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Sweden's government has a message for you Swedes:
The security environment in Europe and in Sweden's vicinity has deteriorated and the all-volunteer recruitment hasn't provided the Armed Forces with enough trained personnel. The re-activating of the conscription is needed for military readiness. Trained personnel are fundamental for building military capability. In 2016 the Armed Forces lacked 1,000 active squad leaders, soldiers and sailors as well as 7,000 reservists.
Recruitment to the Armed Forces will be both voluntary and conscription. Individual motivation, interest and will should to be considered as much as possible. The Armed Forces is planning for 4,000 recruits annually in basic military training in 2018 and 2019. The modern conscription is gender neutral and will include both women and men.
What's that about the security environment? Oh, it's about Russia:
Sweden is reinstating the military draft — for men and women — because of dwindling volunteers and growing concerns over a more assertive Russia in the Baltic and Ukraine. [...] Marinette Nyh Radebo told the BBC the "security change in our neighborhood" prompted the move by Sweden, which is not a NATO member. "The Russian illegal annexation of Crimea (in 2014), the conflict in Ukraine and the increased military activity in our neighborhood are some of the reasons," she said.
[...] Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist said he was inspired to make the draft gender-neutral by neighboring Norway, which in 2013 introduced a law applying military conscription to both sexes. That made Norway the first NATO member to draft both men and women, joining a tiny group of countries around the world, including Israel. Turkey and Germany are the only major NATO countries that still use a draft. Conscription also exists in Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece and Norway, according to Deutsche Welle. France ended the draft in 2001. Italy and the Netherlands put the draft on hold.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday March 04 2017, @07:23PM (8 children)
Lots of border to deal with, not a huge population - they would be pretty pissed if Russia started rolling tanks in and claiming eminent domain the way China did in Tibet. In Sweden, they could claim huge areas of land displacing almost no people - and if global warming continues, some of those currently frosty fjords are going to become prime real-estate, much more desirable than Siberian muskeg when it thaws.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 04 2017, @09:35PM (7 children)
Dear american,
It's pretty easy to check google maps and see if there is any common border between Sweden and Russia. I will spare you the trouble and tell you there's none. I'm pretty sure the Russians have to pass through Finland first and everybody will find out then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 04 2017, @11:05PM (3 children)
And that's what swedes are relying, that Finns take care of Russia, but not helping at all, because they are "impartial".
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday March 05 2017, @12:42AM (2 children)
And that's what swedes are relying, that Finns take care of Russia, but not helping at all, because they are "impartial".
In some sense you are not wrong. Sweden has always treated Finland as the ugly little stepchild, the buffer or meatshield to cover the northern flank vs the reds. A large part is probably the historical roots - Sweden lost Finland to the Russians, I'm sure Sweden was a cruel master but probably not worse then Russia. But to say that Sweden never helped Finland is just flat out wrong. Finland fought three wars during WWII, (1) Russia invaded - Sweden did send some help and offered sanctuary. (2) Finland joins the Germans and Italians to open up another front vs Russia and then (3) at the end of the war you rise up and kill the Germans. So which part is it that you feel that Sweden failed you at? I guess we could have done more during the first one, should we have joined you and Nazi-Germany during the second one or helped you kill the Germans during the third one? Which one is it just so we know what the problem is - or is this just the little brother complex kicking in and you feel like having a bit of a cry about the whole thing?
Did you realistically think it would have even been possible for Sweden to rise up and the defeat the Germans or the Russians? Would the situation have been better if Sweden had fallen to the Germans, or Russians, to? Is this a desire for shared misery? In that regard this is the same issue you sometime hear from Norway and Denmark that we somehow abandoned them when the Nazi war-machine conquered them both - Sweden standing up for any of the three countries wouldn't really have changed that at all. In some way you should be happy that we didn't cause you got to use as a neutral spot to hide in when shit got really bad or is this just part of the we want you to share the pain and the death and that would somehow make things better?
So while I don't dispute that Sweden used and abused Finland for ages it did as a matter of fact offer help during WWII. Sure Finland had to take the big punch in the face and die for the cause but it did get help, a lot more help then was officially announced at the time - after all we did have to make friendly with Adolf and Stalin so we wouldn't be next on the menu. In a more modern setting since both are non-NATO members there is a lot of cooperation and joint training. There is probably going to be more of it. There are also various declaration in regard that both have stated that they won't try to "surprise"-join NATO without letting the other one know.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @01:15AM (1 child)
I think like many Swedes, you have a far too rosy view on Sweden in WW2.
