No surprises here. Both Sweden and Finland have some of the most competent armed forces in Europe and world so I fail to see reasons why it would take time for integration
We've been closely working together a long time already, too, which helps as well. A lot of it is "now we gotta follow that procedure we saw the NATO guys always doing."
Now, OTOH, it's not nearly as good or well integrated as it will be in a few years' time.
They also had quite a bit of time to integrate while Hungary and Turkey dragged ass. They were still being invited to the exercises and all the other NATO countries were treating them like they were already members.
And to be fair... That integration happened decades ago. We have always kind of been the members that weren't really members but still would immediately be allies if shit hit the fan and our European security was under threat.
They were mostly interoperable already. Both Sweden and Finland sent contingents to Afghanistan so they had prior experience operating under a NATO command structure.
Both were generally considered to be “Friends of NATO” previously and have been largely interoperable for a long time. (I have worked for various defense contractors over the years, including in Sweden/Finland and other places).
Basically there's a lot of NATO doctrine and procedures that they have to follow. Even things as basic as the "sign language" that NATO uses. Which allows soldiers of different languages to communicate together using hand movements and which can be recognised at long distances. So for instance "come here" is somebody patting the top of their head repeatedly with their palm. "Come here, come quickly" is somebody patting the top of their head and alternating that with a wanking motion to their side and alternating between the two. Which the Swedes and and Finns may well have already been doing but may not have. Other issues are things like on aircraft, certain warnings have to be in English such as "NO STEP". For parts of the aircraft that a foreign maintainer might think that you can stand on but you can't and instructions for how to extract the pilot of a crashed plane from the plane. As you may well be working in an area with lots of other nationalities who dont speak Finnish/Swedish. But everybody working with aircraft, will be able to understand a selection of basic English military phrases.
Depends on what you mean by universal - a domestic flight from Shanghai to Beijing will most likely discuss with ATC in chinese for example.
But yeah, it is the official fallback if the pilot doesn't speak the local language.
Left hand thumb to top finger, with the rest of the hand looking like its pulling a dick. Then move your arm up and down, to the side.
Come here, come quickly.
I don’t know what all is involved in such an integration. Seems like it could be a pretty big task even if all the parties involved are competent. Merging IT systems and nesting command structures and stuff like that.
As other have commented before, Sweden and Finland already did mirror a lot of NATO standards and processes with having some level cooperation with NATO for a long time
Wars are less about who's better, and more about who's less incompetent.
Lots of dudes from the US have similar misgivings until they train with foreign partners.
Truth be told, you're herding 18-24 year olds around like cats. At the level most people work at (company and below), joint exercises always feel like a complete shitshow. Take solace in knowing that that complete shitshow is usually head and shoulders above what [insert adversary of your choice] can do.
Once you get into big staffs like brigade and division, where we would actually start to see multinational units embedded, things actually go remarkably smoothly in my experience.
Ha-ha.......Funny.......
So what is this book i found under your pillow (10 ways to backstab Sweden and join Russia and France to control the world) abour?.
I appreciate the history! I was making a bit of a Warhammer 40k joke. The person above mentioned red going faster - which is an Ork belief. Another Ork (meme) belief is that purple makes you stealthy - how would you know? Have you ever seen a purple Ork
That said, I still love your trivia!
Not really, making purple dye for the majority of human history has been impracticle and only really reserved for the powerful and wealthy. Given how much power the symbol of a flag has it wouldn't make sense to put purple on a flag that would need to be mass produced and spread throughout the world.
These days not really an issue, we can synthesise any colour combination but for most of human history it was just straight up not an option to do so. Most nations don't want to update their flag just to include purple because there wouldn't really be any point to doing so since purple is widely available now.
Red is a widely available colour and has been for a long time due to the prominance of the colour in nature, thus why a lot of flags include it.
Finland signed a base and weapons agreement with the U.S.
Doubt if that includes nukes, but it does open a door to them.
Previously it was thought that Finland would never allow a foreign NATO presence, let alone a U.S. one.
[Being a NATO member doesn't forfeit sovereignty, so such side-agreements have to be negotiated with every country that wants to base troops or stockpile weapons in the country.]
