Tag: NATO

4) To be or NATO be. Lesson twentynine

Putin visited Finland in June-July 2016 in conjunction with Russia’s up to date biggest readiness control exercise, which was carried out on August 25-31, 2016. It was an informal visit, and according to Russia, they didn’t sign any agreements. Sauli Niinistö and Putin discussed “the relations between Finland and Russia and the situation in Europe”. Before that Putin and the Finnish president Sauli Niinistö met as recently as March 2016 in Moscow.

Nato held a summit in the first week of July 2016, where it was agreed to deploy four reinforced battalions in the Baltic countries and in Poland, which Russia naturally opposed.

At a previous meeting in Finland the Moderate (Moderaterna = alleged right wing political party in Sweden) Karin Enström, Vice Chairman of the Swedish Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, criticized Niinistö for meeting with Putin. Niinistö replied that Sweden does not keep up with what is happening in the world and that, e.g. The United States has an active dialogue with Russia. But you have to understand that Finland is cornered by Russia and that it was no coincidence that Putin took a trip over the border in conjunction with the Russian mass mobilization. What were discussed there can determine Sweden’s fate.

The country that wants to annex the Baltics and is located in the east, gain a huge advantage, if they undisturbed under false pretences that no Natoland is going to be affected, first can seize the large Swedish island of Gotland in the middle of the Baltic Sea. If they seize Gotland they can create a total A2AD (Anti Access/Area Denial) over large parts of Scandinavia and the whole of the Baltic Sea with advanced long range air defense systems.

I think that Russia will try to find cracks in the Swedish-Finnish relations. They hope that one country will not apply for NATO membership without the other country also doing so, and that there will therefore be no membership for any of the countries. In one way, the True Finns (political right wing party in Finland) are dangerous which have worked to strip the Swedish-speaking part of the Finnish people of their civil rights. It may come back to haunt them. I believe that Finland is more dependent on hooking on a Swedish membership than Sweden is dependent on hooking on a Finnish membership. Finland, with NATO’s eyes, can probably be more easily sacrificed than Sweden. It can put Finland in a difficult situation if Sweden joins the NATO organization without a co-signing together with Finland. It’s what happened when Sweden joined the EU. The Finns haven’t forgotten.

In the above diagram you can see who the weakest link in the chain is. It’s Germany. For my part, although Sweden is not a member of NATO, I am prepared to help defend a NATO nation in the Nordic region, if it is small, like the Baltic States or Iceland. But promises of military aid without first showing that you are really prepared to follow up on it are not worth much. So I am ready, if I were an authorized statesman, to let our Visby-class corvettes and our submarines, from time to time patrol the waters of the Baltic States in peacetime. I have already made a Baltic ex officer assurances and thus I cannot back down.

I am also ready to support Finland in different ways. But it doesn’t matter what I say, or even what our defense minister Peter Hultqvist says, if we do not have a plan for how the help should be executed in peacetime and in wartime or if we don’t have the means to help in any decisive way. We are not alone in not having a plan. NATO lacks or lacked a functioning plan since the United States doesn’t have any land-based persevering deterrent like medium-range ballistic missile systems with versatile types of war heads, like the Russian Iskander-M, which is deployed in Kaliningrad. The United States has phased out most of its tactical nuclear arsenal and the one that is available is not land-based, it is air and sea based.

This is the fourth and last lesson concerning Sweden, Finland and NATO. I hope I haven’t left the Finns with a grudge towards this patriotic Swede. I am prepared to help the Finns with whatever help we can allow ourselves to give to them, even officers and fighting units in Swedish uniform. A hypothetic war in the twentytwenties will be much more qualitatively materiel focused than in the Russo-Finnish winterwar in 1939-1940, and I am afraid that we are not going to be willing to supply the advanced materiel the Finns are going to need without also controlling its contributive forms. That means that wherever there is advanced Swedish equipment, it is going to be operated by Swedish personnel under Swedish command. At least if I have anything to say about it.

But first we need a solid plan and binding agreements.

Homework:

Can Sweden and Finland prevent that Russia could find cracks in our Swedish-Finnish relations? If so, how?

