When Sweden gained full membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in March of 2024, it created more than one paradigm shift. As with the geopolitical and military landscape of Northern Europe, Swedish transport infrastructure was forever changed. And how the country develops that infrastructure must change with it.

Long before Swedish public support shifted in favor of membership following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the country had been one of NATO’s closest partners for decades. But fully joining NATO brings a new level of strategic cooperation with allies and neighbors. Sweden will serve as a logistic hub and transit corridor – both for operations during peacetime and potential military conflicts. It’s critical for moving troops and supplies across Scandinavia, especially west-east and around the Baltic Sea.

Rethinking infrastructure investments

As a result of its NATO membership, Sweden is making a historic level of investment in new and improved infrastructure, from securing ports to closing railway gaps. Reports in 2024 suggested that infrastructure upgrades linked to NATO requirements could amount to several billion euros. Later that year, the Swedish government announced major investment in the country’s roads and railways over the next 12 years. Less than a year later, plans were fully underway for connecting Norway and Finland by rail to enable the transport of NATO forces – through Sweden.

So the central question is no longer how much Sweden intends to invest in transport infrastructure. The question is now whether the system for planning and delivering infrastructure can move fast enough to meet the demands of NATO membership. This strategic imperative for accelerated development offers Sweden a unique opportunity: to rethink how it prioritizes, finances, and implements infrastructure.

It’s worth noting that Sweden’s national security doctrine has long emphasized the concept of Totalförsvar (total defense), built on the integration of civilian and military capabilities – a logic that inherently supports investments in dual-use infrastructure. In practice, however, this perspective has only been partially reflected in infrastructure policy and has lacked consistent prioritization over time.

A slow and inflexible system

Sweden’s infrastructure goals are ambitious. The resources it’s mobilizing to meet NATO transport needs are substantial. But the current system for infrastructure development lacks the execution capacity necessary to match.

Major railway projects in Sweden can take decades from initial concept to completion. Upgrading existing transport assets has also been slow and inefficient. Many railway lines throughout the country are currently used far beyond the levels for which they were built.

In a sense, the system for developing infrastructure in Sweden is from another era. Railway development, for instance, is managed through the 12-year commitments of the government’s national plan for transport infrastructure. This limits flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances, as well as fragments funding between anticipating future needs and addressing the maintenance backlog. Lengthy permitting processes and unclear prioritization between national and regional interests create additional bottlenecks. And delays can become even more prolonged due to complex and demanding processes, such as appeals of public procurement decisions for government-funded projects.

The Swedish system for infrastructure development has never lacked vision. It has lacked pace. That sluggishness could be tolerated when the geopolitical environment was stable, but not now. Structural reforms are needed, otherwise the high aims and high budgets for NATO-supporting transportation risk colliding with the same barriers that have slowed infrastructure development in Sweden for decades.

Serving both preparedness and peacetime

There are many ways to improve how Sweden develops transport infrastructure – from new financing models to better institutional design – but the key underlying change is in the mindset that views assets like railway lines as investments that are either for “defense” or “civilian” purposes. Embracing the principle of “dual use” infrastructure expands the viewpoint so that an asset can and should be utilized for both applications. Such a change would drive development at a quicker pace and maximize benefits across the country.

Under dual use, infrastructure with a critical military function during any potential conflict further strengthens society by also operating in a non-military capacity during peacetime. A project to expand a port enables future military mobility while additionally aiding the flow of exports. A new rail corridor is built to provide redundancy for security as well as to bolster local industries.

In practical terms, this avoids parallel investments. An investment to strengthen national preparedness – such as electrification, logistics efficiency, and network resilience – simultaneously supports economic competitiveness. And vice versa.

The dual-use mindset doesn’t see national defense and economic growth as separate agendas competing for resources. Instead, they become mutually reinforcing. Consequently, multiple societal purposes increase the legitimacy of an infrastructure asset – making it more justifiable to more stakeholders. It also better enables collaboration between public planning and private investment, transforming the public–private relationship beyond transactional into a more long-term alignment and closing gaps in execution capacity.

A new approach already in motion

This may seem like a framework that only exists in theory, but there are already examples today that highlight the value of dual-use infrastructure for Swedish railways.

In northern Sweden, the Malmbanan (the Iron Ore Line) connects major mining regions in the far north with the Norwegian port of Narvik. The single-track line runs just over 440 kilometers, 398 of them on the Swedish side, and is an important corridor for military mobility in northern Scandinavia. It is also one of Europe’s most important freight corridors for iron ore exports from northern Sweden to global markets. Trafikverket (the Swedish Transport Administration) has announced it will make significant upgrades to Malmbanan with track renewal, station extensions, and passing loops. Thus, solving capacity constraints can simultaneously address strategic vulnerability and economic competitiveness.

And while southern Sweden’s Sydostlänken (the Southeast Link) is still in the planning stage, it already illustrates how the same infrastructure investment can strengthen both military mobility and industrial connectivity. Featuring 41 km of upgraded rail line and 17 km of new tracks, Sydostlänken will connect a nationwide train corridor and a coastal railway, creating a more direct link between railways and ports on the Baltic Sea. To fully harness the nationally funded railway line’s impact on the region’s economy, five municipalities have entered a unique collaboration with each other and private stakeholders (including Polar Structure) to develop key local railway assets like a triangular junction, an updated local classification yard, and more.

With a dual-use mindset, it’s not important whether specific infrastructure is developed through public or private models. Multiple models will likely be required to meet Sweden’s NATO-supporting infrastructure goals. What’s important is whether actual execution capacity is created, with clarity and balanced risk. No matter what, a shift is underway in the world of Swedish infrastructure development.

By developing transport infrastructure with the principle of dual use, Sweden can ensure that change rises to meet the challenge of its NATO membership and also has a fruitful and lasting impact.