The Swedish Army () is the land force of the Swedish Armed Forces.
History
Svea Life Guards dates back to the year 1521, when the men of Dalarna chose 16 young able men as body guards for the insurgent nobleman Gustav Vasa in the Swedish War of Liberation against the Danish-dominated Union of Kalmar, thus making the present-day Life Guards one of the world's oldest regiments still on active duty.
In 1901, Sweden introduced conscription. The conscription system was abolished in 2010 but reinstated in 2017.
Organisation
The peace-time organisation of the Swedish Army is divided into a number of regiments for the different branches. The number of active regiments has been reduced since the end of the Cold War. However the Swedish Army has begun to expand once again. The regiment forms training organizations that train the various battalions of the army and home guard.
The Swedish Armed Forces recently underwent a transformation from conscription-based recruitment to a professional defence organisation. This is part of a larger goal to abandon the mass army from the Cold War and develop an army better suited to modern maneuver warfare and at the same time retain a higher readiness. Since 2014, the Swedish army has had around 50,000 soldiers in either full-time or part-time duty, with eight mechanized infantry battalions instantly available at any time and the full force of 71 battalions ready to be deployed within one week. The regular army consists of 8 mechanised maneuver battalions, 19 support battalions of different kinds including artillery battalions, anti-aircraft battalions, combat engineer battalions, rangers, logistics battalions and 4 reserve heavy armoured battalions and 40 territorial defence battalions. The battalion is the core unit but all units are completely modular and can be arranged in combat teams from company to brigade level with different units depending on the task. There are a total of 6 permanent staffs under the central command capable of handling large battlegroups, 4 regional staffs and 2 brigade staffs.
Leadership
Until 1937 the King was the formal Head of the Army, and until 1974 of the Armed Forces at large. In 1937, the Chief of the Army position and headquarters staff (, CA) was created to lead the Army in peacetime. Following a larger reorganisation of the Swedish Armed Forces in 1994, CA ceased to exist as an independent agency, and all of the Armed Forces was centralized under the Supreme Commander (ÖB). Instead, the post Chief of Army Staff () was created at the then newly instituted Swedish Armed Forces Headquarters (HKV).
In 1998, the Swedish Armed Forces was yet again reorganized. Most of the duties of the Chief of Army Staff were transferred to the newly instituted post of "Inspector General of the Army" (). The post is similar to that of the "Inspector General of the Swedish Navy" () and the "Inspector General of the Swedish Air Force" (), later renamed to "Inspector of the Army" (). In 2014, the Chief of Army (, AC) position was reinstated.
Regiments
Swedish Army regiments are tasked with training conscripts for the operational battalions of the army's rapid reaction organisation. The Gotland Regiment is the only regiment that also trains Home Guard troops. The currently active regiments and their main peacetime subordinate units are: