> It promises the country’s largest military expansion for 70 years
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.
It shouldn't have to be explained at all. It makes perfect sense that the US spends money to protect itself from adversaries it shares no borders with for example. The above argument makes no sense, objectively.
I mentioned it as a bit of context since perhaps not all HN readers are familiar with the geography of the area in question. People here are from all around the world so I don’t expect every reader to be familiar with Sweden, Russia and the Baltic Sea.
For example, some reader might think ”okey but to reach Sweden, Russia will first have to go through Finland or Norway”. Nope. They simply have to send their military fleet over the sea.
Case in point: A lot of Sweden’s military resources during the WW2 and cold war was focused on the island of Gotland, home to less than 60000 persons. If Russia would attack Sweden it would make a lot of sense to first gain control of Gotland and then use that as a base for taking Stockholm, the capital.
Also, the pipelines Nord Stream (2011) and Nord Stream 2 (incomplete) run through Sweden's EEZ. These pipelines deliver Russian-produced natural gas to Germany. Sweden was uneasy about the pipeline, speculating and believing Russia's own suggestions that this would motivate a Russian naval presence, but couldn't find a lasting legal reason to not grant approval.
Are you sure? the document you linked to shows that Sweden spent 1.1% in 2019, up from 1.0% in 2018 and 2017. While Finland spent 1.5% in 2019, up from 1.4% in 2018 ans 2017
You’re correct. I see now that I was looking at the wrong year, probably because I was visually scanning the document but didn’t notice that the column headings changed.
Or, more relevant, it's 150 miles straight line across international water from Kaliningrad to Gotland, which is the most likely initial target for an invasion. So Russia can easily get ships and planes to Sweden without crossing any other countries waters or entering their territorial waters.
No doubt. But it might be less well known, because Swedish offensive wars in continental Europe during the 1600's - early 1700's are kind of famous, but Russian "visits" to Sweden later on probably less so.
Yeah, let's just say nothing that Sweden could possibly field would deter "the threat from Russia" if such a thing wasn't a fruit of someone's perfervid imagination in Sweden. Which it is.
> 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.
Why is military spending always defined as relative to GDP and not to total tax income, where the actual money is coming from?
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)
It's worth noting that the intended size of the Swedish military is still tiny, compared to U.S. standards. 72 artillery pieces is what they're aiming for, and three mechanized brigades. The U.S. deploys a force of that size as a tripwire.
Yes, and the EU would certainly not sit by. I could've gone into depth about how the Russian army is only able to support maybe 120,000 troops in the field today, but thought it would be pedantic.
It's very surprising and in my opinion very positive that they managed to bring conscription back in 2017. I was one of the last few age groups to go through mandatory service in Germany before they abolished it, and since then it seems like the army has huge problems getting people both in sufficient quantity and quality, not to mention it also serves an important domestic function of keeping civilian oversight in the military.
Instead of forcing people to do something (through conscription), it's ideal to make people want to do it voluntarily (through providing good pay, conditions and maybe generous matching of retirement contributions etc)
It's not like the war machine will stop feeding more propaganda and glorifying war, just because they get to take a year or two out of every citizen. After all, you want these soldiers to be ready to fight and think dying for the country is the greatest possible honor. Under conscription, that would be everyone.
I don't think you understand the situation. Sweden has a population of 10M. Finland, next to Russia, 5M. Russia - 150M. The power imbalance is so large that the only way of making a credible defence strategy is by having the capability to mobilize a significant portion of the population for professional quality defence.
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.
I agree but with one nitpick: you don’t get “professional quality defence” with conscription, especially if people are not called in for refreshers every few months.
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.
Indeed. When an occupation begins such a quickly-established guerilla organization, especially if many civilians keep weapons and are willing to resist, is a huge ordeal for an army of occupation. Any potential aggressor, whatever the imbalance, h
Indeed. When an occupation begins such a quickly-established guerilla organization, especially if many civilians keep weapons and are willing to resist, becomes a huge ordeal for an army of occupation. Any potential aggressor, whatever the imbalance of forces, has to take it into account. Where other major parameters (such as geography, climate and existing infrastructures) favor this guerilla force, then even a huge imbalance may be void.
I think the problem is it becomes a way to bribe/exploit poorer people.
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?
Finnish person here. Disagree, as you end up with a much smaller army at a higher maintenance cost.
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.
Italian here. I was in one of the first cohorts which were not forced to serve in the army.
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.
other replies have pointed to costs but I just want to reiterate the last point that in our particular German case the principle behind it is the "Staatsbürger in Uniform" (citizen in uniform), the idea is to kind of precisely get some people into the military who wouldn't naturally want to go there, because those are the people who can provide crucial oversight over military processes, and prevent the miltary from being purely professional.
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.
This is a perfect explanation why many political positions could be akin jury duty. What if the mayor election would be among 4 randomly picked citizens?
