should be pointed out here that while sweden havent been in a war for a long long time, we were close to being forced into ww1 due to our reliance on imports, but during ww2 we used our export industry to maintain a balance between great brittain and germany, essentially making both of them think that it was in their best interest not to invade or try to force us into concessions or an alliance(before anyone points it out; yes, sweden allowed german troops to pass, but the swedish concessions to germany were hugely impopular, and it became a pr-failure for germany since the pro-british side in the goverment said that they did not have a choice (and did it to prevent a german invasion). those concessions meant that it became impossible to imply that we should join the war against russia, or even support the finnish during the continuation war)

having your own arms industry and being self sufficent means that it’s easier to maintain that neutrality, both in apperance and for real, it also makes it easier to get arms from other countries, since you might actually have something to trade, or might have in the future.
but since sweden is pretty small, it’s hard to maintain an arms industry, so there is a lot of focus on making stuff competitive and versatile and exporting it.
right now sweden is the 11th largest arms exporter in the world, and the largest exporter per capita.

I agree with you, war has no place in the 21th century, especially not in Europe, which has seen enough massacre in the last 100 years.

Thx