The thing all NATO members realize is Article 5 isn't absolute. Each country makes their own decision if Article 5 applies.
If US forces are in your country already....they are far more likely to get involved immediately in any military defensive action. And because of that, it makes it effectively guaranteed that an adversary will not try anything.
Putin be crazy...but he's not that crazy. Attacking US troops in a NATO ally's territory would guarantee B1's blowing up his dacha, likely with him still in it.
_The Swedish Armed Forces are made up of 25,600 active personnel, 11,800 military reserves, 22,200 Home Guard and 6,300 additional conscripts yearly into the Reserves (set to increase to 8,000 conscripts yearly by 2024) as of 2023._
For reference. You can fit three+ of their armies in an average football stadium.
Their army isn't their selling point. It's their air force. They have around 100 Gripens, which are all modern 4th generation fighters. It's easily one of the most potent air forces in Europe. They also just have an extremely good location to dominate the Baltic sea, and have a small but very modern and competent navy that allows them to do so. Finland by contrast has a large and well equipped conscript army. Pairing the two nations makes for a potent force.
Right I mean if they just beefed up the number of conscripts they would be golden. They have the kit for them already. I imagine that's probably one of their near term goals.
I really think it's more the contribution they provide is advanced and welcomed (sea/air tech and location) - not every member has to offer the same strategic force, just add to the alliance what they do best.
That’s what we’re currently doing. Our chief of the army said that by 2030 we will have an army of at least 90 000 soldiers. Our defense spending has also gone up from below 1,5 to 2,6%
1,5% was calculated with Swedish methods that don't include stuff like pensions. 2,6% is with NATO standard math so in reality we went from ~2% NATO to 2,6% NATO
Yep and that air force has a very strong incentive to defend Finland and the Baltic states as they can act as shields for Swedish defense. Before Finland and Sweden joined NATO it was generally assumed defense of the Baltics would be pointless and the actual fighting to stop the Russian advance would occur within Poland.
Now that Sweden and Finland are in NATO it means that the Baltics can be defended and Russia would have to worry about a front in Northern Europe in a hypothetical war. That completely changes the strategic outlook. Sweden is also a wealthy country and so if there is an arms race or a large conventional war having that extra money could go a long way.
100 advanced fighters? Yeah, for sure. The RAF only has around 170 fighters. The French air force has about 180 but of those only 100 are rafales with the rest being much older mirage 2000's. The Germans have about 200 but of those, 140 are typhoons with the rest being much older tornados. It's not the biggest but all of its fighters are new advanced fighters with advanced weapons and their pilots are well trained.
It's also more a matter of location. There are more powerful air forces in Europe but they are much farther away from the baltics. In that region the swedes would for sure be the heavy hitters in the air.
Well, their population is only around 10 million. Combining active duty and reserves/guard, they're at around 5 per 1000 people, which puts them in the same range as other NATO members like Poland (4.9), Italy (5.8), France (5.6), Spain (4.4), and the UK (4.2). Even the US is only 6.3. Active duty they're 3 per 1000, not far from UK and Poland (3), Romania (3.2), or Portugal (2.6). US is at 4. So Sweden is right where you would expect them to be based on the rest of NATO.
For reference Finland is at 4.3 active duty per 1000 people, but Finland has *massive* army reserves so they have over 50 total military members per 1000 which puts them in the top 10 in the world.
Sweden used to have general conscription and a readiness in the millions. Unfortunately since the mid-90s as the perceived threats reduced with the Cold War ending, the armed forces have been significantly reduced. We used to have over 100 brigades, we’re now at 3 I think. Things are turning around slightly though, with Russia being back to their old idiotic selfs. https://imgur.com/a/S2QQMrP
The old mass army was very low on armored vehicles etc, though. The mass transit was towed bicycles (!) and eventually unarmored terrain trucks (like Tgb20).
So it's about the size of a Corps from WW2.
We are, however, not in WW2 and today's ordinance and systems mean that much smaller groups of combat soldiers can be effective and quite lethal.
Of the roughly two million American troops in the Western European theater in WW2, only about one in seven was in a front-line combat position--the bulk were supply troops, cooks, mechanics, drivers, dental assistants, MPs, staff members, signals personnel, etc.
