Nedrustning och omstrukturering : En analys av det svenska försvarets finansiella omvandling 1990-1997

Sammanfattning

This essay addresses the transformation of Swedish defence expenditure between the years of 1990-1997. The conventional narrative in previous research on Swedish security policy suggests that this was a period driven primarily by disarmament - which is true - but it often approaches the period from a geopolitical and security-political angle. This essay argues that previous research often overlooks significant qualitative data that points towards restructuring within the Swedish defence sector, and therefore examines the internal reallocation of resources within the defence budget. Through analysing two government propositions (1991/92:102 and 1996/97:4) and data from two SIPRI yearbooks (1990 and 1996) and one additional report, this essay argues that the Swedish military establishment underwent a fundamental doctrinal and material transformation: shifting from a mass-mobilisation invasion defence towards a more flexible, technologically intensive and internationally deployable defence. Evidence of this includes the sustained high level of military research and development expenditure as a share of Sweden's total defence spending, the development of the JAS 39 Gripen programme, new submarine technologies and the formal shift from invasionsförsvar towards insatsförsvar. The essay concludes that despite the conventional narrative of the Swedish defence dismantling during the early to mid 1990s, those years also represent a strategic reorientation of Swedish defence which should not be overlooked. This conclusion is set in the context of, and greatly shaped by the post-Cold War geopolitical condition and Sweden's financial crisis of the early 1990s.