The Impact of a High-Tech Spy

Air Force colonel Stig Wennerström was the most dangerous spy to Sweden in the Cold War era. His espionage was found to have been especially crippling to the Swedish air defence and its high-tech systems. That is where repair work was seen to be most urgent. As the politicians turned down appeals for extra funding, it was up to the military system itself to handle the situation. In spite of this, the Supreme Commander appears not to have pressed for Air Force priority to repair resources. The service's proportion of the defence budget did not increase, and other quantitative and qualitative evidence points to a similar lack of Air Force priority. Three theoretical approaches are used to explain how this failure to act could have come about. A rationality model is discussed and compared to an organizational competition approach and to an approach based on the character of key individuals.