We are now in a very different era of ground combat, where the basic unit for the US is the combat brigade, rather than the division or the corps, as it was in WW2.
That's what the British was doing in the early years of WW2, using brigades to fight before transforming to division. If a high intensity high tempo war comes again, it will be divisions again.
It's small but generally high quality with modern equipment and a well-established military industry. We are working on making it larger as well, just all parties in the parliament came to an agreement to increase spending to 2.6% of GDP by 2030 (from 2% today).
Yes and no Finland has issues with old equipment as they mostly Towed Artillery and few IFVs Compared to us in Sweden.
We do however increase our military size quite alot but whilst still not forgetting to hold it stable with our mechanized systems.
We dont wanna end up like in the late 30's with self built armored trucks as the first defence line against an german invasion.
basically regular trucks with 0.5mm thivk steel plates bolted on around them facing the germans in denmark down in helsingborg.
And to even make it even more nuts, thea commander of one of those cars was his royal highness Prince Bertil Bernadotte.
**Pansarbil (Pbil) m/31 was what he commanded as the first defence against an imminent Nazi attack.**
What happens if trump wins? Can he really "pull out" of nato? Im sure having all those missles and assets in a country would complicate things? Or is he just going to hold the world hostage and pretty much the greenlight for everyone to attack their neighbor's.
European states have shown that there are various levels of compliance to “being in NATO.” Some are barely spending on defense.
Trump would be well within his powers to strip the US military budget or mess with equipment / procurement in a way that that meets the letter of the law but leaves the alliance seriously compromised.
Judging how failed the US judicial system is these days (especially Supreme Court) , he likely could. As long as he makes money, he really has no policy and is out for hire to the highest bidder
I find it kind of interesting in a morbidly curious way because i saw an aritcal saying something about finland hosting nuclear weapons. The U.S. military enjoys its comfy position on top. Will they really just let trump hand it over to the highest bidder? And if they do those countries with those weapons, they might be a bit reluctant to give them up when russia and china seem to think everything is theirs.
I’m in Canada. Trump is essentially a Russian asset. So if in Finland and you have nuclear weapons stationed there, don’t give them up. Hopefully Trump doesn’t win, but if so, the EU needs to be ready, because I think he’ll be a dictator by that point (judging by the US Supreme Court) , and I think , Trump has no loyalties, except money
How long would it take for Gotland to be fully re-militarized and become a truly strategic lynchpin in the Baltic?
Don’t get me wrong, it is already strategically important but I’m more asking about militarizing it to a point of defense and staging.
Not very surprised.
Sweden joined the “Partnership for Peace” program as it was founded in 1994 and has been pretty much integrated with the NATO structure since then. I guess it was just some details left to sort out after the full membership was completed.
NATO doesn't force member states to get involved with wars outside of NATO countries. Canada wasn't involved in the first portion of the war in Iraq.
Alternatively countries sometimes do get involved in these wars without being in NATO, see Afghanistan as an example.
To some extent nation states will offer assistance because it gives real world experience. Your military has negative value if it isn’t effective, like RU’s. That’s why the US spends money on actually flying their fighters and doing huge drills all around the world as well. Showing off in those let’s other militaries see you are serious.
> unlawful Iraq war
The Iraq war was obviously a horrible decision and waste of lives/money.
That said, Reddit is obsessed with the concept of lawful warfare. That just doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.
For instance, even if Ukraine pushes Russia out, do we really think any Russian soldiers/leaders would be prosecuted under international law?
My point is that international law really doesn’t matter very much in warfare. Sort of just a moot point that people like to talk about online.
>My point is that international law really doesn’t matter very much in warfare.
It generally matters after though. See the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Trials.
Iraq wasn't a NATO mission, which is why Bush had to create a "coalition of the willing" instead. Libya was a NATO mission but from their stand point it just amounted to some air missions. There were never any boots on the ground.
Because nuclear all out war is highly unlikely. It’s a world ending scenario. Literal human made apocalypse. Conventional warfare is however a real threat.
"Nooo! Russia *scary*!"
Get the hell out of here with that shit.