I agree, what I also find very surprising about this topic is when it comes up with my American friends is that they seem so alienated by the concept.
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.
IMHO Army recruitment age youngster haven't developed enough to think this deeply. It is a journey some might like only after joining in so there should be exit path available to those who don't like it.
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.
I disagree.
If everyone does it, it will more closely represent the general population.
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.
It is wonderful that someone other than the USA is footing the bill for Europe’s defense. If I was a European I wouldn’t count on the USA to help in future conflicts.
EDIT: The downvotes are perplexing. Why would a European want the whims of the USA to be their only protection? Defend yourselves!
Let's assume the Europeans are defending themselves against Russia (I mean who else would we talk about). Russian military spending is $65 billion compared to European $289 billion, so even at low percentages of GDP the Europeans are out spending the Russians by a factor 4 (let's assume military capability is related to spending), so clearly the Europeans are financing their own defence against Russia and don't rely on the US for their defence. In fact estimated Chinese military spending is $285 billion, so Europe could defend itself against China as well (possibly even a China/Russia alliance, offinsive wars are much more expensive than defensive). So whom is the US defending the Europeans from? The only force that (based on military spending) would be a credible threat is actually the US themselves. The whole argument that the US is paying for European defence is bogus.
Russian military spending is $65 billion compared to European $289 billion, so even at low percentages of GDP the Europeans are out spending the Russians by a factor 4
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.
Compare their inventories of tanks, nuclear warheads, submarines, SAMs to those of high spending Europeans such as Britain or France. With 900k troops the Russian army is far larger than the British Army at 82k.
I admit that military spending as a indicator of capabilities is extremely simplistic, but so is using number of troops or many other other "easy" metrics (also your numbers are very off UK active military are 190 000 compared to Russia 1 000 000 according to https://www.globalfirepower.com/) I would still argue that with current military spending in Europe it is not clear that Russia would win a military conflict (lets leave asside the global disaster that would imply). Also the arguments about the US paying for European defence also misses the point, that it's very clearly in the US interest for Europe not to be controlled by Russia.
That's an interesting point. Europe is trying to be as peaceful as possible but yet it still has a relatively large defense budget. It's just that whatever the US is doing is overshadowing that large budget.
Very strange that Russians did not return to the Piss&Løve-tactics of 1970s. It worked very well, as leftist peace-movement managed to erode the defence of almost every European country. Sweden was the prime target. The Swedish "Nuclear-Free North"-initiative for example meant literally that only Russians can have Nukular Weapons in the North.
It's interesting to see all these comments about finally the Europeans are defending themselves and comparisons to the US. The US has used their forces pretty much exclusively for offensive means in the last decades. Even if the US would be reducing to their capabilities to only defend themselves and their allies they could likely cut military spending in half (this has become a bit more complex because how the US is using its military has caused China to massively expand their spending as well), but that would mean they could not enforce their economic interests everywhere in the world.
> The US has used their forces pretty much exclusively for offensive means in the last decades.
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.
WW2 is a special event in human history on its own. Taking that as a reference point to evaluate our sense of peace, is pretty damning.
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.
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.
The Marshall plan was largely an economic stimulus package not a military strategy. Regarding military strategy the current US military policy objectives (wikipedia) are:
to (1) assure allies and friends; (2) dissuade future military competition, (3) deter threats and coercion against U.S. interests, and (4) if deterrence fails, decisively defeat any adversary.
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.
This is what always gets me about the "NATO doesn't pay their fair share" debate.
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.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 61.9 ms ] threadTrump did not invent the 2% target, that was agreed by NATO in 2006! And again in 2014.
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...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen
For those of US who are geographically impaired: Russia and Sweden have no common borders.
Why not? People shall chew that gum without any criticism?
Otherwise you will have another round of believing in Lebensraum because that corporal did say so ...
For example, some reader might think ”okey but to reach Sweden, Russia will first have to go through Finland or Norway”. Nope. They simply have to send their military fleet over the sea.
Case in point: A lot of Sweden’s military resources during the WW2 and cold war was focused on the island of Gotland, home to less than 60000 persons. If Russia would attack Sweden it would make a lot of sense to first gain control of Gotland and then use that as a base for taking Stockholm, the capital.
Why not just to say "we have outdated forces, let's make them better". Why they need so cheap excuse?
Finland probably already has higher spending than Sweden, at least that is my guess based on talking to Finnish friends.
Norway should IMO increase its spending to avoid repeating the blunders from 1930ies.
They are not officially part of NATO so they have to mind themselves.
And by the way, how exactly that artillery is supposed to be used against Russia? What's the doctrine?
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)
How strong is army of Alabama? Comparison between Sweden and USA is not very fair.
Pretty strong actually.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama_Army_National_Guard
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama_Army_National_Guard
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:
https://youtu.be/pIgMTsQXg3Q
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.
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.
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).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll
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.