Please motivate your answer!

Roger M. Klang, defense political Spokesman for the Christian Values Party (Kristna Värdepartiet) in Sweden

3) To be or NATO be. Lesson twentyeight

I don’t think that an attack against Sweden will be of a military nature, but the attack will come in the form of a prolonged cyber operation and/or through an economic conspiracy against us. The only thing that can discourage the Russians from committing a cyber attack on Sweden is if we have an ability to attack Russia with the same means.

Georgia’s president Mikhail Saakashvili believed that NATO would intervene if Russia attacked Georgia militarily. But Georgia is more isolated localized geographically because there are only two access roads by land from the Nato country Turkey. Plus, the airport at Georgia’s capital Tbilisi is isolated. In addition, Turkey has a long history of turncoat policy regardless of the consequences for northern NATO countries and others, and it is the Turks who controls the straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus into the Black Sea. A NATO intervention was hardly possible.

Georgia 2008 was the famous “litmus test”. It will of course be more of a risk-taking for Russia to attack Sweden before we can join NATO than it was to attack the isolated Georgia. But players come in plenty. Professor Rolf Tamnes, Norwegian historian and professor at the Department of Defense Studies (Institutt for forsvarsstudier – IFS), emphasizes that Russia does not trust Swedish non-alignment, since the extensive cuts in the Swedish defense force is considered as an incentive to seek external help, for example from NATO and the United States.

Apparently, it is not clear abroad what Swedish “non-alignment” stands for. In my opinion, it stands for freedom to choose alliance partners according to our own preferences. We should make this clear to the world, even if the outside world then will reject us even more, because uncertainties benefit us even less. We are sitting in the fox trap regardless.

How may Russia evaluate their geo-economic field and balance it with the geomilitary field?

1) Russia prefer to look at it as if the outside world is dependent on what they have to offer in the form of Russian gas and oil, but I believe that they realize that Germany may make themselves independent from the geostrategic Gazprom and thus Russia. They must keep the Germans happy.
2) It is almost a required condition that Russia is able to simultaneously attack the entire Baltics and parts of Scandinavia not to mention Iceland, if they intend to be able to count on free passage through Öresund, Kattegat and Skagerack, and they must be able to keep their main trading countries, e.g. the Netherlands and France.
3) This in turn requires that the United States first, nearly lose its superpower status. We therefore have no interest whatsoever in the United States losing its superpower status.

But I think that Sweden as a state must grant access to our territory for US troops on Swedish soil if we are to join NATO. It is not enough to receive a Naval ship visit from time to time, which we could also do as a non-aligned country in peacetime. I am not particularly happy to let 5,000 American hungry hearts invade a Swedish small town or one of our Baltic Sea islands in peacetime. Maybe we can do as Norway and let the US stock up materiel in Swedish bunker rooms?

Homework:

The US may have bases in Sweden as a requirement for a Swedish membership. Above all, an air defense base on one of our Baltic Sea islands and access to our airbases and ports. Otherwise the US will never have the time window to intervene in Scandinavia and even less in the Baltic countries, before Russia has swallowed parts of us. If the United States cannot intervene in time on our latitudes and longitudes, then it makes no sense for us to join NATO and we will probably then be denied membership.

But there is also the possibility to accomodate American service members families and thus unburden some pressure on our communities and our society as a whole. Let them contribute to our society and at the same time make it possible for them to use public services such as hospitals and schools at the same low cost as for Swedes. The schools should even be free of charge. I have absolutely no problems with Americans as a people.

Do you agree or not agree? Please motivate your position.

Roger M. Klang, defense political Spokesman for the Christian Values Party (Kristna Värdepartiet) in Sweden

2) To be or NATO be. Lesson twentyseven

Off course, the United States does not want to betray the baltic people, but it may be that they realize that it will be impossible to defend the Baltic countries if one does not add big resources to Norway and Poland. One can also choose to defend the Baltic countries already in the Baltics, by deploying long-range air defense systems and mechanized ”verbands” (German word for troops) in the Baltic states. Either the Americans do not see this possibility as realistic, or they abstain from it for political reasons e.g. because they do not want to rock the hornets nest. It might be that they have been duped or maybe they have missed the whole idea of their own fault. In any case, the Americans have not yet deployed any air defense systems in the Baltic countries.