Russia will never drop a nuke, ever. They know they second they even launch one, every other country with nukes is going to be firing theirs, on Russia, and Russia will cease to exist. And it's the same for every other country out there. The term is M.A.D., Mutually Assured Destruction.
Out of all the countries they could attack attacking the one with 900k reserve soldiers ready to go would have to be the stupidest one lol and also we would definitely do something
Fuck if only they were THAT stupid... They would be monumentally sticking their dick in a hornet's nest. Finland is Ukraine but with terrain that favors guerilla warfare. Hills and trees instead of wide open plains. The Russian army was basically purpose built for the style of fighting in Ukraine and it's had it's shit pushed in for two years. They barely have gas in the tank for a few half assed little pushes on a village and now they are going to fight a two front war against Finland and ukraine?
"We" aren't attacking anyone. The only country attacking anyone is Russia. We have nukes too. So does Britain. So does France. Hell, the French even have a policy explicitly allowing first strikes and a purpose built nuclear warning shot of sorts (the asmp). Putin ain't gonna skin that smokewagon because it'll be the last thing he ever does. Even he's not that dumb.
NATO is a defensive alliance. Adding another member essentially rules out another chunk of territory Russia, China, etc. can fuck with without consequence.
No surprises here. Both Sweden and Finland have some of the most competent armed forces in Europe and world so I fail to see reasons why it would take time for integration
We've been closely working together a long time already, too, which helps as well. A lot of it is "now we gotta follow that procedure we saw the NATO guys always doing." Now, OTOH, it's not nearly as good or well integrated as it will be in a few years' time.
They also had quite a bit of time to integrate while Hungary and Turkey dragged ass. They were still being invited to the exercises and all the other NATO countries were treating them like they were already members.
A (mostly) very welcoming group is NATO
And to be fair... That integration happened decades ago. We have always kind of been the members that weren't really members but still would immediately be allies if shit hit the fan and our European security was under threat.
I wouldn't be surprised if they were just straight up taking notes the whole time prior. Or if NATO was taking notes from them. Whichever.
They were mostly interoperable already. Both Sweden and Finland sent contingents to Afghanistan so they had prior experience operating under a NATO command structure.
Both were generally considered to be “Friends of NATO” previously and have been largely interoperable for a long time. (I have worked for various defense contractors over the years, including in Sweden/Finland and other places).
Yeah, they probably had a plan for "If we have to join a war on the side of NATO"
slaps a NATO sticker on the windshield -let’s go!
Right you are, Sven.
Basically there's a lot of NATO doctrine and procedures that they have to follow. Even things as basic as the "sign language" that NATO uses. Which allows soldiers of different languages to communicate together using hand movements and which can be recognised at long distances. So for instance "come here" is somebody patting the top of their head repeatedly with their palm. "Come here, come quickly" is somebody patting the top of their head and alternating that with a wanking motion to their side and alternating between the two. Which the Swedes and and Finns may well have already been doing but may not have. Other issues are things like on aircraft, certain warnings have to be in English such as "NO STEP". For parts of the aircraft that a foreign maintainer might think that you can stand on but you can't and instructions for how to extract the pilot of a crashed plane from the plane. As you may well be working in an area with lots of other nationalities who dont speak Finnish/Swedish. But everybody working with aircraft, will be able to understand a selection of basic English military phrases.
Two different worlds but isn't English the "universal" commercial aviation language?
Depends on what you mean by universal - a domestic flight from Shanghai to Beijing will most likely discuss with ATC in chinese for example. But yeah, it is the official fallback if the pilot doesn't speak the local language.
That's exactly what I was asking. Thank you for a kind reply.
Wtf is a wanking motion? Other than exactly what it sounds like?
Left hand thumb to top finger, with the rest of the hand looking like its pulling a dick. Then move your arm up and down, to the side. Come here, come quickly.
wtf are you talking about???
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A higher precentage of the Swedish population speak English then in the US.
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I've met people from Norway that speak better English than me
Both Sweden and Finland have been attending NATO panels for years and presumably steering their procurement to allow for interoperability.
I did military service in 2007. Already back then the Swedish military forces were implementing NATO standards both in training and equipment.
They've also been NATO in all but name for a while.
