Hemvärnet — Swedish Armed Forces — Force Atlas

In brief

The Home Guard, the territorial component of the Swedish Armed Forces, which the armed forces describe as the national and territorial base for the defence of Sweden, organised in battalions under the military regions. No battalion or training group is authored here.

Scope: Structure, role, lineage and links. No subordinate records published.
Subordination: Subordination confirmed
Sources: 1 on the record
Record state: Partial

Broad area of activity: The whole of Sweden, by military region. The armed forces state the Home Guard’s tasks as protecting, guarding and surveilling, supporting society in crises and providing host-nation support, and describe it as a military presence across the country.
Notable history: The Home Guard is the part of Swedish total defence that survived the post-Cold War contraction as a standing territorial organisation, and the armed forces now describe it as nearly half of the wartime military organisation, formed of volunteers who sign service agreements for annual training and become war-placed, with duty applying under heightened readiness or war. Accession in 2024 gave it a new published task — host-nation support — which is the territorial force’s role in an alliance whose reinforcement of Finland and the Baltic states runs through Swedish ground.
Strengths: Territorial coverage and a published mechanism. A force organised by region in battalions with guard and rapid-response companies, tied to the state by contract in peace and by duty in war, is the institution that makes Swedish territory usable for the alliance rather than merely available to it.
Limitations: Nothing below the service is authored: forty battalions is the armed forces’ own count and the Atlas floor refuses battalions. Personnel figures, the regional boundaries and the readiness of the rapid-response companies are not carried. The English page says almost nothing; the Swedish page is the source, and this profile stops where it does.

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Sensitivity: Public · structural Confidence: High Sources: Swedish Armed Forces (Försvarsmakten) organisation pages ↗ Methodology Corrections

Assessed as of — 2026-09 Last reviewed — 2026-09-28

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