Oscar Ljungmark is a Lieutenant Colonel and Battalion Commander at the 13th Security Battalion. In FSN Perspektiv, he describes how the battalion leads a composite battle group, ISR BG (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Battle Group), which primarily conducts national security operations. These have recently included the neutralisation of a drone over HMS Queen Elizabeth during the vessel's visit to Gothenburg (western Sweden), the incident that Lieutenant General Carl-Johan Edström, Commander of the Joint Operations Command, recently made public.

I, Oscar Ljungmark, am the Battalion Commander of the 13th Security Battalion. My aim with this article is to give a broader audience an understanding of what we in the Security Battalion do and what the purpose of our activities is.

The Security Battalion is a joint Swedish Armed Forces operational security unit with high materiel and personnel availability, capable of operating across the full conflict spectrum, from peacetime to armed attack and the grey zone in between. This means we are a unit with elements from the Army, the Air Force and the Navy, focused on military security and intelligence at the level below the highest strategic and political level. The unit constitutes an important component in Sweden's early warning chain and provides security intelligence to the operational level, primarily the Joint Operations Command (OPL), which directs the Swedish Armed Forces' operational activities. The Security Battalion thereby supports the Swedish Armed Forces' decision-makers with the necessary information to protect the Armed Forces' interests against security-threatening activities.

The battalion counters security-threatening activities by detecting and clarifying threats directed against the Swedish Armed Forces' priority protected values. A priority protected value is one of those parts of the defence's activities and organisation that is particularly important to keep protected from foreign powers. The aim of the tasks of detecting and clarifying is to reduce the effects of security threats against the Swedish Armed Forces and to decrease the Armed Forces' own vulnerabilities.

The Security Battalion supports military commanders, both preventively and in the moment, with both security intelligence and security protection services. In the longer term, following the development of regional security units, the Security Battalion will be able to reinforce these with operational capabilities.

The unit has a dispersed geographic disposition and shared production responsibility, with the majority based at the Life Guards (Livgardet) in Kungsängen (central Sweden). In addition, one company is based at Amphibious Regiment 4 (Amf 4) in Gothenburg (western Sweden) and one platoon at F16 in Uppsala (eastern Sweden). The various elements of the unit are subordinated to the Security Battalion Commander during operations and joint exercises. The unit's different parts thus belong to their regular regiments during the routine peacetime element of activities, while they fall under my command as Battalion Commander during active operations such as security operations.

Person-based collection, reconnaissance, surveillance, and exploitation of, for example, materiel finds, as well as the use of dogs as sensors in search and tracking operations, are among the capabilities the unit employs. It is above all the capability to lead security operations and then process the collected information into actionable intelligence that is the unit's hallmark. Leading security operations means coordinating several combat units with different capabilities and sensors to achieve greater effect, something we have carried out extensively since 2012 and in a more formalised manner since 2022.

In 2022, following developments in Ukraine, the Security Battalion was tasked with establishing an ISR command. ISR is an abbreviation for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, and describes a composite system of overlapping sensors. The purpose of this is to collect information using different capabilities and methods, thereby creating redundancy and enabling confirmation of the information gathered. This information is then processed to produce actionable intelligence. Our version of this took shape as a battle group, ISR BG, which, with support from various Swedish Armed Forces resources depending on the nature and requirements of the task, conducts security operations. This has been particularly successful, with other units continuously having personnel at the battalion's command post to ensure short response times and effective use of available sensors.

During 2023, ISR BG has to a significant degree been deployed to conduct security operations nationally and internationally, with the aim of meeting the Commander of the Joint Operations Command's intelligence requirements and protecting the Swedish Armed Forces' priority protected values. One example of this is the activity that included the neutralisation of the drone over HMS Queen Elizabeth. Our dynamic and unpredictable security environment also shapes the conduct of security operations, resulting in short lead times from when the need for an operation arises to its execution. One example of this is in connection with support to Ukraine.

A continuously high operational tempo within security operations affects the battalion's ability to focus on capability-enhancing activities such as training and exercises. However, the conduct of security operations is vital for raising the unit's capability and serves as a catalyst for maintaining and developing our own capacity. The extensive use of the Security Battalion contributes to an attractive workplace with stimulating tasks...