Sweden's neutrality, at least during the cold war, always seemed like neutrality in official policy, but heavily leaned towards the west with all sorts of cooperation and ties to NATO nations.
It was 'neutrality' in some ways, but cooperation with NATO that seemed very much not neutral.
Except when it came to trucking jews to the fires in Poland and Germany, they were extra "neutral". Being neutral in the face of evil (the nazis) is to be an enabler.
I heard though there were in some tension with the US, for sometime over the Vietnam war, and even had a diplomatic freeze between US and Sweden at that time.
It seems like they may have their reasons, but it's odd considering NATO seems more and more like a relic of the Cold War that should be reconsidered. For example, Turkey is engaging in all kinds of activities that don't seem to match the goals of values of most NATO members, and yet officially they are backed up by NATO.
Once you've outsourced it's hard to bring it back because it's very expensive in the short term. Where would the EU countries' defense budget come from without increasing taxes or cutting social programs? It's the same reason US has a hard time bringing back manufacturing once it has become reliant on China.
They're still both part of NATO. The UK will not be a bystander if France or another NATO member is attacked, as they have already proven it time and time again. This is regardless of participation in the EU. The UK should have probably been at least part of the EEA. And yes, it's too bad they screwed it up.
There was little action by the UK during the annexation of Crimea (they even went on to participate in a major sporting event hosted by the invading nation; so little did the UK care about another European nation being attacked).
The UK has also walked the line of invading another NATO member because they wanted to fish in another sovereign nations waters.
The point is that the UK didn’t care about the rights of another nation’s to their borders. Not even so little that they were willing to sacrifice a little football for it. They also didn’t support Iceland’s rights to their own fisheries when a foreign nation tried to fish in their waters. Iceland was, and still is a NATO member.
My point is that the UK doesn’t care about other nations, and I can see numerous situations where they will fail to act if a fellow NATO member is attacked.
Why should the UK (or any country) care about defending another country which isn't a treaty ally? So far the only time when a NATO member actually invoked Article 5, the UK did fulfill their obligations.
Because the UK is a part of an international society of nations that share a common planet on which all humans live. Event though the two nations are not in a direct military alliance, the UK interest lie directly with Ukraine when it comes to protecting Ukraine from a foreign invasion (unless the invading army was the UK army). The UK trades with Ukraine, they share values (or at least so they say), tourists visit between the two places, and workers seek job in each others country.
The UK didn’t need to send an army to Ukraine to protect them from the Russian invasion, but they should have at least sent a strong message to Russia that this would not be tolerated. A perfect opportunity for such a message was presented when Russia hosted the World Cup the following year... The message: “We are just gonna say this is not OK, but really Russia can do whatever they want”.
So the UK should punish their own athletes in order to make a symbolic statement that would have zero real impact? Not following your logic there buddy. But if you'd like to defend Ukraine I hear they're taking volunteers, feel free to go sign up and turn your words into action.
Jimmy Carter actually boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. That was a stupid move and accomplished precisely nothing.
The UK officials (as did other western European officials) did boycott the world cup. It is a really weak message. A real message would have been to boycott the world cup entirely (not just the UK, but all of Europe). It would not only have sent a strong message to the Russian government—but more importantly the Russian public would have hated it. Imagine your country can finally hold the World Cup, only to have your military ruin it by doing something stupid like annexing a peninsula you don’t care about.
While the peacetime ROI is shit, it's still stimulus of after a fashion. Hopefully the EU is somewhat over it's bad austerity ideas from 2008.
NATO absolutely should go.
> It's the same reason US has a hard time bringing back manufacturing once it has become reliant on China.
I don't really think so, because in that case there is/was wage arbitrage. Yes the US is subsidizing on an ongoing basis, but that doesn't quite feel the same for reasons I cannot articulate.
Defense spending isn't really an effective stimulus since the end result is primarily a jobs program. Any materiel purchases just sit there, not generating revenue (as a factory would).
I do agree, but it's not a 0 stimulus, because basically the supply chain can be multi-purpose. I would never choose military spending as a stimulus, that's basically fascist, but as a slight silver lining to make ditching NATO more palatable I would definitely want to bring it up.
That's why I said "effective." The military supply chain really isn't multi-purpose, at least in the US and Western Europe. The technology, while having come similarity with consumer goods really is in a different class. As a jobs program, it's fine; kind of like how NASA treats the space program.
Russia is the only threat. EU countries together outpace Russian military spending with large marging. Russia has no capability to act outside it's borders in high intensity warfare. Even limited involvement in Syria is wearing down their aircraft.
European defence has structural problem: scattering military resources all over the Europe. Spain, France and Belgium should keep most of their main battle tanks in Poland and send troops to train there. Russian amphibious attack from the North Atlantic is not a threat.
The Russian strategy of low-grade asymmetric conflict with strategic assets like nuclear weapons and a real air force to deter any serious consequences works remarkably well.
Low intensity tactics can't be used in high intensity warfare.
If Russian green men cross into Poland, Poland is not responding with low intensity. They mobilize the whole country to fight to fight high intensity warfare until Russians are thrown out.
> You are saying this about a country with the biggest tank armies anywhere in the world.
Russia has 12,000+ tanks only in paper. Russia has only few tank divisions in working condition and equipped. Rest is just Soviet era junk that has not moved in decades. The military modernization program has stalled.
Russia can defend itself just fine. What Russia can't do is to large scale warfare attacking others. Any mobilization in Russia that is not purely defensive in the nature would fail. Reservist would simply not show up to fight for Putin.
> Russia has 12,000+ tanks only in paper. Russia has only few tank divisions in working condition and equipped. Rest is just Soviet era junk that has not moved in decades. The military modernization program has stalled.
How many European countries have countries have even 1 tank division?
Russia may have 12,000 pieces of junk tanks + 40,300 of junk APCs, IFVs, ARVs, and engineering vehicles + double of all of that in reserve, salvage, and storage, but who else do you think have?
Russia's Achilles heel is low morale, and low number of highly trained specialist, especially pilots. Second, is its military logistics (which itself is bigger, and better than that of most NATO countries)
Latest tank modifications Russia ordered was not some rocket munition, but a drive by wire system for tanks, so one can drive a tank like driving a car, as Russia for decades had more pieces of military hardware than pilots for them.
