Wedged between the Soviet and western blocs and standing apart from both as an armed neutral, Sweden has a unique position in today’s world. Its defense strategy and military establishment likewise are unique, for they are tailor-made to fit an unusual set of geopolitical facts. Sweden’s policy and strategy are worth a close look. But this is not necessarily because another country can borrow advantageously. It is because they demonstrate just how a sound defense must spring from the realities of politics and geography. They are truly a case of geopolitics in action.
The most dramatic feature of Swedish defense is a complex of aircraft hangars and tunnels for ships, hewn from solid granite. And in an age of universal fear, born of atomic weapons and irreconcilable ideologies, this resort to underground security may seem to typify the instinctive human reaction—to hide out. But there is more logic than meets the eye in Sweden’s severely defensive strategy. It is not blind fear but calm geopolitical reasoning that has shaped this country’s distinctive answer to massive external danger.
Sweden’s defense system may be of special interest to Americans just now, while they are feeling their way towards a discreet compromise between the purely defensive notion of continental security and the purely offensive concept of bigger and faster strategic bombers, more powerful aircraft carriers, longer-range missiles, and ever more destructive atomic weapons.
The strictly defensive pattern of Swedish policy and strategy stems initially from the nation’s historical experience—a century and a half of uninterrupted peace. The Swedes have avoided entanglement in all the wars that have swirled around their frontiers in that time. And they are determined to stay out of the next one, and also confident that they can. So they have put their trust in a conscientious and rigorous neutrality. They will have no part of the great alliance systems forming on either side of them. This was reaffirmed officially and in plain words by Foreign Minister Osten Unden in a major speech in the middle of 1954. And it was confirmed to the writer by the Prime Minister, Tage Erlander, in a private interview at about the same time.
This does not mean the Swedes are unable to decide who their potential friends and possible enemies are. On the contrary, they are quite clear about this. In recent years fully 90 per cent of their trade has been with the West. Their cultural ties also are to the westward. They see only one possible enemy on the horizon, and that is the Soviet Union. The rise of an aggressive spirit in Russia after World War II and especially after 1950 made a deep impression in Sweden. This was abetted by some provocative and infuriating incidents such as the shooting down of two Swedish military aircraft in the summer of 1952, and the simultaneous disclosure of a Communist espionage ring that had been supplying Swedish military secrets to Russia. In 1954, tension was reduced, and some expansion of Sweden’s trade with the Soviet Union was possible. But this does not change the basic danger, or the Swedes’ realization of it.
If they have to choose, the Swedes will choose to join the West. But in present conditions they do not feel compelled to make an open choice. Their policy of strict neutrality and no alliances, therefore, is a settled matter for some time to come. And in fact this is Sweden’s first line of defense—a political foreign policy calculated to avoid affront to the Soviet Union, obviously the one potential enemy. But while Sweden’s first concern with any war is to keep out of it, her leaders believe the way to keep out is to be prepared for a strong defense. This, they are convinced, enabled them to stay out of World War I. And rightly or wrongly they feel certain that Sweden was by-passed in 1940 and in subsequent years of World War II because it had strong armed forces, committed to fight any invader. Whether this is right or not, it is important, because it is an integral part of Swedish thinking today. The Swedes are spending far more money now than ever before on armaments, currently 25½ per cent of their budget. And they have a far stronger military establishment than ever before, in the faith that this will prevent invasion. If a strong defense fails in this, it still will enable them to stand firmly in defense of their soil. Sweden is neutral; but her neutrality is an armed neutrality, not a listless neutralism.
After diplomacy, Sweden’s second line of defense is its natural frontiers. In the extreme north, at and beyond the Arctic Circle, Sweden has a land frontier with Finland, to which country it has close historical ties. This is formidable country for military operations, for much of it is mountainous wasteland; and during half the year it is dark and cruelly cold. There is but one railroad from the Finnish border and one from northern Norway, linked by the line from the ore fields south to the port of Luleå, at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia. Only one highway leads southward. Between this forbidding northern defense zone at the frontier and the industrial heartland of Sweden, around and west of Stockholm, there is a 500-mile stretch of rugged, forested country. Here a defense in great depth is possible.
