The Swedish Navy (Swedish: Svenska marinen) is the maritime service branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. It is composed of surface and submarine naval units – the Fleet (Flottan), formally sometimes referred to as the Royal Navy (Kungliga Flottan) – as well as marine units, the Amphibious Corps (Amfibiekåren).
Founded under King Gustav Vasa in 1522, the Swedish navy is one of the oldest continuously serving navies in the world, celebrating its 500th anniversary in 2022.
The Home Guard – National Security Forces (Swedish: Hemvärnet – Nationella skyddsstyrkorna) is a military reserve force of the Swedish Armed Forces. It was formally established on May 29, 1940, during World War II upon popular demand. While originally composed of former militia groups, today it comprises half of the Swedish Army, thus constituting the basis of the territorial defence of Sweden.
The Home Guard consists mainly of local rapid response units, numbering 17,000 of the 22,000 total Home Guard strength, organised in 40 battalions, with 23 associated auxiliary defence organisations. Most soldiers maintain a civilian job while serving the army part-time. Rapid response units were formed in the early 2000s in parallel to the Swedish government's abolishment of conscription to the Swedish Armed Forces; small-scale conscription has since been reintroduced.
The allotment system (Swedish: indelningsverket; Finnish: ruotujakolaitos) was a system used in Sweden for keeping a trained army at all times. This system came into use in around 1640, and was replaced by the modern Swedish Armed Forces conscription system in 1901. Two different allotment systems have been in use in Sweden; they are the old allotment system (äldre indelningsverket) and the new allotment system (yngre indelningsverket), the latter often referred to as just "the allotment system". The soldiers who were part of these systems were known as "croft soldiers" (indelta soldater, the Swedish term, does not have the same meaning) due to the small crofts allotted to them.
Originally, the allotment system was the name for a system used to pay servants of the state, like officers and clergy. It was introduced because of an often felt shortage of money, and the allotment system tried to solve this by localising taxes; meaning that payment consisted of an individual's right to collect certain taxes. Later on it referred to an organisation created to provide soldiers to the armed forces, properly known as det ständiga knektehållet (literally "the permanent soldier household"). The reason for this development of the term is that a large part of the allotment system was used to support det ständiga knektehållet.
The Swedish Army (Swedish: Svenska Armén) is the land force of the Swedish Armed Forces of the Kingdom of Sweden. Beginning with its service in 1521, the Swedish Army has been active for more than 500 years.
The National Defence Radio Establishment (Swedish: Försvarets radioanstalt, FRA) is a Swedishgovernment agency organised under the Ministry of Defence. The two main tasks of FRA are signals intelligence (SIGINT), and support to government authorities and state-owned companies regarding computer security.
The FRA is not allowed to initiate any surveillance on their own, and operates purely on assignment from the Government, the Government Offices, the Armed Forces, the Swedish Police Authority and Swedish Security Service (SĂ„PO). Decisions and oversight regarding information interception is provided by the Defence Intelligence Court and the Defence Intelligence Commission; additional oversight regarding protection of privacy is provided by the Swedish Data Protection Authority.
The Swedish Air Force (Swedish: Svenska flygvapnet or just Flygvapnet) is the air force branch of the Swedish Armed Forces.