By Liv Lewitschnik

If you’re on the metro in Stockholm these days, you can’t escape the message splashed across almost every billboard: Sweden is spending huge sums on rearmament in a bid to reverse years of limp military investment. The ads proclaim that a newly refurbished, now top-class submarine recently went back into service; that 503 specialist officers are in training; and that the latest generation of the Jas Gripen fighter jet, the 39E, will soon be ready for take-off. A spiffy tagline explains all the fuss: “For the sake of freedom.”

In the past five years, Sweden has upped its military spending by 138 per cent, from €5.5bn in 2020 to €13bn this year. The plan was to add another 30 per cent to the defence budget by 2030 but the prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, now wants to exceed this in accordance with the Rearm Europe Plan. “We will without a doubt belong to the countries that will be quickest in strengthening our own defence,” he said.
 
Sweden was one of the world’s best-armed states in relation to its population in the wake of the Second World War. But during the 1990s the nation changed course. “We initiated perhaps the most radical disarmament in the Western world,” says Oscar Jonsson, associate senior lecturer at the Swedish Defence University and the author of several books on Sweden’s rearmament. These books are now helping Swedes to understand the new reality of remilitarisation. However, Jonsson points out that “toing and froing still hurts the military today”.

The result is that the country is at risk of spending its defence budget on the wrong stuff. Compared to its allies, Sweden disproportionately invests in expensive systems and technologies that take a long time to develop without prioritising how they will be used in practice. Crucially, there’s a lack of focus on personnel, pilots and logistics systems.
 
Sweden has cottoned on to the need for more boots on the ground and conscription is back. But the numbers aren’t adding up quickly enough to get Sweden fighting fit. And lessons from the war in Ukraine are going unheeded: a need for heavy air defences, up-to-speed electronic warfare capabilities and the ability to conduct long-range combat. Sweden’s fighter pilots are, for example, not putting in any more training hours today than they were five years ago, hovering at about 11,250 hours a year.
 
Sweden is a country that prides itself on being measured, reserved and logical but its military growth spurt resembles the sudden developments of puberty. If it’s not the legs that suddenly look too long, it’s the arms. Put together, the limbs can appear recalcitrant, uncoordinated and even at times a little comical. Perhaps the new tagline for Sweden’s military spending spree should read: “For the sake of freedom from ineptitude.”
 
Lewitschnik is a Monocle contributor. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Over the past 15 years Japanese manga has moved deep into the digital world (writes Fiona Wilson). Once available only on paper, comics are increasingly migrating from print to mobile phones and tablets. On the production side, skilled typesetters – the people who put the words into manga – have been replaced by digital technology. Now, however, the Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage project is trying to keep the chapter from closing not only on the printed product but on the skills required to make it.

Spearheaded by Masashi Kinpachi Okamoto, the project uses special printing techniques to make limited-edition versions of manga artworks, which are then available to buy in Shueisha’s gallery in Tokyo’s Azabudai Hills.

“Until now, discussions about manga have mostly focused on the author, the story or the images,” says Okamoto. “The production process is rarely mentioned. By creating works with letterpress and other printing methods, I hope that we’re preserving and showing off these techniques.” 
 
To read the full story, click here.

As you take off from the runway, the world’s problems seem to recede, along with the towns and cities lost beneath the clouds (writes Julia Lasica). But one issue continues to plague commercial aircraft long after their ascent. GPS signal jamming has been thrown back into the spotlight this week amid escalating tensions between India and Pakistan. Emanating from conflict zones in the Middle East, the Black Sea and Kashmir, it is increasingly forcing civilian aircraft to reroute. It is estimated that more than 1,000 commercial planes are affected per day.

But a rather retro solution has been touted by Estonia, whose second-largest airport in Tartu was closed due to jamming for several months in 2024. Distance-measuring equipment (DME), widespread until the arrival of GPS in the 1990s, uses radio waves to assess the distance between an aircraft and a ground station. “I know that many countries and industry leaders are reopening the question of keeping navigation aids such as DMEs onboard,” says Mihkel Haug, the COO of Estonia’s Air Navigation Services. “The lesson is the same as ever – don’t throw away an old system before the new one is fully operational.” 
 
For more on no-fly zones, read our feature here. 

Launched 179 years ago, Town & Country is a mainstay of US newsstands. Stellene Volandes has been its editor in chief since 2016 and recently expanded her role at Elle Decor as its editorial and brand director. Here, she tells us about clever cover lines, media as a luxury product and her start as an intern.

How do you approach managing one of the oldest brands in the US?
As much as Town & Country is a media company, it is also a luxury heritage brand. It’s crucial to honour and understand what it is, while allowing it to evolve in a way that pushes it forward. I always remind people that you can move things quite far ahead as long as you’re able to thread it back to history. 
 
How important is the cover?
I think of print magazines as luxury products. In the same way that Hermès or Bottega Veneta looks at every stitch, I ensure that each part of our magazine offers something to the reader – and that begins with the cover lines. They’re our introduction to the reader, whether a subscriber or someone buying a copy at the airport, and Town & Country has a great tradition of them. Sometimes they’re a bit unhinged but isn’t that the point? 
 
Tell us about your expanded role at Elle Decor.
I have had a long relationship with Elle Decor. I was an intern there during college, under Marian McEvoy, the then-editor, who remains a great friend and inspiration to me. In such a crowded landscape, all media outlets need to consider what they are. Taking a more active role in shaping Elle Decor’s content and brand is an exciting challenge for me. Now we’re working on the summer issue, which includes our list of the world’s top designers. 
 
You can listen to the full interview with Volandes on the latest episode of ‘The Stack’.

This week we speak with Stellene Volandes, editor in chief of Town & Country and editorial and brand director of Elle Decor. Plus Paul Benney from biannual electronic music title Disco Pogo.