The Gulf of Bothnia, 400 miles long, forms a great moat for the protection of the flank of upper Sweden. And from the Åland Islands southward to the very southern end of Sweden, some 275 miles, the shore is fringed with countless rocky islands. This is the vital stretch of coast, facing directly out across the Baltic Sea towards some of the main bases of the Soviet world. There are no beaches on this coast suitable for amphibious landings. The harbors are ideal for mine defense. And this section of the coast covers the whole of the vital industrial zone.
Only in the extreme south are Sweden’s natural defenses inferior. There the shores offer numerous beaches. There in Skåne the country is flat and difficult for defensive war on a guerrilla pattern. And it is separated from Denmark by the Oresund, only a few miles wide at its narrower parts. The problem for an invader here is little more than a river crossing. In fact so modest is this waterway there now is serious talk of building a bridge and tunnel to provide a four-lane highway linking the two countries. Denmark of course has not been a military rival or an enemy for many generations. But Denmark was occupied by a foreign power as recently as 1940-45, and the memory of this is fresh. Denmark is the weakest link in Sweden’s natural defenses, as the Swedes view it. Even so, between the plains of Skåne and the industrial belt near Stockholm, there is a patch of hilly, forested country some 75 miles through. This offers some chance for defense in depth.
The development of military air power has stripped these natural defenses of much of their former value. And this explains why more and more of Sweden’s defense dollar is going into a defensive air force, and why Sweden now has the strongest air force on the continent of Europe, next after that of the Soviet Union. But even with this new vulnerability thrust on them by air power, Sweden counts heavily on its natural defenses, and with good reason. For actual invasion by land might be a tedious, laborious and costly affair for any foreign power. Geography still is a valued ally of the Swedes, especially since the principal trade of their country is through Göteborg, on the Atlantic side, on the Kattegat. This means that Sweden has direct access to the sea outside the Baltic; and this is the Stockholm government’s trump card. But with true Scandinavian caution, the Swedes are keeping their trump unostentatiously up their sleeve.
Göteborg is not Sweden’s only window on the Atlantic. Great quantities of iron ore are shipped out through the Norwegian port of Narvik, close by Sweden’s Kiruna ore deposits. And there is under consideration a joint Swedish-Norwegian plan for improving the rail route to Trondheim, as an Atlantic coast outlet for central Sweden. This route was highly important before World War I. But it has declined since then, partly because of improved ice-breaking on the Gulf of Bothnia, partly because for many years Sweden’s trade was so largely with Germany, making the Baltic route highly advantageous. Now, however, there is mounting interest in the old Trondheim route, to make Sweden less dependent on the long sea communication line through the Baltic, beset as it is with political and military hazards—and ice besides, for a good part of the year. This in turn will have its special significance for the Swedish navy. As the Commander in Chief of the Swedish fleet pointed out in March, 1954, greater dependence on Norway’s Atlantic ports will give Swedish naval units new responsibilities in the open ocean.
Another example of this trend is the pending proposal to import great quantities of Norway’s abundant electric power into the main industrial zone of central and south- central Sweden. And still another is the extension of Swedish mining operations into the copper fields of northernmost Norway. In various non-political ways, therefore, Sweden is being drawn closer to the Atlantic community.
The Baltic itself (including the Gulf of Bothnia), the mountains and lakes, the Arctic weather of the north, the rocky, island- fringed coast—all these are geographic factors of utmost importance. They figure largely in the defense planning of the Swedish military establishment. Standing alone, however, they would be almost meaningless, if there were no armed forces to utilize them. An ocean or sea especially is an invitation to an invader, not a bulwark against him, unless one has the naval power to assert command of the intervening sea—a principle well understood by American military men and firmly embedded in American military policy. Neither is it lost on the Swedish military planners.
