Civil Defence in Europe: An Initial Assessment

Civil Defence in Europe: An Initial Assessment

International Institute for Strategic studies, 21 April 2026

Europe's civil defence is a patchwork: some governments have built durable whole-of-society systems; others remain chronically exposed. Closing that gap requires not just more spending, but a fundamental rethinking of how states, societies, and the private sector prepare for threats which no longer respect the boundary between war and peace.

Executive Summary

This report provides an initial assessment of efforts to strengthen modern civil defence in Europe. Faced with a radically altered threat landscape – characterised by the convergence of conventional armed conflict, intensifying strategic competition and accelerating technological disruption – European nations have acknowledged the need to build up their physical and non-physical defences and resilience across multiple domains and sectors. The positive news is that developing ‘civil defence 2.0’ concepts and systems is now firmly embedded on most European countries’ political agendas, with the European Union and NATO also dedicating more institutional resources to this critical requirement.

However, the principal finding of this joint report by the IISS and the Swedish Defence Research Agency is that Europe remains a patchwork of resilience, with some countries having built stronger, more durable systems and others still facing chronic vulnerabilities. While most European governments have recognised the threat of Russia’s (and China´s) unconventional warfare, they are struggling to fund and implement the necessary whole-of-society civil defence.

Nordic total-defence models like those pursued by Sweden and Finland provide a strong conceptual blueprint. But, as the report sets out, even in these advanced countries, actual readiness is hampered by the challenge of implementing the necessary reforms. Indeed, any preparedness model in Europe will likely encounter several fundamental challenges when trying to build long-term, structured resilience. The first, and perhaps most fundamental, is that of coordination, both civil-military and civil–civil. While most European armed forces are relatively homogeneous entities with a defined chain of command, whole-of-society civil defence does not involve a single organisation but a plethora of actors, including government agencies, regional and local municipalities, private businesses and different parts of civil society. This heterogeneity makes national and international coordination in Europe complex and cumbersome at best. Even if a coordinating body exists, to be effective it must have clear mandates and adequate knowledge of all the sectors and aspects that make up civil defence.

Moreover, the move away from a ‘just-in-time’ to ‘just-in-case’ principle of civil defence, particularly in the context of logistics and supply chains, requires operationalising preparedness by design across institutions, infrastructure and procedures. The necessary design choices – such as diversification, flexibility and modularity redundancy – require much stronger private-sector engagement in civil defence. But while the public–private partnership backbone of civil defence has been strengthened in some European countries, it remains weak in others. Moreover, while the EU has moved to establish common standards and greater incentives, the preparedness-by-design concept is likely to fail across Europe without deep engagement at the national and regional levels, across critical sectors and ultimately among citizens.

Alongside enhancing the resilience of physical assets, European countries know they must strengthen civil defence in the cognitive domain. Indeed, public trust in Europe behaves like critical infrastructure: it is built slowly but can be lost quickly. The modern information environment represents a structural break from the Cold War era, from a system of regulated gatekeepers to a world increasingly governed by algorithms. Adversaries seek to exploit the cognitive domain to paralyse decision-makers. As a consequence, since 2022, European civil-defence doctrine has undergone a paradigm shift, moving from a merely reactive posture of physical-asset protection to the proactive defence of the cognitive environment and maintenance of public trust. The establishment of national organisations such as Sweden’s Psychological Defence Agency is a welcome step in this direction. But more efforts are needed across Europe to future-proof societies against hostile cognitive operations aimed at undermining public trust.

The report also examines the critical question of funding. On the positive side, NATO allies have agreed to allocate 1.5% of their national GDP to ‘defence and security related expenditure’, including civil preparedness, critical-infrastructure protection and network defence. Moreover, individual European countries such as Germany and Sweden have significantly increased their financial investments in measures to strengthen national civil defence. More broadly, countries across Europe are investing in resilience and looking to follow the example of states that have already established models and avenues for funding.

However, differences between national approaches, varied definitions of what constitutes ‘dual-use’ or defence-related spending, and the lack of an agreed minimum-viable level of resilience make it difficult to accurately track and measure these investments at both the national and institutional level. Until the 1.5% requirement clearly defines what will or will not be counted, European countries may stretch the definition to include items that do not contribute to overall defence and resilience. There is also little incentive to align this spending with wider European resilience, as opposed to funding that supports national priorities.

To download the full report, visit: https://www.iiss.org/research-paper/2026/04/civil-defence-in-europe-an-initial-assessment/