After two years as commander of the 1st Infantry Brigade, Colonel Martin Johansson handed over command this week. In an interview with NDS, he looks back at the work of building up the brigade from a motorised rifle battalion and discusses how the Swedish Armed Forces need to develop in order to integrate new technology more quickly, draw lessons from Ukraine and meet shorter timeframes.
Colonel Martin Johansson was, until 2 September, commander of the 1st Infantry Brigade, IB 1, at the Guards regiment in Kungsängen outside Stockholm, Sweden. During his two years in the post, his task was to develop and establish the brigade from what had previously been a motorised rifle battalion. The brigade's ongoing activities include tactical development of the war organisation and training of the basic organisation, while the brigade must also remain combat ready and able to deliver effect here and now.
When NDS met him during the summer at the soldiers' mess next to the Guards regiment in Kungsängen, he summed up the period as intense.
"Intense days with many meetings. We are trying to develop the organisation so that it can keep pace with technological development and the need for change that arises," he says.
This involves integrating new technology into the organisation, particularly unmanned systems on the ground and in the air. At the same time, new command and control systems are being developed, and several new materiel systems are being introduced, including missile systems and vehicle systems.
"The big challenge is getting all these components to work together as a whole, so that platoons, companies, battalions and brigades cooperate effectively within the system," he says, continuing:
"We have a legacy in the Armed Forces where we've had fairly plenty of time, but not much money to do things with. Now it's the complete opposite. Now we have resources in a different way, but we don't have the time. Previously it could take years to carry out a certain organisational or methodological development; now we're supposed to do it in a few weeks."
How do you go about actually implementing that, then?
"There are no simple answers. The Armed Forces need to undergo both a cultural change and become more adaptive and agile in their way of working. Military personnel are used to making long-term plans and following them, but now we also need to dare to release the strength and expertise that exist within the organisation. The Armed Forces have significant human capital, not least through reserve officers, and by pooling that knowledge we can achieve effects from new technology and new systems more quickly," he says.
In the event of war, the brigade's main task is to defend Stockholm. Together with other units and service branches, Johansson describes the brigade as an important component in the defence of the capital. The brigade is a manoeuvre brigade, which means it must also be able to carry out tasks as part of a Swedish division elsewhere.
That requires being both innovative and adaptable, I imagine?
"Yes, absolutely. That's an important part of the brigade's development. With the rapid pace of technological development, we need to be able to quickly adopt new technology, bring it into the organisation and develop methods that create synergies between different systems. Innovation is often difficult to direct from the top down," he says.
The discussion turns to STRILAB, the war incubator initiated by reserve officers from the brigade. During the spring and summer, trials were conducted on both military problems and possible solutions within the framework of the programme, with the hope of eventually being able to apply solutions within the brigade's war organisation.
How do you view the scalability of this, and the exchange of knowledge with other parts of the Armed Forces?
"It's ongoing. At army level, they work on other types of military problems, while we start more from the bottom up within the organisation. The hope is that these perspectives will meet so that a clear chain is created where experiences and solutions can be shared. What is developed in one brigade can also be relevant to other brigades or higher levels. That's why we need to find methods for spreading and feeding back lessons learned, so that the work creates synergies throughout the organisation," he says.
The 1st Infantry Brigade has recently concluded its participation in Operation Interflex. Interflex is a collective name for several training efforts, led by the United Kingdom, in which Ukrainian soldiers are trained. Johansson was satisfied with the brigade's contribution, in which, according to him, both sides were able to learn from one another.
"For the brigade's personnel on site, it was of course highly motivating to feel that they were contributing to strengthening the Ukrainians' capability. By capturing the experiences from there and quickly feeding them into our own lessons-learned process, we can use them directly in our development. This means a more agile way of working, where lessons learned can more quickly influence both methods and doctrine," he says.
How do you adapt to the extremely rapid development of technology and tactics currently taking place in Ukraine?
"That's linked to the cultural change we need to make. We must be able to carry out trials more quickly and, when something works, also implement it quickly. With initiatives like STRILAB, it's fundamentally about learning to learn, drawing conclusions and being innovative," says Johansson, developing his point further:
"If one of the trials we're conducting this summer leads to something we move forward with, I'm satisfied, but even if none of them do, that's still a result, because we will have learned something in the process. Innovation also means accepting that not everything succeeds."
Do you feel that bureaucracy is an obstacle to the culture of innovation we're discussing, or is that an unfair characterisation?
"As a large public authority, we have a great responsibility to comply with laws and regulations and to manage taxpayers' funds in a way that delivers maximum effect. At the same time, I see no contradiction between that responsibility and the need for development. It must be possible to combine the two."
Finally, what would you like to see going forward in the brigade's development?
"I'm very pleased with the development we're seeing right now. We're taking our own initiatives and making a clear contribution to developing our capability. We're not sitting around waiting for someone else to come up with a detailed plan; instead, we're actively driving the development ourselves. If we can continue in that direction over the coming years, we will lay a stable foundation for the brigade's continued development," says Martin Johansson.