The Swedish Navy is a small force of light units, planned with great care to do the most vital job—the defense of Swedish coast from the Åland Islands south and then west to the Öresund. There are three old battleships (as they are classified): Sverige, Gustaf V, and Drottning Victoria, of about 7100 tons displacement each, built during World War I. These are ancient craft but have been modernized repeatedly, and still could be useful in coast defense, as movable gun platforms. (One must remember the valiant service of the Arkansas in World War II, before smiling too quickly at the Drottning Victoria and her sisters.) There are two new light cruisers, Tre Kroner and Göta Lejon, completed in 1946-47. These are fine ships, built in Swedish yards and designed especially for narrow, shallow waters, with a speed of at least 33 knots. They mount seven fully automatic Bofors six-inch guns. These are all-target guns, remarkably fast and smooth in operation. There also are two smaller, older cruisers.
More important than these larger ships in the special-purpose Swedish fleet, however, are a score of destroyers, ranging from 2500 tons down to coastal destroyers of 700 tons, and 24 submarines, with more of them building. Rounding out this fleet of light units are numerous minecraft and motor torpedo boats. Such vessels are much better suited to service in the Baltic and for the skerry-lined coast than heavier units. And it is the general belief of high-ranking Swedish officers that no more cruisers will be built. Tre Kroner and Göta Lejon are the pride and joy of a navy conscious country, but they cost too much for what they actually contribute to the national defense. For such a coast, the torpedo and mine are the proper weapons. So the destroyer, mine-layer and torpedo boat are the vessels that would pay dividends in the kind of warfare Swedish naval leaders have to anticipate.
Because of its northern location the Swedish Navy necessarily includes some special- purpose vessels, such as several armed icebreakers, which of course have peacetime value in assisting merchant shipping in the Baltic, large parts of which freeze over each winter. (The beneficent influence of the Gulf Stream current tempers the weather of southern Sweden; but it does not reach the confined waters of the Baltic.) The Ymer, of 3500 tons, a diesel-electric ship of 9000 horse power, is one of the most powerful icebreakers in the world. Another is the Atle, of 1750 tons. A third, the 1850-ton Thule, has been in service for two years, a product of the naval shipyard at Karlskrona. Some other special-purpose ships are the submarine rescue ship Belos and the submarine depot ship Patricia.
Since World War II Sweden has pursued a far-sighted policy of laying up older vessels and building new, modern units in all categories up to cruisers. The 1952 naval building program includes four destroyers of 2000 tons, one minelayer, three submarines, twelve minesweepers, eleven motor torpedo boats of 150 tons, and fifteen smaller motor torpedo boats of forty tons. This program also embraces the rebuilding of eleven smaller destroyers as anti-submarine frigates. Fiscal difficulties have slowed the naval construction program; but all of it, about fifty light units, should be completed by 1960.
All Sweden’s naval vessels are built in Swedish yards, and most of the equipment in them as well. These building yards are scattered for greater security, and divided between the Baltic and western coasts. It is of course a major asset to the country that it has been in recent years the third-largest of the world in shipbuilding. This insures a rapid increase in naval construction when and if political conditions warrant. Besides an excellent shipbuilding industry, Sweden has the great Bofors ordnance works, which builds guns and other ordnance of the highest standards for the Navy, the other armed services, and foreign buyers. In case of war Sweden might have difficulty in getting vessels, or armor plate, or technical equipment from outside. Consequently its military potential is greatly increased by its fine engineering industries, which make virtually everything needed for up-to-date naval craft, except for some highly-specialized electronic gear.
The principal mission of the Royal Swedish Navy can be succinctly stated. It is to prevent an enemy (meaning in practice the Soviet Union) from landing military forces anywhere on the Swedish coast, and especially anywhere along the southern third of the eastern coast, because that segment screens the industrial center of the country. To this end the Navy has what we may call three defense lines. The first, in the open Baltic and extending well over towards the farther shore, is a task for submarines and swift hit-and-run raids by torpedo craft. These ships have the duty of striking at enemy forces before they come close to Sweden’s shores. This offensive-defensive phase of Swedish naval planning is receiving more and more attention, for naval leaders are aware of the dangerous temptation to rely too much on purely defensive tactics near their own coast.