Just comparing modern main battle tanks that can have a change of making difference in the battle.
Russia has: 550 T-90's total. 450 T-80's active, only 170 upgraded. Few thousand outdated tanks unworkable condition. Then maybe up to ~500 T-72B3 (somewhat modernized and in workable conditions). Rest is just junk not touched or upgraded for 30 years after Soviet Union collapsed.
Poland+Germany together have 500 Leopard 2's. France has 400 Leclercs. Britain 200 Challenger 2's. (I'm not counting old but modernized tanks Poland has).
You don't use something like T-55 to fight modern tanks. T-55, while is near worthless in tank-on-tank warfare, is still a 100mm self-propelled gun, and armor that will withstand anything, but dedicated anti-tank weaponry.
Even from my dated high school military lessons from around 2004-2006, I know the official doctrine of Russian tank forces is to avoid tank on tank combat with equal, or superior tanks.
Anything more substantial than 3rd generation tanks will not be engaged with guns, but with few heavy ATGMs per target from 5+ kms away. All T-72 in Russian service can fire 120mm ATGMs, even T-55s are supposed to have some 100mm ATGMs for them.
A wide front-offensive will certainly decrease the efficiency of anti-tank weapons on the defending side, and let the majority of attacking force to pass.
Biggest anti-tank unit today is an attack helicopter, hence Russian zeal to develop things like Panzir SPAG.
Old Soviet tanks are useless against against modern army as you can see in Syria, Irak and elsewhere. They have limited used only in defensive warfare if they don't have to move. If they move, they are quickly destroyed.
Russia has no logistical capacity to move any of those weapons far beyond it's borders like it had in Soviet Era. They could do single assault with 50-70k troops 300 km from their borders but they could not rotate or supply them or provide enough air cover.
> Russia has no logistical capacity to move any of those weapons far beyond it's borders like it had in Soviet Era. They could do single assault with 50-70k troops 300 km from their borders but they could not rotate or supply them or provide enough air cover.
Unless they can build a staging ground at a leisure pace in an ally country. Not to say that it was building up its already significant military logistics.
Now, why do you think such a such a force needs even bigger logistics buildup, far exceeding defensive use scenario?
All past of your comments on military strategy give off so much of youthful maximalism. In conflict, always expect the worst past holistic comparison. All things that "could never happen" according to military analysts do eventually happen.
A saying is you never expect the enemy to attack where you expect him the most.
But will those biggest tank armies in the world have a defended logistical supply chain leading all the way to the English Channel? Or will they all run out of fuel in eastern Germany because NATO air support owns the skies from France to Poland?
>By increasing the tempo of these operations, the PLA can inflict disproportionate stress on Taiwan’s much smaller force. The Chinese military has more than 2,000 fighters, bombers and other warplanes, compared with Taiwan’s 400 fighters, according to the Pentagon’s annual report on Chinese military power, published in September. Over time, fuel costs, pilot fatigue and wear and tear on Taiwanese aircraft will threaten the readiness of the island’s air force if this pressure continues, according to Taiwanese and U.S. military analysts. The constant threat is also designed to exact a psychological toll on the defenders, they say.
Russia struggles to maintain and repair their existing aircraft. Even increasing the rate of intercepts in the peacetime increases the attrition rate to unsustainable level.
This feels wrong, but disarmement works when all parties willfully participate in it. All you need is one foul player for this path to fail.
Before WWII, Germany was forbidden from remaking an army. It still did. Where Europe & US could have played deterrence by forcing Germany to stop, they preferred to appease things. We all know what happened.
When you're in front of a bully, you might talk first and ask them once to turn it down. If that tactic doesn't work, disarmament is obedience.
I think it is a mistake to anthropomorphize nation states this way. Explaining international relations in terms of personal relations is misleading at best. A bully does not control a nuclear arsenal, nation states do.
That is fine, but problems arise when you start talking policy in an anthropomorphized context. Sure Russia is behaving like a bully, but that doesn’t mean the UK and other NATO members should call it’s parents and have Russia suspended from school.
Obviously. But when people call Russia a bully, I rather doubt that they're anthropomorphizing them to that degree. And calling them a bully gives a convenient shorthand for both describing their behavior and stating that it's problematic.
Russia is not ideological world power like Soviet Union was. Russia is declining state with normal national interests, nothing more.
For Russia to go to war they need to have way to win and gain something.
If Russia uses nuke against NATO, there would be no road back to normal until there is regime change or surrender. Russia completely isolated from the rest of the world would have famine in few years even if NATO would use only isolate Russian from the rest of the world. Even China would be forced to choose to trade between the West and rest of the Asia or Russia.
China will have an effective blue water navy in a few years regardless of whether or not they seize part of the Russian far east. US has no way to block such a move beyond some token sanctions. We certainly aren't going to defend the Russian border under any plausible scenario.
Russia is a minor threat, and is becoming less powerful by the day. When Putin leaves (thanks, Parkinsons), there might be some internal turmoil, but that probably won't lead them to invade Sweden. The major threat is the mass migration from ME and Africa that will overwhelm Europe.
One of the big reasons to put together a competent military and logistics operation is to help neighboring countries become more stable. Without stability and peace economic growth is tenuous.
It is so in words, but not action. The only time this has happened was after the terrorist attacks on the twin towers. Some NATO countries have been invited on other occasions, but it has never been considered an "attack on all nations". All the while NATO has been more and more comfortable participating in invasions.
In writing NATO says they are a defense pact, but history shows it is very much an invasion force.
Historically an invasion force? Afghanistan is the only place where NATO has been involved in anything like an invasion. Unlike the Warsaw Pact which helped subjugate Chechoslovakia and Hungary.
Before Afghanistan there was Bosnia and Herzegovina, and since there is have been some missions in Iraq, and the Gulf of Aden and a full scale intervention in Libya.
Your not doing your cause any favor by pointing to another military alliance to proof a point. Too the contrary what you say about the Warsaw Pact is my point exactly. Military alliances are dangerous and need to be condemned by the UN.
Can you give some examples of how military alliances are dangerous? Not all alliances automatically require members to fight. Usually there's enough wiggle room for a country to say "not my business."
WW1, the seven years war, current conflicts in the middle east (including foreign interventions in the Syrian Civil War), the Napoleonic Wars, all escalated to catastrophic proportions in part because of complications in relations to military alliances.
