Sweden vs Russia - Sweden's future in the rising conflict
It’s worth commenting here that Sweden faces a very interesting future with Putin’s Russia on the land grab.
With Russian naval and military bases roughly 450 kilometers across the Baltic Sea, a short hop for them to reach Stockholm and the eastern coast, or barely a minute or two for ballistic missiles to arrive, Sweden finds itself in a position it has not had to worry about for a very long time. The nation has not been engaged in a war for over 200 years. It steered clear of being a member of NATO for decades, until this year, 2024, when it became apparent that Vladimir Putin was out to restore the “glory” of the former USSR (Soviet Communist nation) with the Ukraine being his first stop and was casting all manner of threats, including toward peaceful Sweden.
Of course, no one plans to let Putin win in Ukraine, except Donald Trump who is actively advocating that President Zelensky concede and let Putin have more land which he grabbed and destroyed in the process. Anyone with an ounce of common sense, which Trump lacks, knows that if you concede to Putin and sign a peace treaty, he will simply send in his agents of chaos to disrupt what remains of the Ukraine government, like he did during the 2014 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, during which time he invaded and sequestered Crimea. His provocateurs will stir up dissent and help divide the Ukrainians politically, and then he will resume his assault and finish what he started. Once he does that, he will set his eyes on the other former USSR states, such as Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland etc.
Trump doesn’t care about Ukraine. In his books, it is America First, and he knows that the United States is protected by two oceans on each side - so no big deal if he cuts arms supplies to the Ukraine defenders and leaves it up to the other NATO states to fight the fight.
However, if Putin pushes across the border of a NATO nation, he automatically declares war against all NATO members and that starts another domino-effect. Sweden is in a very precarious situation. Since the 1989/90 fall of the USSR - when its member states declared independence and became democracies, Sweden has let its defenses dwindle, letting bomb shelters fall into disuse and such, until recently; and while the government is now pouring in big bucks to build up a decent military presence, it is nothing compared to Russia’s, nor would it be able to repel a large scale invasion.
Sweden offers a unique strategic advantage to Putin, with a huge coastal presence on all sides, with which the Russians could dominate the Baltic as well as the North Sea, which would give them a military advantage against Britain (a stone’s throw across the North Sea), Denmark to the south, as well as Germany.
Sweden is wise to re-up its military presence and moreover, should change its policy regarding training and arming its civilian populace into an active and mobile militia - because like the Ukrainian people, Swedes may find themselves forced to fight for their freedom and their culture - and without the means of doing so, it will be like shooting ducks for the Russians.
I do not support war or killing other people in the name of some madman’s agenda, and I do not see the Russian people as the bad apples in this theater. But the reality is that freedom and rights have to be protected, because dictators like Vladimir Putin who use force and terror to keep their populace towing the line, have a very marginalized mentality - they don’t see any other viewpoint than their own - and that is not leadership - it’s totalitarianism.
Unfortunately, the Russian people, all 147,000,000 of them, are letting a very small man, with a Napoleonic Complex, control their lives and ultimately, lead Russia down another dark and terrible road. With the exception of the new generations of Russians, well over 50% of its adult population have lived under the rule of dictators for a significant portion of their lives, and this has crippled their ability to think for themselves and to see through Putin’s propaganda machinery, moreover, to understand and appreciate what freedom and democracy is all about. They are not fighting Putin because in their minds, he’s the good guy. It will be up to the new generations of Russians, the younger people, to find a way to dethrone the madman and put Russia back on track to become an actual democracy and not an autocratic tyranny. If you don’t throw a harder punch against the bully, he controls the block. Bullies are cowards, deep down, so one good punch sends them a message, and Putin needs to get it from the Russian people.
Either way, war or revolution, in the end, the Russian people are going to suffer because there is no winning scenario at the end of the road that Putin is leading them down.
Meanwhile, back home, in Sweden, we need to gear-up and be ready to repel borders. I hope it never gets to that, but as the saying goes, if you prepare for the worst, the worst doesn’t come.
Réal Laplaine
Author of high concept & speculative fiction thrillers
Comments