What is the Problem Represented to Be? From Decommissioning to the Re-Establishment of the Gotland Regiment P18

This article examines how problem representations in Swedish defense policy shaped the decommissioning, re-establishment, and subsequent expansion of the Gotland Regiment (P18), and how these processes reflect the coexistence of organizational anorexia and destructive growth within the Swedish Armed Forces. Using Bacchi’s (2009) “What is the Problem Represented to Be?” (WPR) approach, the study conducts a qualitative discourse analysis of policy documents, municipal reports, audit reviews, and media sources from 2004 to 2025. Three findings stand out. First, shifting threat constructions structured both closure and revival: an early-2000s discourse of stability legitimized downsizing, while later framings of regional insecurity justified renewed investment. Second, economic rationales persisted across both phases, as decisions remained conditioned by budgetary constraints and efficiency logics. Third, governance and capability gaps constrained implementation, including competence loss, recruitment shortfalls, and tensions within total defense integration. Theoretically, the analysis integrates Bacchi’s discursive lens with organizational change research to show that organizational anorexia and destructive growth can coexist rather than unfold sequentially, as scarcity logics endure during expansion. Societally, the case demonstrates how P18’s closure weakened Gotland’s population base and resilience, while re-establishment generated new tensions between military priorities and local needs – dimensions largely absent from national policy discourse. The study clarifies how defense policy constructs problems that channel organizational change and identifies risks in privileging threat and economic narratives over long-term capability building, a challenge likely to intensify as Sweden deepens NATO integration.