Thai Election Affects Sweden?

In Thailand Yingluck Shinawatra will be the winner of the general election.

With most votes counted, outgoing Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has conceded victory to his rival, opposition leader Yingluck Shinawatra.

Ms Yingluck, who will become Thailand's first female prime minister, said there was "a lot of hard work ahead".

She is the younger sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted in a coup in 2006.

With 92% of votes counted, Ms Yingluck's Pheu Thai party had won 260 seats, giving it a majority in the 500-seat parliament.

What will happen now?

Most probably the military leaders are very disappointed. The election results clearly shows that the people of Thailand did not approve with the coup in 2006. The red-shirts have protested every year and now they will be in power. My guess is that Thaksin will be giving a lot of "advices" to his sister, even though he will wait a while before returning to Thailand. He will not formally be in power, but he will have a lot to say about the future politics of Thailand.

The big question however is if the military will accept the will of the people? A new coup could lead to civil war. many investors fear the worst and the Thai economy has dropped.

Inflation is nudging higher (to 4.2% in May), and both leading parties have promised a rack of give-aways, from higher wages to credit cards.

The Bank of Thailand said foreign investors had withdrawn 57bn baht ($1.85bn; £1.15bn) from the Thai debt market last month and 17bn baht from the stock market. The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) shed 74bn baht of its value in May.

A new coup in Thailand will affect Sweden in many ways.

- Thailand is the biggest vacation spot in the world for Swedes. Many Swedes also choose Thailand to live in during the cold Swedish winters when they retire at age 65. A coup could lead to a need of transporting a lot of Swedes back to home. Sweden remembers the challenge of transporting people from Thailand after the Tsunami in 2004. In 2004 Sweden had to rely on civilian airline companies. Today Sweden has access to three C-17 through the NATO HAW - Heavy Airlift Wing in Papa, Hungary.

- Swedish companies have invested a lot in the Thai tourism, hotels, airline companies etc. If there would be a new coup it will be very costly for these companies. This could affect the economy in Sweden and also the unemployment figures in the tourism sector. Maybe the tourists would stay in Sweden instead and spend their money. But since Thailand is mostly visited during the Swedish winter they will probably go to another warm country.

- Sweden has sold Gripen fighters to RTAF, the Royal Thai Air Force. 6+6 Gripen aircraft + 2 Saab 340 AEW and 1 Saab 340 transport aircraft together with upgrades of the Thai Command & Control networks are in the contract. A Swedish support unit are currently located at Wing 7 at the town of Surat Thani in southern Thailand. If there is a coup will the Swedish personnel be able to stay? How will Sweden support the Thai Air Force with spares and maintenance of the aircraft? Will there be any further contracts for more aircraft? The contract was signed in 2007, i.e. after the 2006 coup. Therefore a new government with ties to Thaksin could very well change the future for the Thai Air Force. The new government has promised a lot of economical support to the population. This money need to be raised somewhere.

Since Thailand is very depending on the tourism I believe that everyone will be very careful not to do anything that will affect the tourism. But who controls the red- and the yellow-shirts?

I hope that the Swedish foreign ministry is closely looking into the development in Thailand. Since there are a lot of Swedish interests in Thailand, Sweden must be prepared to act if a new coupe would take place.

But on the other hand, as BBC already has noted:

It is precisely Thailand's record of mishaps - in its 78 years of democracy it has survived 18 attempted or actual military coups and new constitutions - that gives the long-stayers a kind of confidence.

SvD1, SvD2, SvD3, DN

Tomorrow Brazil and India, Today Sweden

Selling combat aircraft is a work like no other. The decisions of nations on which aircraft to buy has nothing to do with strategy or even finances. Politics is the most important factor!

In India Saab is supposed to be out of the competition, or are they? No one really knows for sure. According to official press releases India will go forward with Eurofighter and Rafale, but Lockheed Martin has objected and most probably the decision will wait for a while.

In Brazil the FX-2 competition seems to be at a stand-still. And out of the ashes comes FX-3! Brazil want a new competition, but this time they will also make room for the 5:th generation of aircraft. F-35 and PAK-FA T-50 will probably be invited.

