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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

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.
  - Swenrekcah 9y ago
    Fair enough, I'll admit I don't know much about Georgian history, and it's absolutely true that many (most?) large countries have very bloody track records. And you won't hear me defending US oil wars. But Sweden doesn't have to fear the US or UK as they are allies and also neither US nor UK particularly need Sweden as a strategic location. Some people in this thread have provided a number of reasons why Russia could make good use of Sweden in the event of a larger conflict. So I don't think the Swedes are just playing some internal politics in beefing up their defences.
    - aquadrop 9y ago
      > Some people in this thread have provided a number of reasons why Russia could make good use of Sweden in the event of a larger conflict I don't really think those are good use, Sweden is pretty large and doesn't really hold water passage alone, it's not like Panama canal or Turkey's Bosporus. But anyway, do you think, but really honestly, that large scale NATO - Russia war is possible? With all those nukes etc. It didn't even happen during cold war, so I don't see any possibility of that. (Also Russians are not that blood-thirsty as western media shows them, so there's 0 desire of that as well).
      - eveningcoffee 9y ago
        I am not a military expert but I my opinion annexing Sweden would be strategically reasonable: 1) attacking Sweden does not trigger NATO article 5 (because Sweden in not in NATO), 2) Sweden will give close proximity to Germany and to the rest of central Europe, 3) Finland would become cut out and would very likely just surrender (or surrender sooner), 4) complete control over Baltic Sea makes helping Baltic states considerably harder by other NATO members. In many cases it makes seriously more sense for Russia to first attack Sweden than countries next to its border. I am not saying that Russia will just do it, but it may seriously consider it within a larger conflict. I therefore believe that there are serious reasons for Sweden to have considerable deterrence against it just happening when Russia just pleases it.
Retric 9y ago
Russia has recently attacked a county on it's border and frankly there is only a short lit of such countries. Thus, it's vastly more likely that Russia attacks them than the UK.
- aquadrop 9y ago
  Sweden is not on the Russia's border. And Ukraine's situation is different and complex, it's not applicable to Sweden. Same not applicable as the fact that UK also not so long ago attacked Argentina. There's just no logic behind attacking Sweden. You gain nothing and face a lot of problems.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Sweden is on Russia's border in the same way the US is. Aka it's a direct hop over an inland sea.
    - aquadrop 9y ago
      It's pretty large and hard hop, you can't easily do it.
  - jbergens 9y ago
    Russian spokespersons has multiple times said that if Sweden were to join Nato it would be a very serious thing that they would not like and almost see as agression towards Russia. They seem to be very touchy about what happens even close to their borders.
    - eveningcoffee 9y ago
      Saying that they do not want Sweden to join NATO translates in my option to we want to keep possibility to invade Sweden open. I think that it is a quite serious signal for Sweden to start taking again their army seriously.
      - petre 9y ago
eveningcoffee 9y ago
>Even Finland and Norway which border Russia don't care, but Sweden do Tell it to a random Finn and their eyes will not stop rolling. Finland has modern reservist army with modern planes, tanks and very sizeable artillery.
- aquadrop 9y ago
  I was referring to the fact, that lately I was hearing a lot of things specifically about Sweden being afraid and even returning conscription (that awful atavism of the past) because of that. I don't know about situation in Finland, but they seems to be welcoming Saint Petersburg visitors. If you ask random Finn how possible is war with Russia nowadays, what do you think he/she will answer? (I really don't know, just asking).
  - eveningcoffee 9y ago
    >I was referring to the fact, that lately I was hearing a lot of things specifically about Sweden I understand that Russian media really wants to ridicule Sweden for that. You do not have to buy this. Sweden has been very destructive to its military and they just started to realise it. I think it is good for them. >Sweden being afraid and even returning conscription (that awful atavism of the past) A reservist army is an only way to build a real defence for a small country. Service time in a modern country is limited to reasonable time and is optimized to give reasonable military training. If you compare it to the experience in the Soviet Army then it will be not comparable - it is not for painting grass or glueing leaves on trees. >If you ask random Finn how possible is war with Russia nowadays, what do you think he/she will answer? Do you mean on the street or after bottle of vodka (that is do you want to hear a politically correct opinion or the real one)?
mowenz 9y ago
That's actually not true. Russia has shown they have tendencies towards nationalism and imperialism. USA is fine with the globalism that is taking place, and has no problem flexing muscle abroad when it feels like it, i.e. profit motives for Iraq War, perceived threats against Germany if they provided Snowden asylum, CIA drug and weapons selling schemes for political or economic motives--i.e. Iran Contra or Gary Webb or US funding ISIS in Syria. None of this was ever to annex territory. Last year the US dropped over 26,000 bombs. Zero territory gained. The most bombed and devastated country in the history of the earth is... Laos. Definitely not for territory. The plutocracy in the US simply would not attack Sweden because it does not need to do that to achieve their goals. Even when it comes to torturing people, Sweden does this at the behest of the US--HRW has heavily criticized Sweden for this. Why would the US invade such an obedient country? It's actually incredibly unlikely. Russia on the other hand would take Scandanavia in an instance if it had the capability. The biggest hope Russia has now is global warming. It appears to disrupt most of the world negatively while increasing water passages and even likely arable land in Russia.
- pm90 9y ago
  Yeah but they have a demographic crisis on hand for Pete's sake. Who will farm all that newly arable land if there is nobody left? I say that only slightly in jest, if there are no young Russians to support/replenish the ones leaving the workforce, the country will be in big big trouble. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_crisis_of_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_crisis_of_Russia
- aquadrop 9y ago
  > Russia has shown they have tendencies towards nationalism and imperialism "That's actually not true" > Russia on the other hand would take Scandanavia in an instance if it had the capability. No, not any person in Russia has thoughts like this. That's not even a topic for a discussion because nobody can think of such a thing. > Why would the US invade such an obedient country? It's actually incredibly unlikely. Incredibly unlikely scenario: Assange returns to Sweden and start publishing materials about trump through Wikileaks. Sweden doesn't give him out. Trump orders marines to take him out by force. Yeah, I know it's pretty crazy unlikely, that's the point :) > The biggest hope Russia has now is global warming. It appears to disrupt most of the world negatively while increasing water passages and even likely arable land in Russia. Russia can't even use current water passages capabilities.
criley2 9y ago
This is actual disinformation? Russia has a modern history of invading European countries and is illegally possessing the invaded region of Crimea and astro-turfing a 'civil war' in Eastern Ukraine. They recently threatened NATO out-right over the acceptance of a new member. But, in light of this, you think it's more likely that their strong ally for many decades, US or UK, would be more likely to attack them than the proven-aggressive adversary which self-titles itself enemy of NATO? This has got to be actual disinformation.
- eveningcoffee 9y ago
  It could be also a candid moment to peak into the mind (and belief system) of person living inside Russian cultural space (i.e. is influenced by Russian media, social networks and education system).