There is a second line of defense through the middle of the Baltic, including Gotland and several smaller islands. Shallow water in this part of the Baltic makes possible the development of linking minefields—a kind of underwater Iron Curtain. Such minefields, of course, would be supplemented by patrol craft.
The third line of defense, the most important of all, is in the myriad rocky islands, the skerries that line this entire stretch of coast. Here the Swedes count on a combination of minefields, destroyers, and smaller torpedo craft, and coast defense artillery, aided by an elaborate radar screen. It is among these countless islets of solid granite that Sweden’s navy is seen at its best. While there are no landing beaches, hostile landings would be possible at developed commercial ports, large or small. Consequently the Coast Artillery is part of the Navy; and it has been developed to insure that all vulnerable points on this coast will be covered by fixed coast defense batteries. Interlocking fields of fire have been planned to assure that any hostile vessel approaching any practicable landing point may be brought under fire from at least one and more likely two batteries.
The heaviest of the coast defense guns are of 12-inch caliber and fire armor-piercing projectiles of 900 pounds. Batteries of these and smaller guns are built into the solid granite and are protected by armored cupolas. Safe under granite are fire direction centers, making it possible to direct the fire of various batteries by means of radar observations. In many parts of this coast, the channels through the skerries are quite long and narrow. This fact is utilized by the placement of controlled mines, installed in peacetime and ready for detonation from nearby observation posts. These are especially valuable against surprise attack, as the mines are in absolute readiness at all times. Holiday travellers in small excursion boats, threading their way among the picturesque islands, probably do not suspect that they are passing within a few fathoms of deadly explosive mines.
One of the newest ship types in the Swedish Navy is the king-size motor torpedo boat, the PT-101. With three diesels and a speed of at least forty knots, this 150-ton boat carries armament of four torpedo tubes plus 40-mm. guns. Tubes can be removed and replaced by additional guns very quickly. This boat looks more like a very small destroyer than an MTB, with its high bridge structure. It has a complement of three officers and 29 men, and provides a plotting room for torpedoes and guns. A watch officer can conduct an attack and conn the ship by radar from the plot below decks. That is building a lot into a torpedo boat. Here the Swedes have designed an ideal weapon for their rocky coast.
Coast defense guns, controlled mines, minefields, torpedo boats, and fast destroyers—these are the combat team devised for the third and most vital line of defense on this island-studded coast. They comprise a logical answer to the special geographical features of an unusual shore line. The Swedish Navy is utilizing geography—or as one might say, geology—in another and quite unusual way. For the safety of its vessels when they are not on patrol or in action, tunnels are being built out of the solid granite of the fringing islands. Many of these are completed; others are under construction; and yet others are planned. When the program is finished, all Sweden’s destroyers and submarines will have their own “rock garages,” sheltered by many feet of granite and protected also by armored entrance doors. This may be done even for the cruisers.
Inside these tunnels are facilities for repair and routine maintenance of ships, for stowage of ammunition, fuel, and sundry stores. These subterranean berthing spaces are most unusual among the navies of the world, because few other countries have along their coasts such archipelagos of solid granite islands. To build such a rock tunnel complete costs about ten per cent of the cost of the ship. So although the total cost of the program is considerable, it bears a practicable relationship to the investment in ships. Sweden’s Navy is going to be just about as well assured against a Pearl Harbor type attack as is conceivable.
As part of this process of putting ships underground, the Stockholm naval base itself is to be transferred from the harbor of the capital city to various islands in the southern reaches of the Stockholm archipelago—a moving operation that will take perhaps ten years in all. This will put the naval base some distance from the chief city, a protection for both. And most of the new facilities will be underground.
The bulk of Swedish naval training, other than academic instruction of midshipmen, is carried on at a complex of schools in a beautiful setting on the coast near Stockholm. Training equipment, obtained in large part from the British Navy, is modern and efficient. There are schools for gunnery, radar, fire control, signal, asdic, engineering, damage control, and other basic phases of naval technique. Originally a school for warrant officers, it has been expanded to train commissioned officers, CPOs, and some enlisted men as well. Preliminary training is given to enlisted men at the Karlskrona base, at the southern end of the country. The Navy still depends heavily on warrant officers, but this is being changed gradually to conform to the modern practice of the American and British fleets. The personnel problem is greatly complicated by the need for training relatively large numbers of national service draftees serving for one year only, along with regular enlisted men enrolled for a 4½-year hitch. Ratings come largely from the latter group, many of whom re-enlist.