For this increase to 36 fighters, there would be "Chavez Factor" with their purchases of armaments on a large scale and attraction of the Cold War to the American South, "Chavez Factor" showed to Brazilian society that it does not have the height of Defense country for decades.
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This purchase of the FX-2 could be far higher, because the original FX aimed assembly in Brazil, under license, in a next phase, 84 aircraft model has perfected the first choice, coming to total 120 aircraft interception. Only Chavez plans to reach 150 Su-30 and Su-35BM for its Venezuela. An acquisition is not less than this would cause local assembly or could count on full transfer of technology. Even 120 units produced under license does not guarantee transfer of technology obsolescence.

In Sweden the Minister of Defence will wait for another year before deciding on the future for the Gripan fleet in the Swedish Air Force. Will it be an updated Gripen C/D+ with new avionics or will it be a Gripen E/F with a new fuselage with room for more fuel, weapons, a bigger AESA radar and the F414 engine? Unfortunately for Saab Volvo is together with some high ranking FMV officials doing their best to stop the Gripen E/F in favor for the Swedish license made RM12+ upgrade. No one has yet asked General electric about how they will handle Volvo when it comes to competing a license made RM12 against General Electric F414. RM12+ will also be the end of the line for the F414 design. If Sweden in the future want more thrust it will need to be another engine instead of just upgrades.

But, during this waiting period there is still a lot of work ongoing at Saab.

FMV has recently announced a 1034 MSEK order on upgrades to the Gripen C/D fleet. This will ensure the work at Saab AB in Linköping, Kista, Mölndahl and Järfälla.

Do not forget that there are a number of existing customers who are operating the Gripen. 16 aircraft in South Africa, 14 in the Czech Republic, 14 in Hungary, 12 (so far) in Thailand and more than 100 in Sweden. There are also a number of countries that can not afford aircraft like the F-35 and ar very interested in a cheaper aircraft like the Gripen C/D. This is were the money for Saab is today.

This is something that is easily forgotten in the debate about Gripen E/F or not. The Swedish government has already decided to operate the Gripen until 2040. During these years there will be a need for continuous development of the aircraft. Sooner or later this will result in a major upgrade of the aircraft. Either by a number of smaller upgrades or by a major MLU - Mid Life Update.

There is of course the option of doing nothing at all. But this leaves two possible futures. Either there will be no Swedish Air Force at all or the Swedish Air Force need to replace their existing Gripen C/D with F-35 or a similar alternative starting somewhere around 2025. Will this alternative be cheaper? Ask the Norwegians!

SR

Good Moral, Bad Physique

The Swedish Defence expert, Prof. Wilhelm Agrell has written an interesting article in yesterday SvD about the pro and cons of the reformed system for employing professional soldiers in the Swedish Armed Forces. His thesis is that Sweden is more vulnerable without the conscript system. The new defence will be much smaller and the soldiers will lack the civilian experience that has shown to be very valuable on international missions. Swedish soldiers has always been more than just soldiers which is very useful in operations other than war. They performed well in the civil wars of former Yugoslavia and has so far also done well in Afghanistan. However the Supreme Commander and the Minister of Defence, Mr Tolgfors, both say that the old system was too costly since all units that was sent on international missions had to be trained for that specific mission and afterwards the unit was disassembled and the soldiers went back to their civilian work.

But was this so bad? The civilian and the military world in Sweden did get a good blend that will be impossible in the future. It used to be so that a majority of the males in Sweden had done a year of conscript service. Everyone had knowledge about soldiering. In a crisis this would have been very useful. These crisis do not need to be war, but also natural disasters, accidents etc. A person trained by the military also know how to act in an emergency. How to do heart-lung reanimation, how to stop bleeding etc. The end of the conscript system lowers Sweden´s capability to cope with unexpected situations.

The conscript service was also a good way of introducing the soldier life to many possible recruits to become officers or specialist officers. A lot of the officers in the Armed Forces of today say, when asked about how they ended up in service, they realized during the conscript year that they liked what they were doing. Otherwise they would most probably never have joined the Armed Forces. The one year service was also e very good way for the officers to find the right recruits who they wanted to serve together with in the future.

