980s and early 1990s caused a massive debate on the nature of this threat, relating it to Swedish-Soviet relations, Swedish military capabilities, and its position in the larger East-West conflict. Although never solved, or indeed fully understood, interest in the mystery of uninvited visitors faded away as the Cold War came to an end and the prime suspect ceased to exist.

Within this complex fabric of the New Cold War, Sweden's security policy faced multiple challenges at the outset of the 1980s, yet the submarine threat became the main concern in the public debate, and it resultet in damaging partisan battles. Why did that happen? Which actors portrayed the acuteness of this alleged danger, and how did that resonate with the media and the general public? How has this problem stayed politically sensitive even into the new century? All of these questions are investigated in this book, and the answers generated are used to shed light on the general issue of threat politics in modern society.

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