This fleet may or may not be fighting some day along with the naval forces of the NATO countries. And while it would be incorrect to say its leaders are planning for that contingency, it is a fact that many things are done that insure readiness for such a role. The English language is widely used and very widely understood. Tactical doctrines, signals, and communications procedures are developed in great part from those of the United States and Royal navies. No liaison with NATO military men can be authorized under Sweden’s neutrality policy, of course. But informal contacts are utilized to maintain a good understanding. There is no Iron Curtain here. One has only to talk with some of them a while to discover that Swedish naval officers have a strong fellow-feeling for their American and British colleagues. If the exigencies of international politics should lead to Sweden’s participation in any future war on the side of the western allies, we may be sure the Swedish fleet will be fully ready for the maximum co-ordination and the most cordial co-operation (to the extent possible without formal liaison in advance).
In a country as small as Sweden it is not practical to maintain more than one air force. So the Swedish Navy has no air arm. It does have, however, a very close and fruitful relationship with the Royal Swedish Air Force. Indeed, on occasion it would have operational control of Air Force planes flying search missions or otherwise engaged with the Navy in coast defense.
The Royal Swedish Air Force has taken on very great importance in recent years. At the speed of jet fighters, it is only 25 minutes across the Baltic from Russian bases to the Swedish coast. And while the archipelago shields the shore line and provides a splendid natural defense against amphibious attack, it does little, if anything, to prevent airborne invasion. This danger, along with that of bombing attack on cities and industries, has resulted in a steady build-up of the Air Force, until today it is the strongest on the continent of Europe, apart from that of the Soviet Union. It is “old” as independent air forces go, having been set up in 1926 as a distinct branch of the military establishment. It now utilizes 31.5 per cent of the military budget, compared to 18.5 per cent for the Navy and 37 per cent for the Army— with 13 per cent used in common.
Sweden cannot afford offensive bomber forces, nor would such an offensive arm be consistent with its neutral posture. Consequently, the Air Force is a tactical force of fighter aircraft and attack planes, very largely fast, one-place planes. It has a peacetime strength of 33 fighter squadrons, twelve attack squadrons, and five reconnaissance squadrons. In round numbers, that means about 750 aircraft assigned to tactical units, with about as many more in reserve. Virtually all the combat aircraft now are jets. Only one fighter-bomber group still uses propeller aircraft, and it is scheduled to get jet attack planes before long.
In addition to training centers and technical establishments, the Air Force has operational bases throughout the length of the country, but with some concentration around Stockholm and to the west. The object of this distribution of bases is to give the maximum protection for the industrial heartland and largest cities, plus good support of the fleet in the defense of the most vital coast line, plus some defensive strength in the extreme north and south of the country.
The missions of the Air Force are to intercept hostile planes over Sweden’s frontiers, to defend important strategic areas of the country against enemy attack, to support the fleet in its operations, to conduct limited offensive operations of its own against possible enemy ground and sea forces approaching Swedish territory, and to give close support to Swedish ground forces. This last is not high on the priority list, however, since a small air force cannot do everything one might wish to have done, and since the all- important target must be enemy planes. Also, if the Swedish Army is engaged, it presumably will be fighting a guerrilla-style war in rugged, heavily forested country— the sort of warfare in which close air support has but a limited value.