Now the Armed Forces need to recruit the right boy and girls directly from the street. This will increase the need and cost of commercials to show what life in the armed forces is about. These commercials have been criticized in Sweden for being too "Hollywood". Life in the Armed Forces are not as glamor as the commercials show. Being a soldier is hard, wet and very often boring. To be interrupted by sheer moments of pure panic. All this for a salary of 17.000 SEK/month!

How will Sweden be able to recruit soldiers to work for 6-8 years with a very low salary? Countries like USA and Great Britain can use free school as a bait. But in Sweden all schools is free. The only cost for the students are loans that are needed to rent a apartment and get food. Maybe the government should pay for these loans? A retirement check of about 1 MSEK would be enough to avoid the need for loan. Ronald Månsson, commander P4 in Skövde thinks the soldiers will get valuable training that will be valuable the day they want to apply for a new job. In his article he focus on the "värdegrund" aspects, i.e. the soldiers will have the right moral view upon sexual and racial equality. This aspect might not be on top of a future employers wish list...

Unfortunately the drop outs from the basic 3 months soldier training has been quite high. According to a SvD article, the drop out rate has been as high as 20% during the second GMU - Basic Military Training. The main reason for drop out is that the recruits does not have the correct physique for the training. According to SvD analysis this might cost as much as 745 MSEK to train more soldiers to fill up the empty spaces. But according to the plan (see picture above) there should be 4000 recruits every year. Out of those 600 are expected to drop out. This is 15%. However this number is based upon both basic and continued training, so the drop out rate from basic training is too high.

What are the reasons for the drop outs?

- The physical standards of the young boys and girls are on an average much lower today compared to 10 years ago. A few years ago the Swedish recruitment office issued a report that stated that the average boy/girl was in bad physical shape and would not pass the conscript service. Less focus on sports and more on Internet might be one reason. That the parents also give their young ride with cars everywhere they are going might be another. Is it really the best trained boys/girls who apply for service? This does not explain all since the recruits have at least passed the physical tests of the recruitment centers. But, are these tests not correct according to the physique needed during basic training? Or is it more than just muscles that is needed?

- The wrong persons are recruited. In the conscript system everyone was exposed to military service and a few were selected. Do the recruits today have the same background as the officers recruited from the conscript system? The new system is supposed to be training the same "raw material" that earlier was sent to officers schools. The one difference is schooling. The Armed Forces are not trying to compete with boys and girls who are planning to go to university, but instead those who are planning to work in the industry. 17.000 SEK per month is not very good compared to most industrial work. The industrial workers do also not need to go to Afghanistan every second year.

- The recruits do not know what they are applying for. When they see the hard life in the Armed Forces they back out. It is maybe not the physique that is the big issue, but the moral will and endurance. Maybe the commercials are attracting the wrong type of recruits?

- Many young people today do not know what they want to do with their life. The unemployment rate is high and according to some officers that I have spoken to some of the recruits do the basic military training just because they didn´t know what to do. Maybe they will stay for a year or two, but they will not stay for the full contract period of 6-8 years.

The Defence HQ and the Minister of Defence all believe the costs will not be as high as SvD and FOI has predicted. Who will be right? Only the future will tell. Unfortunately it might be too late to reverse the course in Sweden. Once the conscript system has been put on hold it will be very difficult to start it back up again.

It is very interesting to see how Minister of Defence, Mr Tolgfors always try his best to stop all discussions about the new conscript system. In Sweden he has been known lately as Bagdad Bob. A man who does not change his message even if the reality changes around him. Unfortunately a lot of career officers has the same view upon things as Mr Tolgfors. The commander P4 statement that moral standards is the most important aspect of a recruit is typical of the Swedish Armed Forces today. Where is the killer? Where is the will to endure hard times in order to achieve the mission goals? Where is the fighting spirit? Quality of material and training is one thing, but the mental will is what differs a good soldier from a bad one. Mr Tolgfors focus too much on a small well trained force suited for missions in Afghanistan. One thing is for sure. Quantity always beet quality. Ask the German commanders of WW2 what happened on the Russian front. Or why not ask ISAF what happened in Afghanistan.

One might say that I am pessimistic. But the truth is that Sweden has adopted a recruitment system that is very much alike the one in USA and UK. But we have a completely different society in Sweden. Sweden lack the poor people that see no other future then being a soldier in the army in order to pay for future studies. How come the system used to work? For one thing we did not have any professional soldiers. We only had officers and they stayed in the system due to comradeship and that they liked what they did at work. These qualities can beat a low salary. But not a too low salary when they start building a family.

