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Till reserven hör cirka 870 000 finländare. Försvarsmaktens krigstida styrka är 280 000 soldater, och styrkan kompletteras vid behov med andra reservister.

Värnplikten i fråga om de män och kvinnor som gjort beväringstjänsten gäller fram till slutet av det år då personen fyller 60 år. Som värnpliktig hör du till reserven tills du fyllt 50 eller 60 år.

Den som hör till manskapet överförs till den ersättande reserven vid utgången av det år då han eller hon fyller 50 år; officerare och underofficerare hör till reserven fram till utgången av det år då de fyller 60 år. […]

Efter beväringstjänsten blir du reservist och placeras i en trupp med tanke på undantagsförhållanden.

Din krigstida placering administreras i värnpliktsregistret. Dina kontakt- och yrkesuppgifter i registret kommer från befolkningsdatasystemet hos Myndigheten för digitalisering och befolkningsdata. I övrigt uppdateras dina uppgifter endast om du själv meddelar dem till regionalbyrån eller i samband med repetitionsövningar. […]

Uppdatera dina uppgifter! Försvarsmakten behöver kunniga personer, från bilmålare till anestesiläkare. På så sätt kan du få en ny krigstida placering och krigstida lämplighet.  Läs dokumentet

It is finally by video-conference, in the name of respect for health rules, that Emmanuel Macron will participate in the G5 Sahel summit which opens this Monday in Chad. An eagerly awaited event, both the President of the Republic and the Ministers of the Armed Forces and of Foreign Affairs have given the prospect of important announcements in recent weeks, of a reduction in the French system to a withdrawal schedule, after eight years of a conflict which turned into a veritable quagmire. As in Afghanistan where international troops, led by the United States, are preparing, twenty years later, to return the keys of the country to the Taliban, whom they claimed to be driving out of power, the security situation continues to deteriorate. , despite the triumphant communiques of the French army.[…]

According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2020 was the deadliest year in terms of violence committed by extremist militants in the Sahel, with around 4,250 deaths, a 60% increase over 2019. And 2021 does not look much better, as illustrated by the attack on a Malian army post blamed on jihadists on February 3, killing ten soldiers and causing significant material damage.

Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, the insurgents are patiently betting on the lack of motivation of local armies as underpaid as they are under-equipped and on the weariness of Western public opinion in the face of the return of soldiers in coffins – 55 for France since 2013 -, like the meager political, security and social gains obtained. “It is the Afghan syndrome where we explained that, with the military and money to help a poor country to develop, we were going to get there”,notes the ex-diplomat Laurent Bigot (read opposite). Läs artikel

When Martin Luther King preached his famous sermon “Beyond Vietnam” at Riverside Church in New York City in April 1967, I don’t recall giving his words a second thought. Although at the time I was just up the Hudson River attending West Point, his call for a “radical revolution in values” did not resonate with me. By upbringing and given my status as a soldier-in-the-making, radical revolutions were not my thing. To grasp the profound significance of the “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism” to which he called his listeners’ attention was beyond my intellectual capacity. I didn’t even try to unpack their meaning.

In that regard, the ensuing decades have filled a void in my education. I long ago concluded that Dr. King was then offering the essential interpretive key to understanding our contemporary American dilemma. The predicament in which we find ourselves today stems from our reluctance to admit to the crippling interaction among the components of the giant triplets he described in that speech. True, racism, extreme materialism, and militarism each deserve — and separately sometimes receive — condemnation. But it’s the way that the three of them sustain one another that accounts for our nation’s present parlous condition. Läs artikel

Läs även Martin Luthers tal 1967 i Riverside Church som vi tidigare länkat till på den här sajten.

Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago John Mearsheimer has expressed fears that the Cold War between China and the US would have consequences for the smaller countries that can be turned into proxies for the two bigger powers of the world. […]

Talking about the role of South Asia in the cold war, Mr Mearsheimer said, “I think there is a likelihood that Pakistan would side with China and the US would try to peel off Pakistan from China in the emerging Cold War. The Indians would ally with the US. The Americans would try to get Myanmar in its fold”. Läs artikel

Amr Moussa, the former Secretary General of the Arab League, said that Libya has been suffering from major problems. However, he expressed his hope for the country now that Libya has begun taking steps in the right direction, after the election of the new executive authority.