Such a tactical air force needs only a few basic aircraft types—a fast fighter-interceptor, a night fighter, and an attack plane, along with small numbers of other types for search missions and the like. Until the last year or two, most of Sweden’s fighters were still British Vampires. Now however most of the thirty day-fighter squadrons have Swedish aircraft from the SAAB factory at Linkoping. The principal type in production and in use is the J-29 or Flying Barrel. This stubby jet fighter with wings swept back 38 degrees is in the 650 mph class, handles well in the air, and mounts four 40-mm Bofors rapid-firing cannon. In most respects it is the equal of the F-86 Sabrejet and the Mig 15, and in some ways may be preferable to either. Two years ago SAAB first produced also the A-32 “Lance,” an attack plane of radically new design. This is a two-place jet, armed with cannon, rockets, and bombs, with provision for refitting to handle missiles later. It also is equipped for all-weather performance. Now that this aircraft has proved its value and is in regular production, Sweden has from its own factories all the basic types of planes needed for the Air Force in any numbers. And in these categories, it has planes as good in performance as those of any other country. A new Swedish fighter, presently under development, is to be in or near the 1000 mph class; but this is several years off.
In its exposed position, Sweden has had to face the danger of devastating surprise attacks that might shatter its air power in the first hours of conflict. With this in mind, utilizing the same geological assets to which the Navy has turned, the Air Force has been constructing rock hangars at various bases. These are just what the term implies—great underground hangars hewn from the solid granite, around the margins of operational landing fields, with provision for storage of ammunition and spare parts, and working spaces for repair of planes and overhaul of engines. Protected against strafing and skip- bombs by armored doors and from high-level bombing by 50 or 75 feet of granite, these rock hangars represent the ultimate in security for operational aircraft on the ground. They are not only proof against bombs, including A-bombs and probably in most cases H-bombs, but they are much more easily heated in winter. This is no small factor in a northern country with prolonged low temperatures, especially when all coal and oil must be imported. These hangars cost about twice as much as conventional above-ground hangars to build. After allowing for economy in heating and the vastly greater security of aircraft and facilities, they are not a great extravagance. Consequently, the Swedish Air Force no longer builds any other type of hangar, for operational use.
Nevertheless aircraft are expendable. They cannot be kept safe underground when needed for operations. And in wartime a flow of new planes is essential, no matter how large a reserve is maintained. This posed a further problem for the Swedes; and they solved it, at least in part, by building large segments of the SAAB aircraft plant underground at Linkoping. As with any other country, Sweden cannot possibly afford to rebuild all its essential industries underground. But it has put into subterranean safety the most tempting of its industrial targets.
As does the Navy, Sweden’s Air Force lays much stress on the use of the English language. It is taught in all Swedish high schools, and its use in the Air Force is encouraged. All pilots and control tower personnel can communicate in English, and some bases use it almost exclusively in landing and take-off operations. This is the more natural since all Scandinavian civil airports use English as standard operating procedure. In effect, if not in purpose, this represents preparation for possible future co-operation with American, British, or other NATO military forces.
Despite its rapid expansion in recent years Sweden’s Air Force has continued to stress quality, not mere size. It has a high ratio of combat planes to total aircraft, and also a high ratio of combat planes to total personnel. Its planes are good, as is its state of training. To be sure, Swedish Air Force leaders would like to have substantially larger numbers of planes and personnel, for they do not feel they have all that is needed for the kind of attack they have to face. But they continue to put the emphasis on quality, hoping that gradually the military budget will allow quantitative expansion.
Meantime the Air Force is organized to make the maximum use of its numbers, and is equipped to stretch its men and machines to cover an ambitious total mission. Its basic problem is something like that of the British Air Force in 1940, when a few fighter planes had to confront enormous numbers of attacking aircraft. Radar held the key then, enabling the R.A.F. to employ its meager force to maximum advantage, to send them up against oncoming planes and nowhere else. Sweden has learned from the Battle of Britain. Its coastal radar reaches across the Baltic and on into Soviet territory. It can track planes beyond the Russian frontier. The Swedes count on radar to make their limited numbers of fighter planes effective in the defense of a country 1000 miles long.
A reserve of commercial transport aircraft is a valuable asset to any military air force. Sweden has this in its share of the Scandinavian Airlines System, formed in 1946 by merging Danish, Norwegian and Swedish lines. SAS has a fleet of modern transport craft, operates routes in a large part of the world, and in 1953 carried about nine per cent of all the passengers flown across the Atlantic. In November, 1954, SAS inaugurated the first trans-polar scheduled service, between Los Angeles and Copenhagen.
