A Swedish Marine with the 2nd Amphibious Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment looks through a Leonardo DRS Individual Weapon System thermal sight during a demonstration on camouflage and concealment as part of exercise Archipelago Endeavor 25 in Berga, Sweden, Aug. 27, 2025. Exercise Archipelago Endeavor 25 increases compatible interoperability between the U.S. Marine Corps and Swedish Amphibious Forces by executing combined amphibious operations in and around the Baltic Sea littorals. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Frank Sepulveda Torres)

A new Swedish Defence University thesis by Arvid Edén, Upplevd Sammanhållning Inom Försvarsmakten, examines military cohesion not just as “team spirit,” but as a form of social capital built through trust, shared norms, and relationships inside the Swedish Armed Forces. The work is a 2026 War Studies thesis in the Officers Programme.

The study’s central point is that cohesion is not automatic in military organisations. It has to be produced through credible leadership, trust, and social bonds that make soldiers see one another and the organisation as worth relying on. The study is based on four Swedish military/internal personnel documents.

The prioritized problem areas across all reports were monetary compensation, working environment, and skills development. Problem areas that received less attention but were still identified in some reports were bureaucracy, comradeship, and gender equality. These six themes therefore form the basis for the study’s analysis and comparison.

The study notes:

An interesting angle is also the sense of injustice that arises between generations. The fact that one’s siblings or relatives have not completed conscription is presented as an injustice. If they did not have to do military service, why must I? This also creates friction in relation to the theory of social capital and the concept of duty.

If the duty is not rooted in society, and therefore is not understood as an obligation that must be fulfilled, this may indicate that the Swedish Armed Forces lacks social capital among conscripts. This also highlights the external problem linked to motivation. How is a conscripted army to be motivated if the duty itself is not rooted in society? This creates a dilemma for social capital in society, which in turn affects cohesion within the Swedish Armed Forces.

Furthermore, the Swedish Armed Forces’ report states: “Those who have undergone basic training through conscription constitute the main recruitment base for military personnel” (Swedish Armed Forces 2025, p. 130). If the idea of unfair monetary compensation for one’s work is so deeply rooted in the group from which most personnel are recruited, with the exception of civilian employees, then this brings expectations and norms into the organization. This could suggest that it creates an environment for conflict.

The Swedish Armed Forces’ recruitment base is the conscription organization. If the focus is not placed on motivating and creating cohesion within that personnel category, there is a risk that motivation across the entire Swedish Armed Forces will suffer. This problem of compensation as motivation is also partly found among those who choose to leave the Swedish Armed Forces.

Conscription’s cheap labour might be undermining then the entire Swedish defence force cohesion.

Another conscription specific cohesion problem that comes up in the study relates to the costs of training the unwilling.

“This perspective creates an interesting contrast with the scale on which the Swedish Armed Forces, as an agency, needs to operate. To some extent, the Swedish Armed Forces must take responsibility for developing those individuals who want to develop. At the same time, it must also develop those who do not necessarily want to be there, which places high demands on educational methodology and the competence of commanders.

The Conscription Council (2025, p. 3) also highlights this as a problem linked to motivation. General conscription means that it is no longer possible to handpick individuals. Instead, conscripts who do not want to complete military service must also be trained so that they can be assigned to wartime positions.

This is a major problem for cohesion within the Swedish Armed Forces. If the organization cannot create meaningful training and skills development for everyone within it, this will have a negative impact on cohesion, in line with what King (2006), Siebold (2007), and Smith (2025) have argued.”

Interestingly, there seems to be a gender divide in what causes armed forces personnel to leave. For women, this is mostly about a lack of career development opportunities. Men:

“to a greater extent, leave because of pay (Exit Surveys 2025, p. 55). On the one hand, both of these problem areas fall under other parts of the analysis linked to monetary compensation and skills development. On the other hand, they could also point to a difference in social capital between the sexes, where men consider compensation more important, which in theory could mean lower social capital among men.

The difference between the sexes also creates a problem in itself when viewed in terms of cohesion. If both sexes experienced cohesion in the same way, the gender equality issue could be dismissed. Since the difference still exists, this shows that there is a difference in cohesion between the sexes.”

Overall, this is a brilliant study that managed to find some unique perspectives on the damage to social cohesion. Highly recommended.

Read the entire study through the following link.

Edén, Arvid. Upplevd sammanhållning inom Försvarsmakten: En tolkande studie kring militära organisationer och socialt kapital. Swedish Defence University, 2026. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:2072716/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Abstract: This thesis examines how problems regarding cohesion are understood in official statements and reports from the SAF (Swedish Armed Forces) and in employee and conscript surveys. Based in James S. Coleman’s theory of social capital, it uses an abductive research design and the WPR method (What is the problem represented to be) to analyze and compare framing across the SAF yearly review, the Conscript Council yearly review, and employee satisfaction surveys. The results indicate a difference between how the SAF views certain internal problems and how employees, surveys, and conscription reports view them. The largest discrepancies concern salaries and the workplace environment, where SAF leadership views most issues as marginal,
while the rest of the organization sees them as institutional problems. This suggests a fragmented view of the problems, which, according to the theory, could signal weaker social capital that may affect organizational cohesion and trust. This thesis contributes to the study of military organizations by examining different perspectives on the organizational challenges that affect employee development and cohesion. The results show that a more unified view of organizational issues could benefit SAF development in the long term.