Two years ago, I enlisted voluntarily to the Swedish army, but after close consideration of what incentives were, I ended up looking for a brighter future. After a few months in America, it has become obvious to me why I made that choice: the Swedish military presents no incentives for any young individual seeking reward for risk.

In a time when Russian geopolitical aggression has put Sweden’s military capacity to question, the Swedish government just recently choose to impose its long forgotten mandatory military conscription. With severe lack of funding and without practical resources to meet the increased level of military threat in the Baltic Sea region, the government’s policy comes as merely symbolic reaction to realizing its military capacity does not meet its needs.

The new policy means that at least 4000 out of 100 000 Swedes born 1999-2000 will be enlisted to do their mandatory military service during 2018 and 2019. Although a much larger number of recruits would be necessary to meet the critical demand of military personnel, neither the current funding or infrastructure allows for more recruits. Subsequently, the amount of recruits prone to the conscription accounts for only a minimal part of the projected demand.

However, the reason behind a mandatory service policy can be drawn from not only Russian military build-up but equally importantly the lack of incentives for young citizens to enlist voluntarily. Low early career wages, low reward relative to risk and lack of patriotism within a generation that has never had to ask what they can do for their country, but ask solely what their country can do for them, are all contributing factors to why teenagers are less interested in service than what the older generation is.

There is a fundamental difference between the two factors demanding more military recruits: Russian threats cannot be regulated. However, so can military personnel wages, service reward and pride to the profession. The problem with the government’s policy is thus that none of the factors it can control are being changed.

As the lack of incentives for young Swedes to join the military remains an unsolved problem, the government has announced that motivation and appropriateness should determine an individual’s enlistment. If this would hold true, a reasonable initiative to increased public interest in military service would be to drastically increase military wages to reflect the government demand and an individual’s risk.

As the mandatory service among young Swedes is seen somewhat as being forced to do something of little value to them, resistance to voluntary enlistment can only be dealt with should incentives be created. This is where Sweden should take lesson from the incentives today’s American military presents to its various kinds of recruits.

The U.S military present unparalleled incentives for young individuals of all backgrounds. A personal observation from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program, offered at over 1,700 colleges and universities across the U.S. The ROTC prepares young students to become officers in the military, allowing students to go through partly but not exclusively academic military training in college to become the next generation of military leaders within the three branches: Army, Navy or Air Force. The program at Illinois is highly popular and the reason for it is obvious: every Illinois state resident that goes to an in-state school and joins ROTC gets free tuition.

The military will pay for your tuition if you commit to serve for four years post-graduation. The academic and physical military training ROTC students go through is tough, yet students from all backgrounds have real incentives to pursue the incentivized path to a career as military leaders.

The ROTC is a purposeful way for the military to gain access to a pool of well-educated graduates from top colleges over the U.S, laying the foundation for a military founded on professionalism and excellence – a resource being neglected by the Swedish government when employees are undervalued. In addition, any college graduate outside the ROTC also have the opportunity to take the fast track to becoming an officer.

The Swedish and American welfare systems have little in common, yet the incentives presented to young Americans gives us an example of how individuals’ incentives can help solve governments’ policy goals. There is a wide array of benefits for U.S military personnel that the Swedish government could take lesson from. Any U.S military service member, officer or not, can expect benefits exceeding most FORTUNE 500 companies – pay, medical care, education and tax reliefs being a few.

In comparison, the U.S benefits may be seen as relatively marginal because many of them are already fully tax-funded and accessible to all Swedes. But as the Swedish military is failing to meet its goals, the efficiency of financial incentives to meet policy goals talks for itself. Because of the logic based on that the U.S benefits only cover up for what is already provided in Sweden, personal tax reliefs for Swedish service members, combined with higher pay, are a critical part of increasing the number of young recruits.

Sweden needs to impose tax reliefs and increase salaries for its military members as two instruments to meet policy goals. Even if this could result in higher costs, the Swedish government must come to conclusion that the current spending levels are insufficient to meet its own goals, making its latest mandatory conscription policy merely symbolic.

Because the demand of new recruits to the Swedish military can only be projected to increase the coming years, an incentives-based system must be put in place. There are areas where the U.S could learn from Sweden, but the military is not one of them.

