Pentagon exploring new Swedish navy technology amid talks of NATO expansion

Composed by

Brandi Vincent

The Department of Protection is searching at Swedish military services technological innovation to see if it fulfills U.S. armed forces wants at a time when Sweden may well be poised to sign up for the NATO alliance.

During their to start with worldwide journey in two several years, officials from the Pentagon’s International Comparative Testing (FCT) method — which hunts for reducing-edge, non-U.S.-built products with a higher engineering readiness level to deploy for Protection Division apps — a short while ago visited the Scandinavian country. That vacation also unfolded as Sweden considers joining NATO — and potentially bringing its amazing know-how portfolio to the armed forces alliance.

Sweden has been a lengthy-time defense partner with the United States, but has remained outside the house the NATO security pact. Having said that, Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine has shifted community view in Sweden and prompted a reconsideration of regardless of whether the country ought to be part of NATO.

“As most people says, it’s a political choice and no one particular has manufactured up their brain yet. I feel Sweden, as a little- or mid-sized country, has very limited connections among the navy problems and the technology. And we are regarded to be one particular of the world’s most impressive nations around the world. We have some leading-notch technological innovation,” Swedish Armed Forces Main Scientist, Col. Rickard Stridh instructed FedScoop last week at the Household of Sweden, which is found in Washington and properties the Swedish Embassy.

Stridh was amid a lot of officers who spoke at the 18th U.S.-Sweden Defense Field Conference, which was hosted by the Countrywide Protection Industrial Association (NDIA).

Bryant Streett, director of mission prototypes in the Pentagon’s workplace of the undersecretary of protection for analysis and engineering, stated that Sweden has been one particular of the FCT program’s most effective resources of revolutionary systems. He famous that the Swedish aerospace and protection company Saab AB “is in all probability the firm that’s been the most profitable with FCT more than the last 40 years” in phrases of the amount of funded assignments.

“I think we have funded 80-plus FCT tasks from Sweden around the decades. Above $200 million invested by [the office of the secretary of defense] for those people initiatives, and possibly 30-plus of individuals have led to a procurement or to fielding. And which is with a price range, a procurement acquisition, of like $1.5 billion. So, Sweden has carried out very properly over the many years for the reason that they’ve experienced genuinely superior technologies that have been better in several conditions than we have listed here,” Streett claimed.

Mandated by Congress with yearly funding, FCT is a application via which DOD can companion with allies to “save money on the growth of systems and methods where the foreign organization has already used a considerable sum of money” to create the process, according to Streett.

Officers are wanting for prototypes to check and potentially receive that can deliver capabilities a U.S. armed forces support might not nonetheless have — or solutions to current selections that are cheaper or superior. 

Although hypersonic missiles, for instance, are beyond the scope of usual FCT initiatives, Streett stated the crew is on the lookout for something along the lines of “a chip that goes into something, it could be a new piece of dealing with gear for logistics, it could be a system that screens chemical agents or radiation.”

He and his colleagues saw some of people systems on their trip to Sweden earlier this thirty day period. 

The FCT officers expended a working day with Saab to discuss digital warfare and maritime technologies, and and also satisfied with 20 other firms.

“Just to give you an notion, there have been two corporations that make significant-power steel, a third that works by using additive manufacturing for 3D printing substantial-power metal for really tough applications. [There was] a handheld chemical detector … radiation detectors, and an unexpected emergency oxygen program that allowed a re-breathing capability so you really don’t have to just take a giant canister of oxygen wherever you go,” Streett mentioned.

He pointed out that the team also visited Finland, Norway and Denmark on their trip to have interaction these nations about technology.

Finland is also thinking of joining NATO in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.


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