54 ms·

I'm knowingly ignorant of international politics. Can someone who follows this speculate the meaning of this?

by lbotos 12y ago

glormph 12y ago
I'm fairly ignorant about that too, but I like speculating. The only way I've been able to explain Russian military crossing borders like this is showing their muscles internally. Is there anyone here with more insight?
- ptr 12y ago
  There are probably other reasons; putting spec-ops on land, checking up on old equipment, testing the armed forces, etc.
  - chiph 12y ago
    Or to just see if they can go in there & remain undetected.
amalag 12y ago
This gives a better explanation of the context http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/20/guardian-view-on-sweden-defence-nato-inevitable http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/20/guardia...
lazyjones 12y ago
Some top swedish officials have been closely working with the CIA, for example Carl Bildt. This is probably just a PR effort to sway the swedish public towards NATO partnership/affiliation. Perhaps there was no submarine, or it was a NATO one ... Always ask yourselves: cui bono? The Russians have nothing to gain from risking a submarine in swedish (of all) waters. Sweden as a NATO member would be extremely useful to NATO at this point.
- pavlov 12y ago
  Objectively Russia may have nothing to gain from short military intrusions into neighboring countries, but these decisions are driven by more indirect goals. There is plenty of evidence that Russia is actively testing the military readiness of countries close to their borders. For example, intrusions by Russian military airplanes into Finnish airspace have increased tenfold compared to previous years. Dismissing the submarine reports as a NATO ploy looks like a conspiracy theory when it's clear that Russia is actively doing this stuff all over their European border.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Objectively Russia may have nothing to gain from short military intrusions into neighboring countries The entire idea of "objective gain" (and "Russia" as a unit that could have gain) is sometimes-useful but often misleading convenient fiction. All gain (in the sense that it motivates action) is grounded in subjective utility, and so is not objective, and, further, is the gain of individual actors for which larger entities (e.g., states) are potentially-misleading aggregate units of analysis. Its not a matter of whether Russia has something objectively to gain from short military incursion, but whether Russian decision-makers feel that they have subjective utility tied to decisions which produce such incursions.
  - noste 12y ago
    Finnish Ministry of Defence has reported five airspace violations by Russian airplanes this year, and there were three in 2013.
    - pavlov 12y ago
      Sorry, I misremembered the numbers. There were none in 2008-2012, and eight in the past 18 months. So that is a significant increase in activity, but it can't be described as "n-fold" since there wasn't any before :)
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  > The Russians have nothing to gain from risking a submarine in swedish (of all) waters. Testing detection and response capabilities, wiretapping undersea cables... they've been caught red handed in Swedish waters in the past.
htns 12y ago
Back when this was happening it was big news because the Swedish military didn't really hide they were searching for a submarine in an enclosed bay. In the end they didn't catch anything, so this could be seen as an embarrassment for them whether or not there really was a sub. The political side is that Sweden is not in NATO, as the electorate sees NATO as too global and too likely to draw the country into remote conflicts or the next world war. Russia is the only remotely plausible military threat in the region, so it's the bogeyman NATO will have to use if it wants to lure Sweden in. This incident will be used to argue the Swedish military is inadequate on its own. On the other hand Russia is testing everyone's military capabilities, e.g. Russian planes routinely skirt US airspace. In the 80's Sweden had lots of similar incidents (as well as confirmed ones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_submarine_incidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_submarine_incidents), and those didn't drive Sweden to join NATO. However Swedish society has become a lot less militant since then, abolishing conscription and reducing military budgets, and the memory of Sweden faring splendidly through WWII by staying independent is not as fresh. Eventually Sweden may end up in NATO solely because there isn't political will to do anything else. If Sweden were to join NATO that could have implications for the neighboring Finland, which isn't in NATO either but still has conscription. Finland is the buffer between Sweden and Russia, so it is a given Finland would have an independent Sweden's backing. Another thing is that there's much trade between Finland and Russia, and it's certainly old hat in Finland to fish for benefits by being the one European country that's not overtly russophobic. Finland even has much Russian military equipment. Also, this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B19kYo80yec http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B19kYo80yec , though I don't really remember its backstory. (The RT article linked in the description seems to be reporting on a Swedish site reporting on that video, and the link to the Swedish site is broken.) But the impression I have got is that Russian media is overall unashamed in reporting on Russian interests abroad.

