Shelters and breathing protective devices are two major components of public protection in Sweden. This is an analysis of their current guiding principles and possible future ones. The basic threat assessment document for civilian defence is found to be a guideline only for shelter production. We see the guideline as somewhat too narrow in scope. It can, however, not be easily substituted as shelter production is a long term investment requiring a long term threat assessment to give a proper perspective on whether shelters are "profitable" or not. Depending on the weight given to the chemical, radioactive and biological threat the supplies of breathing protective devices should be either decommissioned or modernized. In the latter case distributing the devices in peacetime may be considered as an alternative.