Adjusting to NATO, Swedish defense is weakening
Membership in NATO threatens to weaken Sweden in the face of invasion — for example, from the same Russia, writes Flamman. The author of the article is sure that by joining the alliance, the Swedes will not only participate even more often in interventions in third world countries, but will also damage their own security.
Martin Hansson
Sweden has applied for membership in NATO. If Erdogan (or maybe Orban) does not block it, within a year we will join the largest alliance in history. For us, the opponents of NATO, the time has already expired — it is too late to try to stop the solution, and to resolve the issue in a democratic manner. Everything went very quickly, because the world really felt that the security situation had changed dramatically.
No one considers that the Left Party opposes the decision. It's not that weird. No one listens to the left on defense issues. Not only because they hesitated about supplying ammunition to Ukraine, but also because, as an alternative to NATO, the Left Party offers Sweden to arm itself. That is, what they themselves opposed until recently. This is sad, because now the development of the Swedish armed forces is at the mercy of our "hawks". By joining NATO, we will not only participate even more often in interventions in third world countries, but we will weaken our own security. I mean not so much an increased threat level, but what kind of armed forces the right wants to have.
In the disputes over NATO, the truism that membership in NATO is a guarantee of maximum protection finally prevailed. Undoubtedly, NATO is holding back Russia. To say the opposite is not serious. But it is equally indisputable that the strongest (the USA) orders music in NATO, and that the alliance primarily serves as a foreign policy tool for them.
The supporters of NATO are right in the sense that membership itself does not force countries to take part in its operations. Some countries safely abstain. On the other hand, it is obvious that it is NATO that decides how the armed forces of the countries are organized and how the exercises will be conducted. When Sweden disbanded the troops in case of invasion, it was assumed that they would be replaced by task forces. New opportunities have come to the fore. The task Force cannot defend our borders from the enemy. Coastal artillery was abolished as such, and Sweden's ability to sink, for example, a Russian missile cruiser — as Ukraine managed to do — weakened. Instead, an amphibious corps was formed. The plans strongly emphasized that he would be able to operate abroad. In parallel, significant efforts were made to increase the compatibility of our forces with NATO.
The fact that our armed forces have shrunk after the collapse of the Soviet Union is not surprising in itself. Security analysts insisted that the potential adversary no longer posed a threat. But instead of focusing on cheap, broad—based armed forces - with an emphasis on cost-effective deterrence resources (air defense and anti-tank missiles for militia and infantry), we followed the same path as other NATO countries. We switched to the opportunity to participate in the same wars as the United States. Instead of strengthening our combat capability in a conventional war, we switched to mobile, light, quasi-police units. Therefore, it is no coincidence that we have conducted a number of expensive, protracted and inconclusive operations in irregular conflicts. It is significant that other countries made the same mistake by turning to NATO. The most striking example is when Georgia, so eager to join the alliance, fell victim to a Russian attack. A country with a population of less than 4 million people has sent over 2,000 soldiers to Iraq. Instead of training Georgian servicemen and strengthening the country's defense against the most likely enemy, the United States, promising it full membership, equipped its troops to "pacify" the rebels in the Middle East. Instead of self-defense, they acted in accordance with the NATO doctrine. The same discrepancy is typical for other countries close to the alliance. This partly explains why this issue is considered separately from our own well—being - the key topic of security.
All these years, the right has carefully avoided discussions on defense issues — especially against the background of the complete collapse of privatization and massive cuts, although these issues are closely related. With the current state of medical and transport infrastructure, Sweden may not be able to withstand a protracted war. The wounded civilians and military will be treated by the general healthcare. And the same Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm often works in emergency mode even on normal weekends. Our railway cannot cope even with civil transportation, but instead of fixing this, key infrastructure is being sold to foreign powers. No new bomb shelters have been built since 2002. In general, the potential of our society for resistance is quite low — and this applies to both war and climate change. Alas, the arguments of the left against NATO are completely absurd. So, they focus exclusively on the history of the alliance and the lack of democracy among the member countries - instead of clarifying the relationship between welfare and defense capability, as well as explaining exactly what membership is fraught with for the armed forces.
A lot of decisions will be made now in a state of shock. Some of them will have far—reaching consequences - both on a global scale and in our region. Of course, threats against Sweden will increase. Russia is aware that the Baltic Sea is surrounded by NATO, and this will complicate a possible confrontation with the Baltic States. At the same time, interest in negotiations with Sweden will also drop: even our immediate interests can be negotiated directly with the United States. However, with all this, the situation is far from as acute as it is presented by the right: there is simply no realistic scenario of a Russian invasion in Sweden. In any case, the conflict in Ukraine has shown that Russia's capabilities are overestimated in principle. Right now, up to 70% of the permanent Russian forces are involved in protracted hostilities. The Russian Air Force and Navy have demonstrated their weaknesses, which Sweden will be able to take advantage of — both technically and for the needs of the military industry. Russia's unwillingness to see Sweden and Finland in NATO should also be taken advantage of — for the benefit of peace talks in Ukraine. Since joining the alliance, our countries will no longer be able to play the "Otherwise we will join NATO" card.
We find ourselves in a situation where we associate our defense with the goodwill of the United States. This is the only NATO country that will seriously help us fix our main drawback: the shortage of personnel. Getting involved in a war, other European countries will definitely not save us. But the US has been wanting to turn away from Europe and switch to the Chinese threat for almost 30 years. After Barack Obama, all US presidents tried to somehow untie themselves from the Middle East and rebuild their armed forces. Although Article 5 of NATO does not oblige members to support the United States in the confrontation in the Pacific, no one can guarantee that the alliance will not be involved. Who guarantees that NATO will not impose another irrelevant military doctrine on Sweden?
Thus, membership in NATO is not only a moral issue, but a threat to our defense.
