The Quest for Relevant Air Power

swedish Air Force │ 293
Nordic perspective, Swedish emphasis upon air power made
sense. While Finland was expected to become bogged down in
close quarter battles due to its large land border with the Soviet
Union, the SwAF together with the Swedish submarine fleet constituted
a manoeuvre element across the Baltic Sea. Not only military
considerations but also politico-industrial considerations explain
Sweden’s emphasis upon air power. With the end of the Cold
War, this emphasis upon air power remained, as the single service
budget allocations from 1989 to 2002 reveal (see fig. 5).
Per Cent
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1989/90 1990/91 1992/93 1993/94 1995/96 1999 2000 2001 2002
Year
Army Navy Air Force
Figure 5. Budget allocation to the single services (Sweden). The
overall defence budget further includes expenditure on the central
administration (support and command), military assistance including
UN peacekeeping, and other. Until 1995–96, Sweden had a fiscal
year from 1 July to 30 June. (Author developed figure based on percentages
from Bengt-Göran Bergstrand [senior analyst, Swedish Defence
Research Agency (FOI), Defence Expenditures Project, Stockholm],
interview by the author, 11 February 2005.)
According to the broad approach to air power which this
study takes, the air power assets of the Swedish Army and Navy
have to be included as well. From 1994 to 2002, the Army operated
up to 600 air-defence guns plus a considerable number of
SAM systems, mostly MANPADS but also a small number of
upgraded Hawk systems and other advanced systems. Furthermore,
the Army and Navy air arms operated up to 100 training,