Swedish armed forces conducting readiness drills in the Baltic region © Swedish Armed Forces/Joel Thungren
It was Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States (1901-1909) who said that: “With a great moral issue involved, neutrality does not serve righteousness; for to be neutral between right and wrong is to serve wrong.” If anyone in Russia wants to work out exactly why neighbouring Sweden has dropped its traditional neutrality in international affairs, there’s the answer, right there. If you want to close the book on a country’s traditional neutrality, simply attack its neighbours and send military combat aircraft into its airspace uninvited. Overturning that long-held peaceful position after two centuries of not “taking sides” was quite an achievement. Sweden’s neutrality began in the Napoleonic Wars, after all. It joined NATO only in March 2024, making clear where its sympathies and allegiance lie, should a conflict arise.
It was certainly a highly significant move for the Swedes, as Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson made clear in his address to the nation. “This is an epoch-making event for our country,” he said. “After more than 200 years of non-participation in military alliances, Sweden has taken the step to become part of the Western defence community. Together, we are stronger and more secure.” If you listen carefully, you can almost hear Vladimir Putin’s teeth gnashing, although he might have foreseen this development if he had thought about it. Sweden lost Finland to Russia after the Great Northern War of the early 18th century but nevertheless concluded that neutrality would be the best way forward. Its latest move, to join up with the alliance, follows earlier hints of where its sympathies lay, Sweden having joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace agreement back in 1994 and hence starting to participate in NATO exercises, which led to specialised training for its military forces and their participation in various interoperability and preparedness programmes. But full membership comes as a direct result of Russian aggression and threats and makes clear to the world where Stockholm’s sympathies lie.
There are fears that Russia may seek to interfere in the Baltic Sea region, possibly seeking to take over the so-called Suwałki Gap, a Polish possession between Russian-owned Kaliningrad and Belarus, even if local sympathies there are likely to be on Russia’s side. There has been a general tendency towards the militarisation of Europe in response to Russia’s ill-founded aggression. Europe has even drawn up plan for a “war economy”, which involves higher spending on defence, as well as on energy and supply-chain security. It also involves greater incentives for Europe’s various arms manufacturers to step up production of armaments and to develop new ones. When crisis comes (as seems increasingly likely) the demand for military hardware designed and made in Europe must increase. And what is more, Sweden is only too well aware of their country’s close proximity to Russia. The bid to join the Alliance has widespread support amongst an increasingly nervous public; according to a poll, 68% of Swedes declared themselves in favour of the move. It’s hardly surprising (the Kremlin is hardly subtle about its intentions): Russia has deployed landing craft through the Great Belt Strait, obliging Sweden to increase its military presence on the Island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. The Swedes are hoping that membership of NATO will discourage this adventurism on Moscow’s part. It will be in Sweden’s best interests to reassure the Russians that membership of the alliance is a purely defensive measure that in no way threatens Russia and that access to the Baltic Sea remains – and will continue to remain – open. However, Sweden’s long-held commitment to neutrality ended with Russia’s full-scale and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia may well claim that NATO is trying to encircle it, but it views any attempts at defence as an act of open aggression.
| PROTECT AND SURVIVE
What does Sweden bring to the alliance? It brings Gotland, as I mentioned, which could prove to be a vital hub in event of reinforcements being deployed, but it also produces very high-quality military hardware, such as Sweden’s impressive Gripen fighter jets. It also has some pretty powerful, fast and well-armed submarines. NATO leaders hope that Sweden’s decision to join will help to persuade other waverers, such as Austria and Ireland to sign up, too. Not surprisingly, Russia has responded to Swedish membership with increased military manoeuvres, fearing (according to Moscow’s claims) that NATO is trying to encircle it. Sweden, for its part, fears further aggressive moves by Moscow. “Through the support of the international community,” said Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in his address to the country, “Ukraine daily demonstrates its impressively strong will to defend itself. But Ukraine is not only fighting for its own independence, it is fighting for our right to determine our future, for everyone’s right not to be invaded and oppressed by countries like Russia.” Putin, of course, is oblivious to such concerns and seems to believe that independent countries would love to be ruled from Moscow. Sorry, Vlad; that’s simply untrue. It wasn’t an attempt to replace what he called “a NAZI regime” with something better. It was, quite simply, a war of subjugation and extinguishment against Ukraine. Sweden, until then, had observed neutrality, although its sympathies lay with the West. Like several other countries, it saw Russia’s unprovoked aggression as the biggest threat to peace in Europe since the Second World War.
Another reason for Sweden feeling nervous about Russia is its commitment to nuclear energy, upon which Sweden’s climate policy depends. It aims to bring on-line two new reactors by 2035 and a further ten new reactors by 2045. An energy policy based on it being 100% fossil-free and renewable was brought in when the current government came to power in 2022. Its aim is an energy policy that creates no pollution at all, and that plan relies on nuclear power. It’s a massive change of direction for Sweden, which held a referendum on the subject in 1980, when the people voted that no new nuclear reactors would be constructed, while existing ones would be phased out by 2010. It didn’t happen, of course, and the European Commission, in common with the Stockholm government, now see the construction of nuclear power plants as a “green investment”.
