This article combines feminist international relations theory with critical heritage studies to theorise how gender and sexualities shape heritage as a national security resource. By analysing the mobilisation of gender in military memory initiatives coproduced by Swedish heritage and security actors, we expand the literature on populist ‘illiberal memory-making’ and demonstrate that situations of insecurity may prompt gender-conservative and militarised memory-making also in stable liberal democracies. In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Swedish cultural heritage has been framed as part of the national defence and a means to prepare citizens for war. By examining this novel heritagization, we reveal how today’s security politics appear to emanate naturally from history. Associations between territory and heterosexuality communicate nativist versions of history and delineate who is entitled to protection. The mobilisation of gender in heritagization makes the nation seem transcendental and supports military violence as a precondition of national security and survival. In relation to contemporary security policy, values and emotions connected to femininities and masculinities both delegitimise earlier security doctrines and pave the way for rearmament and militarisation. Gendered military heritagization contributes to shaping violence as a ‘security truth’ and restricts alternative perspectives and democratic conversations.

This chapter combines critical heritage studies and feminist international relations in an analysis of temporality in Sweden’s Cold War military heritagisation. Sweden’s Cold War history is characterised by war-preparedness and a lack of significant military action, allowing for different framings of time in heritage presentations. Accounting for Sweden’s nonaligned yet heavily militarised stance during this period, we demonstrate how different temporal frames shape collective identity and ideas of security. Four temporal constructs are identified, of which two are discussed at length: parenthesis-time, suspending the timeline and reinforcing the idea of a perpetual threat, and phantasm-time, blurring the distinction between actual events and hypothetical scenarios, resulting in hyperdramatic narratives. These temporalities contribute to the promotion of military violence as a means of ensuring security while discouraging democratic discussions. Our analysis underscores the political significance of military heritagisation in shaping national identity and security perceptions.