My personal view is that every boy and girl should do GMU, 3 months of basic military training. This can bee seen as a "pay back" for the money the government has invested in each end everyone with free social health care and free education. In this way there is no need for false commercials and the training officers can select the best recruits to go on for being soldiers, specialist officers and officers. All those who do not continue with military service will as an bonus get basic training that will be good for the entire society. In case of an emergency these boys/girls will be better suited to handle the situation.

Other Bloggers about the same story: Sinuhe, Cornucopia and Wiseman.

Financial Hostages

Some analysts believe that the global financial interdependency will lead to a more stable world. Why start a war with someone that you do business with?

But this way of thinking could also be reversed, why not do business instead of war with the same strategical goal as the war itself?

In the Baltic Sea Gazprom is building the Nord Stream gas pipeline that in the future will transport natural gas to customers in Germany and France.

That will allow more Russian gas exports to bypass Ukraine, through which 80% is currently routed. Differences with Kiev encouraged Moscow to speed up the project, as well as South Stream, running north and south of the EU bloc.

In January 2009, Russian gas supplies to Europe came to a halt for almost two weeks as Moscow and Kiev rowed over prices and transit terms.

Of course this project is good for the economy of Gazprom, but there are a number of other advantages.

- Russia do not need to rely on Ukraine where most of todays gas go through.

- The pipeline will give Russia a reason to patrol the Baltic Sea close to the Swedish island of Gotland. On Gotland Gazprom has built a facility to control the pipeline. This site is located in the small town of Slite where the unemployment has been high. Between 70-90 MSEK will be invested in the Harbour in Slite. Rumors is that Gazprom has invested this money in Gotland not only to ensure the operations of the pipeline, but also to buy goodwill and interest from the local politicians on Gotland. The Baltic states are very worried about this development, but the political discussion in Sweden has been silenced by the financial interests. During the Cold War a Russian presence in Slite and an upgraded harbor perfect for bigger ships to anchor would not have been welcome. Today a lot of people in Sweden believe that anyone that is against this kind of strategic shift of the balance in the Baltic Sea is nothing to worry about. It is only for the best and will improve the relation between Sweden and Russia.

- The pipeline has closed the bridge between Russia, Germany and France. Russia is now buying French Mistral Amphibious Assault Ships. French companies are working together with Russian companies in the delivery of Su-30 MKI to India and Su-30 MKM to Malaysia. If Russia would ever fine a need to use these Assault Ships e.g. against Georgia there will be very little opposition from Germany and France. On the contrary they will in the future have to high financial interests in Russia to oppose against a Russian action against smaller ex-Soviet states.

- The delivery of gas also put Russia in the position of being able to influence the possibility to produce electrical power in Germany and France. Since Germany will in the future close down all atomic power plants they will be even more in the hands of the Russian. This method has been used against Ukraine in 2009 and against Belarus this Wednesday.

China has been using these methods for many years. They have invested heavily in USA. Not only to be nice to he Americans, but also to be able to put pressure on USA by affecting the financial market. The last few years the American military forces personnel has been more affected by the drop on the real estate market due to the crash of the sub-prime loan system than by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Sweden the politicians are very aware of this problem. The financial problems of Saab Automobile could be solved by letting the Russian financial Oligark Vladimir Antonov or the Chinese company Pang Da invest in the company. Saab Automobile is desperate to get money and this will of course result in a very good opportunity for the Russian and Chinese. Who knows what clauses will be in the secret parts of the contract? In the future this could result in Swedish interests being controlled by the Russian mafia or the Chinese communist dictators. Neither is wanted by the Swedish politicians and maybe it is from a political and strategical point of view better to let Saab Automobile slowly fade away then to loose control of the politics in western Sweden to foreign influence?

The usefulness of military thinking in business and vice versa has been known throughout history.

Carl von Clausewitz found a lot of similarities between war and business.

"Rather than comparing [war] to art we could more accurately compare it to commerce, which is also a conflict of human interests and activities; and it is still closer to politics, which in turn may be considered as a kind of commerce on a larger scale." On War, Book I, Ch. 3

In China the indirect method has always been preferred to direct assault. The Chinese always remember the wise teachings of Sun Tzu.

