Do not ridicule Swedish NATO opponents อย่าด้อยค่าชาวสวีเดนที่ต่อต้าน NATO

 Do not ridicule Swedish NATO opponents

A broad and open debate is important - also from a security policy perspective

Of:

Linus Hagström

PUBLISHED: TODAY 05.00

This is a cultural article that is part of Aftonbladet's opinion journalism.

Linus Hagström, professor of political science at the Swedish National Defense College, has analyzed the Swedish NATO debate between 2014 and 2018.

Linus Hagström, professor of political science at the Swedish National Defense College, has analyzed the Swedish NATO debate between 2014 and 2018.

Photo: TT / Niklas Sagrén

CULTURE

Since Russia began its invasion war against Ukraine on February 24 this year, security policy has dominated the Swedish public. But the debate is well simplified and also shows undemocratic tendencies. I have analyzed a significant part of the Swedish NATO debate 2014–2018 and my research shows that so-called identity security is important for debaters on both sides, but also that there is a clear focus on political opponents and their shortcomings.

A broad and open debate not only has a value in itself but is also important from a security policy perspective, as it introduces the necessary complexity and reduces the risk of group thinking.

The Swiss-American researcher Arnold Wolfers defined security in the 1950s as both "the lack of threats to acquired values" and "the lack of fear". The problem with the first definition is that most threats are not realized, and once they do, it affects how the threat images were formulated and by what means the threats were counteracted. The problem with the second definition is that fear permeates even militarily strong states, and regularly motivates rearmament and aggression. Since absolute security is unattainable, Wolfers pointed out that states inevitably have to "live dangerously". He recommended a security policy that avoids both exaggeration and underestimation.

To begin with, an understanding is required because the connections in international politics are complex and the phenomena ambiguous and difficult to interpret. Researchers disagree, for example, on whether Russia's invasion war is best explained by Vladimir Putin's personal characteristics, Russian great power aspirations, or imbalances in the distribution of power, such as Russia's decline and NATO's enlargement to the east. Probably all the circumstances come into play.

Despite such complexity, politicians and experts claim that they know how to secure Sweden. Advocates of NATO often compare a Swedish NATO membership with a "home insurance". However, the comparison is lame because the acquisition of insurance does not affect potential burglars or the risk of accidents. It is not possible to determine definitively which hypothesis is most reasonable: Ukraine was attacked (a) because it was not a member of NATO or (b) because it has in recent years deepened its cooperation with the organization and expressed a desire to become a NATO member .

One must therefore take into account that Swedish politics also has consequences. States tend to perceive each other's rearmament and alliances as aggressive rather than defensive, leading to gradual escalation. Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson was criticized for saying that rapid Swedish membership could further "destabilize" the security situation. Based on theories about the so-called security dilemma, however, the statement is logical. Sweden must of course decide its own security policy, which both Andersson and her critics repeat. Such decision-making must, however, just as obviously take into account all conceivable consequences of Sweden's choice of path.

Although Putin and parts of Russia's population may feel more like a great power now that the Russian military is raping Ukraine, the country is actually physically far more insecure than before the war.

In a conventional analysis, security policy aims to protect a state's territory and population. However, states' need for physical security is often confused with another need: identity security. If Russia's war is seen as a desperate attempt to protect an outdated identity of great powers, the country's war against Ukraine may become somewhat more understandable, which should not be confused with justified.

Efforts to protect a country's collective identity can, however, undermine its physical security. Although Putin and parts of Russia's population may feel more like a great power now that the Russian military is raping Ukraine, the country is actually physically far more insecure than before the war.

Identity security also plays a major role in the debate in Sweden. For some, freedom of alliance is an identity that must be protected at all costs, but also for those who want to give up freedom of alliance, identity security plays an important role. An example is when M-leader Ulf Kristersson said that Sweden should join NATO because "We belong to the west, we belong to the free world". When identity arguments become so central, a clear distinction is made between us and them. Simplified distinctions, not least between Russia and the "West", are as common here as there, and paradoxically risk strengthening Russian identity.

Identity politics is also noticeable in other ways in the security policy debate. After September 11, 2001, George W. Bush forced both other states and American citizens to make the same "choice": "you are either on our side or on the side of the terrorists." It is established in research that those who objected to the US war were also classified as part of the enemy. The same tendency is now even more acute in Russia, where opponents of war are branded as "national traitors" and sentenced to many years in prison.

My analysis of the NATO debate 2014-2018 shows that it is particularly common for NATO opponents to be ridiculed and suspected

Unfortunately, the tendency also exists in Sweden, as those who do not directly accept rearmament and NATO membership are ridiculed and suspected as "Putin huggers", "traitors" and the like. When I myself argued against a Swedish NATO membership in a debate article in 2015, for example, Dagens Nyheter's editor-in-chief wrote that I completely seemed to have "accepted Vladimir Putin's perspective" and Svenska Dagbladet wrote that I conveyed the "Kremlin's view".

My analysis of the NATO debate 2014–2018 shows that it is particularly common for NATO opponents to be ridiculed and suspected. In social media, the debate is hardly about the issue at all, but consists mainly of personal attacks where NATO opponents are the subject of ten times as many negative posts as NATO advocates.

Security policy is a word full of internal contradictions. Problems that are collectively defined as security issues tend to be treated as if they were not or should not be part of normal policy, with its acceptance of open disagreements. When everyone is forced to choose sides and no ambivalence is allowed, politics is hidden or undermined.

However, the debate is required not only for security policy reasons, but also to ensure that in our zeal to protect democracy we do not behave as undemocratically as the enemy.

Linus Hagström is a professor of political science at the Swedish National Defense College.