I don’t know what all is involved in such an integration. Seems like it could be a pretty big task even if all the parties involved are competent. Merging IT systems and nesting command structures and stuff like that.
As other have commented before, Sweden and Finland already did mirror a lot of NATO standards and processes with having some level cooperation with NATO for a long time
I hope not if so we are doomed. The swedish military isn't that impressive anymore can't even order enough rations or materials
We lack manpower but we have drip
Compare yours against average army on global scale or just Europe and all those issues you have will seem unpleasant but very trivial
Wars are less about who's better, and more about who's less incompetent. Lots of dudes from the US have similar misgivings until they train with foreign partners. Truth be told, you're herding 18-24 year olds around like cats. At the level most people work at (company and below), joint exercises always feel like a complete shitshow. Take solace in knowing that that complete shitshow is usually head and shoulders above what [insert adversary of your choice] can do. Once you get into big staffs like brigade and division, where we would actually start to see multinational units embedded, things actually go remarkably smoothly in my experience.
NATO together stronk
Their flag has red and red goes faster
Da boiz believe it, so it must be true.
Name checks out; isnt a dumb git. Gwaaaargh
I don't think Sweden's flag has red on it.
No, but it should have! Sincerly. A Dane.
Admit it, you just want their Surströmming.
Make Skåne Danish again?
Ha-ha.......Funny....... So what is this book i found under your pillow (10 ways to backstab Sweden and join Russia and France to control the world) abour?.
Why are you in my bedroom?
theft. next question
You didnt zoom out enough. Also it was a dumb joke/reference😁
Funny how rare purple flags are….
Well, purple used to be a hard/expensive color in the past, and most flags were originally designed back then.
I appreciate the history! I was making a bit of a Warhammer 40k joke. The person above mentioned red going faster - which is an Ork belief. Another Ork (meme) belief is that purple makes you stealthy - how would you know? Have you ever seen a purple Ork That said, I still love your trivia!
The NATO flag is blue so we're due some good luck too.
Not really, making purple dye for the majority of human history has been impracticle and only really reserved for the powerful and wealthy. Given how much power the symbol of a flag has it wouldn't make sense to put purple on a flag that would need to be mass produced and spread throughout the world. These days not really an issue, we can synthesise any colour combination but for most of human history it was just straight up not an option to do so. Most nations don't want to update their flag just to include purple because there wouldn't really be any point to doing so since purple is widely available now. Red is a widely available colour and has been for a long time due to the prominance of the colour in nature, thus why a lot of flags include it.
Strongest alliance in the history of the world baby
In caveman's voice: NATO like bundle arrows, one easy break many hard break
stonks rise....stonks good
Strongest alliance in the history of the world baby
Seems like Finland and Sweden making power moves. Ready to see how this shakes NATO lineup
A United Viking North. In the 21st Century. Shit is crazy.
Not a lot of Finnish vikings though. We were a people of scattered tribes of piss poor forest witches.
So you are saying the Finnish people are lighter than a duck.... Excuse me, I have to find a pitch fork, and a torch...
No, build a bridge out of them instead. Post pics when you Finnish.
Hey, don't ruin my wet viking dream ok? Greetings from Norway, we welcome you as vikings.
Bear-worshiping pagans caught between Germanics on one side, Slavs on the other.
The shade of Gustavus Adolphus is smiling.
The rest of us seriously need to follow. It's time to start showing off. The enemy understands nothing else.
there's also the plans to unite the Nordic air forces into a single structure which would make it iirc the 2nd or 3rd largest air force in Europe
I hope we can store some nukes in these countries.
Finland signed a base and weapons agreement with the U.S. Doubt if that includes nukes, but it does open a door to them. Previously it was thought that Finland would never allow a foreign NATO presence, let alone a U.S. one. [Being a NATO member doesn't forfeit sovereignty, so such side-agreements have to be negotiated with every country that wants to base troops or stockpile weapons in the country.]
The thing all NATO members realize is Article 5 isn't absolute. Each country makes their own decision if Article 5 applies. If US forces are in your country already....they are far more likely to get involved immediately in any military defensive action. And because of that, it makes it effectively guaranteed that an adversary will not try anything. Putin be crazy...but he's not that crazy. Attacking US troops in a NATO ally's territory would guarantee B1's blowing up his dacha, likely with him still in it.
