The Training of Commanding Officers in the Swedish Armed Forces - from "The Cold War" to "A World Without Enemies"

Summary of Urban Hansson's article in RSAWSPJ no 2 2001.

A military commander - for certain office-holders the term "chief" is the preferred official designation - has a central role in all military structures. War makes heavy demands on military commanders/chiefs who are required to make tough decisions in time and who are supposed to be able to set a good example to subordinates and the general public alike. The Armed Forces are probably the only Swedish organization that regularly uses the word chief in such a wide variety of cases. The fact whether an officer is really a true chief or not is, however, not always immediately apparent when studying a military organization. Most people seem to agree that it is necessary for an officer to have a thorough professional mastery at a certain level to be able to aspire to be recognized as a respected chief at this very same level.

In view of the present terminological confusion regarding the concept of "chief", this lecture will deal only with the professional officer training up to level 3 (today called the Chief Program). In dealing with this training, reference is here made primarily to today's curriculum as offered at the National Defence College (NDC) and its predecessors during the last two decades: the courses for senior officers at command, staff, and technical levels.

My lecture here today is aimed at giving a thorough presentation of commanding officers’ training since the early 1980s, what the guiding principles have been, how the system has developed over the years as well as outlining the changes that have taken place in the organizational structure.

During the last 15 years, the Armed Forces have not taken the leadership and professional training of future senior officers very seriously. Few high-ranking officers on higher staffs and in many units ever had much knowledge of the workings of the selection process with regard to such subordinates of theirs as might be eligible for promotion, what professional training these officers had received or what po­sitions they were expected to fill.

In almost any other country it is considered a great merit to serve as a teacher at the equivalent to our National Defence College. The Armed Forces there choose their best officers to educate the next generation. This implies that the ablest officers, soon to hold important positions, have quite a good knowledge of the next generation of younger, potential high-flyers. A knowledge that can be decisive in war as well as in peacetime. We earlier had this system in Sweden too, but it disappeared some time during the 1980s to be replaced by an assumption implying that anyone willing was also suitable. Today, sadly, one cannot recommend a young promising officer to serve as a teacher at our NDC. His or her career opportunities would suffer severely and the prospects of advancement or promotion would depend entirely on the position held at the NDC.

To overcome the difficulties and the deficiencies in senior officers’ military education and training at various levels, we need a free and open discussion and we must, in addition, dare to voice our criticism. Some of the fundamental conditions that must be changed are: