| Bangorstu | 02 Mar 2017 5:18 a.m. PST |
Sweden is reintroducing the draft, this time for both sexes. All part of it's major increase in defence spending as a response to Putin. link |
IGWARG1   | 02 Mar 2017 6:12 a.m. PST |
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| GurKhan | 02 Mar 2017 6:19 a.m. PST |
Fake news? If so, Sweden's public broadcaster seems to have been taken in – link |
| Dwindling Gravitas | 02 Mar 2017 6:33 a.m. PST |
Not fake: link To quote from that BBC link: The Swedish government has decided to reintroduce military conscription – a move backed by the country's MPs.
The decision means that 4,000 men and women will be called up for service from 1 January 2018, a defence ministry spokeswoman told the BBC. They will be selected from about 13,000 young people born in 1999, who will be asked to take psychological and physical tests, Marinette Radebo said. Sweden, a neutral country, is worried about Russia's Baltic military drills. In September, a Swedish garrison was restored to Gotland, a big island lying between the Swedish mainland and the three ex-Soviet Baltic states. Ms Radebo said the return to conscription was prompted by "the change in our neighbourhood… Russian military activity is one of the reasons". The conscripts will serve for nine to 12 months. The aim is to encourage them to become military professionals or to join the reserves |
| dwight shrute | 02 Mar 2017 7:07 a.m. PST |
The likelihood of the Russians actually invading the baltic states is ??? |
| 7dot62mm | 02 Mar 2017 7:12 a.m. PST |
About time. I visited an army garrison in Sweden in 2006 or 2008 or something when they had just decided to abolish their army. I told the officers there that it was a very short-sighted decision (which they agreed it was) and asked them what the plan was, to sit there and expect Finland to defend their eastern border like in 1939. And the answer was, "Yes, again". I'm glad they're finally doing something to fix the military vacuum they've created. |
| Fish | 02 Mar 2017 7:40 a.m. PST |
Oh drat!
there goes our plans of unificating the kingdom again.
But this time us Finns as the masters… :D |
| Daniel S | 02 Mar 2017 8:11 a.m. PST |
As others have said not fake news, the reintroduction of conscription has in fact been discussed since 2014, a goverment inquiry on how to do so was begun in 2015 and delivered it's conclusions in the fall of 2016.
At the level currently envisioned conscription will not lead to an expansion of the armed forces, it is merely a way to ensure that all units are fully manned. However if the goverment inquiry's suggestions are fully implemented it would be possible to increase the annual intake of conscripts to up to 8000 and this would provide manpower to reactivate battalions held as either inactive or material reserve. The key issued would be the limited number of officers and NCO's available. The Swedish army wasn't abolished in either 2006 or 2008, still very much in existence today link What you most likely heard was complaints about was the short sighted 2004 defence decision which reduced the army from six brigades to two as well as doing away with most of the units mantained as inactive reserves. |
| darthfozzywig | 02 Mar 2017 12:59 p.m. PST |
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| bsrlee | 02 Mar 2017 11:08 p.m. PST |
It can also have positive social benefits, probably more so in the Internet Era, such as exposing still malleable young people to others from different backgrounds (in person yet!), keeping your room tidy, how to fold clothes rather than leaving it for Mum to do, as well as teaching skills useful in emergencies such as first aid, heavy vehicle driving, using a pick and shovel (you'd be surprised) and basic organisation. |
| Supercilius Maximus | 03 Mar 2017 2:26 a.m. PST |
How will they deal with immigrants (around 15% of the population), both from inside (c.1/3) and outside (c.2/3) the EU? Will they be eligible for conscription, too? |
| Daniel S | 03 Mar 2017 3:51 a.m. PST |
No, citizens only. Current plan is to select 13.000 out of the annual pool of 100.000. The 13.000 will then go through several days of physical and mental tests, get a psych eval. Then 4000 of the 13000 will actually be conscripted and go through 11 months of training. |
| Bangorstu | 04 Mar 2017 7:45 a.m. PST |
Given a lot of the refugees are fleeing Assads' bombing, I doubt they'll have many problems in defending Sweden against Putin. |
| Great War Ace | 04 Mar 2017 8:53 a.m. PST |
@Darth: thanks for the time crushing rush! What a perfect song for today. |
| Great War Ace | 04 Mar 2017 9:00 a.m. PST |
Despite the hype of anti-Muslim immigration in Europe, I don't think that Muslims who adopt Scandinavia as their new home have any intention of infiltrating Western society to bring it down. Rather, these Muslims are the best of the best, willing to sacrifice everything in the old country to start anew. More than likely, if given the chance, they will fight almost fanatically to defend that new homeland…………… |
| Supercilius Maximus | 04 Mar 2017 9:03 a.m. PST |
One can only hope so. I tend towards a slightly skeptical view of who is (or isn't) "Syrian" – rather like "children" seeking asylum in the UK – especially given the Swedes blanket acceptance of applications professing to come from Syria. |
| zoneofcontrol | 04 Mar 2017 10:28 a.m. PST |
"More than likely, if given the chance, they will fight almost fanatically to defend that new homeland……………" Yes, the rioting, looting and car burning was just a military training drill that went askew. |
| Mark Plant | 04 Mar 2017 2:51 p.m. PST |
The likelihood of the Russians actually invading the baltic states is ??? Zero. If there is going to be substantial military opposition. Non-zero if it would be a cakewalk. The Russians have not particularly reconciled themselves to states that have been historically Russian as being non-Russian. |
| soledad | 05 Mar 2017 2:59 a.m. PST |
Fanatically defend their new homeland? When they ran from their original homeland instead of fighting for it… |
| Bangorstu | 05 Mar 2017 4:24 a.m. PST |
Easy to say. Given they had few guns to fight Assad with, and no air force, what would you do? Easy to be a keyboard warrior. Or indeed sneer if you've been a member of the mos powerful army on the planet. |
| Weasel | 05 Mar 2017 10:41 a.m. PST |
TMP is blessed to have so many experts on Sweden present. Since the news have started inventing fake ones, I can get one of you guys a job. |
| Great War Ace | 05 Mar 2017 1:27 p.m. PST |
@soledad: could be a clear-cut case of locals saying, " this for a game of soldiers, I'm gone!" Could it just be possible that the more rational saw the Middle East for what it is, aaagain? A morass of warring religious and "racial" ideas, not worth dying for, because it is too far gone. Move to the West, young man, move to the West. That is founded on the new ideas first successfully tried out by the US and copied, mimicked and modified by many countries since. Not the old order of despots and tyrants. Not the ancient religious wars of Muslim faction. Not worth fighting for. Take your personal religion and resettle: the time has come to cut bait and go. Then the war produced millions of refugees as the years have passed. That lot will be mixed at best. And Europe's response to it must be one resolved to preserve, defend and define anew what it means to be "European", without religious entanglements………. |