The Swedish Army is very different from the Navy and Air Force, both in conception and organization. It is much larger in total personnel and it plays a larger part in the life of the people. Also it claims the largest percentage part of the military budget, although this percentage has declined somewhat in recent years. Its basic mission is the same overall as that of the other services—to engage and defeat an invader whether he comes over the land frontier or by coastal landing or by airborne invasion, carrying out this mission in close conjunction with its sister services.
Sweden’s is a “mobilization army,” one made up entirely of reservists, except for small cadres of professionals numbering perhaps 15,000, and at any given time some 40,000 to 50,000 young men under training. Sweden is a land of 7 million people. One- tenth, or about 700,000, constitute the Army. They are the nation’s able-bodied males, with some exceptions, from age 19 to age 47. Each year approximately 40,000 young men are inducted for initial training, which may range from 13 to 19 months depending on the branch of service. Some volunteer for extended training of 25 months, to qualify as platoon leaders or other advanced rating. All are recalled for several weeks’ additional training every few years. Annual maneuvers may bring from 75,000 to 125,000 troops to active duty at one time. From the end of his initial training, each man is always assigned to a tactical unit, although it may be changed as he grows older. (Paratroopers gradually turn into home guards, as their hair turns gray).
For a nation of 7 million people, an army of 700,000 is a large one. The American equivalent, 10 per cent of the population, would be 16 million men, trained and equipped and attached to tactical units, prepared to report for immediate duty at any time. Given the geographic conditions of Poland or Germany, such an army as Sweden’s would have but meager value. Without sturdy natural defenses, a nation would be overrun by more powerful neighbors before these predominantly light forces could be mustered and deployed. Or if mobilized in time, they would be gravely handicapped in the face of heavy weapons and superior fire power. But Sweden is a country of rocky forest and wasteland, of lakes and mountains, as well as fine rolling farmland. Nine per cent is in lakes—some 96,000 of them. With such terrain to the north and south of the central heartland of the country, an army of trained reservists, organized and equipped for full utilization of the terrain, is thoroughly logical—and also economical.
The bulk of Sweden’s army is not designed to defend an extended front against heavy armored forces. Some units, known as field units, are of that character, however. These are made up of men of the best age groups, in prime physical condition, equipped with fully modern gear for maximum fire power and high mobility. These field units consist of brigades—the basic self-contained tactical unit—which can be formed into divisions and corps according to the missions assigned. These forces are for open country, for dealing with airborne invasion or coastal landings, or for the reinforcement of lighter forces when they are in trouble.
In such areas as the swampy and desolate country along the Finnish frontier, 335 miles long, the Swedish Army presents a quite different aspect. There, units known as local defense forces are assigned. They do not have the powered vehicles to give great mobility, but they do have automatic weapons of great defensive fire power, including anti-tank guns. Their mission is a restricted one, based in good part on fixed fortifications. They are tied largely to their own defense zone. But they have the equipment and training, including skis and other winter gear, to enable them to wage tough guerrilla warfare in formidable terrain, as well as defensive war behind established fortifications. Other local defense units are assigned to major seaports, vulnerable beaches, airports, and other vital locations. They have localized missions but can rely on support from mobile, well-armed field units.
Those units earmarked for the northern defense zone give particular emphasis to winter maneuvers, and training in the use of special equipment for warfare in the awesome conditions of northern winter. Long route marches on skis over difficult terrain with full pack, with bivouac in igloos, are a standard part of the training of such units— and, as it happens, quite a popular feature. In contrast, field units intended primarily for the open country of the south, in conditions more akin to those of central Europe, are much more heavily armed and fully mobile, with heavy artillery and Centurion tanks.
Throughout, the Swedish Army is tailored for the special conditions of various defense areas. Since World War II, drawing on the experience of many countries, the Swedish high command switched from the division to the brigade as the basic operational unit. Meantime motor equipment has been increased, and the fire power of infantry units expanded. More armored brigades have been formed, but always with a high proportion of infantry to armor, as a concession to the varied terrain of the country. To insure maximum readiness and the minimum risk of disaster through surprise attack, equipment is stowed at a great number of depots or caches through the country. Whatever he does for a peacetime living, the individual soldier is never far from his weapon or other equipment.