Even the recent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia is made more complex and harder to resolve peacefully because of relations to Russia and especially Turkey.
There is a reason why many nations are currently condemning Israel’s opening relations to Morocco. It is seen as a normalization of (a) Israel’s occupation of the Palestine territories and (b) normalization of Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara. So if a war breaks out in either of these places, it is gonna be more devastating as a result.
Condemning the establishment of peaceful diplomatic relations between Israel and Morocco is just bizarre. They haven't established a military alliance.
The reason people condemn it, is because those two nations are both occupying forces of a different nation. It is not explicit, but people suspect that both are in fact silently supporting each others occupation.
If say the Polisario front starts an armed insurgence for a Sahrawi liberation in Western Sahara and it is met with brutal forces from the Moroccan military, a peaceful resolution seems less likely because now Israel has stakes in allowing Moroccan military to advance as brutally as they wish—knowing that similar brutality might be preferably against an armed Palestinian insurgence.
If you don't like Israel then just come out and say so. It's ridiculous to single them out for occupying another nation. You could criticize Spain, China, Iraq, Russia, the USA, India, Mexico, Denmark, and half the other countries in the world on the same basis. Quit using a double standard to complain about normal diplomacy.
But I just did... I gave Morocco the same weight for occupying Western Sahara as Israel for occupying Palestine.
But, I mean, sure... The same thing can be said about Mexico having military relations with the USA and Canada if each of them is going to acknowledge the rights of the other to fail to uphold treaties for the indigenous population.
Elsewhere in this thread I’m giving the UK a similar “singling out”, but that is unfair, since France is just as guilty of the things I say there. Alas the UK and France are both NATO members (and both control nuclear weapons), I wonder if their colonies would be liberated by now, or if we had finally enacted an international nuclear weapons ban if it weren’t for the countries most guilty of doing precisely that banding together with a huge and deadly military to back it up.
How did a military alliance contribute to Israeli/Moroccan relations? AFAIK Morocco relies largely on Russian military purchases, and there doesn't seem to be more than a diplomatic quid pro quo in effect regarding their normalization of relations.
The Syrian conflict seems to be completely devoid of any influence by countries in alliance. Russia is just looking to sell gear to Syria as they always have, and to poke a finger in the eye of Turkey. They also have long craved a naval base in the Med and succeeded. Turkey has geopolitical ambitions as well, not wanting to see a Kurdish state get developed, plus wanting to flex some muscle. I don't see any treaties or alliances having a significant role in that conflict at all.
Finally, I would refer to Clausewitz; military alliances always serve political means. War is effectively another means of politics (Clausewitz's quote is often mangled a bit). So if you would prefer no military alliance, you would first need to abolish all political alliances. No trade agreements, no environmental agreements, so on and so forth. What causes conflicts isn't military issues, it's political issues.
> So if you would prefer no military alliance, you would first need to abolish all political alliances.
I think that is actually why there are international organizations, like the WTO, WHO, UN, International Criminal Court, etc. So political conflicts between nation states can be resolved peacefully.
If no nation had an army every conflict between nations would have to be resolved peacefully. This Clausewitz quote—or this interpretation of it—is simply wrong.
If an alliance is credible, then it's a solid deterrent.
The alliances in 1914 was less credible than NATO. Many were secret, as was mobilization plans and implications of such plans. It's my impression that the list of things triggered WWI is very long :)
Note that I’m never saying Military alliances are the thing that cause wars, but they do tend to escalate them and they do seem to hinder peaceful solutions to conflicts.
An analysis of all the wars that didn't happen, might show otherwise :)
I don't have the evidence to say that it will show otherwise. But we know that any participation in international organizations reduces risks of war, whether by correlation or causation I don't recall.
Either way, armed conflict is becoming less frequent and less violent. One could argue that progress could come faster without NATO, but given that we have no evidence that a dramatically different cause of action will reduce risk of war, and we know that current trajectory is bending towards less war. Maybe staying on the current trajectory isn't so bad :)
Generally speaking, any kind of quick major changes tends to cause conflicts. So even if we did want to end NATO, it's probably be best to do it slowly.
Ideally, we would just slowly extend NATO to cover all countries. That way nobody can attack anyone else :)
I would want countries to be reasonably democratic before they join though...
At it's heart yes. But didn't that bring along the capability to form coalitions?
If we dismantled NATO what framework would a wide western coalition, as was deployed in Libya rely on?
Can you magically make distinct militaries of different counties coordinate logistics and operations together?
My point is that, besides the mutual defense agreement, NATO coordinates training and integration of capabilities across borders, without which I doubt we launch coalitions as we did in Libya or Kosovo.
Both of these followed a UN resolution. In Libya there were participation from non-NATO members, yet these coalitions were NATO-led, why? Probably because NATO was the only organization with experience, training and infrastructure to coordinate such a coalition.
They got to have it both ways, official neutrality and yet they were closely tied to the west, NATO nations, and had assurances that they would be provided some level of protections as well.
For a close to border nation at that time I think that is a desirable position. Provides at least the idea that there may be some flexibility for them.
Much of this can be explained with domestic politics. Sweden has 8 parties in parlament, each with it's own foreign policy agenda. Over the course of 20 years, one party after the other have changed it's position and now there are at least 4 parties in favour. But note that foreign policy is defined by the government, and the government parties are still opposed.
Sweden, has for a long time, received the benefits of NATO and the Western alliance without the costs.
They call it "official neutrality" but what it really means is that they are willing to let Germany roll over them on the way to Norway and not spend 2%+ on defense while knowing, like in WWII, we will bail them out.
Sweden also cooperated with western intelligence agencies and etc during the cold war.
I think portraying them a sort of freeloader is inaccurate / an over-simplification / unfair. They worked closely with NATO, and NATO countries worked with them.
Ironically Swedish defense spending as a percentage of GDP is actually higher than some current NATO members. In many ways they are now more combat effective than Germany.
The Baltic States are independent now, and if there was a fight over that Sweden could get dragged in easily.
Also, Sweden used to make its own tank (at least in the WW2 and early cold war era) and still makes its own jets. It's getting harder and more expensive to make your own military equipment. You can probably make your next jet in a consortium of other European powers, or buy from them in an alliance.
