Swedish Army

The Swedish Army (Swedish: Armén) is one of the oldest standing armies in the world and a branch of the Swedish Armed Forces; it is in charge of land operations.

Organization
The peace time organization of the Swedish Army is divided into a number of regiments for the different branches. The number of active regiments has been reduced since the end of the Cold War. The regiment forms training organizations that train the various battalions of the army and home guard.

The army is currently undergoing a transformation from conscription based recruitment to a professional defense. This is part of a larger goal to abandon the mass army from the Cold War and develop an army better suited to modern maneuver warfare and at the same time retain a higher readiness. By 2014, the Swedish army will have around 50 000 soldiers in either full-time or part-time duty, with eight mechanized infantry battalions instantly available at any time and the full force of 71 battalions ready to be deployed within one week.

The regular army will consist of 8 mechanized maneuver battalions, 19 support battalions of different kinds including artillery battalions, anti-aircraft battalions, combat engineer battalions, rangers, logistics battalions, etc. and 4 reserve heavy armoured battalions and 40 territorial defense battalions. The battalion is the core unit but all units will be completely modular and can be arranged in combat teams from company to brigade level with different units depending on the task. There will be a total of 6 permanent staffs under the central command capable of handling large battlegroups, 4 regional staffs and 2 brigade staffs.

Leadership
Until 1975 the Swedish monarch was the formal head of the army. In 1937, the staff agency "Chief of the Army" (Swedish: chefen för armén, CA) was created to lead the army in peace time. Following a larger reorganization of the Swedish Armed Forces in 1994, CA ceased to exist as an independent agency. Instead, the post Chief of Army Staff (Swedish: chefen för arméledningen) was created at the then newly instituted Swedish Armed Forces Headquarters (Swedish: Högkvarteret, HKV).

In 1998, the Swedish Armed Forces was again reorganized. Most of the duties of the Army Chief of Staff were transferred to the newly instituted post of "Inspector General of the Army" (Swedish: generalinspektören för armén). The post is similar to that of the "Inspector General of the Swedish Navy" (Swedish: generalinspektören för marinen) and the "Inspector General of the Swedish Air Force" (Swedish: generalinspektören för flygvapnet).