Those who ignore history

I’m sure you can finish the rest of it

A couple of decades ago, Sweden had a strong military. Its air force was one of the capable in the world, its navy had dozens of ships and submarines, and artillery guarded the coastlines from a multitude of secret mountain hideaways.

Now, after a number of fatal decisions, based on the belief that wars in Europe were a thing of the past, most of its military is gone and Sweden has virtually no means of protecting itself.

According to Sweden’s Supreme Commander Sverker Göransson, we can, at best and in five years, defend ourselves in one place for one week.

Sweden is a large country: with 447,435 square kilometers, it is the fifth largest in Europe. It also has one of the longest coastlines in Europe (3,200 kilometers), which not easily defensible.

Four days before the Second World War broke out, then Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson declared that “Sweden’s preparedness is good.” But that statement was a lie. Sweden’s financial preparedness may have been good, but its military preparedness was abysmal. The Swedish Army was outdated. Since the 1920s, Sweden’s military had been cut almost in half. Sweden could perhaps have resisted Hitler’s Germany for a few hours.

By declaring itself neutral — and allowing Germany to use the Swedish railway system to transport weapons and personnel to and from Norway — Sweden was able to avoid the fate of Denmark and Norway, which were occupied by the Germans. During that war, however, Sweden did start mobilizing substantially. By 1943, it had achieved a respectable military strength.

The article makes note of Putin possibly “asking to borrow” Gotland so that he could get the Baltic states in order.

I can’t see them being in any state to say no.