A.P

Sources:
Sweden re-activates conscription, Government Offices of Sweden

http://www.government.se/articles/2017/03/re-activation-of-enrolment-and-the-conscription/

ROTC Programs

http://todaysmilitary.com/training/rotc

Sweden Reinstates Conscription, With an Eye on Russia, New York Times, 2 March 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/world/europe/sweden-draft-conscription.html?_r=0

As Stockholm was struck by its first deadly Islamic terror attack, policy professionals has increasingly started to claim the disaster’s occurrence was only a matter of time. Officials say it was not a question if, but when, Sweden would be struck by an act of terror. However this statement is true or not, it remains a sad day for Swedes looking back at a country forever changed on April 7^th 2017.

The aftermath chaos witness how the Swedish people can mobilize to stand up against terror attacks. People showed endless compassion in supporting each other through the crisis, with many homes being opened to complete strangers under the hashtag #openstockholm. When some of the functions of society became crippled, such as all public transportation and parts of the cellular net being shut down, this was an effort by the many civilian men and women working side by side to get to safety.

It is said that the danger of terrorism lays not within the actual attack, but in how we respond to it as a society. This could also be divided into two parts, one being the continued Swedish values reflected in peoples’ general attitudes to our neighbors, and one being the impact on public policy. Naturally, no one knows the answers to these questions yet.

Right after the attack, I noticed one person’s comment on the well-known Swedish political commentator Marcus Oscarsson’s post about the police’s outstanding work during the attack. Translated, it reads: ‘’To all who have seen, been on location, ran, and been worried can also think about the policemen with a salary of 24,500 SEK per month that ran the other way, against the attack, to protect us!’’. The comment has during the last 24 hours received nearly ten thousand likes and should be seen as an indicator of not only the brave policemen but the many challenges facing Sweden’s failing security net, due to the lack of resources they need.

The worries about what the implications will be are many, and in countries where past deadly attacks have been carried out, public security measures have become a top priority. These measures vary from everything between increased anti-terror intelligence activities to roadblocks in crowded city zones.

The immediate response by media to the attack proved to pose questions about what the impacts will be for Swedish society. In several papers, the answers have been that the impacts depend solely on how we, the Swedish people, decide to tackle the challenges coming from a modern society of multiculturalism and international mobility.

Countries previously struck by terror have taken various approaches to ensure public security, and people’s attitudes have forever changed. However, while some argue that no security budget is great enough to prevent future attacks, the only rational solution from now on is to take responsibility for those factors giving officials a reason to state that it was only a matter of time before this attack would occur.

While some argue that efforts should be made to ease conflicts abroad, often identified as the source of these radical acts of hatred, it is fundamental that resources are allocated to the law enforcement. The debate on Sweden’s insufficient funding to its police force, with many policemen reportedly leaving their jobs because of increased pressure, can no longer be left without politicians support. Sadly, preventing Islamic terrorism has now become the top priority in Sweden, too. While the Swedish society cannot give in to the terror by letting fear dictate our actions, we must reinforce our fundamental values of democracy, trust and openness with a functioning law enforcement.

As the suspect is one of 12,500 other undocumented immigrants who have been denied asylum but has disappeared from authorities’ radars, there are structural problems with Sweden’s dysfunctional immigration and legal system that have been exposed. The large scale failure of the authorities and politicians to uphold rule of law is likely to be addressed as a reaction to the suspect’s illegal residency in Sweden. Many public figures call for calm, but responsibility can only be taken through rapid and reasonable policy solutions that have been missing. If this attack was only a matter of time, why was not more done to prevent it? Obviously, enough resources has not been allocated to keep the Swedish immigration system functioning.

Radical Islam being the highest prioritized threat to Sweden’s national security is officially recognized and not a surprise by any standard. International media has long time ago highlighted Sweden’s so-called export of jihad, being one of the biggest exporters of Jihadists in Europe. While this could be prevented by policy measures aimed at fighting terrorism, the opposite has been done by the government. When policy discussions are now being initiated, the Sweden Democrats – Sweden’s third largest political party – are not being invited to participate. The government argue that the Sweden Democrats do not support the national strategy against extremism and should thus not be invited to the discussions on the country’s policy changes. What the consequences excluding the Sweden Democrats might be can only be told by future polls and the upcoming 2018 election.

Sweden has every ability to work against terrorism motivated by Islamic extremism. It doesn’t help much to be upset about what could have been done. First we must do what most people think should be done, and inviting the Sweden Democrats to the policy talks would be a major first step to acknowledging effective anti-extremism policies. While our society may not be able to fully prevent any act of terror, we should ask ourselves: in what areas could we have done more to prevent an attack?

If we do not take measures now, another terror attack is only a matter of when.

A.P

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/08/europe/sweden-stockholm-truck-attack/index.html

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37578919

https://www.facebook.com/marcus.oscarsson.7