Germany can, in a strategic twilight dusk, deny the Americans access or transit to Poland. In that case, a scenario with a “fire break” dividing Sweden is a probable solution. Chief Engineer Helge Löfstedt expressed this about the presumption of our cooperation in the journal Försvarsutbildaren nr 3 2014;

“The problem is mostly about how Sweden should avoid ending up in a situation where the help takes humiliating forms which leads to Swedish wishes being neglected in conjunction with the development of the conflict.”

What is good in the defense committee report “Road choices in a globalized world” (Vägval i en globaliserad värld) is that the defense committee proposes an expanded and deepened defense cooperation with the Baltic countries. But when they express themselves like this, they are only half right;

“The future is becoming increasingly difficult to predict. It is not possible to imagine that a military conflict in our immediate area would only affect one specific country. A military attack exclusively against Sweden remains unlikely for the foreseeable future. However, crises and incidents, which also include military means of power, can emerge in our region, and in the long term military threats can never be ruled out.”

It is a false axiom that Russia would not have the will or the ability to attack Sweden singularily. In the Georgia War of 2008, a singular Georgia with far-reaching plans to join the NATO organization stood against a Russian attacker, and the Russian attack was planned according to Putin’s own statement several years afterwards. The attack was a signal to the US that; “We can strangle your supply line of materiel and isolate the US forces in Afghanistan right here, so don’t even think about expanding NATO membership to Georgia at our expense.”

There is a threat against a singular Sweden, if our politicians say we will join NATO, just as there was a threat against Georgia in 2008. It must also seem very attractive to the Kremlin to secure its northern flank at a reasonable cost in a European full scale war.

The question is whether Russia really believes it would be easier to secure its northern flank than it would be to win in east Europe. If I am allowed to answer in the Kremlin’s place; It could be if, with “victory”, you are considering gains from the political and military neglect by the victim countries, as well as the result of the implementation of hybrid warfare combined with classic Russian extortion and threat rhetoric against the Scandinavian countries.

In eastern Europe, classic blackmailing and threat rhetoric doesn’t work as well as it do in northern Europe, in peacetime. Putin can annex a little bit at a time in eastern Europe. Or Putin can take a big chew in Scandinavia, as Hitler did.

If democracy can prevail and the people is allowed to decide on NATO membership, the decision is given a legitimacy which Putin will find hard to dismiss. If our Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist and the Government (2019) are to decide, they will put Sweden in unnecessary danger. Which do you think is the most dangerous of the following three alternatives:

1) To apply for membership in NATO after an invitation to the Membership Action Plan.
2) Almost unnoticed bit by bit slipping into NATO without us applying for membership for that matter.
3) To be non-aligned or only in alliance with Finland and build a strong Swedish defense on our own.

Following line 1) requires that Sweden get militarily involved in the outside world and make binding commitments of military assistance to, among other countries, the Baltic states.

Following line 2) is a natural consequence of Sweden caring about its small neighboring countries and brothers in e.g. the Baltics. We are prepared to help the Baltic countries, even though we do not know how to do just that in the event of a Russian invasion of the Baltic countries, and that we are prepared to help gets us involved in international exercises and treaties dominated by the United States.

Following line 3) is a risky business because we don’t know what is going on inside Putin’s head. But we know that we then cannot count on help from the US, who is NATO’s foremost guarantor. We can, of course, be freeloaders just by realizing that the US and NATO almost certainly need to use Swedish territory as a build-up area for a recapturing of the Baltic States. But such thinking creates contempt among the NATO member countries, rightly so, and that may cause them to do whatever they feel like in and with Sweden. So, paradoxically, we lose influence and self-determination in the event of a war in our neighborhood if we would choose to follow line 3.

I believe that a Swedish NATO membership should be debated. But the decision should be left in the hands of the people through a general referendum, and not be left in the hands of the politicians who are not competent in anything that has to do with our defense, except for the gender issue and the ”value ground” that is. A popular referendum is an extra safety net for Sweden as a state, because it will not be as easy for Putin to militarily attack selected parts of Sweden if the decision on NATO membership is decided by vote of the Swedish people.

