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The goal of the military is to be able to resist for a week and after that Sweden is dependent on allies helping. This of course refers to a full scale invasion

by cc81 9y ago

The goal of the military is to be able to resist for a week and after that Sweden is dependent on allies helping. This of course refers to a full scale invasion from Russia. Sweden used to have a pretty decent military though. For example: > In 1957 Sweden had the world's fourth most powerful air force,[5] with about 1000 modern planes in front-line service. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Air_Force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Air_Force However these days it is pretty crippled I think. Large budget cuts and a big transformation to a much smaller military that focused on missions abroad.

aquadrop 9y ago
Why would Russia attack Sweden? What's the point?
- dogma1138 9y ago
  To secure its passage into the Atlantic. Russia is (defacto) the world's largest land locked country. It possess no warm water ports which are open to the high seas. This reality shaped Russian expansion and regional and global geopolitics since the 19th century. A warm water port is why Russia invaded Korea(and Manchuria) 3 times, it's why it would go to a war with NATO over Ukraine and why it would not let Syria fall. Russia's only open port is in Vlodivostock and its closed for 4 or more months of the year and its on the other side of the world. To access the Atlantic Russia needs to cross the Great Belt and the North Sea, to access the Med it needs to cross the Bosphorus, Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles. This means that to get anywhere it either needs to set sail from the other side of the world if it's not winter or pay a toll fee to NATO. Global warming might actually play into Russia's hands, they are far north enough not to be affected by the drought, they are a bread basket, rich in natural resources, have a small population, and will reap the benefits the northern passage and their eastern ports open all year round.
  - aquadrop 9y ago
    Ok, that's just self-contradictory and far-fetched. Plus, attacking Sweden doesn't secure passage into the Atlantic.
  - BoiledCabbage 9y ago
    I don't think enough people appreciate how much geography has played into Russia's actions - most relevantly over the past 10 years or so. Mountain ranges, warm-water ports and "buffer" countries for Moscow have all shaped their actions.
  - geezerjay 9y ago
    > To secure its passage into the Atlantic. And then there's Norway and all that north sea oil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_oil
- CapitalistCartr 9y ago
  During the Cold War, Sweden was a major part of the Western European defense against the Soviet Union. Russia has historically been expansionist and imperialist. Whether modern Russia can field a credible threat to them is uncertain. "Since Peter the Great, Russia had been expanding at the rate of one Belgium per year." Henry Kissinger
  - aquadrop 9y ago
    By that logic Sweden should be more worried about being attacked by USA or UK. All countries historically have been expansionist. Now we have modern world, and it's certain that there's 0 possibility of Russia attacking Sweden. I don't understand all that recent hype about Sweden being afraid of Russia's attack. Even Finland and Norway which border Russia don't care, but Sweden do. Seems like there's some local political game involving "scare of Russia" is going.
    - Swenrekcah 9y ago
      Now we have the modern world, and in the last 10 years Russia has invaded and annexed a part of Georgia and a part of Ukraine, and probably more that I don't know of. Now we have the modern world, and 3 years ago Russia or Russian backed rebels shot down a dutch passenger plane. Yeah, why worry about Russia...
      - aquadrop 9y ago
        Russia didn't attack and annexed part of Georgia, those are self-managed unrecognized entities. Also if you support that Kosovo shouldn't be part of Serbia, then Abkhazia and South Ossetia shouldn't be part of Georgia, it's absolutely de-facto separate entities (source: my grandparents lived in Abkhazia) and those small nations fought with Georgia by themselves. Yes, Crimea was annexed and that's totally wrong, but it has complex history and you need to look at the whole string of events which triggered this. Who exactly shot down the plane is still not 100% clear. Even though I think it was on DNR rebels, Ukrainain army wasn't angels as well. Also Russian backed rebels and Russia itself is a big difference (al qaeda was USA backed at some point). And even rebels I'm sure weren't trying to shot down passenger plane, same as when USA shot down passenger plane in 1988 (and George Bush said that he'll never apologize for that, even though it was clear they were responsible for destroying civilian plane). And speaking of USA, at the recent time they attacked a lot of countries (like with Iraq, on false pretense, 0 consequence later) and dropped a lot of bombs, so if we go just by numbers and don't look deeper in the each situation Sweden should be more afraid of USA, as I said before... Politics is hard and dirty, but my original point was, that there's no political or any point of Russia attacking Sweden.
- geezerjay 9y ago
  Why would Russia attack Finland? And what would Russia have to gain by invading Norway?
  - aquadrop 9y ago
    Exactly, there's no logic behind that. No point of attacking Finland or Norway, and they protect Sweden's border. And to attack Sweden you need to go through harsh environment, going through another country, facing world's anger etc to gain exactly what? No logic behind that. Seems more probably Norway would attack Sweden :)
    - Scramblejams 9y ago
      You have to understand that Russia is highly expansionist because it has no natural barriers to invasion. Its only option is to create buffer zones, exactly as it did, massively, in the Cold War. Plenty of motivation there. There are other imperatives at work as well. For example, in a fight against NATO, Russia's number one concern is to prevent NATO's reinforcement via the Atlantic. To close those sea lanes, they have two weapons: subs and planes. Those planes can't fly over Europe, they'd be massacred. So they have to fly north from the Murmansk area, keep clear of Finland, Norway, Sweden, go west for a while, then turn south and fly down to find and kill the convoys. That's a huge, wasteful dogleg. Invading north Finland, Sweden and Norway allows their bombers to cut across that land, giving them a much straighter shot at all that shipping and keeps them further from the NATO forces that would be on Iceland. They use less fuel to get to the sea lanes, which means they carry more weapons and have more time to look for targets. These countries aren't building defenses against Russia because it's politically convenient or just for the fun of it.
      - XorNot 9y ago
        "Buffer zones" are the biggest bullshit excuse for holding geographically concentrated foreign populations hostage by major, undemocratic powers. Russia is expansionist because it suits the government just fine to blame their massive internal problems on anyone but the kleptocrats in power.

