Four in Ten Swedes Refuse to Defend the US, SOM Data Reveals NATO's Solidarity Problem

• 40% of Swedes are unwilling to defend the US in the event of an attack, according to the 2024 SOM survey
• The US joins Turkey and Hungary as the three NATO allies Swedes are least willing to fight for
• Political scientists Widmalm and Persson argue Swedes increasingly view the US as a threat, not a guarantor
• The data follows earlier findings that seven in ten Swedes no longer consider the US a democracy

Four in ten Swedes say they would not want Sweden to send troops to defend the United States if it were attacked, according to new data from Sweden's SOM Institute published in Dagens Nyheter. The survey places the US in the same category as Turkey and Hungary — the three NATO members that Swedish citizens are least willing to fight for. Political scientists Sten Widmalm and Thomas Persson, writing in DN Debatt, argue the numbers reflect a fundamental shift: the country that has been NATO's centre of gravity since 1949 is increasingly perceived in Sweden not as a security guarantor but as a source of threat.

Sweden joined NATO in March 2024 after abandoning two centuries of military non-alignment, a decision driven in large part by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The political argument was clear: collective defence under Article 5, backed by American military power, offered security that neutrality could not. Barely a year later, the Swedish public appears to have separated NATO membership from any obligation toward Washington. Overall support for the alliance remains high — Swedes are willing to defend their Nordic neighbours and the Baltic states — but the solidarity stops well short of the alliance's most powerful member.

The SOM data does not exist in isolation. Earlier this year, surveys showed that seven in ten Swedes no longer consider the United States a democracy. Taken together, the picture is of a public that has mentally exited the transatlantic relationship while remaining formally committed to the treaty structure built around it. This creates a specific political problem: Article 5 does not come with a menu. Sweden cannot invoke collective defence for itself while signalling that it considers the obligation optional when it runs the other direction. Widmalm and Persson frame it bluntly — who wants to die in battle for a country you regard as a threat?

The question Swedish politicians have not yet confronted is what follows from this. If public willingness to honour alliance commitments is selective — enthusiastic toward Helsinki and Tallinn, hostile toward Washington and Ankara — then Sweden's actual defence posture is a Nordic and Baltic one, not a transatlantic one. That posture already has a material basis. Finland fields the largest artillery force in Western Europe. Norway maintains a navy built for Arctic operations. Sweden's defence industry produces fighters, submarines, and advanced weapons systems. Denmark contributes expeditionary forces with combat experience. Iceland sits on the strategically critical GIUK gap. Combined, the Nordic countries would constitute a serious military power — one that does not require American permission to act or American willingness to show up.

No mainstream Swedish politician has proposed this alternative. The Riksdag (Swedish parliament) debated NATO accession as a binary — alliance or isolation — and the option of a Nordic defence union was never seriously examined. The SOM data suggests the Swedish public may already be there in practice, even if the political class has not caught up. Swedes want collective defence. They want it with their neighbours. They do not want it with a country an increasing share of them views as neither democratic nor trustworthy.

Sweden signed Article 5 seventeen months ago. Four in ten of its citizens would not honour it for the alliance's founding member.

Sources: Dagens Nyheter