Should Poland be forced to give up the territory in the west in acquired from Germany ? Should German reacquire Gdansk / Kallinigrad ? Republic of Ireland get Northern Ireland ?

UK Govt debt is now well in excess of GDP so should military spending be decimated to get back to that notional figure ? Sweden has little danger of invasion but it suits those who will make money from it to promote that idea.

Still waiting for what anybody would get by invading Sweden, aside from a bloody big headache.

In the age of drone warfare on land, sea and air the invasion of countries is old.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidni.../#48a14dea67ba

Nothing too terribly new except the last sentence. It comes from a retired Swedish General, but it’s likely still accurate. It would seem to indicate Sweden hopes to hold out, hoping for external assistance rather than expecting to drive the invader back themselves.

My point exactly. What makes crimean so special then?
What are the odds of UK being invaded? Why are they throwing money out the window then?
Or scaling up a bit, the US? Australia? New Zealand?
or, Russia? Who is threatening Russia so that it has to invest in new military bases, troops and armament in the Baltic area?

Beamr,

I think it would be misplaced to regard Russia as a country which has to feel honestly threatened before it will behave in a Belligerent manner, certainly, and definitely initially, through what they call 'soft power'.

FB

I agree. My question is more of why is it okay for every other country to spend more to defence but all of the sudden it is not ok when it comes to Sweden.

Finningley Boy,

Perhaps a more relevant approach is that Sweden HAS gone through its own 'constant can't do sage of defence reviews' and it is precisely because of these defence reviews and cuts that the Swedes find themselves in such a perilous position.

And don't forget that we are talking figures of around £3b here, and that Boris gave UK defence an additional £2b last year.

So I think you are painting a wrongly nuanced picture.

Growing tensions with Russia apparently is the reason...https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...h-russia-grows

This year-and-a-half old thread is now even more timely than it was then. We've all seen the russian talk shows about taking gotland and the importance of it militarily and the Russian rhetorics of "military and political consequences" of Sweden joining NATO.

now Sweden has announced it will invest an extra 300M€ to defence immediately, on top of the spend increment announced earlier. Also they have activated the civil defence organization in Gotland and placed more troops there.

It will be interesting to see where the funds will be invested and in which order.

Russia is triggering all those things it claims it does not want to happen.
Because it wants them to happen for some reason?

I've been trying to learn some Swedish, and have been watching the nightly news (Aktuellt). There seems to be broad support for increased military spending from all the political parties (except maybe the left-most one?). If your neighbor's threatening you, and you have a weak military and no formal allies, either you sit back and hope for the best, or you do something about it. Support for joining NATO is also growing, with opinion now about evenly divided. And Sweden has also sent AT4s and other gear to Ukraine (the first time since 1939 it has sent lethal weapons into a combat zone).

"and you have a weak military "

TBH Sweden has working capacity for off base ops, networking all units and modern kit and missiles hat puts a lot of Europe to shame - they build their own aircraft as well..............

I should have said "small."

Norway would be a better strategic capture for the Russians. And easier to. Plus Russia would then control almost all of the european gas.
Sweden already have a substantial defence, including not only their own homebuilt fighterplanes but armored infantry fighting vehicles and the best canons as well. In strength of 3 times Norway. But it would take time to rebuild to the 15 standing and 100 reserve battalions they had 25 yers ago, from currently 7 and 14 battalions. Or grow back their air force from currently about 120 to their previous cold war strength of 400.
Problem is Norway is part of Nato while Sweden (and Finland) is not. But if the Russians capture Sweden, Norway is a dead duck and will eventually be forced to come into line through third columnists. And then Nato is faulted without attack on a single Nato country.
So Sweden should be afraid for more than loosing Gotland. They are a non-nuclear weapons country that is neither protected by an aliiance partner's nuclear weapons. That could be a problem against somebody with such weapons, as Ukraine has shown. Can fully understand why they are arming even if they can't really afford it. Can't understand why Norway is not in any significant way, even though they have both the funds and a lot to protect.

"...forced to come into line through third columnists..?"

I think that you do the Norwegian population a huge disservice, and also underestimate them in the way that Putin underestimated the people of Ukraine. Look up Norwegian resistance in WW2 if you doubt me.

Agreed about the Norwegians, but don't underestimate the Swedes either. My late father-in-law was a Swedish trawlerman who volunteered for the Swedish army in WWII. He told me a few stories. Yes, Sweden was neutral...or was it?

As a norwegian standing outside looking in, from a border village and with my year of service up north back when the reserve army was 8 times the size it is now, and actually quite comparable to what Ukraine had before the attack. So I know a fair deal about norwegian resistance and ww2. I also remember that the original Quisling was a norwegian. And there where many others like him. Norway under the nazi rule also sent quite a few volunteers to fight on the eastern front on the german side. Some of them returnees after fighting on the finish side against the russians in the winter war. A lot of the members of the norwegian resistance spent the war in Sweden and only turned up after the 8'th of May 1945. But one have to remember that the germans had more than 350 000 troops stationed in Norway during the war. That is twice as many as russia is attacking Ukraine with. However Norway's largest contriubution to the allied side was the Nortraship freighter and tanker fleet.

But in this case I've been looking at reports about some local politicians here and there up north that is very reluctant to follow up on any sanctions against russians. Including in Finmark and on Svalbard. Plus a political party that still wants Norway to give up its Nato membership. Norway has its fair share of communists, including of the old Soviet and Mao area type, and now heavily infiltrated in the green movement.
And I seriously doubt Norway will fight in their cities an let them be destoryed, rather than declare them open cities like Paris was. Even though all the military expertice now says a city is the easiest to defend and most difficult to attack, as prooven at Leningrad and Stalingrad. And now in Kiev, Kharkiv and Mariupol. But all sadly destroyed,

When it comes to the swedes in ww2 the opinions are divided, as where the swedish politicians and some royals. It proably varied through the war after who they tought would win. Some, including the founder of Ikea have not looked to well in afterlight. Sweden did let german troops pass through the country on occasions and never stopped shipping iron ore to Germany. But it also was a place of refuge and not all interment for norwegians, some of whom could travel onwards to England.
Another funny thing about Sweden is that Ukraine was once a part of their feifdom and when that ended at Poltava, Russia became the next ruler which signalled the beginning of that empire. Which really lead me to believe that Sweden's reluctance for alliances is that that really signals their fall from grace and they therefore prefer an oversized own military. Except they let that go when the wall fell and they no longer thought they had direct border enemies. Like much of Western Europe. So now they have an air force the size of Ukraine. Instead of as earlier one the size of what is attacking Ukraine. But I believe the state of affairs in the UK is not much different.

Simplistic you say?

Doesn't seem to be so far away now to the average European.

Funnily enough - Crimea and Stockholm are roughly the same distance away from the OP's location in northern Italy.
As a European I think both qualify as "our back yard"...

One point about Norway - it's damn big country - and people forget that it's a very long way from north to south.

they also forget that Kirkenes is further east than Alexandria and the west coast is further west than Amsterdam