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.
- Swenrekcah 9y ago
  Fair enough, I'll admit I don't know much about Georgian history, and it's absolutely true that many (most?) large countries have very bloody track records. And you won't hear me defending US oil wars. But Sweden doesn't have to fear the US or UK as they are allies and also neither US nor UK particularly need Sweden as a strategic location. Some people in this thread have provided a number of reasons why Russia could make good use of Sweden in the event of a larger conflict. So I don't think the Swedes are just playing some internal politics in beefing up their defences.
  - aquadrop 9y ago
    > Some people in this thread have provided a number of reasons why Russia could make good use of Sweden in the event of a larger conflict I don't really think those are good use, Sweden is pretty large and doesn't really hold water passage alone, it's not like Panama canal or Turkey's Bosporus. But anyway, do you think, but really honestly, that large scale NATO - Russia war is possible? With all those nukes etc. It didn't even happen during cold war, so I don't see any possibility of that. (Also Russians are not that blood-thirsty as western media shows them, so there's 0 desire of that as well).
    - eveningcoffee 9y ago
      I am not a military expert but I my opinion annexing Sweden would be strategically reasonable: 1) attacking Sweden does not trigger NATO article 5 (because Sweden in not in NATO), 2) Sweden will give close proximity to Germany and to the rest of central Europe, 3) Finland would become cut out and would very likely just surrender (or surrender sooner), 4) complete control over Baltic Sea makes helping Baltic states considerably harder by other NATO members. In many cases it makes seriously more sense for Russia to first attack Sweden than countries next to its border. I am not saying that Russia will just do it, but it may seriously consider it within a larger conflict. I therefore believe that there are serious reasons for Sweden to have considerable deterrence against it just happening when Russia just pleases it.