"To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."

in more modern times we have John Boyd who invented the OODA-loop for fighter combat. But he later went on in his teachings and used the theories for the OODA-loop into economy. In economy it is more known as PDCA, Plan - Do - Check - Act. When he goes the next step and try to make it into thermodynamics he maybe went a step to far..

Many soldiers has, based upon their war experiences, made a good civilian career as business leaders. They have learned how to lead men and how to take quick decisions. (Note: this does not apply to peace time officers who are not allowed to take any decisions at all by the system).

Why start a war to win territory or natural resources when you can buy them? Why start a war when it is cheaper to buy peace and you will gain the same advantages? On the other hand for some companies war is alway the best thing for business!

In Sweden the Department of Defence is in reality controlled by the Minister of Finance. Maybe Sweden should go one step further and not only control the budget of the military, but also use the military to gain financial advantage? There are a lot of discussions in Sweden about Cyber Warfare, information warfare and IT-soldiers. Why not use this kind of capability in order to make "war" the 21:st century way?

Always remember:

"War is business and business is good".

Preparing For War

The second batch of Swedish Air Force personnel are preparing to go down to Italy as part of FL02 - "Flygvapnet Libyen 02" (Air Force Libya 2:nd unit), the Swedish task force taking part in NATO mission Unified Protector over Libya. The Swedish political decision to prolong the mission came very close to the date when the unit needed to be ready for transport down to Italy. So this is a very good test of how well prepared the Swedish Armed Forces are today.

By January 1, 2011 the new employment contract was introduced in the Swedish Armed Forces. This new contract makes it mandatory for all personnel (military and civilian) working in the Armed Forces to when needed be sent to international operations. During the autumn 2010 there was a lot of turbulence in the Armed Forces, since the new contract was mandatory to sign, otherwise you were forces to leave the Armed Forces. The Supreme Commander and the Minister of Defence both stated that the new contract was needed, otherwise it was not possible to continue sending Swedish units on international missions.

But how prepared are the armed forces today? Is it possible to send any unit on international missions without a lot of mission specific training?

The Nordic Battle Group trained for a year in order to be available during the 1-2 quarter of 2011 for international missions within the force structure of EU. The Battlegroups has been criticized since there seem to be very little political interest and financial possibilities for the EU to actually deploy a Battlegroup. NBG08 cost a lot of money to train and keep on alert, but nothing happened. NBG11 has been on alert for 6 months, but nothing has happened even though there have been escalation of conflicts in e.g. Sudan.

A unit that is sent to Afghanistan train for approximately 3-6 months depending on the position within the unit. Maybe this will change in the future, but even though army units can take a core company there will always be need for specialists to accompany the unit to the mission area end this personnel also need to be trained as part of the unit.

FL01 was build up mainly by personnel from F 17 Wing in Ronneby that was already on international alert as part of NBG11 EAW - Expeditionary Air Wing. FL02 will be organized mainly by personnel from F 21 Wing in Luleå. F 21 are well prepared, since they also were on international alert during 2010, and were planning to be on alert during 2012. So a lot of the pilots were already combat qualified and current on e.g. AAR.

But in order to be available for international missions just having aircraft and personnel is not enough. The units must be trained in the type of missions that are planned and their flying status must be good enough.

NATO demand 160-180 flying hours per pilot per year. If the entire Swedish Air Force would be at this high alert it would stress the economy a lot. A squadron also need time to train new pilots and to replace the old guys retiring or leaving for HQ duty or schools. Therefore there will never be a time when all pilots in the Air Force are in combat status.

There is also a lot of special training needed. One example is AAR - Air to Air refueling. In order to be "current", a pilot need to train every 90 days. The only AAR-tanker available in the Swedish Air Force is the Tp 84/C-130 Hercules that is currently down in Italy. It has now been sent back to Sweden to train the F 21 Wing pilots and also check out some new C-130 crews on how to handle this specific aircraft.

There are also a lot of other equipment that is in short supply in the Swedish Air Force and is therefore difficult to train with in Sweden, since most of the equipment is down in Italy. Most Air Force pilots are today well trained in CAS - Close Air Support that was planned to be their major contribution to support the army units in a Afghanistan type of mission. Now they are going to Italy as recce pilots!

