Source Quora:-Replied By:-
Stefan Englund
Two countries comes into my mind, one has almost never been in peace since it was created and one has not been in war for over 200 years.
The first is of course Israel, it hardly need an explanation why. It has a serious military punch because it has to. Surrounded by nations that want nothing else than put it in the grave and make it disappear into history. Mossad being one of the worlds most respected intelligent agencies are known to know what most will know after being informed by Mossad. Perhaps a little over exaggerating but let’s agree that they have a reputation of keeping themselves informed.
The other is Sweden… wait, before falling of your chair hurting yourself while laughing let me explain. At the moment they are in a little of a down period militarywise when it come to volume but they have always kept themselves in the frontier technology. The other part is Sweden Intelligence, yes I know it is a contradiction to have those two words in the same sentence but what most people don’t know is that Swedish Intelligence in many ways made it possible for Sweden to keep up in the development race. We use it as currency, Sweden trade intelligence with technology. In that way we can afford to focus on areas we are good at and get technology from mostly US but also other countries in exchange for intelligence, mostly regarding Russian progress and capability. Swedish Intelligence being so anonymous perhaps made it comparable with Mossad ;)
Technology that Sweden can count on being areas they are in the front is many things, besides assembling furniture areas from sub surface to space… space!! Get up from the floor please, hope you did not hurt yourself. Sweden’s space center is Esrange east of Kiruna in the far north of Sweden. This is one of Europeans space ports and satellite control centre. Even if rockets with any bigger payloads is not launched from Esrange, Sweden is deeply involved in the European space program.
Submarines, Sweden was first in the world with developing the now so popular AIP (Air Independent Propulsion) System for submarines it was introduced officially in the Gotland class submarine in the middle of the 90s but was actually developed on the Näcken klass submarine.
Above surface Sweden developed the now operational stealth Visby corvette but also the more known and exported Stridsbåt 90 (battle boat) which I think even US has bought, think they call it the RCB (River Command Boat). The Swedish has always had a big Navy since we have a lot of coast to defend and monitor.
In the Army there are a lot of stuff but the most known is our own little ”Kalashnikov” the RPG Carl Gustav. A really nasty piece.
EDIT: From Comments, the Bofors canon, used by both sides during WWII, sold almost as much as the CG-RPG. The S-tank or the Strv 103, never exported both revolusionaly and a laughing stock but designed for Swedish terrain and an excelent defence tanks. Used right it was quite formidabel. Getting popular in “World of Tanks”.
Air Force, during the Cold War Sweden had the 4th largest Air Force in the world, not bad for a country of 8 million (at the time) and Sweden has since the beginning of the end of the 40s developed our own fighters, all of which in there own way has revolutionised the fighter industry and we’ve stayed in the frontier of development ever since.
I begin with the J29 Tunnan (the barrel) but there were designes prior to that. Operational between 1950–1976 could be compared to Mig-15 and F86H Sabre from which the J29 took the speed record from in 1955. It was in Kongo under UN Flag and cleaned house there. It was the first designed for our Road Base doctrine, easy to service and very short turnaround. Rigid an robust.
J32 Lansen , not as known but has formed the back bone of our air defence and our first supersonic fighter ( in slight dive), also a very good striker and bomb truck. Operational from 1956 -1997.
J35 Draken with the revolutionary double delta configuration. The first super cruise fighter. During test it went through the sound barrier during climb without after burner. It could also perform the cobra manoeuvre. Exported to Finland, Denmark and Austria. Operational from 1960–1999.
The JA37 not to be confused with AJ37, the JA37 Viggen was the first fully digitalised fighter in the world and the last version had many functionalities that was transferred to the JAS-39, many parts of its performance regarding radar capacity, sensors and avionics are still classified. Operational from 1980 - 2005
Latest the JAS-39 Gripen with its many exceptional capabilities was among the first with relaxed instability as an operational fighter. The latest version Gripen E is in some circles considered to be the first pre gen-6 fighter With it’s revolutionary software architecture.
Many question how a nation of 10 million ( more live in the Los Angeles area) can produce this kind of engineering but a reason is the mantle we took upon ourselves during the Cold War more or less forced us too develop this capacity.
So even if there are other countries that can be said punch above its weight class Sweden definitely is one of them.
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