I think a more useful NATO against China would be something like a NATO for free-speech. Norway gets punished economically for awarding a Nobel prize to a Chinese dissident. It really can't fight back unless all free-speech loving countries retaliate together.
There should be a political union of liberal democratic countries that favors trade deals and military alliances with one another - there's not a great counter against the slow rise of authoritarianism abroad. A less US centered axis centered around the G7 could be a good start, though developing democracies should certainly get a seat at the table and be rewarded for protecting democratic values.
Nice idea but even the liberal democracies have huge political differences on sensitive issues like fishing rights, oil drilling, and agricultural subsidies.
Sure, but the overall security of liberal democracy and the rights/freedoms commonly enshrined themselves are probably a fundamental shared interest, yes? While an economic union similar to the EU with common treaties you describe is likely non-viable across all liberal democracies, there are trade interests between them and certainly security/defense interests.
The reason this doesn't happen, is because there are not a lot of free speech loving nations out there. You going to exclude Germany, and have them align with China instead? It doesn't make much sense at the geopolitical scale. (I know that some would even say there are no nations who believe in free speech. It's just that the subjects that cause police and military in each nation to clamp down on speech are different depending on the society.) The lines are just very difficult to draw. If you exclude Germany on principle, would other EU nations still cooperate with you? It just gets messy.
The US should probably move the Turkush nukes to Greece, since moving them to Romania and/or Poland would piss off Russia and mark the beginning of the next cold war. These countries are much more reliable partners than Turkey. Moving them to insular Greece (if the Greeks accept them of course) would also send a very clear message to Edrogan.
Romania and Poland are militarily stupid places to put your nuclear assets. Turkey offers blindingly obvious geographically advantageous benefits. That's the reason NATO needs Turkey.
That would change if Russia is not your enemy, but the entire raison d'etre of NATO is to prevent war with Russia.
It also controls the Bosphorus, hence cutting off the Russian Black Sea Fleet from the Mediterranean, and is a handy staging point for operations in the Middle East. Nobody else can do the first, and alternatives for the second are less palatable.
No a submarine blockade can't do it unless Turkey allows it. Submarines would have to operate in Turkish territorial waters and would be vulnerable to their ASW defenses.
Shared interests have little to do with whether countries share the same type of political regime.
Russia and, certainly, China, would still be 'adversaries' if they became liberal democracies because that would not change the geopolitics, diverging interests, and views.
Likewise for Turkey. The key is that it is currently pursuing a policy of assertiveness as a regional power that clashes with the interests of other NATO members.
The UN is more akin to a discussion table. You can get whichever two or more nations in the world you want to denounce NATO and “ban” it, but three out of five permanent UNSC seat holders are NATO members and the only three nations in the world with a blue-water Navy worth a damn.
A UN with teeth wouldn’t be a very good discussion table.
There are number of better explanations for the peace, e.g. people remember the horrors of world war 2, increased democracy, increased trade and travel between the nations, more open borders between the nations?
Historically and mathematically military build up leads to war. There is no point in military alliance unless you intend to use it. I say that peace has (almost) prevailed in Europe despite of NATO, not because of it
> a better explanation might be, historically, passage of time leads to war.
My point exactly. Say that wars break out naturally with some Poisson-like distribution. When the war breaks out, the scale of it is gonna be in relation to the current arsenal of the warring parties.
So given your comment, I can revise my comment to say:
Historically—and mathematically—military build up leads more devastating wars.
Although that is not entirely true. As if nations didn’t hold militaries, there wouldn’t be wars between nations.
> In my opinion all military alliances should be banned by the UN
While it hasn't worked out all that well in practice, if you read the charter carefully, the UN is, among other things, a military alliance with a unified military command.
While you aren't wrong in some respects, Turkey is purchasing Russian military hardware and hooking it up to their network of existing US military hardware. The US is deeply unhappy about this for obvious reasons.
Greece is doing the same with the Russian s300. [1] I think the problem with Turkey is around Syrian involvement, and the Mediterranean gaz exploration.
Kicking Turkey out of NATO would only give Edrogan an excuse for restarting the war with Greece over Cyprus. They have already been cut off from the F35 program after they bought the S400 missile system from Russia. I really doubt the US will further supply them with weapons, at least not while Edrogan is in power.
Turkey is actually the cold war relic, not NATO. They were mostly added for geopolitical reasons. The US wanted control of the Bosphorus, and that meant all sorts of concessions to Turkey. They were also more secular and more aligned with "Western values" back then. Today, Turkey is a very different country and with the AKP party, it's questionable how much they align with the West, both ideologically and politically.
NATO was and still is a liberal democratic Western nations military alliance about standardizing military doctrine and protocol. If not NATO, something like it needs to exist as a bulwark against Russia and China.
The AKP is by no means an overwhelming majority party (if it is a majority at all) and Turkey has the potential to be a liberal secular state (it was formed as such by Attaturk), and probably would be today if they had been allowed to join the EU.
I think it still has potential but Edrogen's dictatorship and the AKP are rapidly eroding some of those ideas. There are two Turkeys, the cosmopolitan cities and the rural country (from which AKP hails from).
In order to maintain power, Islam is being used to promote national identity and ethnocentrism. It is also being heavily taught in schools.
Nonsense. Turkey allied with the United States when Soviet demands post-WWII induced the republic to seek a security guarantee for eastern anatolia. This occurred prior to any formal NATO membership and turkey previously demonstrated its alliance commitments by supporting the united nations in korea. Turkey wouldn't have allowed nuclear weapons to be based on its territory because of 'concessions'(in fact, they protested their removal after the cuban missile crisis).
Since the Bosphorus/black sea region is vulnerable to a blockade traffic to the Mediterranean sea can be easily closed by the US Navy in times of war regardless of the political regime that controls the straits. Turkey was far more geopolitically important when Russia had a Mediterranean ally(france) and control of the mediterranean was contested.
> For example, Turkey is engaging in all kinds of activities that don't seem to match the goals of values of most NATO members
All other NATO members are engaging in all kinds of activities that don't seem to match the goals of values of NATO
And on top of that, NATO cannot hold Greece, Eastern European members, and France from backstabbing Turkey, when Turkey is effectively Europe's only policeman in the mediterranean
Portugal and greece were both junta-ruled and NATO members during my lifetime, so I'm not sure it's a values-based organisation. Then again, Franco's spain was beyond the pale, so maybe I'm overly cynical.
