Call to arms: Sweden raises defense spending by 40% in 5 years
economist.com
economist.com
In the 1960s Sweden was months from an atomic bomb and had pretty solid plans for at least 2 legs of a nuclear triad. This may be the largest expansion by expenditure but it’s a relatively small change in posture.
https://www.forsvarsmakten.se/sv/om-forsvarsmakten/darfor-fi...
That's kind of amazing when you think about it. With it's budget, Sweden is able to fund an indigenous fighter program [2].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/20/nyregion/defu...
As a strategic matter, during wartime, the economic output of the entire country can be redirected to war efforts.
Relative economic output of different forces is a major determining factor in war outcomes.
The percentage of GDP during peace-time serves as an indicator of readiness for war.
It is worth noting that Sweden staved off the USSR during the cold war with this very cleverly designed tank: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSNNNMYmTKQ
You probably mean the cold war, not ww2? Sweden didn’t (directly) fight the USSR during ww2, and was famously unprepared at the start of the war.
> As a strategic matter, during wartime, the economic output of the entire country can be redirected to war efforts.
GDP can also be changed via policy.
And your suggestion has Laffer curve problems. Redirecting the entire output of the country into a war effort will sharply reduce the output of the country.
Because that’s how NATO defines it, such that each member makes a proportional contribution. It would be silly to expect say Estonia to match Germany in real terms, but it’s reasonable to expect Germany to match say Poland in relative terms.
(Yes I know Sweden is not a NATO member but most European countries are so it makes sense to compare like with like)
You may have that impression from news articles, but in reality it doesn't make any sense. The US military has operations in the Middle East, but that involves virtually none of their ships, planes, bases, silos or troops.
The primary purpose of the US military is to continue the post-WW2 Marshall Plan, which is maintaining global peace. Notice how there hasn't been any major wars since 1945? That's what American taxpayers paid for.
WWII: 56,125,000–85,000,000 casualties. Second Congo War: 2,500,000–5,400,000 casualties.
The difference is over an order of magnitude (although I'd absolutely call the Second Congo War a major war).
Industrial and technological development prior to WW1 and WW2 enabled mass killing at an unprecedented level.
You might say, if we don't take it as a reference point to avoid in our spectrum of peace. But then again, I am not sure there will be much of human history to talk about with another WW level conflict. So that makes the whole point of using that as a reference pretty mute. Because then it is just accepting we are living in verge of armageddon. Pretty low standards of peace if you ask me.
There've been many wars that came a lot closer to WWII in terms of casualties than the Second Congo War did. Look at that wikipedia page I linked to in my previous comment.
- Three Kingdoms War: 184-280, 36,000,000–40,000,000 casualties.
- Mongol conquests: 1206–1368, 30,000,000–40,000,000 casualties.
- An Lushan Rebellion: 755–763, 13,000,000–36,000,000 casualties.
- Conquests of Timur: 1370–1405, 8,000,000–20,000,000 casualties.
- Taiping Rebellion: 1850–1864, 20,000,000–30,000,000 casualties.
- Dungan Revolt: 1862–1877, 8,000,000–20,000,000 casualties.
As you can see, what's mainly special about WW1/2 is the casualties/year ratio. The total death tolls are not that unprecedented.
It's indeed silly to say that there's been global peace since WW2, but I do believe that there is a difference between the wars we've seen in the last 75 years, and the wars I listed above. I'd still call the Second Congo War a major war, but I do think there's a distinction to be made here. The word "major" just isn't it, and I think we both agree on that.
Or do only WW level fuckups count ?
Now you could argue that these objectives are meant ensure global piece, but then you need to show that. In particular do you need to show how US starting several wars (including the ones that were not called wars for political reasons), largely based on economic reasons, does maintain global peace.
First of all, they're not talking about NATO's budget, they are talking about each countries share of defense spending compared to the total defense spending of all NATO countries.
But that's kind of pointless, because NATO was for defending Europe from the Soviet Union. While the US has 800 military bases and had 2 land wars at once for basically 15 years. On top of the entire Navy. Of course it's defense spending is going to be higher.
Every American seems to forget that if they want a better balance in defense spending within NATO that the US could also lower its spending, in stead of Europe raising it.
This is simply not feasible without a conscription.
No, I did not like my conscription (Finland) two decades ago - but I completely understand why it's necessary.
What you get, though, is effectively a sleeping guerrilla organization that can be mobilised to resist occupation. Very basic military skills can be very effective in such a scenario, which is the most likely one for countries bordering states with overwhelmingly larger arsenals.
