Logo: to the web site of the Swedish Defence University

The capability of the Swedish Armed Forces has been reduced to such an extent that the Armed Forces most likely cannot cope with health care within its own organization in the event of an armed attack on the country. The project Totalförsvarets sjukvårdssystem (The healthcare system of the total defence), initiated in 2015 by the Swedish Armed Forces and the National Board of Health and welfare, did a review of Sweden´s medical capacity, its limitations and needs at peace, crisis and armed conflict. However, the project did not profoundly review the conditions of military medicine for armed conflicts, the capacity of military medical planning and how the military medical capacity affects the planning and implementation of operations. This knowledge gap is not filled by available research or other source of information.

The purpose of this work is to fill this gap through a qualitative method via interviews and text analysis. The work is supported by Moshe Kress's logistics theory of valuation of plans; macro- and micro-level subdivision in the planning process and need for information for medical planning. To adapt Moshe Kress's theory to the military medicine a theory development has been made.

The result of the work shows that the capacity of military medicine is insufficient and that medical planners are not obvious partners in national military planning. This will probably effect both planning and execution through lack of credibility and fighting morale. This can also have a negative impact on the will to defend Sweden.

Research in military medicine for the purpose of this work is limited. A probable cause may be that there is lack of basic research in the field of military medicine and that information about capacity, capabilities and limitations is mainly confidential.