There were far too many Nazi-supporters in Sweden, and in difference to in Germany, they generally got away with it. Sweden long after WW2 continued practices that in most part of the world are closely associated with Nazi ideology, and I would claim it in fact WAS Nazi ideology (forced or "voluntary" sterializations, ongoing into the 60s/70s).
As a German in Sweden, the frequency with which "we are just following orders" (mostly in the "we are just following the law" variant) is used by officials in Sweden even today AND this answer is actually accepted without criticism (!) is sometimes just horrifying.
So you may be right that Sweden maybe could not have done more when it comes to actions. However when it comes to attitudes I have a feeling there is a lot of blame to be given out, and rather than face that Sweden collectively decided to pretend it was never that close to Germany or Nazi ideology and associate itself with the UK and US instead.
A bit more on-topic: I think you should have said that about 8000 Swedes joined the war in Finland voluntarily (see also "Finlands sak är vår"). They should not be forgotten, and it is maybe the best proof that whatever one might believe Sweden SHOULD have done, staying "officially" out of the war for many certainly was a decision take with heavy heart.
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Sunday March 05 2017, @02:11AM
I think like many Swedes, you have a far too rosy view on Sweden in WW2.
I would disagree. I don't think my view is rose-tainted. I believe it was a time of pragmatic choices. They where not nice at all, it was a bit of a giant shit-sandwich and you just had to take a bite and like it. Nazi-Germany quickly takes Denmark and Norway so Sweden is now more or less cut-off to the west. In the east is the arch-enemy Russia and to the south there are more of Nazi-Germany. Sweden is basically surrounded by enemies. So to stand up and "do the right thing" is not really an option.
There is no doubt that there was a fair amount of Nazi-sympathizers in Sweden on all levels of society, from the bottom to the top, at the time. Possibly more so then in other similar countries. But it did gradually changed with the course of the war, while some of it was certainly ideological some of it was clearly just trying to back a winner for as Nazi-Germany was starting to lose so did the support and there was a shift towards the Allies. They in turn was naturally not super pleased with what Sweden had done but since the war was ending and the cold war was beginning and geography being what it is they found each other as new "best secret buddies". This whole process reappears again during the end of the cold war when parts of society pretends that they where not Soviet or communist sympathizers -- which unlike the Nazis is rarely if ever talked about even tho it was just as bad and numerous. I'm not sure why Sweden is apparently supposed to feel collectively bad for parts of society being pro-Nazi but at the same time having had other parts of society being pro-Soviet is fine. I don't feel genetic guilt, just as I don't think Germans today should in anyway feel bad or remorse about Nazi-Germany.
The eugenics program was neither Nazi or Swedish in origin, it was an international thing at the time. Everybody did it. Sweden was just really good at it and admittedly kept at it for way longer then most others after it having gone out of fashion even as you note as far into the 1970's. A politic of appeasement is in some regard something that has historically worked out quite well for Sweden so I'm not surprised that it's still carried out - on some level we want to be friends with everybody but it just doesn't seem to work very well at the moment -- I blame that on stupid politicians that can't seem to get their head of of their arse.
I would say that following rules, laws or orders to the letter - sometimes in absurdum - is almost a cultural trait and it existed long before last century and today. It's also one of those weird little things that have in the larger perspective worked out great but as noted sometimes fail spectacularly when it becomes clear that some people are just "following the X" and doesn't appear to think at all. Overall it's great for society that people want to follow rules and law and not just when it's convenient to do so, but at times it fails or go to extremes.
(Score: 5, Informative) by looorg on Saturday March 04 2017, @11:17PM (2 children)
Dear AC,
Please look again. There is no physical land border between Russia and Sweden. There is in some regard a sea based border, or common access area in the Baltic sea. The Russian baltic fleet has two main bases -- one is in Kronshtadt, fairly close to St Petersburg, that come out into the Baltic sea via the Gulf of Finland. Then you have the other one in Baltiysk in Kaliningrad which is situated right on the Baltic sea, wedged in between the Baltic trio (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and Poland. Finland could be a bit of a pain in the arse to go thru but the Baltic trio isn't even a speed bump on the road as far as the Russian army is concerned. Sweden is clearly not the masters of the Baltic sea and hasn't been for quite some time.