Homework:

Considering that we need to join the NATO organization simultaneously with Finland, as we already discussed a little in Lesson twentysix, how do you look at our dilemma? What road would you have embarked on if you had the above mentioned three choices?

Is there an additional choice?

Please motivate your conclusions.

Roger M. Klang, defense political Spokesman for the Christian Values Party (Kristna Värdepartiet) in Sweden

1) To be or NATO be. Lesson twentysix

Since 2014, a threatening Russian rhetoric combined with an aggressive behavior on the military air and sea arena has been displayed towards both Sweden and Finland, mainly regarding our approach to NATO. Russia threatens us, not because we could seek membership in NATO, but because we are approaching NATO. This is both good and bad news.

The good news is that Putin knows that Russia cannot reasonably attack Sweden unprovoked and that there is room for us to slip into and acclimatize in NATO in the future without formally joining.

The bad news is that it gets more difficult to formally join NATO. Unfortunately, Russia’s rhetoric is toxic, everybody are fascists and Russia is entitled to expansive self-defense. This means that they have stopped every form of dialogue. It means more polarization that can lead to war. Everything is depending on Russia now.

The question as I see it is not if Sweden and Finland should join NATO. The question is; how strong military forces each country must have, in order to have the freedom of choice both to stand outside NATO alt. to join NATO.

If we should be non-aligned or full-fledged NATO members also boil down to; Can NATO, i.e. the US, deploy forces via the Atlantic puddle or via the air and deploy mechanized troops before the one week military resistance is over and Gotland and/or northern Norrland and Scania in the south are taken. At a superficial glance, the most important thing seems to be to get help with air forces.

But it is not enough having a significant airforce to beat the Russians in northern Norrland, because the enemy has mobile air defense systems. Therefore, the most important thing for us is that we have our own air defense systems in Norrland and preferably land-based cruise missiles with supportive types of UAS and that we can meet the enemy on the ground.

The answer to whether the United States can deploy forces in time I guess depends on their willingness to sacrifice soldiers and tax mony for us, and it also depends on what kind of military branch and weapon systems we can expect them to help us with, and in which part(s) of Sweden the war is raging.

Air force reinforcements could in principle arrive here before the week is over. But then we may not have any remaining relevant airbases given that we have probably been combated. Then we are faced with “fait accompli” regarding Gotland’s air defense. American air forces need 2-4 days before they can reach Norway. Marine forces need 8-14 days, and green forces need 1-2 months before they can reach a Swedish or Norwegian port.

What could possibly make a difference on the island of Gotland is, above all, target-measuring ability for cruise missiles, but also soldiers with FGM-148 Javelin against combat vehicles and air defense systems, etc. The first mentioned probably requires compatibility in certain areas, because information must be able to be linked and used by a platform with cruise missiles which is located e.g. in Skagerack.

In Norrland, our airbases will probably also be combated. But possibly the railway connection between the Norwegian Trondheim, where the United States has pre-stocked materiel in different mountain rooms, and Swedish Luleå is intact or can be repaired quickly.

The Port of Gothenburg can be used, but Russia can threaten to mine it. Whether they make real of the threat or not, noone will dare to use the harbor before it is mine-searched.

If the Finnish army lasts for just over 3 weeks, a heavy American mechanized brigade with equipment and personnel will be able to deploy, in addition to the combat vehicles that may be pre-stored in a total of 8 mountain rooms in the Trøndelagsregion, in Norway with transport flights and from there to Norrland and/or Finland via the railway. But there is no reason to assume that the railway remains intact all the way, though all the way may not be needed.

One can ask whether the Swedish influence in the world decreases if we join NATO where the enemy always is called Russia, China or the militant Islamism. But what do the politicians really mean by “non-alignment”, do they mean that we should be solitary and alignment free (read; completely alone in the world), or do they mean that we should safeguard our freedom to choose our alliance partners as we see fit?

