Prominent Swedish businessman and member of the influential Wallenberg group Jacob Wallenberg told participants in Hanalys 2026 this week that “most of us are not so well-prepared for a potential peace and all of what that means.”
What’s really important in this discussion is about complacency, because that’s why we are where we are today, complacency. We thought that the world was a nice place. I think we’ve learned that it’s not and that there’s always someone appearing on the scene.
Wallenberg was an invited speaker at Hanalysis 2026, a high-level foreign and security policy dialogue held at Finnish Hanaholmen, hosted by Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard and Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, and his comments came during a panel titled “Swedish-Finnish potential in an unpredictable world.”
Making the point that Europe needs to be “moving out of the shadow of the United States because “Trump—the U.S.—will not pay for our defense,” Wallenberg emphasized the need for not only sustained investments but also political will and industrial efforts in defense—implying continued rearmament in Europe and support for Ukraine—and warned that an early or poorly prepared peace could lead to reduced funding and momentum for military buildup:
We all know what happens when peace appears: We will have long discussions about money being needed in other places, etc.—and very legitimate questions.
Jacob Wallenberg is the chairman of Investor AB—the Wallenberg family’s main publicly traded investment company—where his cousin, Marcus Wallenberg, is the vice chair. Marcus Wallenberg also serves as chair of Saab AB, which specializes in military products, including the production of the fighter plane Gripen, missile systems, radars, submarines, weapon systems, and other defense and security technologies.
Investor AB holds a significant stake in Saab (approximately 30% of capital), with associated voting control through family foundations and related entities. Saab has benefited from increased global demand for defense equipment, particularly since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which boosted the company’s market value significantly. Investor AB is also the largest shareholder in telecommunications giant Ericsson and technology provider ABB, which produces supportive technologies with both commercial and military uses.
