Slovenia

the Slovenian Armed Forces (Slovenska Vojska or SV) are responsible for the defense of the country’s sovereignty and territory, deterring external threats, and contributing to European security and other international peacekeeping missions; the SV is also active in civil-military cooperation, such as the maintenance of local infrastructure; Slovenia has been a member of the EU and NATO since 2004, and one of the SV’s key missions is fulfilling the country’s commitments to NATO, including equipment modernization, participating in training exercises, and contributing to NATO operations; the SV provides troops to NATO’s efforts to enhance its presence in the Baltics (Latvia) and Eastern Europe (Slovakia); it has also participated in other international security missions with small numbers of personnel in such places as Africa, southern Europe, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Middle East; NATO allies Hungary and Italy provide air policing for Slovenia the SV was formally established in 1993 as a reorganization of the Slovenia Defense Force; the Defense Force, along with the Slovenian police, comprised the majority of the forces that engaged with the Yugoslav People’s Army during the 10-Day War after Slovenia declared its independence in 1991 (2025)

110 Kosovo (NATO); up to 200 Slovakia (NATO) (2025)

Slovenian Armed Forces (Slovenska Vojska, SV): structured as a combined force with air, land, maritime, and special operations components Ministry of Interior: National Police (2025)

18-30 years of age for voluntary military service for men and women; recruits sign up for 3-, 5-, or 10-year service contracts; no conscription (2026)

note: as of 2025, women comprised about 16% of the military's full-time personnel

the military's inventory is a mix of Soviet/Cold War-era and smaller quantities of more modern, mostly Western equipment; Slovenia is in the midst of a modernization program to replace its Soviet-era equipment with NATO-standard European and US systems (2025)

approximately 6,000 active military personnel (2025)