Swedish Army

The Swedish Army, Svenska Armén in Swedish, is the land force of the Swedish Armed Forces of the Kingdom of Sweden. Its service is dated from 1521, when the men of Dalarna chose sixteen young men as bodyguards for the insurgent nobleman Gustav Vasa in his war against the Union of Kalmar. The Svea Life Guards descend from that group and are still among the oldest regiments in the world on active duty. In peacetime the army is organised into regiments that train conscripts for the battalions of its rapid reaction organisation. Conscription was introduced in 1901, abolished in 2010 and reinstated in 2017. Since 2014 the army has had around 50,000 soldiers in full-time or part-time duty, and it has begun to expand again as Sweden has become a member of NATO.