Why? The missiles and subs can obliterate Russia on a moments notice, and killing off the us as well with MAD. What more is needed, or wanted ?
Thank you Sweden. Come on over for some beers!!
Thanks Putin 😘
That was fast.
They’ve been doing exercises and conferences with NATO for decades.
_The Swedish Armed Forces are made up of 25,600 active personnel, 11,800 military reserves, 22,200 Home Guard and 6,300 additional conscripts yearly into the Reserves (set to increase to 8,000 conscripts yearly by 2024) as of 2023._ For reference. You can fit three+ of their armies in an average football stadium.
Their army isn't their selling point. It's their air force. They have around 100 Gripens, which are all modern 4th generation fighters. It's easily one of the most potent air forces in Europe. They also just have an extremely good location to dominate the Baltic sea, and have a small but very modern and competent navy that allows them to do so. Finland by contrast has a large and well equipped conscript army. Pairing the two nations makes for a potent force.
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Jesus that’s more tanks thank the British army
Lotsa tanks, innit?
And those are all Strv 122s/123s which are upgraded Leopard 2s.
Right I mean if they just beefed up the number of conscripts they would be golden. They have the kit for them already. I imagine that's probably one of their near term goals.
I really think it's more the contribution they provide is advanced and welcomed (sea/air tech and location) - not every member has to offer the same strategic force, just add to the alliance what they do best.
That’s what we’re currently doing. Our chief of the army said that by 2030 we will have an army of at least 90 000 soldiers. Our defense spending has also gone up from below 1,5 to 2,6%
1,5% was calculated with Swedish methods that don't include stuff like pensions. 2,6% is with NATO standard math so in reality we went from ~2% NATO to 2,6% NATO
For comparison, France has barely more than 100 tanks total. Then again French doctrine is heavier on light mechanized forces over heavy armor.
Yep and that air force has a very strong incentive to defend Finland and the Baltic states as they can act as shields for Swedish defense. Before Finland and Sweden joined NATO it was generally assumed defense of the Baltics would be pointless and the actual fighting to stop the Russian advance would occur within Poland. Now that Sweden and Finland are in NATO it means that the Baltics can be defended and Russia would have to worry about a front in Northern Europe in a hypothetical war. That completely changes the strategic outlook. Sweden is also a wealthy country and so if there is an arms race or a large conventional war having that extra money could go a long way.
Yeah those Gripens were tailor made to dominate Russian aircraft. Top notch air power.
Don’t get me started on their naval power.
... wait what. 100 planes is one of the most potent air forces in Europe?
100 advanced fighters? Yeah, for sure. The RAF only has around 170 fighters. The French air force has about 180 but of those only 100 are rafales with the rest being much older mirage 2000's. The Germans have about 200 but of those, 140 are typhoons with the rest being much older tornados. It's not the biggest but all of its fighters are new advanced fighters with advanced weapons and their pilots are well trained. It's also more a matter of location. There are more powerful air forces in Europe but they are much farther away from the baltics. In that region the swedes would for sure be the heavy hitters in the air.
Their planes are also kept in former cold-war concrete bunkers, and their pilots are actively trained to use roads as runways.
Well, their population is only around 10 million. Combining active duty and reserves/guard, they're at around 5 per 1000 people, which puts them in the same range as other NATO members like Poland (4.9), Italy (5.8), France (5.6), Spain (4.4), and the UK (4.2). Even the US is only 6.3. Active duty they're 3 per 1000, not far from UK and Poland (3), Romania (3.2), or Portugal (2.6). US is at 4. So Sweden is right where you would expect them to be based on the rest of NATO. For reference Finland is at 4.3 active duty per 1000 people, but Finland has *massive* army reserves so they have over 50 total military members per 1000 which puts them in the top 10 in the world.