During an interview with Russia Today on Saturday, Moussa added that the Arab League intervened in the Libyan crisis in 2011 when the situation began to affect civilians. In response to the interviewer’s question regarding the Arab League’s permission for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to bomb Libya in 2011, Moussa stated that the League “did not allow, speak with NATO, or request its entry into Libyan territories.”

“Repeating ill-considered speech from uncontrolled circles is not in the public interest,” he further told the interviewer.

He pointed out that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and then the Islamic Conference convened and called on the United Nations (UN) to prevent military flights over Libya, before the Arab League meeting in 2011. Moussa stated that the Arab League asked the UN to work to protect civilians by imposing an air embargo on military aircrafts flying over Libya. He indicated that the Arab League’s Secretary-General objected to the UN Security Council’s decision to intervene militarily in Libya. Läs artikel

Kommentar: I boken Lagen mot krig beskrivs Arabförbundets ställningstagande till interventionen i Libyen:

”Arabförbundet gjorde ett uttalande till stöd för resolutionen, men det modifierades snabbt av förbundets ordförande, som uttalade att man inte stödde det ”omfattande bombkrig som nu pågår”. Asia Times uppgav att Arabförbundet fattade sitt beslut när bara 11 av de 22 medlemmarna var närvarande (därav sex Gulfstater som är helt beroende av USA). Läs  kapitlet om Libyenkriget i boken sid 113 -121

[…] Diskussionen om hur Sverige förhöll sig under kalla kriget behöver fortsätta, men skulle alltså må bra av en grundläggande analys som inte utgår från att regering och försvarsmakt är enhetliga bowlingklot som knuffar på varandra, utan snarare amorfa tingestar med många beståndsdelar som samverkar eller motverkar varandra. Och att det sker i kraftfält där utländska stormakter har ett väsentligt intresse av att påverka.   

Kanske var det snarare en sådan tanke än någon ”dold allians” som låg bakom USA:s hemliga policydokument 1962, numera offentligt: ”In the event of general war the Swedish Government´s position cannot be predetermined; if Sweden does not become a co-belligerent with NATO it is important that it remain a friendly neutral.” Läs artikel

People in the Netherlands and five other NATO states overwhelmingly reject the presence of US nuclear weapons and support the Treaty to Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). In fact, according to polls, support for the Dutch joining the nuclear ban continues to increase.

In the new YouGov poll released today, the results are clear: 78% of Dutch people want the government to join the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In fact, 68% said the Netherlands should be among the first members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to join, even if the country were pressured by the United States of America not to do so.

A similar poll was conducted in 2019, at which time only 62% of people wanted the Dutch government to join the ban. These new numbers reflect a growing understanding that there are no safe hands for the world’s worst weapons. […]

Similar surveys were conducted in Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Italy and Spain that showed support near or over 80% for the ban treaty. NATO has a stated commitment to support nuclear disarmament and democracy, but has opposed the TPNW at each step, against the will of its member populations. Läs artikel

Den nye flystripen på Nagurskoje på Frans Josefs land er tatt i bruk av det russiske forsvaret, ifølge trusselvurderingen FOKUS 2021.

Nagurskoje er Russlands nordligste og vestligste arktiske flybase. Flystripen har fast dekke, og kan ta imot store militærfly. Fra basen vil kampfly kunne gjennomføre luftoperasjoner over store deler av Arktis og Barentshavet.

Norske og russiske myndigheter anklager hverandre for å bidra til økt spenning i nordområdene.

– Russiske myndigheter øker takten i utbyggingen av militære baser i nord. Det brukes store ressurser på å utvikle nye, avanserte våpensystemer, sier etterretningssjef Nils Andreas Stensønes.

– Vi ser at stormaktsrivaliseringen fortsetter med uforminsket styrke. Det merker vi også i våre nærområder. Russland er en dimensjonerende faktor for norsk sikkerhet. Det sa forsvarsminister Frank Bakke-Jensen i sin innledning på pressekonferansen når E-tjenestens trusselvurdering for 2021 ble presentert. Läs artikel

[…] Policy wonks who have been waiting with bated breath can now exhale: the congressionally mandated Afghanistan Study Group (ASG) has published its findings. The panel of grandees comprising the ASG has produced a most handsome document. Just days after its appearance, however, their handiwork already appears likely to disappear without making any serious impact. […]

