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Sweden has not been involved in many hot conflicts during those years, no Lews_TherinThelamon Send a noteboard - 22/09/2011 05:04:26 PM
Generally contributing with about 1000 troops to different conflict areas any given year during this time period.

And public opinion makes it difficult for Swedish troops abroad to go public with actual kill counts, but combat casualties are another thing. They are six for the last twenty years, one in 1991 in Lebanon, and five in Afghanistan (two in 2005, three in 2010).

For combat fatalities inflicted, there are no official statistics, but there was quite a few in Bosnia, probably a few in Kosovo, there was some combat in Liberia and Lebanon, but I haven't heard of any confirmed killings from there. The Swedish Special Forces (which hires women to combat positions and are actively searching for more women for certain special missions all the time) were heavily involved in Operation Artemis in Kongo 2003, where they reportedly more or less ran out of body bags for the enemies while not having one casualty. That luck ran out when two of their operators were killed by an IED in Afghanistan in 2005, which is everything the public knows about that mission, since officially, they were actually not there when it happened...). Over all, Afghanistan has probably been the bloodiest conflict area that Sweden has been in since Kongo in the 60's, and they kill bandits and Taliban forces there on a regular basis, with the amount of combat action having increased in later years. I've heard no complaints from veterans about female soldiers, those complaints usually stem from young people who dream of the military but haven't been in it yet, and those who were conscripts during the Cold War and have no experience from having women fighting in their unit.

But then again, the Swedish culture is very different from the American in this respect. We are not taught that men are supposed to take care for women, but that women are fully capable of taking care of themselves. Gender equality is deeply rooted in most Swedes these days, and the opposition to having women in combat positions is more or less non-existent in both the military and amongst political parties as far as I know.

Also, Sweden is far from the only country that has allowed women to fight in wars. The Soviet Union did it during WWII, and today countries such as Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Serbia and Israel allow women in combat positions.
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Sweden has not been involved in many hot conflicts during those years, no - 22/09/2011 05:04:26 PM 519 Views
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