It will be interesting to see if the Swedish Air Force can continue with the planned activities for 2011. It was planned to send a unit to Red Flag in Alaska during 2011, but will there be any personnel and aircraft available? Will there be any budget left for this kind of exercise? Unified Protector is a sort of Red Flag exercise and has shown that the Air Force units has been trained well enough.

The supreme commander and the minister of defence focus of getting all officers to sign the new contract is not what counts when it comes to be ready for international mission. What counts is to get realistic training in the same type of equipment that will be used down in the hot zone. The old saying is that "You must train as you fight". Unfortunately the truth is too often that you train as you can afford and then fight as what is needed in the operation. This is of course quite risky since the operational procedures can differ quite a lot from the training.

Interesting to note is that a lot of the planned Red Flag exercises in Nellis has been canceled for 2011. Maybe the European (and American) units are to occupied with Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq? US minister of Defence, Mr Gates, was to the point when he criticized Europe for our lack of capability/capacity to support the mission in Libya. Sweden is doing its best, but it put heavy stress on the Air Force organization.

Famous Last Words?

I just happened to notice the Air Force Inspector General Anders Silwer speech at the Le Bourget Air Show.

"On 1 April 2013 we will be in Afghanistan [with Black Hawks]; or I won't be here," said Silwer.

Well I hope that he is right. Right now everything looks as the plan to have HKP 16 Blackhawk operational in Afghanistan in 2013 will work. The first pilots and technicians has started their training. The deliveries should be on schedule since Sweden (contrary to NH-90/HKP 14) are buying a standard helicopter with a lot of experience in the design. The helicopter wing will also have a lot of valuable experiences from the ongoing deployment with HKP 10B Super Puma in Camp Marmal.

But it is always dangerous to promise things in advance. Remember another well known Air Force leader from history.

On 9 August 1939, Göring boasted "The Ruhr will not be subjected to a single bomb. If an enemy bomber reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Hermann Göring: you can call me Meier!"

The Willing Unwilling Swedes

Sweden has come a long way since the Cold War. From stating "Non-Alliance in Peace aiming for Neutrality in War" Sweden has joined NATO PfP - Partnership for Peace program in 1994 and EU - European Union in 1995.

By tradition Sweden has a long tradition taking part in UN-led Peace Keeping missions.

Our contribution to the United Nations started as early as 1948 when Military Observers were sent to the Middle East. The first Swedish battalion under UN-flag was deployed in Gaza 1956.

The first Peace Enforcing mission was in Congo 1960-1964. This was also the first official engagement for the Swedish Air Force, deploying a squadron of Saab J 29 "Flying Barrel". (The first unofficial engagement for the SwAF was during the war between Finland and the Soviet Union in 1940 where Fighter Wing 19, a "volunteer" wing of Swedish pilots and technicians, fought for Finland using Swedish Air Force surplus aircraft that was given to Finland as a gift from the Swedish government.

After the end of the Cold War at the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the independence of the Baltic States in 1991, the Swedish military command was a bit taken by surprise. The army was focusing more and more on international missions and their material standards were not very good compared to the Navy and the Air Force. The supreme commander decided together with the politicians that there was a unique opportunity to raise the standards of the army units. This was unofficially named the "The Strategic Time-Out". Unfortunately no-one decided when this time-out was supposed to end.

The first true test of the Swedish capability to perform "modern" Peace Keeping/Peace Enforcing missions came during the Bosnian War 1992-95. (I recommend Morgonsurs stories from that war). In 1995 the Swedish UN battalion was transfered to NATO-command, the blue UN berets was replaced by brown and the unit insignia was changed to NATO IFOR. Strangely, this was not a very big issue in the political debate even though the communist party did not like the connection to NATO and therefore also to USA. This was the year when Swedish policy on taking part in NATO-missions truly changed.

Sweden continued to take part in NATO-led missions in Kosovo 1999 - today and Afghanistan 2001 - today and lately in Libya where the Air Force is taking part with combat aircraft for the first time since the Congo War (not taking into account cargo aircraft and helicopters).

