Russia turns Sweden’s Home Guard into a recruitment triumph

The country’s military reserve force is becoming a hot ticket for Swedes.

Alexander Raaum with other Home Guard soldiers and a Home Guard vessel in June 2022 | Photo by Dennis Lundberg

STOCKHOLM — Sweden is transforming its Home Guard military reserve from a Dad's Army into a fighting force that has become so attractive to young Swedes that it's having to turn away applicants.

The reason? Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and growing worry — reinforced by the country's leaders — that Sweden must prepare for war.

That's a huge change from recent years, when the Home Guard, a force of 23,000 soldiers who support the full-time military, fell out of favor after the Cold War ended. Thereafter the Home Guard became the domain of largely middle-aged citizens, many of whom didn’t take their duties terribly seriously.

By 2001 a government report noted alarm among the armed forces at the decline in Home Guard membership.

“When I joined, I was 21, considerably younger than the average,” said Alexander Raaum, who signed up in 2009, some 18 months after completing his military service in the artillery. “It was like a remnant from the Cold War.”

A few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the government ended the almost automatic enrolment in the Home Guard for people completing their military service. The end of conscription in 2010 was another blow. 

But Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its efforts to start a separatist war in eastern Ukraine prompted a broad rethink of security issues across Europe.

Over the past decade the Home Guard has undergone reforms that have better linked it with the full-time branches of the military. Instead of receiving cast-off kit previously used by full-time units, for example, the Home Guard now gets the same new weapons. 

Still, until two years ago, recruitment remained anemic, and most Home Guard troops didn’t fulfil their mandated days of service. In 2020 membership was around 20,000, down from some 120,000 in the mid-1980s.

The Russian threat

Russia's full-blown invasion of Ukraine in 2022 changed all that.

That year, 29,101 Swedes applied to join the Home Guard, up 619 per cent from an average year. 

Sweden’s auxiliary defense organizations, too, saw a surge in membership applications. 

In the first two weeks of the war, 640 people joined Lottas, a women’s grouping that provides logistical support to the military. That’s about the number of new joiners Lottas typically receives in an entire year. 

By the end of 2022, another auxiliary organization, the Swedish Federation for Voluntary Defense Education and Training, welcomed 3,795 new members — up from a mere 46 the year before. 

An organization that trains drivers for duty in the wider defense of the country, meanwhile, saw its new member intake double.

The war also prompted Sweden to drop its long-standing policy of military non-alignment and apply to join NATO, along with neighboring Finland. Sweden's application awaits only the approval of Hungary. 

The drumbeat of war warnings isn’t fading away. In the first week of this year, Swedish politicos and military leaders gathered for their annual People and Defense conference with a sobering message. 

“We may see war in Sweden,” warned Minister for Civil Defense Carl Oskar Bohlin. 

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, too, mentioned war several times.

“An armed attack against Sweden cannot be ruled out. The war can come to us too,” Defense Minister Pål Jonson said.

Signing up

The ongoing sense of urgency is prompting ever more people to join the Home Guard

During the first two weeks of January some 1,200 people applied to the force, four times as many as during the same period in 2023. 

“Fifteen years ago many people viewed the Home Guard as a hobby, like hiking or hunting,” Raaum said. “Now they realize that it’s a crucial part of our security.” 

Konrad Lindblad, who joined the Home Guard seven years ago after completing his military service in 2004, said friends and acquaintances had suddenly begun asking him how to join. Lindblad has also seen his own motivation evolve. 

“When I joined, I wanted to do something different than what I do during the workday in the office, and I since I had enjoyed doing military service, I knew the Home Guard suited me,” he said. “But once I was part of it, I realized that that the Home Guard is also a serious undertaking, aligned with the rest of the armed forces. And I started thinking about why I was doing it. I do it because I’m able to contribute to our defense. If people like me don’t do it, who will? We can’t take for granted that Sweden will have freedom and democracy.”

So many people now want to join, in fact, that the Home Guard is having trouble keeping up. 

Applicants must be assessed, and if they haven’t done military service (which many haven't, although Sweden reinstated the draft on a limited basis in 2018), they have to undergo a military crash course. And then space must be found for them in nearby units.

“Our vacancies are not so numerous that we can accommodate lots of people,” Lindblad said. “We’d need new units in order to accommodate a significant number of new members, but that takes time, especially since you can’t stand up new units consisting only of new people. On the other hand, if you keep people waiting they lose interest.”