NATO membership undoubtedly caused an escalation in the tensions between Finland and Russia, which now says it regards Finland as “an unfriendly country which means measures against us,”. But even if NATO membership leads to increased threats from Moscow in the short term, there are hopes that the alliance cooperation will strengthen the members’ military preparedness in the long term, according to both Finnish and Swedish authorities. The threats have already been made. Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometre border with Russia, joined NATO in 2023, soon after Russia began its so-called “special operation” (which seems to be Putin-language for “full-scale invasion”) in February 2022. Moscow accused the West of “dragging Finland into the military alliance just to cause a rift between Moscow and Helsinki, although that rift was very clearly caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Putin invariably fails to see what’s obvious if it doesn’t match his world view. He appears to think he should run the world, or at least Europe.
We have to hope he never gets to fulfil his ambition, or his dream could become our nightmare. Perhaps he should try his hand at fiction writing; he clearly has a vivid imagination. In December, Finland closed its border with Russia, with the Finnish authorities accusing Moscow of carrying out a suspected “hybrid attack”, purposefully assisting undocumented migrants to cross its border, which Russia has denied, of course. Similarly hostile activity on Russia’s part may await the Swedes.
Perhaps we should really liken Putin to the trolls of Scandinavian folklore. These giants, who were the enemies of Norse gods, lived in the mountains of Utgard and maintained a vaguely human-like appearance, although they were huge and ugly. Most of the stories about them stress their stupidity, although they lived (it’s said) in castles high in the mountains or deep in the forests. And, of course, we must not forget the dreaded Kraken, which seems to have been in effect a giant squid, albeit one that seems to have been dreaded on land as well as sea. Some of these monsters have found their way into popular children’s stories, such as Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series. Monstrous they undoubtedly were, but they didn’t actually exist, of course (as far as I know). Unfortunately, Putin does, despite being at least as monstrous as the creatures of Scandinavia folk tales and far more ambitious for power. My favourite Scandinavian folk creature is the Huldra, or Tallemaja, a beautiful forest-dwelling woman with a cow’s tail (which she hid when she met humans), who was known for her wild ways. She even crops up in the Adam and Eve story, as one of the children they had but chose to hide. Actually, she seems to have been, in the legends, considerably nicer and much less dangerous than Putin.
| STRASNGERS AND NEWCOMERS
Immigration has become a growing issue in Sweden over recent years. Today, one in five Swedes were born outside the country. That’s two million out of a population of around ten million, while almost a quarter of Swedes have two foreign parents. In large cities, the proportion is even higher. Indeed, one in three Swedes is said to have at least one foreign parent. According to “The Critic” publication, “the demographic mix has evolved so that it’s now close to that of the former colonial powers, such as France and Great Britain.”
In an odd sort of way, perhaps that also accounts for changes in the composition of that immigration. Half a century or so ago, the incomers were people seeking work, mainly from neighbouring Finland. Now, however, it’s mainly people from Africa and the Middle East who are seeking a new life in the land of ABBA, IKEA and Volvo. Immigration has been increasing, too.
Sweden may once have been home to the Vikings, who were not known for having a peaceful attitude towards the world in general, but Sweden’s social democracy, that blossomed after the Second World War, was based on progressive ideals and has led to a country and a people largely at peace, if a little warily.
Now, instead of tring to take over the world by force of arms, its athletes compete successfully for honours. Sports personalities like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Björn Borg and Ingemar Johansson are conquering the world but in a rather more peaceful way, without using swords, chain mail or battleaxes, even if one can still do a lot of personal damage with a pair of football boots, a tennis racket or a pair of boxing gloves (just in case you were wondering what those sports personalities were famous for or had forgotten!).
Unfortunately, Sweden’s “open door” policy towards immigration has come at a cost. Inequality has evolved, even if not quite so severely as in some other countries, but there has also been an explosion in violent crime, with the highest rate of gun-related violence in Europe. In 2022, more than 60 people were shot dead in the country and there were 88 bombings. Even schools in Sweden are now finding a big upsurge in the number of pupils who don’t speak Swedish, which had never been the case before, although it had long been a familiar problem in, say, France and the UK. In a number of Swedish cities, some neighbourhoods are now disproportionately inhabited by immigrants and the numbers of violent crimes are on the rise. Two or three decades ago, the most common type of homicide would have been committed by a drunkard at the victim’s home, or else in a street fight involving alcohol or drugs. Now most of them are gang-related. In September 2022 alone, eleven people were killed in this way out of a population of just 10.5-million, and it’s said that the killers often get the wrong house or misidentify the intended victims, killing people who were not only innocent but who had no connection with the intended target. However, to criticise the immigration policy and the influx of immigrants is regarded as racist and strongly discouraged. Right-wing parties are talking about repatriation, but that is unlikely to find much favour. Meanwhile, the social problems continue, as does the crime wave, despite increased penalties for a number of criminal offences and increased resources for police forces facing crime on a daily basis, as well as trying to prevent the arrival of low-skilled asylum seekers. Sweden’s experience with running an open democracy and open-door immigration policies is not, nor ever can be, problem-free.