During these years the Swedish national defence was torn down into pieces. The Air Force was drastically reduced to today 6 squadrons and the Navy is almost non-existing. Worst of all was that the war-time bases was closed down. The Swedish strategy of defending the country without relying on outside help was no more. After the cold war historians have discovered that there was preparations made to get help from NATO if there was ever a war with the Soviet Union. However this was not trained in any way, so the help would have been quite ineffective.

In 2010 the last brick of the Swedish national defence was torn down when the conscript system was canceled. Nowadays boys and girls only do their military service on a voluntarily basis. The capability of the armed resistance in Sweden has therefore been cut down from 700.000 to 60.000 (including the 30.000 strong home-guard).

Sweden has signed the Treaty of Lisbon in 2008. After this date the European Union is a legal body and the work for a common foreign, security and defence policy has started.

The treaty foresees that the European Security and Defence Policy will lead to a common defence agreement for the EU when the European Council resolves unanimously to do so, and provided that all member states give their approval through their usual constitutional procedures.[34] Additionally, the area of defence has become available to enhanced co-operation, potentially allowing for a defence integration that excludes member states with policies of neutrality. Countries with significant military capabilities are envisioned to form a Permanent Structured Cooperation in Defence.

The challenge with this security policy is that it is in writing close to NATO Article 5. Most countries in Europe are NATO-members and has no issues with this. But, Sweden has agreed upon helping NATO-countries and get helped by NATO-countries without being full member of NATO! The military command of the EU, EUMC has very little power compared to NATO and must rely on NATO assets and command structures. A EU-led mission will in all practicalities be a NATO-led mission.

To top all of this Sweden has in 2008 issued a one-way "Declaration of Solidarity".

Sweden would not stand passive if a neighbour is threatened or attacked. We expect others not to stand passive if Sweden is threatened. We must be able both to provide and receive support, with relevant capabilities, also of a military nature.

In practicality most of Sweden´s neighbors are NATO-members (excluding only Finland and Russia). The declaration of solidarity can result in Sweden being forced into a conflict in the Baltic region taking the NATO-side. This will most likely result in a conflict with our biggest neighbor, Russia.

But, even taken into consideration all these small steps towards NATO membership the Swedish politicians refuse to debate whether to request for full membership or not. According to polls the Swedish citizens are against a NATO-membership. The Swedish minister of defence, Mr Tolgfors, states that "there are a de factor solidarity between European countries". But in the same article he also reflects upon the fact that Sweden is doing more for NATO than most NATO-countries. Due to bad economy many European countries (and NATO-members) are not able to take part in Libya. Will they be able to support Sweden or other countries in the future? If the economy is so bad that some countries can´t fulfill their NATO-obligations, then EU military issues will most likely be put on hold.

The ironic thing is that during the Cold War Sweden needed NATO for support, but didn´t train this. Sweden couldn´t be member of NATO due to the official neutrality and couldn´t rely for the help to come. In order to be able to defend the country until NATO decided to help, Sweden had a strong national defence. After the Cold War, Sweden supports NATO and is well trained to both help and receive help from NATO. The capability to defend Sweden is lower than ever and Sweden therefore rely more than ever on NATO-support, but there is still no NATO-membership to guarantee this.

Sweden´s political struggle to admit the NATO-connection has led to very strange decisions regarding the continued mission in Libya. The Air Force unit which is in high demand from NATO is being reduced by three aircraft, but the mission activity will increase. Instead Sweden is planning to send a naval unit and a psy-ops unit that NATO has very low need of. A typical Swedish "lagom" compromise. No-one is happy with the result, but no-one is also angry. All to keep the balance between a minority government and a opposition with the communist party sometimes taking sides with the right-wing nationalist Swedish Democracy party. Political agreements often result in strange bed-mates.

But maybe the politicians are just doing what the Swedish voters want? Both national and international missions. Both keeping the quantity and quality of material. Keep the old type of defence capabilities and building up new units for information warfare. All within a shrinking budget for the Department of Defence. The Minister of Finance, Mr Borg, has more to say about the future of the Swedish Armed Forces then the Minister of Defence. The money does not cover the needs of the armed forces, but the politicians can´t acknowledge the need of NATO-membership due to the low interest of NATO-membership by the Swedish voters.

To quote Mother Teresa:

"We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing."