The purpose of this study is to examine how officers´ thoughts regarding logistics can be understood depending on their service and unit affiliation. The contribution to war science is to show how service and unit affiliation affect Swedish military thoughts about logistics.
Theories describe uniformity in thoughts among the officer corps due to drills and discipline in their basic training. Today, the debate on future warfare and logistics suggests that there is no such uniformity. Officers seem to have different ways to think about future logistics. This study investigates why and focuses on service, unit affiliation and joint staff experience. To study this problem, officers at the Swedish Defence University were asked to answer a survey, where their military background and thoughts about logistics were investigated.
The results show that officers at the Swedish Defence University have different thoughts about logistics but it is not statistically significant and cannot be explained by service or unit affiliation. It shows, thus, that in 25 per cent of the cases, joint staff experience can explain military thoughts among officers. The main conclusion is that service, unit affiliation or joint staff experience can not fully explain military thoughts in the Swedish armed forces.