Svea Life Guards dates back to the year 1521, when the men of Dalarna chose 16 young able men as body guards for the insurgent nobleman Gustav Vasa in the Swedish War of Liberation against the Danish-dominated Union of Kalmar, thus making the present-day Life Guards one of the world's oldest regiments still on active duty. In 1901, Sweden introduced conscription. The conscription system was abolished in 2010, but reinstated in 2017. Organisation: The peace-time organisation of the Swedish Army is divided into a number of regiments for the different branches. The number of active regiments has been reduced since the end of the Cold War. The regiment forms training organizations that train the various battalions of the army and home guard. The Swedish Armed Forces recently underwent a transformation from conscription-based recruitment to a professional defence organisation. This is part of a larger goal to abandon the mass army from the Cold War and develop an army better suited to modern maneuver warfare and at the same time retain a higher readiness. Since 2014, the Swedish army has had around 50,000 soldiers in either full-time or part-time duty, with eight mechanized infantry battalions instantly available at any time and the full force of 71 battalions ready to be deployed within one week. The regular army consists of 8 mechanised maneuver battalions, 19 support battalions of different kinds including artillery battalions, anti-aircraft battalions, combat engineer battalions, rangers, logistics battalions and 4 reserve heavy armoured battalions and 40 territorial defence battalions. The battalion is the core unit but all units are completely modular and can be arranged in combat teams from company to brigade level with different units depending on the task. There are a total of 6 permanent staffs under the central command capable of handling large battlegroups, 4 regional staffs and 2 brigade staffs. Sweden has contributed to ISAF since the beginning of 2002. Originally, ISAF was tasked with assisting in maintaining security in the region around Kabul, the capital. At the end of March 2003 the UN mandate on which ISAF 's operations are based was altered. A new UN resolution (1510) gives ISAF a greater role and its mandate was enlarged to apply to all of Afghanistan. ISAF then established Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in various areas. Initially Sweden contributed personnel to the British PRT in Mazar-e-Sharif. In March 2006 Sweden took over the leadership of PRT Mazar-e-Sharif with responsibility for four provinces in northern Afghanistan. Since then responsibility for security has been gradually transferred to the Afghan authorities. In 2012 the whole of the Swedish force in northern Afghanistan came under civilian leadership. At the same time the contribution was given a new name: Transition Support Team (TST). The TST consists of a civilian and a military unit. At that point the formal leadership of the Swedish involvement was transferred to the highest civilian representative in northern Afghanistan, Ambassador Henrik Landerholm, who is, however, not entitled to make military decisions.

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