As of: March 6, 2024, 9:03 p.m
By: Florian Naumann
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The Nordic countries are drawing conclusions from the Ukraine war - including the military.
A Cold War concept is enjoying a revival in Sweden.
Luleå - For decades, Sweden wanted to remain militarily neutral - now it is about to join NATO.
The war in Ukraine is causing the country to rethink many things: voluntary military services are flourishing, and Civil Defense Minister Carl Oskar Bohlin urged citizens to take war precautions.
But the professional military is also affected.
The Swedish Air Force wants to increasingly rely on a concept from the Cold War to protect its own fleet, as the head of the northern Swedish Luleå air base, Peter Greberg,
explained to the Norwegian newspaper
Verdens Gang (VG) .
Finland is already taking a similar approach, and the plans are generating great interest from long-standing NATO member Norway – and apparently also from NATO in general.
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The core of the idea: Fighter jets and military aircraft should, if possible, not only be concentrated in a few central bases for their missions.
“We can distribute our fighters to small bases with short runways,” said Greberg.
“This is a concept that NATO has not used, but that the alliance will study more closely,” he emphasized - the “Nordic Response 2024” exercise is currently underway in the Scandinavian countries.
It is part of the large-scale exercise “Steadfast Defender”.
A Swedish JAS 39 Gripen is prepared for flight in Luleå during the NATO exercise “Nordic Response”.
© IMAGO/Anders Wiklund/TT
NATO also understands that if you station a larger number of combat aircraft over a longer period of time, the risk of an attack increases, explained the head of the “Flotilla F21”.
“This is a lesson from the war in Ukraine.” Both Russia and Ukraine regularly report attacks on “troop” or “material concentrations” as major successes in the predominantly tough trench warfare.
“Bas 90” – Sweden’s Cold War fighter jet distribution system
Since the 1950s, Sweden has been working with the concept of optionally dividing its military aircraft during wartime into many smaller bases, so-called Krigsflygbaser - it was called "Bas 60".
It later received an update with “Bas 90”: with “backup” runways and improved means of communication.
With the end of the Cold War, the program gradually came to a standstill.
The Swedish military writes on its homepage of “around 50” military air bases, many of which are out of operation, and in many places the traces of use have “faded”.
“Vägbaser”, road sections that can be used for take-offs and landings, have been in place in many places in the country since the “Bas 60” plans - on the island of Gotland they were primarily a precaution for a possible “airlift” in the event of a threat from the Soviet Union.
The last “Vägbas” in Sweden was completed in 1994.
However, the idea is not new.
According to Greberg, Sweden's air force had several hundred such mini-bases during the Cold War, writes
VG
.
“We are still a long way from that,” admitted the military man.
But capacities are being built up again.
During the current maneuver, civilian airfields will also serve this purpose.
In addition to air bases protected by anti-aircraft defenses and bomb-proof hangars, there should also be the possibility of “hiding” jets near smaller runways.
Fighter jets on country roads: Norway and Finland have already tested the concept - not far from Russia's border
“We can learn a lot from Sweden and Finland about distribution concepts,” said Eivind Byre, spokesman for the Norwegian air defense.
At the same time, you develop your own plans.
In addition to airfields throughout the Nordic region, suitable roads can also be used.
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Close cooperation between the air forces from Norway, Sweden and Finland is also planned - with Stockholm joining NATO, all three countries will be partners in the alliance in the future.
Finland, Great Britain and Norway had already trained takeoffs, landings and refueling operations on a country road in central Finland in September;
with potentially nuclear-capable F-35-A fighter jets, a good 200 kilometers as the crow flies from Russia's border.
In fact, the perception of the military and military and hybrid threats in Europe's far north appears to have already changed massively.
“Politicians and senior military officials in Sweden and Norway are making it very clear that involvement in a war is no longer abstract,” security expert Tobias Etzold, who researches in Norway, recently told
IPPEN.MEDIA
.
(fn)