| LONGER-TERM PROBLEMS NEED LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS
Sweden’s decision to join the Alliance should be seen as part of a general trend in Europe towards militarisation, spurred on by a fear of Russian territorial ambitions. But at least the people of Sweden can dream of a better, less threatened future. “I dream, therefore I exist,” wrote the great Swedish novelist and playwright August Strindberg. With Russia getting increasingly warlike next door, it may seem more like a nightmare now. There again Strindberg is best known for writing a book about the afterlife, in which he clearly believed. Given the current circumstances perhaps that’s a sound idea.
The international policing organisation Interpol points out that Sweden’s location makes it attractive to criminal gangs. On its website is explains: “Sweden is mainly a destination and transit country. This applies to drugs, firearms, and the trafficking and smuggling of human beings.” The organisation publishes an on-line list of those it is seeking who are thought to be in Sweden. Meanwhile, Sweden has seen a worrying rise in gang crime, including paid assassinations. Sky News interviewed one young killer in a park in Uppsala. The man, who can’t be named, said: “”If you shoot somebody in the leg, you’ll get 50,000 krona (€4,380),” he says. “Before, if you were going to kill somebody, you got a million krona (roughly €90,000) – but now the prices are so low that everyone kills.” Hopefully, not quite everyone, or there’ll be nobody left. In fact, Sweden has just signed a pact with France to tackle crime jointly. “Together with France, we are now accelerating our efforts against organised crime,” said Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer. “The new agreement will improve our joint capability to prevent, detect and investigate serious crime, such as trafficking in drugs and arms, through increased exchange of information and cooperation.”
Sweden remains an attractive destination for migrants, despite the rise of far-right groups opposed to letting foreigners settle there.
Racism is a relatively new phenomenon in Sweden, but it’s very real, and the colour of a migrant’s skin has a seemingly profound effect on their prospects for finding a job. With the country having appeal for migrants from Muslim countries, Sweden is also seeing a rise in Islamophobia. The presence of so many Muslims has also led to an increase in anti-Semitism and far right neo-Nazi organisations like the Nordic Resistance Movement. Hitler would have been proud. According to Wikipedia, Anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism in Sweden are both rooted in the history of the Swedish colonization of the Indigenous Sámi people, the Swedish slave trade, and Swedish colonialism in Africa, North America, and Asia, as well as Swedish government promotion in earlier years of racist ideologies. They no longer do that, of course, pursuing a somewhat more liberal agenda these days.
But Sweden can also boast a much-admired armaments industry, and the growing tension with Russia is serving it well. In 2014, Sweden was the world’s third largest exporter of weapons, just behind Israel and Russia. With cumulative sales of some $14.3-billion (€13.38-billion), it’s the world’s 9th largest exporter of arms. In 2014, it was the third largest weapons exporter per capita at $53.1 per capita (€49.68 per capita), behind only Israel at $97.7 (€91.38) and Russia at $57.7 (€53.98), all of those figures are ‘per capita’, of course. From 2009 to 2019, it was the world’s ninth largest arms exporter in U.S. dollars with a cumulative value of $14.3 billion (€13.38-billion). For a peaceful country, committed to peace and supposedly opposed to war, that’s quite a record.
Sweden’s membership of NATO may prove busy. It recently had to scramble two of its excellent JAS-39 Gripen fighters to force a Russian SU-24 bomber, spotted in airspace over one of its Baltic islands, Gotland, to turn around and return to its base. The incursion was condemned by Sweden’s political leaders but that is unlikely to persuade the Kremlin to abandon such tactics. Russia has become the playground bully, always trying to throw its weight around. Analysts say the incident demonstrates that Putin doesn’t really want a nuclear war, but he wants to threaten NATO whenever he can, even if the Russian air force has nothing to match Sweden’s Gripen fighters. He should remember, of course, that it’s his aggressive actions that have led to Sweden joining NATO, which cannot have been an outcome he welcomed.
Like most countries – indeed, like ALL countries – Sweden has its problems, but it is dealing with them in a largely peaceful way, despite its burgeoning arms industry and problems with racism and organised crime. Putin and any other potential enemies must bear in mind that the land of the Vikings is not and never will be an easy mark. Its swords and battle axes remain sharp and ready for battle. And they’re not yet ready to go to Valhalla to rest from their warlike endeavours. For them, Ragnarök (Doomsday) has not yet arrived, so, led by Odin, they don’t need to go out and fight the ice giants. Not yet, anyway…
