As a matter of related interest, does anyone know if Sweden has full access to NATO debriefs? Does a PfP status provide that?
I only ask because I know that in the past Swiss pilots (now also PfP) did not have full access to NATO-only debriefs, mainly when they covered detailed AMRAAM tactics. (as it is, I expect that Swedish pilots could probably teach NATO a thing or two about AMRAAM tactics!)

This is an interesting question. I am not sure. http://www.mil.se says that new rapid reaction units are listed as avaible in EU, UN and NATO catalogs. So maybe there they are in the “know” concerning NATO debreifs. They have/are operating in Afghanistan as well under the auspices of NATO. This is the million dollar question when you discuss Sweden, the Cold War and its relationship to NATO. I find it very interesting and plan to research this much further.

Entropy,
A few things. 🙂 It’s the Social Democrats that have been in there and the Christian Dems are actually in the centrist/right alliance that won the election.
Secondly, it’s not as simple as saying a liberal government equals low defense spending. It was the Soc.Dems during and after WWII that decided they had to pour lots of money into their defence industry, with the air force as the pet service of the Soc.Dem prime minister in that period.

There’s a statistic somewhere saying the Swedish AF was the third or fourth largest in numbers during the 50’s, (There were 650+ J 29 built from 1950 to 1955. On top of that you get the 650-ish J 35 and 280 A 32 beginning production in the mid-50’s) while being led by a Soc.Dem government. Now for a country which has a population today in the 9m numbers, that doesn’t say low defence spending to me. With the Soviet threat gone, the current size target for the JAS 39-fleet (100 or was it 120?) is still pretty sizable for such a low-pop country.

Not disagreeing with you as the Swedish armed forces forums are positive about the change, just pointing out that their Soc.Dems in the past have been spending a lot of money on defence.

You are right about the Soc Democrats… whoops my mistake.

I actually wasnt referring at all to the SD lack of military spending. I do think they have done an decent job of it in the past! I was simply commenting that after 12 years a change in government can be a good thing, keeps ppl on thier toes. I am living in Canada and the same type of thing just happened to the Liberal party, in fact i think it was the best thing that could have happened to them as it serverd as a wakeup call and impetus for change. I wasnt trying to make any connection between that and mil spending. Just wondering if they were going to contiue with the same plan for the JAS fleet as the previous gov.

Sweden’s air force hasn’t been ‘Royal’ since 1974 😉

Thanks you, was just going to mention that…

But back on topic… any other examples? Maybe the reverse such as Turkey and Greece now doing some very limited joint stuff.