Here is the way to think about it: The rigidity of two powerful sides not letting the other advance held together certain countries like Yugoslavia and created a rigid framework for countries like Sweden.
Now the Baltic states are not in the rigid framework of the USSR, and potentially threatened by Russia. Sweden may not care to intervene, but the way for Russia to secure the Baltic States from NATO is to seize Gotland. That is something Russia has the capability to do, and Sweden is not very well prepared to defend against. NATO membership would relieve a lot of that risk.
NATO is actually a positive organization in terms of promoting the peace. It is and probably always will be totally ineffective as an offensive alliance. But it is unbeatable as a defensive alliance. So everybody wants to be a member to save on defense spending. I don't think that is awful.
NATO was preparing for Russian attack through North-Eastern Europe effectively since its creation, and been keeping new Baltic members under spotlight for the last 20 years. At least, these countries will fight — something that is not so certain about countries down south.
Where NATO needs to look now is its soft Southern underbelly. You now have a lot of weak, assorted statelets, ripe for the taking there. None of them will stand even a single tank division.
Which NATO members are you referring to? Russia doesn't currently have the expeditionary capability to put even a single tank division into Bulgaria or Romania. Other southern member states like Turkey, Greece, and the various Balkan countries would be even harder to invade.
> Russia doesn't currently have the expeditionary capability to put even a single tank division into Bulgaria or Romania.
They don't need to if any of many loose states there let themselves to be turned into Russian staging ground.
Not a stretch given how fantastically corrupt governments there are, with Moldovia, and its breakaway regions in particular.
There was even a precedent:
Montenegro once almost let Russian to buy a military base there + humongous lots of lands adjacent to it, allegedly, in exchange for a laughable amount of money going to families of previous cabinet members.
> It is and probably always will be totally ineffective as an offensive alliance.
History has shown otherwise. Every single of NATO’s mission has been on the offensive. Be it enforcing a no-fly zone in Libya (which requires suspiciously many areal bombing), naval missions to protect selected cargo vessels from pirates in the Gulf of Aden or intimidating training missions in Iraq. Even Afghanistan was an offensive mission (with a defensive excuse).
NATO’s offensive operations outnumber defensive missions 6 to 0.
Yeah, what a shit website politico is. If they were to exist in american politics, people would call them leftist extremists. But just because they want to be tougher on immigration they are far right, nazis etc.
I honestly hate modern media with a passion and I assume everything else in the article is as false as that very first statement.
Regardless of whether or not you support Sverigedemokraterna, they are widely considered to be right-wing or far-right [1]. Politico is not taking any stance or making any kind of statement by labelling them as such.
Yeah, no shit. I don't care if the whole world think the earth is flat, it doesn't make it so. Of course they are taking a stance just like the people who wrote that worthless Wikipedia entry.
Politico is so obviously biased and if you deny it you are most likely taking part in that bias which makes you unable to even comprehend it.
One wonders why the market for leftist journalists is permanently saturated, and why salaries range between 20k and 30k, for a seemingly qualified job. Then you remind that their professional alternative is being a barista, and it all makes sense.
They call the themselves nationalist, the party was born out of old nazi parties and many of their prominent members express deeply racists in miscellaneous web forum. I think this is more than enough evidence to call them far right. Just because you don’t agree with reality it doesn’t mean that it is biased.
putting american bases in your country is already capitulation. you can never kick them out. they will be there 50 years from now when who knows how US will act towards Sweden. see Turkey's case. not to mention that Sweden's defense industry will likely collapse since they will be forced to buy NATO equipment; goodbye Gripen. high price to pay for preempting a hypothetical attack from Russia.
The collaboration is much deeper than that already. The Gripen is built using a NATO engine (modified F404/414). The T-7 Red Hawk trainer will be the trainer in many NATO countries and one of the most numerous aircraft in NATO for years to come, and it’ll be built partially by Saab too.
The successor to Gripen won’t be a solo project, it’ll be built in collaborations like with BAE in the Tempest program. NATO is more than the US, so buying Dassault/EADS/Airbus is “Just as NATO” as buying Lockheed and Boeing.
I doubt there would be many permanent US forces in Sweden considering the Norwegian forces are now being cut.
> putting american bases in your country is already capitulation.
NOT putting American bases in your country is capitulation as history shows that Russia is bound to attack sooner or later. Ukraine is currently partly occupied, after many years of 'friendship'
Joining would make it formally have to respond. You can still decide whether to send troops under Article 5.
Of course, it’s more or less a given that NATO countries including the US would respond if Sweden was attacked. Membership would only be a marginal change.
There are some dead comments in this thread about the Swedish party called "Sverigedemokraterna" (which translates to "the Sweden democrats") which is disappointing to see given that the gist of those dead comments is true: Sverigedemokraterna is not an "extreme right-wing" party. The party was started by people with such sympathies but they have either resigned, distanced themselves from the party or have been ousted. The party program is largely comparable to that of the Swedish Social Democratic party in the '60's, plus or minus a few differences. These differences are mostly adjustments to modern times, as such the party can be seen as a spiritual successor to the social democratic party of the Sweden that once was but ceased to be after Olof Palme took control and radically changed the course of the country. Before Palme Sweden was an extremely homogeneous and fairly nationalistic country, something which Palme - with the support of all parties in the parliament (Riksdagen) - wanted to end by changing the constitution to state that Sweden should not have a single dominant culture. This change succeeded but the resulting culture shock led to the rise of Sverigedemokraterna, a party for those who want to put the brakes on what they see as the dissolution of Swedish culture. It is also from the social democratic party that Sverigedemokraterna got the majority of their voters. Either all those people - the party polls between 20% and 25% - are suddenly "right-wing extremists" after having been social democrats for many years, or the narrative upheld by Politico and the referenced Wikipedia article is incorrect.
For those who want to have some more insight into the convoluted history of Swedish politics I recommend reading Aron Flam's "This is a Swedish Tiger" [1], a book which uses a war-time slogan to delve into the history of Swedish nationalism/corporatism.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 223 ms ] threadIt was 'neutrality' in some ways, but cooperation with NATO that seemed very much not neutral.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_during_World_War_II
EU has mutual defence clause similar to NATO. France decided to invoke EU's Defence Clause instead of NATO Article 5 after the Paris attack.
