Sizing Conventional Forces

Summary of Helge Löfstedt's article in RSAWSPJ no 4 2001.

There has, ever since the Swedish parliamentary defence resolution in 1996, been a debate on how to "resize" the Swedish Armed Forces to such new threats as may develop in the future. This article draws its conclusion from an overview entitled "An Approach to Sizing American Conventional Forces for the Post-Soviet Era" written by former US Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin (in Strategy and Force Planning, third issue, Naval War College, Newport 2000).

Aspin’s message is that guiding principles in the line of thought should be expressed in very simple and intelligible language. As an instance of this the author cites useful lessons learnt from past US experience on active service missions during the last decade.

Les Aspin outlines a methodology for planning and deploying military forces that is explicitly threat- and scenario-based. A 1991 Gulf War Iraqi "threat yardstick" equivalent is made up to illustrate potential future threats. Such military forces as the US might face in the future are defined with explicit reference to that basic "yardstick" measure. Using this method to create a series of scenario-based building blocks he defines differently sized structural combinations of US military forces.

Factors such as the number of simultaneous contingency scenarios, how rapidly to respond to them, and the possible duration of various commitments are variables that will of necessity modify the force structure chosen.

The validity of this approach is frequently challenged. However, a better alternative has not as yet been offered.

The conclusion is that Les Aspin's methodology would be suitable for planning the aim and direction of Sweden's future defence policy.