From national service to an all-volunteer force In mid-1995, with the national service system based on universal military training, the Swedish Army consisted of 15 maneuver brigades and, in addition, 100 battalions of various sorts (artillery, engineers, rangers, air defence, amphibious, security, surveillance etc.) with a mobilisation-time of between one and two days. When national service was replaced by a selective service system, fewer and fewer young men were drafted due to the reduction in size of the armed forces. By 2010 the Swedish Army had two battalions that could be mobilized within 90 days. When the volunteer system had been fully implemented by 2019, the army consisted of 7 maneuver battalions and 14 battalions of various sorts with a readiness of one week. The Home Guard was reduced in size to 22,000 soldiers. In 2019 the Swedish Armed Forces, now with a restored national service system combined with volunteer forces, aimed to reach 3 brigades as maneuver units by 2025.
Re-implementing conscription After having ended the universal male conscription system in 2010, as well as deactivating conscription in peacetime, the conscription system was re-activated in 2017. Since 2018 both women and men are conscripted on equal terms. The motivation behind reactivating conscription was the need for personnel, as volunteer numbers proved to be insufficient to maintain the armed forces. The Swedish defence forces are currently educating 8 000 conscripts per year. However, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the defence forces stated that there is a need for significantly more than the current. By December 2022, it was announced to increase the yearly conscripted to 10,000 by the end of 2035. In addition, figures from 2022 show that 79% of Swedes support in some form, an increase in the number of people who are conscripted. 47% of the respondents said that the majority of 19/20 year-olds should perform conscription.
Personnel structure , 2007. Military personnel of the Swedish Armed Forces consists of: • Officer OFF/K – Regular continuously serving officers (OF1-OF9). • Officer OFF/T – Reserve part-time officers (OF1-OF3). • Specialistofficer SO/K – Regular continuously serving NCO (OR6-OR9). • Specialistofficer SO/T – Reserve part-time serving NCO (OR6-OR7). • GSS/K – Regular continuously serving enlisted (OR1-OR5). • GSS/T – Reserve part-time serving enlisted (OR1-OR5). • GSS/P – Personnel in wartime placement (OR1-OR5). K = Continuously T = Part-time , 2016. P = Conscript, for personnel drafted under the Swedish law of comprehensive defence duty
Planned size of the Swedish Armed Forces 2011–2020 Annual recruitment of GSS is assumed to be about 4,000 persons.
Criticism and research In 2008, professor
Mats Alvesson of the
University of Lund and Karl Ydén of the
University of Gothenburg claimed in an
op-ed, based on Ydén's
doctoral dissertation, that a large part of the
officer corps of the Swedish Armed Forces was preoccupied with administrative tasks instead of training soldiers or partaking in international operations. They claimed that Swedish officers were mainly focused on climbing the ranks and thereby increasing their wages and that the main way of doing this is to take more training courses, which decreases the number of officers that are specialized in their field. Therefore, the authors claimed, the Swedish Armed Forces were poorly prepared for their mission. Major changes have been made to the officer system since then. The transformation of the old invasion defence-oriented armed forces to the new smaller and more mobile force has also been criticized. According to the
Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces the present defence budget will not be enough to implement the new defence structure by 2019. And that even when finished the armed forces will only be able to fight for a week at most. During 2013 several
Russian Air Force exercises over the
Baltic Sea aimed at Swedish military targets have made the future of the Swedish Armed Forces a hot topic and several political parties now want to increase defence funding. In August 2019, the government announced a bank tax to fund the military spending.
Ranks , the
Chief of Defence of the Swedish Armed Forces. When an
army based on national service (
conscription) was introduced in 1901 all
commissioned officers had ranks that were senior of the
warrant officers (
underofficerare) and
non-commissioned officers (
underbefäl). In a reform 1926 the relative rank of the then
senior warrant officer, fanjunkare, was increased to be equal with the
junior officer rank
underlöjtnant and above the most junior officer rank
fänrik. In 1960 the relative rank of the
warrant officers were elevated further so that • i. The
lowest warrant officer,
sergeant, had relative rank just below the lowest officer rank, fänrik. • ii.
The second warrant officer rank,
fanjunkare, had relative rank between fänrik and löjtnant • iii.
The highest warrant officer rank,
förvaltare, had relative rank between first lieutenant and captain. In 1972 the personnel structure changed, reflecting increased responsibilities of warrant and non-commissioned officers, renaming the
underofficerare as
kompaniofficerare, giving them the same ranks as company grade officers (
fänrik,
löjtnant,
kapten).
Underbefäl was renamed
plutonsofficerare and given the rank titles of sergeant and
fanjunkare, although their relative rank were now placed below
fänrik. The commissioned officers were renamed
regementsofficerare, beginning with
löjtnant. The three-track career system was maintained, as well as three separate messes. A major change in the personnel structure in 1983 (NBO 1983), merged the three professional corps of platoon officers, company officers, and regimental officers into a one-track career system within a single corps called professional officers (
yrkesofficerare). The three messes were also merged to one. In 2008 the
Riksdag decided to create a two-track career system with a category called
specialistofficerare. When implementing the parliamentary resolution the Supreme Commander decided that some ranks in this category should, like the old
underofficerare ranks in 1960–1972, have a relative rank higher than the most junior officers. ==Planned expansion==