PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Sweden builds up defences - 40% increase in spend
Old 21st Oct 2020, 06:18
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Beamr
 
Join Date: Sep 2019
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Originally Posted by racedo
One wonders whether the increase in military spending is for internal or external use.

The old "Russia is going to invade" slogan doesn't answer the question of "WTF would they want to invade" ? When even Sweden's Govt have pretty much given up trying to govern areas of cities and these are of Swedish (or nominally) citizens what would someone else do ?

What resources has Sweden got that would interest any invader ?

It sounds like some strategically placed media has been at work trying to convince people there is a need to spend billions on defence industries. Of course this media / think tanks getting their funds from Military suppliers is just mere coincidence.
Russia has very few contact points to the sea in the west: St Petersburg and Kaliningrad. In the name of protecting these ports, cities and seaways they have a few issues: all the sea routes are basically in control of other countries and providing Baltic NATO countries support. So it's not about resources, it's about geography and who rules what. Take over Åland and Sweden (esp. Gotland) and you'll end up ruling the Baltic Sea without messing with NATO. At the same time you'll be cutting out service routes (air and sea) to Baltic NATO countries, have the opportunity to pressurize Norway (NATO country) and isolate Finland (not a NATO member but better equipped than Sweden).

The only issue in this is Åland, which is a demilitarized zone by international agreements and yet should be protected by Finnish Defence Forces. So would one attack Åland and risk getting the heat from rest of the world about it (esp involving NATO) or just forget about it and close the Baltic sea from further south or just ignore everyone else and just do it anyway (remember the Crimean). Consider this as foil hatting? Well, in the past years russian citizens have been making rather dubious real estate purchases throughout the Finnish archipelago, especially around deeper seaways, and built up very interesting amount of helipads, storages and piers. Eventually some of these have been searched and seized by Finnish authorities. As an example: on one island there was a buildup of two rather large concrete piers on different sides of the island. When asked by the authorities why these were built, the russian millionaire responded that he likes to swim around the island and hence the piers (that could accommodate amphibious ships). This happened in 2018.
For our english speaking friends, NYT article about it at the time: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/w...-military.html

Historically we've been living an exceptionally long period of peace in northern/western Europe, now 75 years and counting. For Sweden it has lasted for 206 years, which is astonishing considering that the city of Los Angeles, the city of New York and city of Miami are all younger than the continuous peace time of Sweden. Will it last forever? Nope.

Last edited by Beamr; 21st Oct 2020 at 06:49.
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