STOCKHOLM  –  Sweden will in­crease defence spending by about 300 billion kronor ($30 billion) over the next decade, the prime minis­ter said Wednesday, call­ing it the nation’s biggest rearmament push since the Cold War. The Nordic country drastically slashed its defence spending after the Cold War ended, but reversed course following Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. The aim was to increase defence spend­ing to 3.5 percent of GDP by 2030, up from the 2.4 percent the country cur­rently spends. “We have a completely new security situation— and uncertain­ties will remain for a long time,” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told report­ers, adding, it marks Swe­den’s “biggest rearmament since the Cold War”. The Nordic country dropped two centuries of military non-alignment and ap­plied for membership in NATO in the wake of Rus­sia’s invasion of Ukraine — becoming the 32nd member in March 2024. Sweden has already decid­ed on investments that are expected to put defence spending at 2.6 percent of GDP in a few years, Kris­tersson said while noting this already put it well above NATO’s two percent spending target. “That is not enough,” Kristersson said. “Our assessment is that NATO and especially European NATO countries need to take major steps in the coming years.”