Besides these field units and local defense forces, manned chiefly by national service men under compulsory training, there are voluntary home guards, largely men over age 47. They are armed with rifles, machine guns, and like weapons, and are formed in squads and platoons. Their missions are to guard installations, military stores, key industries, and transport facilities, and also to prepare demolitions, as of bridges. These like other units are equipped with whatever vehicles are most suitable. In some areas, that may mean motor trucks, in others tractors or horse-drawn vehicles. In still others, bicycles are widely used, or skis in winter.
The natural skills and interests of young people are utilized by this very flexible arm. The American army benefits by the fact that most of its recruits are familiar with mechanical toys, then bikes, then motor cars, radios and other mechanical or electronic equipment. They take easily to mechanized warfare. So the Swedish Army benefits by the lively interest of young Swedes in cross-country running, skiing, map exercises, and sharpshooting. Sharpshooters’ organizations alone count more than 240,000 members. Various non-official organizations set up volunteer refresher courses, for week-ends or summer periods, mainly for squad and platoon leaders among the reservists. And on a purely voluntary basis, many women have trained for diverse tasks, such as telephone operators, truck and ambulance drivers, air plotters, and the like. Almost 100,000 women belong to such organizations.
By its nature, a mobilization army made up of reservists has certain drawbacks. But on the other hand Sweden can afford a much larger army, on that basis. And its various segments are trained and equipped with great realism to meet the special conditions of various types of terrain and various localized missions. It represents also an economical and yet efficient use of manpower. The Swedish Army in addition is a very old one, with a rich tradition in many regiments tracing back through the centuries. That is an asset, intangible but none the less real. But it is likewise an army with no combat experience for a century and a half. Therefore it has not been easy for it to keep pace with doctrinal and technological changes in warfare.
Yet this is being done—by modernization of weapons, by reorganization, by close observation of other nations’ experience, and also by the voluntary participation of more than 8,000 Swedish officers and enlisted men in the Finnish Army during the winter campaigns of 1939-40. Whether its task in some future time may prove to be a dogged, mile- by-mile resistance in broken country by guerrilla tactics, or a showdown struggle against heavily armed airborne invaders, the Swedish Army represents highly realistic preparation, backed by thoroughly modern weapons research and efficient industrial production.
Such in outline are the several military arms on which 7 million Swedes rely for their national security in an ever more perilous world. It is argued in some quarters that less money should be allocated to the Army, the weapon of final resort, and more should go to the Air Force, which defends the outer ramparts. And in fact this is the gradual trend. But it is difficult to be sure just where the greatest threat may lie. Indeed, this may depend on the rate at which NATO strength accumulates, for the most vulnerable point in Sweden’s defense is at the narrow crossing of the Oresund, from Denmark. Sweden’s security depends as much as anything else on the ability of the western coalition to defend Denmark—although the Swedes are reluctant to admit this and are prone to overrate their own defensive capacity, operating alone.
However that may be, Sweden has certain fundamental assets, over and above its formal military establishment. It has a high level of military and industrial technology, and the facilities to produce nearly all the weapons and equipment likely to be needed —as long as certain raw materials can be had from outside. There is a highly literate, homogeneous population, able to learn quickly, able to master technical assignments, and able to catch on quickly from the printed word. There is a quiet nationalism that rarely bursts into chauvinistic gestures but which would support a stolid, relentless war effort.
In addition, there is a centuries-long history of Swedes fighting Russians, and often winning. Swedes—like Turks—are not frightened of Russia, because their forefathers have been through all this business before. They have the indisputable advantages of geography, of defense by sea and also defense in great depth on land. And they have the top card, in any general conflict, of an Atlantic coast. Their finest, biggest port is outside the Baltic system. And they are forming stronger links with other Atlantic ports, like Narvik and Trondheim, across the narrow mid-section of Norway. Therefore they can be supported and reinforced from the sea, by the western nations whom they have not found it wise to acknowledge as allies, but whom they know to be potential partners in a common defense of human freedom.