I'm knowingly ignorant of international politics. Can someone who follows this speculate the meaning of this?

by lbotos 12y ago

I'm knowingly ignorant of international politics. Can someone who follows this speculate the meaning of this?

I'm fairly ignorant about that too, but I like speculating. The only way I've been able to explain Russian military crossing borders like this is showing their muscles internally. Is there anyone here with more insight?

ptr 12y ago
There are probably other reasons; putting spec-ops on land, checking up on old equipment, testing the armed forces, etc.
- chiph 12y ago
  Or to just see if they can go in there & remain undetected.

amalag 12y ago

This gives a better explanation of the context http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/20/guardian-view-on-sweden-defence-nato-inevitable http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/20/guardia...

lazyjones 12y ago

Some top swedish officials have been closely working with the CIA, for example Carl Bildt. This is probably just a PR effort to sway the swedish public towards NATO partnership/affiliation. Perhaps there was no submarine, or it was a NATO one ... Always ask yourselves: cui bono? The Russians have nothing to gain from risking a submarine in swedish (of all) waters. Sweden as a NATO member would be extremely useful to NATO at this point.

pavlov 12y ago
Objectively Russia may have nothing to gain from short military intrusions into neighboring countries, but these decisions are driven by more indirect goals. There is plenty of evidence that Russia is actively testing the military readiness of countries close to their borders. For example, intrusions by Russian military airplanes into Finnish airspace have increased tenfold compared to previous years. Dismissing the submarine reports as a NATO ploy looks like a conspiracy theory when it's clear that Russia is actively doing this stuff all over their European border.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Objectively Russia may have nothing to gain from short military intrusions into neighboring countries The entire idea of "objective gain" (and "Russia" as a unit that could have gain) is sometimes-useful but often misleading convenient fiction. All gain (in the sense that it motivates action) is grounded in subjective utility, and so is not objective, and, further, is the gain of individual actors for which larger entities (e.g., states) are potentially-misleading aggregate units of analysis. Its not a matter of whether Russia has something objectively to gain from short military incursion, but whether Russian decision-makers feel that they have subjective utility tied to decisions which produce such incursions.
- noste 12y ago
  Finnish Ministry of Defence has reported five airspace violations by Russian airplanes this year, and there were three in 2013.
  - pavlov 12y ago
    Sorry, I misremembered the numbers. There were none in 2008-2012, and eight in the past 18 months. So that is a significant increase in activity, but it can't be described as "n-fold" since there wasn't any before :)
ceejayoz 12y ago
> The Russians have nothing to gain from risking a submarine in swedish (of all) waters. Testing detection and response capabilities, wiretapping undersea cables... they've been caught red handed in Swedish waters in the past.

htns 12y ago

Back when this was happening it was big news because the Swedish military didn't really hide they were searching for a submarine in an enclosed bay. In the end they didn't catch anything, so this could be seen as an embarrassment for them whether or not there really was a sub. The political side is that Sweden is not in NATO, as the electorate sees NATO as too global and too likely to draw the country into remote conflicts or the next world war. Russia is the only remotely plausible military threat in the region, so it's the bogeyman NATO will have to use if it wants to lure Sweden in. This incident will be used to argue the Swedish military is inadequate on its own. On the other hand Russia is testing everyone's military capabilities, e.g. Russian planes routinely skirt US airspace. In the 80's Sweden had lots of similar incidents (as well as confirmed ones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_submarine_incidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_submarine_incidents), and those didn't drive Sweden to join NATO. However Swedish society has become a lot less militant since then, abolishing conscription and reducing military budgets, and the memory of Sweden faring splendidly through WWII by staying independent is not as fresh. Eventually Sweden may end up in NATO solely because there isn't political will to do anything else. If Sweden were to join NATO that could have implications for the neighboring Finland, which isn't in NATO either but still has conscription. Finland is the buffer between Sweden and Russia, so it is a given Finland would have an independent Sweden's backing. Another thing is that there's much trade between Finland and Russia, and it's certainly old hat in Finland to fish for benefits by being the one European country that's not overtly russophobic. Finland even has much Russian military equipment. Also, this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B19kYo80yec http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B19kYo80yec , though I don't really remember its backstory. (The RT article linked in the description seems to be reporting on a Swedish site reporting on that video, and the link to the Swedish site is broken.) But the impression I have got is that Russian media is overall unashamed in reporting on Russian interests abroad.