Sweden has made major changes in its security strategy, while deterrence has still been part of the strategy. How, then, have the strategies been adapted to meet threats in modern times?  This study aims to contribute to increased knowledge about Swedish deterrence and deterrence in general through a comparative qualitative text analysis of Sweden's security strategies during the 21st century.  The result indicates that Sweden has made changes in deterrence strategies through a transition from immediate and narrow deterrence to general, broad, and central deterrence. The changes are based on a long-term perspective with a clear focus on increasing the national defense capability, involving the total defense, and strengthening the resilience. The analysis demonstrate continuity in collective deterrence and deterrence by denial. But in contrast the findings indicates that deterrence by punishment seems to be more involved in the security strategy during the latter part of the 21st century.

Alliances should have a big amount of capabilities and strong individual states to deter successfully. NATO needs to decide who their adversary is, what actions to deter and what countermeasures to deter them. They should also increase their conventional forces and willingness to use nuclear weapons as a response to aggression. With this background in previous research the problem of this thesis is how does an alliance deterring strategy look like and how is it tailored to fit the adversary, threat and countermeasures. The aim for this thesis is to explain how the deterring strategy of NATO looks like and how it has changed since after the cold war till today. The results show that the deterring strategy has changed focus. From the focus on territorial, broad and denial deterrence in the strategic concept from 1999. To the focus on territorial, extended, broad and denial deterrence in the NATO summit meeting in Warsaw 2016.