Maskirovka, I hadn't realised how much the Swedish forces have shrunk in size. 400 fighters 15 years ago down to 100-150 tomorrow! One of my first military aviation books,William Green, World Aircraft Directory, Butler and Tanner, London, was published in 1961, when the Royal Swedish Air Force was the fifth largest in the world, based on the number of operational combat aircraft. At that time it had approx 700 front line aircraft in 24 day fighter, 6 all weather fighter, 12 all weather attack and 5 recce squadrons, backed up by Bloodhound and Hawk SAM batteries. I couldn't get over how a country with such a small population could have such a powerful air force, but with its long borders and coastline, I guess there was no alternative, if it was to be able to defend its neutrality.
Fortunately the forces of countries bordering Sweden have also shrunk and qualitatively Sweden seems to be well equipped. What do you think are the main areas of Sweden's armed forces that need to be improved to preserve the balance of power with Russia?
Cheers
In my book "Ett år i luften" a swedish airforce "own" book from 1964 it claims Sweden had 850 frontline aircraft back in 1962, and supposedly was the 4th largest in the world (after USA, USSR and China). Don´t know if that´s true. The a/c back then were Draken, Lansen and Tunnan.
The reduction of the swedish forces really took off in the 70´s. At this time it was mainly the naval forces that was affected. From having a blue water navy in 1970/late 60´s (wich had a couple of cruisers and a couple of dozen destroyers/frigates) we built an brown water navy with MTB´s and FAC´s. At the same time the number of subs were allmost cut in half.
All the submarine hunts in the swedish waters (wich escalated in the 70´s and resulted in Whisky on the rocks in 1981) showed that the navy needed more resources. It was still to be a brown water navy but more money were invested in ASW, like helicopters, corvettes and such. At the same time the introduction of the Viggen was expensive so the airforce cut back to 4-500 aircrafts, but they were still given the same/or more amount of money. At the 80´s the biggest loser was the army, the number of brigades decreased and more seriuos, the army was´nt modernized...
The end of cold war left us with and airforce of some 360+ fighters, 20 armybrigades, 12 subs and 30-40 FACs and HUGE reserves (mainly armyreserves, several hundreds of battalions). Since the army was so obsolete and big they were the first one to the slaughter. 20 brigades became 16, then 12. then transformed into rapid deployment battalions or something like that- I don´t even know how many they are today. But at least the army got some new flashy equipment (Leo2 tanks, CV90, nightvision gear, ARTHUR, etc). The airforce and navy have been downsized with roughly 2/3´s. With 204 Gripens ordered to the SwAF, 28 already being sold to Hungary and Czheck and more are being offered I think the SwAF will end up with something like 120 a/c. The navy will due with 4-5 subs and about 10 corvettes.
The main focus today is international duties within UN, the EU and rapid deployment forces. Sweden has commited about 2000 soldiers to the EU rapid deployment forces, mainly in the Nordic Battlegroup. It´s bulk consists of a swedish armoured battalion, JAS-39 Gripen fighterwing, corvettes, subs and swe/fin amphibous battalion. And beside that Sweden have increased its forces under UN-colours. Having large contingents in Afghanistan, Kosovo and just finishing a mission in Liberia plus having a corvette ouside Lebanon.
With all these cuts and shifting the focus on defending the homecountry to international missions the swedish forces still have kept the ability to grow and shift once again on more "traditional" homeland defence tasks. Maybe we will soon see such a shift, in the last weeks voices have been raised in sweden (as well as Norway and Finland) about a concern in the growing strenght in russian military in our neighbourhood as well as a more "agressive" russian attitude in foreign policy. Such a shift will mean more money to the armed forces and not a step down in the international mission capabilities.
One good thing with all these cut downs and shifting of defencepolicies have at least meant one good thing. The swedish forces have top of the notch gear! We basicly went from trucks, Centurions, flares, 90mm ATG and WW2 howitzers to CV90, Leo2S, nightvision goggles, BILL-2 ATGM and ARCHER...
The main area that needs to be improved IMO is the navy. We need bigger ships with longer endurance. But there are plans to build a couple of frigates so... Other then that I don´t see how russia could pose any military threat against Sweden in a foreseeable time. It was different in the cold war when they had the whole of eastern baltic sea and our biggest threat were amphibousoperations, their airborn divisions and frontline bombers/fighters. Today those threats does´nt exist, and will never do- thanks to geographic reasons. A strong navy is still important to defend your own borders, specially in peacetime. The worst scenario is if Russia in the future would invade and occupy Finland. Then Sweden would be in an even worse stragetic position then during the cold war. But such an attack would have the world reacting and sweden would immediately beacome a NATO-member, the most important member.