To further muddy the waters, the ASG urges that any final peace deal signed between the Afghan government and the Taliban provide for the continuation of a “limited U.S. military presence with counterterrorism capabilities.” In other words, even in the event of peace (however loosely defined) being achieved, U.S. warfighters will stay on, more or less in perpetuity. Why the Taliban, which has been fighting to oust foreign troops from Afghanistan ever since 2001 (or since 1979 if you count the years of Soviet occupation) would agree to this arrangement is a bit of puzzle. The authors of the ASG apparently assume that an Afghan government formed as a result of the peace process (and presumably including the Taliban) can be persuaded to view an ongoing U.S. military presence as benign, with Afghan sovereignty and sensibilities taking a back seat to American national security concerns. The question of why an ongoing occupation by U.S. forces would be palatable to Afghans remains unexplored.

If the ASG has an overarching theme, it’s this: wishful thinking. “The way forward will be difficult,” the ASG’s mandarins write, “but it has the virtue of being clearer than ever before.” What’s actually clear is the Afghanistan Study Group’s stubborn reluctance to face up to facts.

Among the most relevant are these: 1) the United States and its allies have failed in Afghanistan; that failure is irreversible; 2) as a direct consequence of 20 years of war, Afghanistan is a failed state; the United States has neither the will nor the capacity to redeem it; 3) Afghanistan’s destiny will be decided by the Afghan people, which is both right and necessary; 4) the only permissible response by members of the U.S. foreign policy establishment is the one thing they are incapable of: repentance. Läs artikel

I slutet av 1970-talet inleds en enorm satsning på svensk krigssjukvård. På bara några år utvecklas en svindlande detaljerad beredskapsplan för hela samhället. På mitten av 80-talet hade man uppnått imponerande resultat. Då kunde landet mobilisera 125 000 vårdplatser på 90 lasarett, 135 sjukhem och 330 skolbyggnader.

Samtidigt tilldelas armén fältsjukhus och marinen utvecklar egna stridsjukhus. Stat och landsting bygger upp ett detaljerat beredskapssystem med otaliga förråd för vårdutrustning, hemliga lager för läkemedel och krigsplacerad personal. Allting är beräknat i detalj, ner på exakt antal tandborstar.

Samtidigt är det lika häpnadsväckande hur snabbt det gick att montera ner den här unika beredskapen; något Sverige kunde haft stor nytta av även i fredstid – allt från lagring av läkemedel till snabba transporter av skadade. För bara några decennier sedan hade vi en krigssjukvård i världsklass, nu återstår blott någon procent av kapaciteten. Läs  artikel

Under den arabiska våren 2011 deltog Sverige i den Natoledda interventionen i Libyen. Både med JAS-spaningsplan men även i psykologiska påverkansoperationer. Natos generalsekreterare Fogh Rasmussen utvärderade insatsen som ”en succé”. Och sa att ett ”nytt Libyen” fått frihet, mänskliga rättigheter, demokrati. Försvarsmakten sammanfattade att man ”levererat ett mycket bra resultat”. Sedan: tystnad. Vad hände egentligen?

[…]I dag vet vi att dessa påståenden inte stämde. Det fanns ingen täckning för att Khadaffi urskillningslöst dödat civila och enligt bland annat FN:s människorättsråd fanns heller inte grund för att han anlitat mängder av legoknektar. Efter några dagars beskjutning hade Nato-alliansen skapat flygförbudszonen. Men man fortsatte att bomba i sju månader och tillsammans med rebeller genomförde man ett regimskifte genom att mörda Khadaffi. Detta syfte fanns högst sannolikt med redan från början. USA, Storbritannien och Frankrike hade alla tidigare iscensatt attentat mot honom. Interventionen blev nu ett brott mot FN-mandatet, FN-stadgan, Genévekonventionen. […]

Försvarsmakten talade däremot om ”ett mycket bra resultat”. En av Jas-piloterna har stolt berättat att man spanade på bombmål åt Nato så skickligt att man ”hamnade i finrummet” (P1, 26/1 2020). Kanske är det just detta Försvarsmakten menar? Alltså att relationen till Nato fördjupades. Det har passerat tio år och det är svårt att inte ta regeringens tystnad som uttryck för att man instämmer i ”ett mycket bra resultat”. Det är i så fall ett politiskt och moraliskt haveri: operationen var lyckad men patienten dog. Läs artikel

Läs även om interventionen i Libyen och folkrätten i boken Lagen mot krig, sid  112-121