A shame one of them had to fuck everything up.
There was little action by the UK during the annexation of Crimea (they even went on to participate in a major sporting event hosted by the invading nation; so little did the UK care about another European nation being attacked).
The UK has also walked the line of invading another NATO member because they wanted to fish in another sovereign nations waters.
My point is that the UK doesn’t care about other nations, and I can see numerous situations where they will fail to act if a fellow NATO member is attacked.
The UK didn’t need to send an army to Ukraine to protect them from the Russian invasion, but they should have at least sent a strong message to Russia that this would not be tolerated. A perfect opportunity for such a message was presented when Russia hosted the World Cup the following year... The message: “We are just gonna say this is not OK, but really Russia can do whatever they want”.
Jimmy Carter actually boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. That was a stupid move and accomplished precisely nothing.
The UK officials (as did other western European officials) did boycott the world cup. It is a really weak message. A real message would have been to boycott the world cup entirely (not just the UK, but all of Europe). It would not only have sent a strong message to the Russian government—but more importantly the Russian public would have hated it. Imagine your country can finally hold the World Cup, only to have your military ruin it by doing something stupid like annexing a peninsula you don’t care about.
NATO absolutely should go.
> It's the same reason US has a hard time bringing back manufacturing once it has become reliant on China.
I don't really think so, because in that case there is/was wage arbitrage. Yes the US is subsidizing on an ongoing basis, but that doesn't quite feel the same for reasons I cannot articulate.
We still need standardization, exercises, and common command structures.
If you build that outside the NATO framework collaboration with the US in future minor peace keeping deployments will likely be harder.
Russia is the only threat. EU countries together outpace Russian military spending with large marging. Russia has no capability to act outside it's borders in high intensity warfare. Even limited involvement in Syria is wearing down their aircraft.
European defence has structural problem: scattering military resources all over the Europe. Spain, France and Belgium should keep most of their main battle tanks in Poland and send troops to train there. Russian amphibious attack from the North Atlantic is not a threat.
They are creating plenty of pain with low intensity tactics.
If Russian green men cross into Poland, Poland is not responding with low intensity. They mobilize the whole country to fight to fight high intensity warfare until Russians are thrown out.
“Belgium retired its last operational Leopard 1 MBTs in 2014. Some were kept in inventory for training and research purposes.”
And Russia gets 30 trained soldiers for the price of 1 NATO soldier
Feel the difference
> Russia has no capability to act outside it's borders in high intensity warfare
You are saying this about a country with the biggest tank armies anywhere in the world.
What you are saying is laughable to anybody with a dime of military education.
What you are saying is laughable to anybody with a dime of military education.
I didn't laugh, but I did raise an eyebrow. I just kind of chalked it up to the lack of military officers who comment on HN.
Russia has 12,000+ tanks only in paper. Russia has only few tank divisions in working condition and equipped. Rest is just Soviet era junk that has not moved in decades. The military modernization program has stalled.
Russia can defend itself just fine. What Russia can't do is to large scale warfare attacking others. Any mobilization in Russia that is not purely defensive in the nature would fail. Reservist would simply not show up to fight for Putin.
How many European countries have countries have even 1 tank division?
Russia may have 12,000 pieces of junk tanks + 40,300 of junk APCs, IFVs, ARVs, and engineering vehicles + double of all of that in reserve, salvage, and storage, but who else do you think have?
Russia's Achilles heel is low morale, and low number of highly trained specialist, especially pilots. Second, is its military logistics (which itself is bigger, and better than that of most NATO countries)
Latest tank modifications Russia ordered was not some rocket munition, but a drive by wire system for tanks, so one can drive a tank like driving a car, as Russia for decades had more pieces of military hardware than pilots for them.
Russia has: 550 T-90's total. 450 T-80's active, only 170 upgraded. Few thousand outdated tanks unworkable condition. Then maybe up to ~500 T-72B3 (somewhat modernized and in workable conditions). Rest is just junk not touched or upgraded for 30 years after Soviet Union collapsed.
Poland+Germany together have 500 Leopard 2's. France has 400 Leclercs. Britain 200 Challenger 2's. (I'm not counting old but modernized tanks Poland has).
Even from my dated high school military lessons from around 2004-2006, I know the official doctrine of Russian tank forces is to avoid tank on tank combat with equal, or superior tanks.
Anything more substantial than 3rd generation tanks will not be engaged with guns, but with few heavy ATGMs per target from 5+ kms away. All T-72 in Russian service can fire 120mm ATGMs, even T-55s are supposed to have some 100mm ATGMs for them.
A wide front-offensive will certainly decrease the efficiency of anti-tank weapons on the defending side, and let the majority of attacking force to pass.
Biggest anti-tank unit today is an attack helicopter, hence Russian zeal to develop things like Panzir SPAG.
Russia has no logistical capacity to move any of those weapons far beyond it's borders like it had in Soviet Era. They could do single assault with 50-70k troops 300 km from their borders but they could not rotate or supply them or provide enough air cover.
Unless they can build a staging ground at a leisure pace in an ally country. Not to say that it was building up its already significant military logistics.
Now, why do you think such a such a force needs even bigger logistics buildup, far exceeding defensive use scenario?
All past of your comments on military strategy give off so much of youthful maximalism. In conflict, always expect the worst past holistic comparison. All things that "could never happen" according to military analysts do eventually happen.
A saying is you never expect the enemy to attack where you expect him the most.
Russia has tactical nuclear weapons to supplement their ability to act outside their borders in high intensity warfare.
Having a robust deterrent is the best way to prevent high intensity warfare in the first place.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/hongkong...
>By increasing the tempo of these operations, the PLA can inflict disproportionate stress on Taiwan’s much smaller force. The Chinese military has more than 2,000 fighters, bombers and other warplanes, compared with Taiwan’s 400 fighters, according to the Pentagon’s annual report on Chinese military power, published in September. Over time, fuel costs, pilot fatigue and wear and tear on Taiwanese aircraft will threaten the readiness of the island’s air force if this pressure continues, according to Taiwanese and U.S. military analysts. The constant threat is also designed to exact a psychological toll on the defenders, they say.
