National Experiences - British Commission for Military History

do u H e t o r n o t do u H e t. sw e d i sH air po w e r do C t r i n e in t H e 1930´s a n d 1940´s 299
The history of the Swedish Air Force between the years 1934 and 1945 shows how
fast a military doctrine, in this case an Air doctrine, can change, due to technological
and practical development as well as other factors, national and international.
The fast shift in Sweden´s Air doctrine especially the years 1940-42 resulted in
effects for several decades to come, first regarding the concentration of bombers as
a tool against the invasion fleet and not the enemy bases on land, later in the same
basic tasks for the new attack planes of the Air Force. The stability in this shift is
underlined if we study the debate during the 1950´s whether Sweden´s armed forces
should get nuclear capability. In 1954 the CIC of the armed forces, Nils Swedlund,
argued that Sweden should have nuclear arms for tactical use, either against an invading
fleet approaching across the Baltic Sea, or against large troop concentration
that already had landed on the beaches. It´s not explicitly clear whether the armed
forces were prepared to launch nuclear attacks on Sweden´s own territory, or against
important enemy harbour and railroad junctions. But what is clear is that the Swedish
armed forces totally rejected any proposal for Swedish nuclear arms to be used
for strategical purposes. However a few voices in the debate argued for a strategical
devise, the so called “Leningrad-bomb”, in order to deter the Soviet Union to use
nuclear arms against Swedish cities. But these voices had no anchorage within the
armed forces. 16
However, if the shift in Sweden´s Air doctrine had not been taken place in 1940-
42, the debate in the 1950´s could have been a more explicit one about a Douhetinfluenced
doctrine in combination with nuclear arms. That would have been a totally
different history.
16 Jan Thörnqvist, Den öppna och den slutna militära debatten om taktisk och operativ anpassning av
försvaret mot kärnvapen, 1954 till 1965 (In English: The open and secret military debate about the
operational adjustment of the armed forces towards nuclear arms, 1954 to 1965), i Kent Zetterberg,
ed., Svenska kärnvapen? En antologi uppsatser kring frågan om svenska taktiska kärnvapen under
kalla kriget (In English: Swedish nuclear arms? An anthology of papers concerning the question
about Swedish tactical nuclear arms during the cold war), Stockholm 2010 pp. 51-83.