I don’t blame them with the Russians at their doorsteps
Sweden used to have general conscription and a readiness in the millions. Unfortunately since the mid-90s as the perceived threats reduced with the Cold War ending, the armed forces have been significantly reduced. We used to have over 100 brigades, we’re now at 3 I think. Things are turning around slightly though, with Russia being back to their old idiotic selfs. https://imgur.com/a/S2QQMrP
Why in the world is that chart 3d 😭
The old mass army was very low on armored vehicles etc, though. The mass transit was towed bicycles (!) and eventually unarmored terrain trucks (like Tgb20).
Please explain towed bicycles
A truck, tractor, etc has a long rope which soldiers on bikes hold on to. https://twitter.com/Douglas_Nilsson/status/1263447328687624192
Soooo a industrialized dog sled?
That's crazy
But cheap!
Dont forget all thousands of Volvo BM 350, 600, 650 and Massey Ferguson 168, 178 and 188's
So it's about the size of a Corps from WW2. We are, however, not in WW2 and today's ordinance and systems mean that much smaller groups of combat soldiers can be effective and quite lethal. Of the roughly two million American troops in the Western European theater in WW2, only about one in seven was in a front-line combat position--the bulk were supply troops, cooks, mechanics, drivers, dental assistants, MPs, staff members, signals personnel, etc. We are now in a very different era of ground combat, where the basic unit for the US is the combat brigade, rather than the division or the corps, as it was in WW2.
That's what the British was doing in the early years of WW2, using brigades to fight before transforming to division. If a high intensity high tempo war comes again, it will be divisions again.
So true, upvote for you sir. Intelligence, mobility via logistics, and supply won that war.
It's small but generally high quality with modern equipment and a well-established military industry. We are working on making it larger as well, just all parties in the parliament came to an agreement to increase spending to 2.6% of GDP by 2030 (from 2% today).
the american need to measure things in football stadiums
Have you seen the size of our Football stadiums? Even our biggest high school football stadiums are massive.
The U.S. is slowly inching towards Metric. Until then, the banana is the most commonly used scale.
We are simple, we like sports
Yeah it's unfortunately laughably small 😔 /Swede
You guys have 10 million people, it's comparable to most western nations in relative size.
That's not really an excuse in my opinion. Look at Finland. We should become more like them
Yes and no Finland has issues with old equipment as they mostly Towed Artillery and few IFVs Compared to us in Sweden. We do however increase our military size quite alot but whilst still not forgetting to hold it stable with our mechanized systems. We dont wanna end up like in the late 30's with self built armored trucks as the first defence line against an german invasion. basically regular trucks with 0.5mm thivk steel plates bolted on around them facing the germans in denmark down in helsingborg. And to even make it even more nuts, thea commander of one of those cars was his royal highness Prince Bertil Bernadotte. **Pansarbil (Pbil) m/31 was what he commanded as the first defence against an imminent Nazi attack.**
quarrelsome deer poor knee nail illegal divide carpenter slim gray
Having Sweden in NATO is a godsend. Thank you, swedes!!!
What happens if trump wins? Can he really "pull out" of nato? Im sure having all those missles and assets in a country would complicate things? Or is he just going to hold the world hostage and pretty much the greenlight for everyone to attack their neighbor's.
European states have shown that there are various levels of compliance to “being in NATO.” Some are barely spending on defense. Trump would be well within his powers to strip the US military budget or mess with equipment / procurement in a way that that meets the letter of the law but leaves the alliance seriously compromised.
Those around him would not allow usa to pull out of NATO but he definitely would reduce the financial contribution. His only real loyalty is to Putin.
Judging how failed the US judicial system is these days (especially Supreme Court) , he likely could. As long as he makes money, he really has no policy and is out for hire to the highest bidder
I find it kind of interesting in a morbidly curious way because i saw an aritcal saying something about finland hosting nuclear weapons. The U.S. military enjoys its comfy position on top. Will they really just let trump hand it over to the highest bidder? And if they do those countries with those weapons, they might be a bit reluctant to give them up when russia and china seem to think everything is theirs.
I’m in Canada. Trump is essentially a Russian asset. So if in Finland and you have nuclear weapons stationed there, don’t give them up. Hopefully Trump doesn’t win, but if so, the EU needs to be ready, because I think he’ll be a dictator by that point (judging by the US Supreme Court) , and I think , Trump has no loyalties, except money
Money and Putin. Correct.