Russia struggles to maintain and repair their existing aircraft. Even increasing the rate of intercepts in the peacetime increases the attrition rate to unsustainable level.
This is wrong. The best way to prevent warfare is to disarm the nations.
Before WWII, Germany was forbidden from remaking an army. It still did. Where Europe & US could have played deterrence by forcing Germany to stop, they preferred to appease things. We all know what happened.
When you're in front of a bully, you might talk first and ask them once to turn it down. If that tactic doesn't work, disarmament is obedience.
I think it is a mistake to anthropomorphize nation states this way. Explaining international relations in terms of personal relations is misleading at best. A bully does not control a nuclear arsenal, nation states do.
Would troops and tanks even be relevant in a conflict between the NATO and Russia in the age of nuclear weapons?
If Russia uses nuke against NATO, there would be no road back to normal until there is regime change or surrender. Russia completely isolated from the rest of the world would have famine in few years even if NATO would use only isolate Russian from the rest of the world. Even China would be forced to choose to trade between the West and rest of the Asia or Russia.
For America, it's uncertain what's more bad, giving China East Asia, or Western Europe to Russia.
Russia with West Europe will still be the same starving Russia, with even more depleted stocks of military hardware.
China with complete reign in the region means them being few years from building a blue water navy, and transoceanic landing force.
> China will have an effective blue water navy in a few years regardless
US having bases to at least blunt, and slow offensive staging by China in case of war will make all the difference vs. not having them at all.
One of the big reasons to put together a competent military and logistics operation is to help neighboring countries become more stable. Without stability and peace economic growth is tenuous.
It's doubtful that international coalitions like we saw in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libia, Kosovo would be possible without NATO command structure.
Am I wrong?
Getting military branches from various countries to collaborate can't be easy -- certainly not without prior training and trust.
In writing NATO says they are a defense pact, but history shows it is very much an invasion force.
Your not doing your cause any favor by pointing to another military alliance to proof a point. Too the contrary what you say about the Warsaw Pact is my point exactly. Military alliances are dangerous and need to be condemned by the UN.
Even the recent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia is made more complex and harder to resolve peacefully because of relations to Russia and especially Turkey.
There is a reason why many nations are currently condemning Israel’s opening relations to Morocco. It is seen as a normalization of (a) Israel’s occupation of the Palestine territories and (b) normalization of Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara. So if a war breaks out in either of these places, it is gonna be more devastating as a result.
If say the Polisario front starts an armed insurgence for a Sahrawi liberation in Western Sahara and it is met with brutal forces from the Moroccan military, a peaceful resolution seems less likely because now Israel has stakes in allowing Moroccan military to advance as brutally as they wish—knowing that similar brutality might be preferably against an armed Palestinian insurgence.
But, I mean, sure... The same thing can be said about Mexico having military relations with the USA and Canada if each of them is going to acknowledge the rights of the other to fail to uphold treaties for the indigenous population.
Elsewhere in this thread I’m giving the UK a similar “singling out”, but that is unfair, since France is just as guilty of the things I say there. Alas the UK and France are both NATO members (and both control nuclear weapons), I wonder if their colonies would be liberated by now, or if we had finally enacted an international nuclear weapons ban if it weren’t for the countries most guilty of doing precisely that banding together with a huge and deadly military to back it up.
The Syrian conflict seems to be completely devoid of any influence by countries in alliance. Russia is just looking to sell gear to Syria as they always have, and to poke a finger in the eye of Turkey. They also have long craved a naval base in the Med and succeeded. Turkey has geopolitical ambitions as well, not wanting to see a Kurdish state get developed, plus wanting to flex some muscle. I don't see any treaties or alliances having a significant role in that conflict at all.
I think that is actually why there are international organizations, like the WTO, WHO, UN, International Criminal Court, etc. So political conflicts between nation states can be resolved peacefully.
If no nation had an army every conflict between nations would have to be resolved peacefully. This Clausewitz quote—or this interpretation of it—is simply wrong.
If an alliance is credible, then it's a solid deterrent.
The alliances in 1914 was less credible than NATO. Many were secret, as was mobilization plans and implications of such plans. It's my impression that the list of things triggered WWI is very long :)
I don't have the evidence to say that it will show otherwise. But we know that any participation in international organizations reduces risks of war, whether by correlation or causation I don't recall.
Either way, armed conflict is becoming less frequent and less violent. One could argue that progress could come faster without NATO, but given that we have no evidence that a dramatically different cause of action will reduce risk of war, and we know that current trajectory is bending towards less war. Maybe staying on the current trajectory isn't so bad :)
Generally speaking, any kind of quick major changes tends to cause conflicts. So even if we did want to end NATO, it's probably be best to do it slowly.
Ideally, we would just slowly extend NATO to cover all countries. That way nobody can attack anyone else :) I would want countries to be reasonably democratic before they join though...
Isn't the only reason NATO was involved that it was the only organization that could coordinate such a coalition quickly?
Point being: the mutual defense agreement is just one part of NATO. The organizational capabilities is another.
You might want to abolish alliances -- but to some that might seem as realistic as ending armed conflict.
(Personally, I hope/think armed conflict is increasingly a thing of the past -- but it'll probably take a bit more time)
At it's heart yes. But didn't that bring along the capability to form coalitions?
If we dismantled NATO what framework would a wide western coalition, as was deployed in Libya rely on?
Can you magically make distinct militaries of different counties coordinate logistics and operations together?
My point is that, besides the mutual defense agreement, NATO coordinates training and integration of capabilities across borders, without which I doubt we launch coalitions as we did in Libya or Kosovo.
Both of these followed a UN resolution. In Libya there were participation from non-NATO members, yet these coalitions were NATO-led, why? Probably because NATO was the only organization with experience, training and infrastructure to coordinate such a coalition.
They got to have it both ways, official neutrality and yet they were closely tied to the west, NATO nations, and had assurances that they would be provided some level of protections as well.
For a close to border nation at that time I think that is a desirable position. Provides at least the idea that there may be some flexibility for them.
They call it "official neutrality" but what it really means is that they are willing to let Germany roll over them on the way to Norway and not spend 2%+ on defense while knowing, like in WWII, we will bail them out.
I think portraying them a sort of freeloader is inaccurate / an over-simplification / unfair. They worked closely with NATO, and NATO countries worked with them.