This highly dependent.
For example, Finnish Defence Forces are capable of very professional response to external threats.
Remember this leverages the entire eligible male population that is highly educated, motivated, and culturally aligned to follow chain of command.
There is also the backbone of professional, university trained officer core who manage all of it.
Some of the most technical service branches like the air forces utilize professionals extensively as well.
I've always liked the idea of mandatory civil service; one option being the military. Having family in the military and being exposed elsewhere, it's interesting to get a closer view of the parts of government we pay for, like missile silos or aircraft carriers, but often put into a black box. I would hope it would make people more civically aware and engaged. I've been curious about contributing to something like 18F or US Digital Service. Do any countries do this?
From a pure defense perspective, nothing beats a conscription system in efficiency. Here in Finland (population about 5,5 million) we have a reserve army of 900,000 people. With a pure salary army, it could be maybe 2-5% of that.
Cons: takes 6-12 months away from your life. But my and virtually anyone I know has the opinion is that it is also a very valuable life experience and I carry many lifelong friends from that time period.
Here, conscription was even considered a way to balance sex-related work opportunities, since it was a burden on men only, hence women who entered the workforce were a bit advantaged.
I agree that the experience can be good, but YMMV a lot: many of my friends were happy to serve and learned a lot, but many others were shocked and some never fully recovered. Such a life won't fit everybody.
Also, it takes quite a lot of time in your life even when you would like to do something else. I think that a "serve your country" 6/12 months period, to be done by everybody by the time you're 25 or so, that you can plan, could be useful.
This is because serving in the military is a civic duty, not just a sort of commercial service. The military is not just supposed to be a hired group of fighters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition#Ancient_Athens
EDIT: I remember this from a Historia Civilis video:
You should watch the whole thing (it's pretty interesting) but skip to 8m00s to watch the part about sortition.
Which I find surprising, because my (admittedly somewhat limited) understanding is that the fear of established, professionalised, closed-up armies is actually a very ur-American idea, threatening peace, equality and so on. I guess the same could be applied to a lot of the over-militarised police and border agency situations that hit the news all the time. Civic oversight and less professionalisation, more popular control I always thought would be natural ideas across the pond.
Indeed; if you read the documents, antipathy to the concept of a standing army is a primary motivation for the second amendment.
Secondly money and conditions can't be universal drivers.
On a side note I feel trend of letting youngster do whatever they want even during school years is counter productive. For example children who misbehave even once in a while with teachers and sometimes parents even are taken for psyche evaluation immediately. IMHO children does need direction and guidance until they understand the consequences of their choices.
Those that would volunteer are not necessarily the ones you would want.
There are always going to be a social contract, things you have to do, like paying taxes. I would argue that defending the country is a reasonable thing to include in that social contract.
How strong is army of Alabama? Comparison between Sweden and USA is not very fair.
Pretty strong actually.
EDIT: The downvotes are perplexing. Why would a European want the whims of the USA to be their only protection? Defend yourselves!
The fact that other countries appear to spend less on defense does not mean that they are unprepared.
Americans spend a lot of money on a corrupt pharmaceutical industries, and they have bad healthcare.
Americans spend a lot of money on a corrupt education systems, and have stupid people.
Americans spend a lot of money on a corrupt war industry, and they have a lot of rusting 1950s tanks, planes, and missiles.
Without being tested, who knows if anyone actually has good defense?
It requires thinking and testing, not mindlessly throwing money at charlatans.
I don’t think that’s true and there are plenty of counterexamples e.g what did Saddam spend on Scuds vs what the US spent on Patriot?
The Russians get a lot more for every dollar or euro they spend because their stuff costs a lot less in local prices. So it’s not a meaningful comparison. Western countries get very poor value for money from their defence budgets in Russian terms. They are easily 10x more efficient than any NATO country.
That’s a cute site but looking at https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-comparison-detail.... the numbers for the UK are way off. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Armed_Forces which puts it at 148k, not 190k. Reserves at 44k not 83k.
Russia - about 6000 nukes, 12000 tanks, 4000 military aircraft, 600 warships, 3m soldiers
Europe - about 500 nukes, 8000 tanks, 2500 military aircraft, 550 warships, 1.5m soldiers
Besides the numbers, the Russians are just better prepared and don't have to coordinate a dozen different forces.
france,germany and uk are all at about the same amount spent on military as russia.
Sure, sweden alone couldn't hold back the russians, but it's not like we need america, a quarter of the union would do it.