Swiss Federal Council Approves 2026 Security Policy Strategy, Establishing Three Main Goals: Enhance Resilience, Improve Protection, Strengthen Defense Capabilities
The Swiss Federal Council officially approved the "2026 Security Policy Strategy" on September 18 to address the deteriorating international security situation. The strategy establishes three main goals: enhance resilience, improve protection, and strengthen defense capabilities, involving collaborative participation from the federal government, cantons, municipalities, businesses, academia, and civil society.
The strategy includes 10 objectives and 46 specific measures, focusing on addressing risks such as hybrid threats, remote and drone attacks, and organized crime; a public consultation was held from December 2025 to March 2026, with positive overall feedback on the analysis of the security situation, comprehensive policy ideas, and priority directions. The implementation of the strategy will be coordinated by a steering committee led by the Swiss State Secretariat for Security Policy (SEPOS), with the Federal Council set to receive a report on the implementation status by the end of 2028.
Defense Minister Martin Pfister announced that a specialized drone battalion will be established by 2028 as one of the specific measures to enhance defense capabilities; the strategy also highlights the regional security impacts of the Russia-Ukraine war, risks from hybrid and remote attacks, and Switzerland's dependence on external critical resources as major driving factors for this strategic adjustment.
Data shows that Switzerland's defense spending in 2026 is expected to be about $7.5 billion, accounting for approximately 0.8% of GDP, an increase of about 5% from $7.2 billion in 2025; this ratio is significantly lower than the historical peak of 3.0% in 1958 and the historical average of 1.5% since then. The Swiss government aims to raise the defense spending to 1% of GDP within the next six years, with Pfister proposing to increase the VAT rate from 8.1% by 0.8 percentage points to 8.9% to raise about 31 billion Swiss francs for defense funding, but a poll in February showed that 76% of respondents opposed the VAT increase.
Switzerland has long pursued a policy of armed neutrality, but several experts, including military strategist Marcel Berni, point out that "neither Russia nor NATO sees Switzerland as a truly neutral country anymore," which is an important background for the strategy's emphasis on strengthening defense capabilities rather than solely relying on its neutral status. Meanwhile, several European governments have expressed intentions to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP, creating a stark contrast with Switzerland's current target of less than 1%.
From the perspective of resource and budget allocation, the path for expanding Switzerland's defense budget has become relatively clear after the strategy's approval—if the VAT increase proposal is approved, it will provide a stable funding source of about 31 billion Swiss francs for specific equipment and capability-building projects such as the establishment of a drone battalion. This means that incremental fiscal resources will shift from the consumer side (all taxpayers) to the defense industry and arms procurement; for Swiss and European defense contractors, this represents potential order increases, especially for procurement needs related to drones and air defense countermeasures against hybrid threats; however, due to the 76% public opposition to tax increases, there remains political uncertainty about whether this funding will materialize, and the actual pace of Switzerland's defense spending acceleration may be slower than the official six-year target.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
The historical trajectory of Switzerland's defense spending as a percentage of GDP shows that it peaked at 3.0% in 1958 during the Cold War, then gradually declined to a range of 0.65% to 1.3% in the early 21st century, dropping to a low of 0.7% in 2024; the approval of the security strategy and the proposal for tax increases to reach a target of 1% within six years is essentially a structural correction to decades of continuous reductions in defense investment, continuing Switzerland's historical pattern of "increased threats, increased budgets."
In terms of funding pathways, Switzerland has chosen to raise VAT (rather than issuing bonds or cutting budgets in other areas) as the main means of financing, intending to raise about 31 billion Swiss francs through increased consumption tax burdens on the public, which will be specifically directed towards projects such as the establishment of a drone battalion—this represents a capital transfer path from "public consumption" to "defense equipment procurement," but the 76% opposition rate in polls indicates that this path has not yet been politically cleared.
This transformation can be compared to Germany's recent "Zeitenwende" defense policy shift—Germany similarly moved from a long-standing restraint on military spending to significantly increasing its defense budget and establishing special funds in response to the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war. In terms of the industry stage, Switzerland's defense policy is currently in the early stages of transitioning from "traditional armed neutrality and low-intensity defense investment" to "enhanced resilience and practical defense capabilities," with this strategy and tax proposal being key nodes for whether this transformation can truly take place.
Structural judgment: This event represents capital concentration. Switzerland plans to concentrate the newly raised VAT revenue on equipment and defense capability construction to address hybrid threats, indicating that limited fiscal resources are being reallocated from the previously marginalized area of defense to general public expenditure. This path of resource re-concentration is the core mechanism for whether this security strategy can truly translate into actual defense capabilities.
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