Also, Sweden used to make its own tank (at least in the WW2 and early cold war era) and still makes its own jets. It's getting harder and more expensive to make your own military equipment. You can probably make your next jet in a consortium of other European powers, or buy from them in an alliance.
Whether Turkey should be in NATO is hard to say without having a deep understanding of the situation. Turkey staying in NATO has pros and cons.
That would change if Russia is not your enemy, but the entire raison d'etre of NATO is to prevent war with Russia.
A submarine blockade can, like the one employed by Germany in WW2.
Russia and, certainly, China, would still be 'adversaries' if they became liberal democracies because that would not change the geopolitics, diverging interests, and views.
Likewise for Turkey. The key is that it is currently pursuing a policy of assertiveness as a regional power that clashes with the interests of other NATO members.
Sure it does: as with most UN “legislation” it would be adopted by the GA adopting treaty text and member states signing and ratifying the treaty.
> or any power to back it up.
That is the more relevant problem, especially since most of the UN’s power comes through...military alliances supportive of UN goals.
A UN with teeth wouldn’t be a very good discussion table.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum
Historically and mathematically military build up leads to war. There is no point in military alliance unless you intend to use it. I say that peace has (almost) prevailed in Europe despite of NATO, not because of it
Mathematics has nothing to do with it. And historically, military draw down also leads to war.
Or, a better explanation might be, historically, passage of time leads to war.
My point exactly. Say that wars break out naturally with some Poisson-like distribution. When the war breaks out, the scale of it is gonna be in relation to the current arsenal of the warring parties.
So given your comment, I can revise my comment to say:
Historically—and mathematically—military build up leads more devastating wars.
Although that is not entirely true. As if nations didn’t hold militaries, there wouldn’t be wars between nations.
While it hasn't worked out all that well in practice, if you read the charter carefully, the UN is, among other things, a military alliance with a unified military command.
It seems odd that you've singled out Turkey. But I guess bashing Turkey is nowawadays a common Western sport.
[1] https://www.armyrecognition.com/december_2013_defense_indust...
NATO was and still is a liberal democratic Western nations military alliance about standardizing military doctrine and protocol. If not NATO, something like it needs to exist as a bulwark against Russia and China.
In order to maintain power, Islam is being used to promote national identity and ethnocentrism. It is also being heavily taught in schools.
This is a pretty good write up: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14683857.2019.1...
Probably the best summary is a kletocratic state that leans Islamic and authoritarian, but never is completely Islamic or authoritarian.
Since the Bosphorus/black sea region is vulnerable to a blockade traffic to the Mediterranean sea can be easily closed by the US Navy in times of war regardless of the political regime that controls the straits. Turkey was far more geopolitically important when Russia had a Mediterranean ally(france) and control of the mediterranean was contested.
All other NATO members are engaging in all kinds of activities that don't seem to match the goals of values of NATO
And on top of that, NATO cannot hold Greece, Eastern European members, and France from backstabbing Turkey, when Turkey is effectively Europe's only policeman in the mediterranean
Italy? Greece? Spain? France?
Turkey is the only reason why Europeans didn't end up with Russian military base in Libya.
Now the Baltic states are not in the rigid framework of the USSR, and potentially threatened by Russia. Sweden may not care to intervene, but the way for Russia to secure the Baltic States from NATO is to seize Gotland. That is something Russia has the capability to do, and Sweden is not very well prepared to defend against. NATO membership would relieve a lot of that risk.
NATO is actually a positive organization in terms of promoting the peace. It is and probably always will be totally ineffective as an offensive alliance. But it is unbeatable as a defensive alliance. So everybody wants to be a member to save on defense spending. I don't think that is awful.
NATO was preparing for Russian attack through North-Eastern Europe effectively since its creation, and been keeping new Baltic members under spotlight for the last 20 years. At least, these countries will fight — something that is not so certain about countries down south.
Where NATO needs to look now is its soft Southern underbelly. You now have a lot of weak, assorted statelets, ripe for the taking there. None of them will stand even a single tank division.
They don't need to if any of many loose states there let themselves to be turned into Russian staging ground.
Not a stretch given how fantastically corrupt governments there are, with Moldovia, and its breakaway regions in particular.
There was even a precedent: Montenegro once almost let Russian to buy a military base there + humongous lots of lands adjacent to it, allegedly, in exchange for a laughable amount of money going to families of previous cabinet members.
History has shown otherwise. Every single of NATO’s mission has been on the offensive. Be it enforcing a no-fly zone in Libya (which requires suspiciously many areal bombing), naval missions to protect selected cargo vessels from pirates in the Gulf of Aden or intimidating training missions in Iraq. Even Afghanistan was an offensive mission (with a defensive excuse).
NATO’s offensive operations outnumber defensive missions 6 to 0.
Yeah, what a shit website politico is. If they were to exist in american politics, people would call them leftist extremists. But just because they want to be tougher on immigration they are far right, nazis etc.
I honestly hate modern media with a passion and I assume everything else in the article is as false as that very first statement.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Democrats
Yeah, no shit. I don't care if the whole world think the earth is flat, it doesn't make it so. Of course they are taking a stance just like the people who wrote that worthless Wikipedia entry.
Politico is so obviously biased and if you deny it you are most likely taking part in that bias which makes you unable to even comprehend it.
The successor to Gripen won’t be a solo project, it’ll be built in collaborations like with BAE in the Tempest program. NATO is more than the US, so buying Dassault/EADS/Airbus is “Just as NATO” as buying Lockheed and Boeing.
I doubt there would be many permanent US forces in Sweden considering the Norwegian forces are now being cut.
NOT putting American bases in your country is capitulation as history shows that Russia is bound to attack sooner or later. Ukraine is currently partly occupied, after many years of 'friendship'
Sweden is already NATO compliant and does not buy junk from Russia
Not so hypothetical when we remember what Russia did in Georgia, then Ukraine, then Syria etc, etc...
For those who want to have some more insight into the convoluted history of Swedish politics I recommend reading Aron Flam's "This is a Swedish Tiger" [1], a book which uses a war-time slogan to delve into the history of Swedish nationalism/corporatism.
[1] https://aronflam.com/merchandise/f6onzxj7whzph8klyf0du6iiu80...