Showing posts with label defense policy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label defense policy. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Bock & The Russians (Updated)

I am probably a Russophobe. I have a profound and insistent belief that president Vladimir "Little Father" Putin, his fanboy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev and the rest of the present Russian leadership wish to expand the Russian hegemony over their neighboring countries (like Ukraine, Finland, the Baltic states and also Sweden).
Trump & Putin by Liutauras Strimaltis
In 2013 the (then) Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces admitted that in 2023 Sweden would not be able to defend itself longer than seven days against a concerted attack by an enemy (and "an enemy" for your information is Swedish code for the Russians) against any given target, until 2023 the time frame was shorter.

The Russian people, as a collective, seem to share the notion of being Biggest, Best and Most Beautiful with a god given or historical right to subjugate the rest of the world, much like the Americans today. (Just as the British and French people in the 18th and 19th centuries and perhaps also the Swedish people - in the time of our former glory - in the 15th and 16th centuries.)

Although Sweden has never been a part of any alliance, our defense policy has hitherto always relied on an intervention by NATO in the event we were attacked. Our defense policy has been built upon the reliance that we only need to see to it that an enemy cannot just roll in over us without expecting any losses or delays until the NATO - in it's own interest - would come to Sweden's protection if nothing other than keeping a buffer between NATO and the Russians.

After Trump's victory in the presidential election that defense policy is being jettisoned, because president-elect Trump is perceived as not abiding by formerly accepted rules, seems disinterested in in NATO and is a fan of Putin. So as a result we are now getting signals that the Swedish defense budget must be severely increased.
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Update, later the same day
The more I think about it, the more absurd it seems for a country consisting of some nine million inhabitants to keep up a defense against a country with 146+ million inhabitants.

Perhaps we should do as the Danish populist politician Mogens Glistrup (1926-2008) once suggested, that we replace our defense ministry and weapons with an answering machine that says "We surrender!", in Russian of course.

Monday, May 11, 2015

A Modest & Cheap Defense Proposal


The Swedish Peace & Arbitration Society proposes a new and more effective (?) way to keep the homophobic Russians and their submarines or other naval forces out of Swedish territorial waters. 

Sunday, October 19, 2014

The Russians Are Here - Again!

Throughout the centuries my country, Sweden, has - due to it's precarious geopolitical position - had an eternally suspicious attitude towards our immense neighbor to the east.

This situation was aggravated after Sweden lost it's position as one of the major powers in Europe in the 18th century and especially after the Swedish-Russian war ended in 1809, with Sweden proper losing a third of the realm (Finland) to Russia.

King Charles XII (1682-1718) pointing to
the East to tell us from where the enemy
will come.
Depending on who the rulers in Russia have been the situation has been better or worse, but the suspicion has always been there. Whenever we think of the risk of war or aggression, we look to the East.

Since the cold war the official defense policy of Sweden can be summed up in the phrase "non-alignment in peace aiming at neutrality in war".

That policy has served us well for half a century, but it seems to be losing support as we see the Russians, under the present president Vladimir "Little Father" Putin, becoming increasingly aggressive and militant towards it's neighbors.

During the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's Sweden has had it's territorial borders violated repeatedly by Soviet Union/Russian submarines or or other submersibles.

Once one of them even ran aground in the archipelago of Karlskrona in the south of Sweden and created an international incident.
The "Whiskey on the rocks"-incident. 
"Soviet submarine S-363 was a Soviet Navy Whiskey-class submarine of the Baltic Fleet, which became famous under the designation U 137 when it ran aground on October 27, 1981 on the south coast of Sweden, approximately 10 km from Karlskrona, one of the larger Swedish naval bases. U137 was the unofficial Swedish name for the vessel, as the Soviets considered names of most of their submarines to be classified at the time and did not disclose them. The ensuing international incident is often referred to as the Whiskey on the rocks incident." Wikipedia
At this very moment a search is yet again going on, this time in the Stockholm archipelago, for what is suspected to be another Russian submersible.
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I am sad to admit that, like many other Swedes, I am increasingly leaning towards a change of our present defense policy and I am starting to believe in the necessity for us to apply for membership in NATO in the immediate future.