Retric 9y ago

Russia has recently attacked a county on it's border and frankly there is only a short lit of such countries. Thus, it's vastly more likely that Russia attacks them than the UK.

aquadrop 9y ago
Sweden is not on the Russia's border. And Ukraine's situation is different and complex, it's not applicable to Sweden. Same not applicable as the fact that UK also not so long ago attacked Argentina. There's just no logic behind attacking Sweden. You gain nothing and face a lot of problems.
- Retric 9y ago
  Sweden is on Russia's border in the same way the US is. Aka it's a direct hop over an inland sea.
  - aquadrop 9y ago
    It's pretty large and hard hop, you can't easily do it.
- jbergens 9y ago
  Russian spokespersons has multiple times said that if Sweden were to join Nato it would be a very serious thing that they would not like and almost see as agression towards Russia. They seem to be very touchy about what happens even close to their borders.
  - eveningcoffee 9y ago
    Saying that they do not want Sweden to join NATO translates in my option to we want to keep possibility to invade Sweden open. I think that it is a quite serious signal for Sweden to start taking again their army seriously.
    - petre 9y ago

eveningcoffee 9y ago

>Even Finland and Norway which border Russia don't care, but Sweden do Tell it to a random Finn and their eyes will not stop rolling. Finland has modern reservist army with modern planes, tanks and very sizeable artillery.

aquadrop 9y ago
I was referring to the fact, that lately I was hearing a lot of things specifically about Sweden being afraid and even returning conscription (that awful atavism of the past) because of that. I don't know about situation in Finland, but they seems to be welcoming Saint Petersburg visitors. If you ask random Finn how possible is war with Russia nowadays, what do you think he/she will answer? (I really don't know, just asking).
- eveningcoffee 9y ago
  >I was referring to the fact, that lately I was hearing a lot of things specifically about Sweden I understand that Russian media really wants to ridicule Sweden for that. You do not have to buy this. Sweden has been very destructive to its military and they just started to realise it. I think it is good for them. >Sweden being afraid and even returning conscription (that awful atavism of the past) A reservist army is an only way to build a real defence for a small country. Service time in a modern country is limited to reasonable time and is optimized to give reasonable military training. If you compare it to the experience in the Soviet Army then it will be not comparable - it is not for painting grass or glueing leaves on trees. >If you ask random Finn how possible is war with Russia nowadays, what do you think he/she will answer? Do you mean on the street or after bottle of vodka (that is do you want to hear a politically correct opinion or the real one)?

mowenz 9y ago

That's actually not true. Russia has shown they have tendencies towards nationalism and imperialism. USA is fine with the globalism that is taking place, and has no problem flexing muscle abroad when it feels like it, i.e. profit motives for Iraq War, perceived threats against Germany if they provided Snowden asylum, CIA drug and weapons selling schemes for political or economic motives--i.e. Iran Contra or Gary Webb or US funding ISIS in Syria. None of this was ever to annex territory. Last year the US dropped over 26,000 bombs. Zero territory gained. The most bombed and devastated country in the history of the earth is... Laos. Definitely not for territory. The plutocracy in the US simply would not attack Sweden because it does not need to do that to achieve their goals. Even when it comes to torturing people, Sweden does this at the behest of the US--HRW has heavily criticized Sweden for this. Why would the US invade such an obedient country? It's actually incredibly unlikely. Russia on the other hand would take Scandanavia in an instance if it had the capability. The biggest hope Russia has now is global warming. It appears to disrupt most of the world negatively while increasing water passages and even likely arable land in Russia.

pm90 9y ago
Yeah but they have a demographic crisis on hand for Pete's sake. Who will farm all that newly arable land if there is nobody left? I say that only slightly in jest, if there are no young Russians to support/replenish the ones leaving the workforce, the country will be in big big trouble. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_crisis_of_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_crisis_of_Russia
aquadrop 9y ago
> Russia has shown they have tendencies towards nationalism and imperialism "That's actually not true" > Russia on the other hand would take Scandanavia in an instance if it had the capability. No, not any person in Russia has thoughts like this. That's not even a topic for a discussion because nobody can think of such a thing. > Why would the US invade such an obedient country? It's actually incredibly unlikely. Incredibly unlikely scenario: Assange returns to Sweden and start publishing materials about trump through Wikileaks. Sweden doesn't give him out. Trump orders marines to take him out by force. Yeah, I know it's pretty crazy unlikely, that's the point :) > The biggest hope Russia has now is global warming. It appears to disrupt most of the world negatively while increasing water passages and even likely arable land in Russia. Russia can't even use current water passages capabilities.

criley2 9y ago

This is actual disinformation? Russia has a modern history of invading European countries and is illegally possessing the invaded region of Crimea and astro-turfing a 'civil war' in Eastern Ukraine. They recently threatened NATO out-right over the acceptance of a new member. But, in light of this, you think it's more likely that their strong ally for many decades, US or UK, would be more likely to attack them than the proven-aggressive adversary which self-titles itself enemy of NATO? This has got to be actual disinformation.

eveningcoffee 9y ago
It could be also a candid moment to peak into the mind (and belief system) of person living inside Russian cultural space (i.e. is influenced by Russian media, social networks and education system).