* back to the rest of the story *
The conscription was suspended in 2010. Re-instated again in 2017. That little seven year period is just a gap in the history of things since Sweden had conscription in the "modern" form since the early 1900's, 1901 if I'm not remembering wrong as I type this. Before that Sweden had another draft system that has more or less in various form existed for hundreds of years, going back all the way to when Sweden was a military-superpower for it's age and geographical location. This little seven year gap was clearly another failed political experiment. There wasn't even large public support for removing the draft in the first place but they did it anyway. Sweden had about a decade earlier started to dismantle the previous defence doctrine and change from a large homeland defence to a mobile and agile rapid response force - so that we could join our friends in the USA and NATO to go and bring "peace to the world". Trying to do it on the cheap just made things worse. Turns out this was a really shitty idea when you have the third largest country in Europe by land mass (excluding Russian - since it Russia, and Turkey since it's not geographically in Europe for the most part, and culturally it's even more distant) to defend but only a population of about 10 million. You pretty much need conscription to keep the system going.
So conscription is "back". But it's not the old system. When I was young they tested EVERYONE in each cohort. Everyone being male that is, females had to apply to be tested. Everyone that was physically or mentally unfit became exempt, people that for religious or moral grounds couldn't or wouldn't usually got placed someplace else in a non-military capacity. I, like everyone of my age, got a letter in the mail telling me to be at a location on a date and time for testing - basic testing took two days, some deployments would later require more testing if selected for that. If I had refused I could have been sent to jail.
Initially in the current system they will annually test about 20k people, about 13k male - 7k females. So it's not even going to be an even 50/50 gender distribution. The new total is about 1/5 of how many they tested in the previous system, and from the tested they will only select a portion compared to the previous when more or less everyone that wasn't exempt got trained in one way or another. They are only initially wanting to fill a few thousand spots and they could more or less take the volunteers that they get from testing. Getting drafted against your will is going to be very unlikely. I'll wait for the first sob-articles in the papers coming after the summer or early autumn where someone is going to cry their heart out about being forced. Plus they already removed the parts in the law that said that if you refused you could go to jail for a year. Making this whole thing some kind of 'draft-light'.
Why aren't they bringing back the old homeland invasion defence? It cost to much and they are still trying to do this on the cheap. There is no need for eternal vigilance as if Sweden was Israel, there is only one enemy and it's Russia - they just don't want to admit that even tho it's the worst kept secret ever and everyone knows it. The only other contender for an enemy would from a historical standpoint be Denmark, but that is so unlikely it's not even on the map even tho about 1/5 or so of current Sweden was once Denmark. Sweden is currently spending about 1% of GNP on defence, a number that even tho they are increasing the number in actual money will most likely fall below 1% as a value of GNP. When Sweden had a fairly large force for homeland defence Sweden spent around 3% of its GNP on defence. The second problem is that most of the bases have been demilitarized and are no longer operational. They have been sold off and are now turned into houses, shopping malls and offices. The third problem is that the swedish armed forces have a very skewed ratio of officers to soldiers, extremely heavy of the officer side compared to other similar nations. But they still don't have enough officers to actually train soldiers. Those are gone, Sweden didn't need them when it was going to be part of the world police powerranger squad. Cause then Sweden would only use all those all volunteers elite troopers so all the normal grunt trainers went away, got axed or got military office jobs.
So while the reinstatement of the draft might be necessary it is currently more window dressing for the masses then an actual change or return to the previous homeland invasion defence force Sweden once had, one where Sweden might actually have been able to hold out for a week or two or long enough for America to come and save us from the evil reds.
(Score: 1) by rochrist on Sunday March 05 2017, @08:28PM (1 child)
No physical land border? What do you call Finland and Northern Norway then?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday March 05 2017, @10:31PM
No physical land border? What do you call Finland and Northern Norway then?
Yes. Finland and Norway are not Sweden, they have not been part of Sweden for about 200 years and 100 years respectively. So the land border with Russia is between Finland and Norway and Russia and not with Sweden. If you can just skip countries then sure Sweden has a land border with more or less every country in Europe, Asia and Africa. It's just usually not how these things are counted.