{"id":17800,"date":"2024-03-21T21:27:52","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T19:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=17800"},"modified":"2024-03-21T21:27:52","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T19:27:52","slug":"what-will-sweden-bring-to-nato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=17800","title":{"rendered":"What will Sweden bring to NATO?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NATO’s most precious Scandinavian country \u2013 Sweden finally officially joined NATO on March 7, 2024, after a long period of negotiations with Turkey and Hungary. After decades of neutrality for the Scandinavian country, this development marks a huge and substantial diversification in the specific geographical area, significantly strengthening the West’s defense line. Despite the statement of the Secretary General of the Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, according to which, “after the accession of Sweden, NATO becomes stronger, Sweden safer and the Alliance more secure”, the reality is that the Swedish defense doctrine combined with the the country’s defense industry, is more needed in the North Atlantic alliance than at any time in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the 32nd member of the alliance, Sweden will have a growth rate of 15.1% between 2023 and 2033. To make some meaningful comparisons while spending on the JAS-39E Gripen fighter alone in 2023 was $254 million, it is estimated to reach one billion in 2033. Starting with the Swedish Armed Forces operational doctrine, this remains unchanged from years of the Second World War, until today. Professional armed forces flanked by reservists during operations, absolute homogeneity of systems with a high degree of availability, limited support and maintenance needs and ease of movement and operation with minimal equipment, even in remote and isolated areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are the key ingredients of the Swedish business philosophy of rapid, efficient and widespread deployment. It is not something new and of course it has been adopted by many countries to a lesser or greater extent. The systems and the weapons used are also adapted to this philosophy. Most are designed and developed domestically and also manufactured domestically, along with those purchased from Europe and the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the reason (or one of the important reasons) that the Swedish economy not only remains perennially strong, but manages to absorb the enormous costs of the largely autonomous equipment of its armed forces. Exports of Swedish defense systems are a very important source of income for the country’s economy and the best way to advertise them globally. Their technological superiority combined with the aforementioned features have made them particularly popular across the length and breadth of the earth.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Despite huge competition from Europe, USA, Russia and of course Southeast Asia over the past 30 years. We don’t need to go into details. The anti-tank Carl Gustav, the anti-artillery radar Arthur, the AEW&C Erieye and Globaleye systems, the Giraffe radars, the RBS.15 anti-ship missile are just a small sample of the capabilities of the Swedish defense industry. Capabilities that are groundbreaking and constantly evolving over the past five decades. Not only technologically, we repeat, but also philosophically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A philosophy that has been imposed by the operational Doctrine of the Swedish armed forces. Dispersion and full operation with minimal re-service and maintenance equipment is certainly not the only component of this Doctrine. It is both the ultimate interoperability and connectivity along with the ability to deliver decisive precision strikes around the clock. On land, air and sea. All this has been true for decades. It is not recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It used to be the Swedish Air Force (Svenska Flygvapnet). Today it is part of the armed forces of Sweden. It has a strength of just five squadrons, with 94 fighter planes. 71 single-seat JAS-39C and 23 two-seat JAS-39D Gripen. Contrary to what happens in the Air Force of 200+ fighters, of six different types, availability is constantly between 70% and 80%, while all Swedish fighters can equally effectively cover all key roles. Air-to-air, air-to-ground, sub-strategic strike (Taurus KEPD 350), air-to-surface and optical and electronic reconnaissance.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Air Force of the Swedish Armed Forces is currently in the process of receiving the first six JAS-39E Gripen NGs, out of a total of 60 ordered by the Swedish government, so it is expected to further upgrade its operational capabilities in the coming years, but the bottom line is not there. It is identified in that all -C\/\u2013D aircraft, which remain in service, have undergone system and software upgrades to remain uncompromisedly combat-ready in all these roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same is true for the only three types of helicopters in service in the Swedish armed forces (AW 109, UH-60, NH-90). Three, not 23! As for connectivity and interoperability, there’s no need to talk about it. They are literally the first teachers in the world! All media, air, land and surface, have a real-time image of the others and at the same time the ability to transmit an image!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Swedish operations centers have a complete picture composed of active and passive sensors, of every movement in the Swedish archipelago (Baltic Sea and Gulf of Bothnia). On land (islands), sea and air, day and night and regardless of weather conditions. The Swedes were the first in the world to install analogue data exchange systems on fighter aircraft (JAS-35 Draken) in the 60s (!), as well as on land and sea platforms\u2026 In the land forces the dominant component is the power of 120 Leopard 2A6 tanks, while anti-aircraft\/anti-missile cover is based on the Patriot system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NATO’s most precious Scandinavian country \u2013 Sweden finally officially joined NATO on March 7, 2024, after a long period of negotiations with Turkey and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[825,3],"tags":[2358,3217,124,58,2943],"class_list":["post-17800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe-geopolitical","category-geopolitical","tag-doctrine","tag-military-doctrine","tag-nato","tag-russia","tag-sweden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17804,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17800\/revisions\/17804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}