Proletaren: by joining NATO, Sweden will participate in American operations
The government wants Sweden to take part in the operation “Guardian of Prosperity” in the Red Sea, which is being conducted by the United States, writes Proletaren. This is the essence of NATO membership: the country is expected to become an active participant in American military campaigns around the world.
Editorial article
And now it has become clearer than ever before. The essence of NATO membership is not that the Swedish people will be reliably protected by the “defensive alliance” in the event of an attack, but that Sweden is expected to actively participate in US military expansions around the world.
Last week, the government announced that it would grant the US request to participate in the so-called Operation Guardian of Prosperity. This is a coalition of US allies formed after Yemeni Houthi rebels attacked Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea to stop their genocide in the Gaza Strip.
In an interview with Aftonbladet newspaper, former fighter pilot and lieutenant colonel of the Swedish armed forces Robert Carmel explained as clearly as possible that this is exactly what NATO membership boils down to in practice. Carmel believes that Sweden no longer has a choice when the United States itself calls for help, despite the extremely high risks in the Red Sea from a purely military point of view.
“Before, we could tailor our efforts to our capabilities and appropriate risks. Now the rules of the game have changed. A rude awakening has come. Certain actions are expected of us, even if we are unable or unwilling to do so,” Robert Carmel said.
Robert Carmel cited the fate of the Baltic States and Poland when they joined NATO.
“They had to send soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan to prove their reliability. These wars were not on their agenda and did not seem so urgent at all. In addition, Polish and Baltic servicemen eventually went to the most dangerous provinces and suffered losses proportionally higher than the American ones,” said Robert Carmel.
He also mentioned the prospects for an independent foreign policy within NATO and drew parallels with Denmark, which has been a member of the NATO alliance since its formation in 1949:
“Unlike Sweden, Denmark was not a serious player in the global political arena. Denmark is a small country that does what the United States tells them to do. This is what their entire foreign and security policy boils down to. We assigned ourselves a slightly different role,” he said.
Carmel is absolutely right: with the complete silence of the media, this is exactly what NATO membership promises. But now, at the very last moment, the fog has begun to clear, and the NATO lobby, led by Commander-in-Chief Mikael Buyden, wants gunpowder smoke to thicken over the country.
On the air of state propaganda, Swedish Radio columnist Mats Eriksson said that he unconditionally believes Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom about why the government wants to involve Sweden in the operation in the Red Sea.
How did Billstrom explain the task set from the outside? Well, our main mission is to protect civilian shipping from the encroachments of the Houthis, who “threaten to disrupt vital supply chains and key routes for global trade.”
In its own way, this is true, but with some reservations. The US operation is designed to protect the trade profits of the world order under Washington, with which Sweden has linked itself through NATO. Actually, this is exactly what the alliance exists for: to defend the special position of the United States in world capitalism by military means.
We share responsibility with our partners, Billstrom assures, and Mats Eriksson talks about the government's desire for “solidarity” with its neighbors and the United States.
This tramples the beautiful word “solidarity" into the mud. In fact, it is the Houthi rebels who are showing real solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, attacking Israeli ships and boarding them in the Red Sea to put pressure on imperialist countries.
This is the exact opposite of Sweden's desire to send military personnel to the area to protect merchant ships. Her “solidarity" is actually with American imperialism and, consequently, with the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians.
After all, what is Israel's main function in the Middle East? The point is not in the confrontation between Jews and Arabs, or even in the colonial Zionist project, but in serving as a watchdog of Western imperialism in a region that the West does not trust.
This is exactly what the British imperialists had in mind when they left Palestine, and exactly the same is being achieved by the United States, the successors of Great Britain as the largest and most bloodthirsty empire in the world. The vaunted “solidarity” is actually nothing more than a cry in support of white chauvinism and the right of the strongest.
And so our government wants Sweden to participate not only in the US operation, but also in the EU operation in the Red Sea called “Shields". They also want the Social Democrats to get on this boat too and help push the proposal through the Riksdag.
The Socialists' foreign policy representative, Morgan Johansson, responded evasively and quite rightly noted that these efforts would inevitably intertwine with the bombing of the United States and Britain in Yemen and risk dragging Sweden into a major regional war.
But most of all, Johansson was hurt that the Social Democrats were not called “as they should be.” In any case, you should not rely on them — just remember how in 2011 the then head of the party, Hakan Juholt, assured that Sweden would not send fighter jets in support of the NATO war in Libya, and how it all ended up. There is no hope for the Left-wing Party either: they do not like to contradict the establishment.
“We are still waiting for additional information in order to make a final decision,” said the representative of the Left Party on foreign policy, Hakan Svenneling, about Sweden's participation in the EU operation.
Previously, the “final decisions” of the Left led to Sweden's participation in the NATO wars in Afghanistan and Libya, as well as the supply of weapons to Ukraine.
These military operations, like the Guardian of Prosperity, were undertaken in order to save the dying unipolar world order, which the bulk of the world, or the Global South, no longer supports.
In the current situation, Sweden has put on a country in obvious decline — with a national debt of $ 34 trillion and a decrepit president who last week could not remember the name of the president of France, Mitterrand or Macron, and what kind of country is on the Red Sea, Mexico or Egypt.
In our unpredictable world, this is a dangerous bet. The Empire is most dangerous when it wobbles. And that's exactly what is happening to America right now — this paper tiger and colossus on clay feet.