Swedish Military Transformation and the Nordic Battle Group – for What and Towards What?
KUNGL KRIGSVETENSKAPSAKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR OCH TIDSKRIFT DISKUSSION & DEBATT Swedish Military transformation and the Nordic Battle Group – for what and towards what? By Tommy Jeppsson o characterize Swedish security policy the 1990’s. As a result, Sweden has given Tduring almost half a century cover- up neutrality and non-alignment and has ing the period from 1945 to 1990 can be changed to military non-alignment, while done, at least as a starting point, by using at the same time gaining membership in two words: neutrality and non-alignment. the EU in 1995. The latest report from the A credible defence policy, a reasonably Swedish defence commission2 emphasizes strong total defence structure, conscrip- cooperation between the EU member states tion and a national defence industry were in the framework of the European Security cornerstones in the ability to handle a and Defence Policy (ESDP). As a result of threat which was mainly characterised participation in the Partnership for Peace as military. Today, almost all European programme, Swedish cooperation with militaries have, for less than two decades, NATO has intensified, which has been a seen profound transformations in order booster for the transformation process of to meet new and broader challenges that the armed forces. mainly originate from outside our own Besides giving facts and figures as well continent.1 as making some reflections concerning the The fundamental change in the security Nordic EU Battle Group (NBG) concept, policy environment influencing Sweden the aim with this article is to discuss per- is the result of events taking place from spectives that derive from two dominating the mid 1980’s and at the beginning of views concerning the future security envi- 1 Eriksson, Arita: “The Building of a Defence Capacity in the European Union – What Internal and External Implications”, (draft) to be published in Hallenberg, Jan & Karlson, Håkan (eds.): The New Strategic Triangle: The US, the EU and Russia in an Evolving Security Environment, Routledge, 2006 p 14.
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