From the beginning our neutrality policy was called; “Alliance in peace, aimed at neutrality in war” when the declaration was first formulated by Olof Palme and the Social Democrats in the early 1970s. The Swedish Social Democrats largely adhere to this declaration today. The declaration is easy to read and it can be interpreted in only two ways. Olof Palme wasn’t a cowardly man but the way the world sees this declaration reads either ”cowardice” or ”I am a traitor”. The problem for us is that the next war can very well be confined to ourselves and a well-known provocator, so that we are the ones standing with our pants down.

One can look at our non-alignment today as if we want to keep our freedom to act as we see fit, or in other words to make decisions after our conscience. Praxis is that we choose alliance partners and not only for our own gain. Given the unilateral declaration of solidarity proclamated by our former so called right wing government, it is a matter of being free to choose our own alliance partners. But the declaration of solidarity was not popular, at least not in Finland, and this is because we cannot back up our former governments great fine words militarily.

There is no doubt that as long as the Baltic countries can count on American help, Sweden can count on an American interest in using our territory. Ironically, this means that Russia too has an interest in using our territory. From that presumption, it becomes a race for Swedish territory. Traditionally, this has been the strongest argument for Swedish neutrality policy. But then we need to be able to control our own territory, and we can hardly do that at present date.

The Americans can unload on the Swedish west coast, including at Landvetter Airport, and transport the materiel on land to the north, east and south. The notion that the Americans may wish to win a minor stalemate in the Baltic Sea can be the main reason why the island of Öland actually would turn out to be a very strategic island for both the US and Russia. The Americans therefore need many allies in Sweden. They need large sections of the population and defense organisation to be NATO friends.

The Balkans and Camp Bondsteel have become extremely important for the US northern European strategy. It is no secret that NATO has been on a charm offensive against several countries in the Balkans in 2016.

The Russians need Visby Airport on northern Gotland, which is favoured by Gotland being an island. Visby is the largest resort on Gotland and is located on the island’s west coast.

Each country has unique conditions in unique times. Sweden and Finland have been warned in disguised terms to join NATO. Our situation can be likened to a trust exercise where a person closes his eyes, crosses his arms and falls back towards a person who is supposed to catch him in his fall. Will the US catch us in our fall backwards, or will we hit the ground without any possibility of cushioning our fall?

On the other hand, Sweden participates in the recurring international joint ventures Baltops, Northern Coasts and the Archtic Challenge Excercise, where participants from several countries in Europe and the US participate. We are already participating in the RFP (Reserve Forces Pool) within the framework of NATO Response Forces. Archtic Challenge Excercise is led rotated by Sweden, Finland and Norway. Baltops is led by the United States for best interoperability of the exercise.

Homework:

Do you think that Sweden and Finland should seek to be invited to the NATO Membership Action Plan and join the NATO alliance simultaneously in the near future? Please motivate your standpoint.

Will the US catch us in our, albeit somewhat cussioned fall to be honest, you think?

Roger M. Klang, defense political Spokesman for the Christian Values Party (Kristna Värdepartiet) in Sweden

The Baltic states. Lesson twentyfive

In 1989, Estonia had a population of 1,565,000, of which 30,3 percent were ethnic Russians. In 2007, Estonia had a population of 1,342,000, of which 25.6 percent were ethnic Russians. This means that 130,100 ethnic Russians emigrated out of a population of 474,200 Russians (1989) and that 92,900 Estonians emigrated out of a population of 1,090,700 (1989) between 1989-2007. So the population decline was happening mostly at the guests’ expense (the Russians) even though they did not have any reason to be there from the beginning. However, most of them were forcefully relocated from Russia to the Baltic states during the Soviet era, and they have no fault of their own or their descendants, for living there. There is no one living that can be held accountable, for the country’s demographics and that the ethnic Russian population lives where they live now.

Of course, the ethnic Russian population can be held accountable for their behavior. The Estonians are forced to make the best of the situation. Until a number of years ago, it went well, but in 2007 there was an uprising during the bronze soldier crisis when Estonian authorities wanted to move a bronze statue of a Russian WWII soldier from the center of Tallin to a peripheral cemetery in the capital.