by cc81 9y ago

aquadrop 9y ago

Why would Russia attack Sweden? What's the point?

dogma1138 9y ago
To secure its passage into the Atlantic. Russia is (defacto) the world's largest land locked country. It possess no warm water ports which are open to the high seas. This reality shaped Russian expansion and regional and global geopolitics since the 19th century. A warm water port is why Russia invaded Korea(and Manchuria) 3 times, it's why it would go to a war with NATO over Ukraine and why it would not let Syria fall. Russia's only open port is in Vlodivostock and its closed for 4 or more months of the year and its on the other side of the world. To access the Atlantic Russia needs to cross the Great Belt and the North Sea, to access the Med it needs to cross the Bosphorus, Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles. This means that to get anywhere it either needs to set sail from the other side of the world if it's not winter or pay a toll fee to NATO. Global warming might actually play into Russia's hands, they are far north enough not to be affected by the drought, they are a bread basket, rich in natural resources, have a small population, and will reap the benefits the northern passage and their eastern ports open all year round.
- aquadrop 9y ago
  Ok, that's just self-contradictory and far-fetched. Plus, attacking Sweden doesn't secure passage into the Atlantic.
- BoiledCabbage 9y ago
  I don't think enough people appreciate how much geography has played into Russia's actions - most relevantly over the past 10 years or so. Mountain ranges, warm-water ports and "buffer" countries for Moscow have all shaped their actions.
- geezerjay 9y ago
  > To secure its passage into the Atlantic. And then there's Norway and all that north sea oil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_oil
CapitalistCartr 9y ago
During the Cold War, Sweden was a major part of the Western European defense against the Soviet Union. Russia has historically been expansionist and imperialist. Whether modern Russia can field a credible threat to them is uncertain. "Since Peter the Great, Russia had been expanding at the rate of one Belgium per year." Henry Kissinger
- aquadrop 9y ago
  By that logic Sweden should be more worried about being attacked by USA or UK. All countries historically have been expansionist. Now we have modern world, and it's certain that there's 0 possibility of Russia attacking Sweden. I don't understand all that recent hype about Sweden being afraid of Russia's attack. Even Finland and Norway which border Russia don't care, but Sweden do. Seems like there's some local political game involving "scare of Russia" is going.
  - Swenrekcah 9y ago
    Now we have the modern world, and in the last 10 years Russia has invaded and annexed a part of Georgia and a part of Ukraine, and probably more that I don't know of. Now we have the modern world, and 3 years ago Russia or Russian backed rebels shot down a dutch passenger plane. Yeah, why worry about Russia...
    - aquadrop 9y ago
      Russia didn't attack and annexed part of Georgia, those are self-managed unrecognized entities. Also if you support that Kosovo shouldn't be part of Serbia, then Abkhazia and South Ossetia shouldn't be part of Georgia, it's absolutely de-facto separate entities (source: my grandparents lived in Abkhazia) and those small nations fought with Georgia by themselves. Yes, Crimea was annexed and that's totally wrong, but it has complex history and you need to look at the whole string of events which triggered this. Who exactly shot down the plane is still not 100% clear. Even though I think it was on DNR rebels, Ukrainain army wasn't angels as well. Also Russian backed rebels and Russia itself is a big difference (al qaeda was USA backed at some point). And even rebels I'm sure weren't trying to shot down passenger plane, same as when USA shot down passenger plane in 1988 (and George Bush said that he'll never apologize for that, even though it was clear they were responsible for destroying civilian plane). And speaking of USA, at the recent time they attacked a lot of countries (like with Iraq, on false pretense, 0 consequence later) and dropped a lot of bombs, so if we go just by numbers and don't look deeper in the each situation Sweden should be more afraid of USA, as I said before... Politics is hard and dirty, but my original point was, that there's no political or any point of Russia attacking Sweden.
geezerjay 9y ago
Why would Russia attack Finland? And what would Russia have to gain by invading Norway?
- aquadrop 9y ago
  Exactly, there's no logic behind that. No point of attacking Finland or Norway, and they protect Sweden's border. And to attack Sweden you need to go through harsh environment, going through another country, facing world's anger etc to gain exactly what? No logic behind that. Seems more probably Norway would attack Sweden :)
  - Scramblejams 9y ago
    You have to understand that Russia is highly expansionist because it has no natural barriers to invasion. Its only option is to create buffer zones, exactly as it did, massively, in the Cold War. Plenty of motivation there. There are other imperatives at work as well. For example, in a fight against NATO, Russia's number one concern is to prevent NATO's reinforcement via the Atlantic. To close those sea lanes, they have two weapons: subs and planes. Those planes can't fly over Europe, they'd be massacred. So they have to fly north from the Murmansk area, keep clear of Finland, Norway, Sweden, go west for a while, then turn south and fly down to find and kill the convoys. That's a huge, wasteful dogleg. Invading north Finland, Sweden and Norway allows their bombers to cut across that land, giving them a much straighter shot at all that shipping and keeps them further from the NATO forces that would be on Iceland. They use less fuel to get to the sea lanes, which means they carry more weapons and have more time to look for targets. These countries aren't building defenses against Russia because it's politically convenient or just for the fun of it.
    - XorNot 9y ago
      "Buffer zones" are the biggest bullshit excuse for holding geographically concentrated foreign populations hostage by major, undemocratic powers. Russia is expansionist because it suits the government just fine to blame their massive internal problems on anyone but the kleptocrats in power.