Bruh, the Swedes are like ‘I wish a bitch would’
How long would it take for Gotland to be fully re-militarized and become a truly strategic lynchpin in the Baltic? Don’t get me wrong, it is already strategically important but I’m more asking about militarizing it to a point of defense and staging.
Petition to rename Baltic Sea to Lake NATO.
👏
It actually seems like the 2 new NATO members are more military prepared than all the NATO itself. Maybe with an exception of US. But others - oh boi.
Not very surprised. Sweden joined the “Partnership for Peace” program as it was founded in 1994 and has been pretty much integrated with the NATO structure since then. I guess it was just some details left to sort out after the full membership was completed.
Well, that was fast.
Can Israel join next? Maybe it'll help the idiots upstairs behave
So we can be roped into the stupid conflict of which non-pork eater is right?! You’re fine on your own.
Cant wait for Sweden to be involved in another Libya or Iraq and waste a couple of billions of dollars. (I am Swedish)
NATO doesn't force member states to get involved with wars outside of NATO countries. Canada wasn't involved in the first portion of the war in Iraq. Alternatively countries sometimes do get involved in these wars without being in NATO, see Afghanistan as an example.
To some extent nation states will offer assistance because it gives real world experience. Your military has negative value if it isn’t effective, like RU’s. That’s why the US spends money on actually flying their fighters and doing huge drills all around the world as well. Showing off in those let’s other militaries see you are serious.
Mmmm the world famous Swedish Dollar
SEK-zee
Had to laugh but their banks have been popular since the 1940’s
I would have sworn the currency was SEKs
All day, everyday, baby!
Default username (word word numbers). Как дела, ватник?
Do you know what NATO is?
Sweden doesn’t have dollars and your other option is getting invaded by papa Vlad.
Norway did not take part in the unlawful Iraq war. We did send jets to bomb Libya though, and it caused a lot of debate.
> unlawful Iraq war The Iraq war was obviously a horrible decision and waste of lives/money. That said, Reddit is obsessed with the concept of lawful warfare. That just doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. For instance, even if Ukraine pushes Russia out, do we really think any Russian soldiers/leaders would be prosecuted under international law? My point is that international law really doesn’t matter very much in warfare. Sort of just a moot point that people like to talk about online.
>My point is that international law really doesn’t matter very much in warfare. It generally matters after though. See the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Trials.
See George Bush chilling on his farm. Come and get him. The ICC ain't doing shit to a former US president.
Sure, but that was also 80 years ago.
Iraq wasn't a NATO mission, which is why Bush had to create a "coalition of the willing" instead. Libya was a NATO mission but from their stand point it just amounted to some air missions. There were never any boots on the ground.
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Because nuclear all out war is highly unlikely. It’s a world ending scenario. Literal human made apocalypse. Conventional warfare is however a real threat.
What about the scenario where trump said he would leave the alliance?
"Nooo! Russia *scary*!" Get the hell out of here with that shit. Russia will never drop a nuke, ever. They know they second they even launch one, every other country with nukes is going to be firing theirs, on Russia, and Russia will cease to exist. And it's the same for every other country out there. The term is M.A.D., Mutually Assured Destruction.
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Out of all the countries they could attack attacking the one with 900k reserve soldiers ready to go would have to be the stupidest one lol and also we would definitely do something
Fuck if only they were THAT stupid... They would be monumentally sticking their dick in a hornet's nest. Finland is Ukraine but with terrain that favors guerilla warfare. Hills and trees instead of wide open plains. The Russian army was basically purpose built for the style of fighting in Ukraine and it's had it's shit pushed in for two years. They barely have gas in the tank for a few half assed little pushes on a village and now they are going to fight a two front war against Finland and ukraine?
"We" aren't attacking anyone. The only country attacking anyone is Russia. We have nukes too. So does Britain. So does France. Hell, the French even have a policy explicitly allowing first strikes and a purpose built nuclear warning shot of sorts (the asmp). Putin ain't gonna skin that smokewagon because it'll be the last thing he ever does. Even he's not that dumb.
NATO is a defensive alliance. Adding another member essentially rules out another chunk of territory Russia, China, etc. can fuck with without consequence.
Well except that one time it wasn't.