The statue is a symbol of Russian supremacy that has stood since the Soviet era. The Estonians had every right to move the statue, and Russia acted beyond their right when they more than likely targeted the country in an IT attack. Estonia is so IT-integrated that the country is sometimes called E-stonia. Russia, simultaneously, started a large-scale repair work project on the railway at the Russian side of Narva. Look up Narva in your Atlas, it’s a geographically and historically important city! This effectively stopped all rail transports, which very negatively affected Estonia’s economy, as Estonia is a transit country for goods.

Estonia requested help from NATO, and NATO sent professional military IT-technicians to help Estonia defend itself against and recover from these IT attacks. It is this kind of Russian behavior that makes me oppose that Swedes associate with Russians by entering into business contracts with Russia, and so it is understood that if you do business with Russian companies, you are doing business with the Russian mafia, and in the long run, you are jumping into bed with the FSB (KGB’s heir).

At least if you don’t do as IKEA and banish taking and giving of bribes at both high and low levels in Russia and everywhere else. But look at how it’s going for IKEA in Russia. Should honest Swedish companies in Russia be forced to kneel before the Tsar while Russian companies in Sweden should thrive and be allowed to criminalize society? As long as these Swedish companies are not special steel manufacturers or high tech companies of course, because then it is certainly advantageous for Putin that Swedish companies establish themselves in Russia. Can they blame us for avoiding such a situation when they run such a cannon boat diplomacy as they do, put in their own words?

By wanting, intending to, planning and budgeting for, and being able to defend Gotland, we help the Baltic states best. Sweden has helped to thwart Russia’s Baltic “energy blockade”, by placing a power cable between Nybro in Småland to Lithuania, as part of the European Union’s energy policy. At the same time, we could not back up the work with any credible defense, and Russian interferences were common.

The Russian Prosecutor General was to investigate “whether it was legal by the Soviet Union to recognize the Baltic States”. This was reported in Dagens Nyheter on June 30, 2015. The Russian Prosecutor General has previously stated that it was against the law that Crimea was handed over to Ukraine in 1954. Not surprisingly he also claimed that this does not have any legal consequences. Yevgeny Fjodorov and Anton Romanov from Putin’s party “United Russia” have demanded an investigation. The parliament members argued that the decision harmed Russia’s sovereignty and led to the dismembering of the Soviet Union. The two believe that the recognition of the Baltic States was treason and harmed Russia’s sovereignty with the explanation that it were non-constitutional coups that led to the emergence of the Baltic states.

Since when can a state claim that its own laws have priority before the laws of another state and that at the expense of the other state? Now I understand why the official Russian protests against Finland regarding the Finnish courts being biased for Finnish parents to divorce children among Finnish-Russian couples happened. This way the Kremlin has in good time acquired an alibi for its own court decisions, which means that Russia can make laws in other countries and maybe even annex them, as they will claim that Finland does against Russia.

According to information from a Swedish resident in the Baltics, a destabilization campaign, which he believes has been initiated by Russia, between Norway and Lithuania, was in progress from July 2015. The campaign was about a discussion about forcibly disposed children with Lithuanian parents in Norway. The campaign had been going on for more than 1½ months and was even at ambassador level. This very much probates the alibi theory I describe above. Russia plans to legitimize its security policy for its own people and for the world. At the same time, it reveals Russia’s expansion plans in northern Europe and Scandinavia in all its nakedness, either on the political level alt. on the military level, or both.

The Baltic states also try to profit politically. They declared in early November 2015 that they were going to seek financial compensation from Russia for the socio-economic damage they were suffering during the Soviet occupation in 1940-1991. Russia categorically rejected this thought.

Homework:

There are so many good questions that turns up when you read this, that I don’t know where to start unravel. Contemplate the information and ask your own questions! Part of being an intelligence person is about being able to hold information to yourself, not to become a Big shot, but because you cannot find listeners to your all-wise conclusions. At least that is what you think if you are an intelligence person like me. Remember, you are in training, that means that you are not required to criticize sources. Concentrate on causality and cohesion!

Roger M. Klang, defense political Spokesman for the Christian Values Party (Kristna Värdepartiet) in Sweden