The Quest for Relevant Air Power

swedish Air Force │ 281
fence establishment only slowly adapted to the altered security
paradigms of the post–Cold War era. Sweden’s Cold War legacy
exerted significant inertia upon defence reforms throughout the
1990s. 15 It also had consequences on a technical and tactical level.
Interoperability was hampered by equipment, particularly in the
field of command and control. For these reasons, the SwAF could
not be deployed to out-of-area operations during the 1990s, with
the exception of its transport unit. 16
Only in the late 1990s did a defence reform process set in, with
the vast Cold War defence complex beginning to be dismantled. 17
Nowadays, the SwAF finds itself in a transformation process,
which is leading to enhanced interoperability and deployability.
Sweden’s EU membership since 1995 has been a major catalyst in
this process.
How Has the Swedish Air Force Adapted
to the Uncertainties Created by Shifting
Defence and Alliance Policies?
This section first analyses Swedish post–Cold War defence policy
and the SwAF’s response to it. It then analyses Sweden’s alliance
context and its influence on the SwAF.
Defence Policy
Sweden’s changing defence posture in the post–Cold War era is
closely related to its threat and risk perception. Over the centuries,
Russia was the dominant factor in the Swedish strategic calculus.
It took Sweden almost a decade to adapt to the post–Cold War
realities, and the Nordic state finally shifted away from a predominantly
Russia-centric view to an international one, which resulted
in a significant impact upon its Air Force. 18 Sweden’s relatively
slow defence policy transformation can to a large degree be ascribed
to its geostrategic location. Accordingly, integration of the
Baltic states into NATO and the European Union was of major
significance for Swedish decision makers. Yet, the Russian intervention
in Georgia as of August 2008 led to an increased emphasis
on national defence again, while not reversing previous developments
in Sweden’s defence-political opening process.