An infantile question that has no answer
Does the agreement with the USA mean nuclear weapons on Swedish soil?
Lena Mellin
This is a commenting text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.
Published 07.20
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Defense Minister Pål Jonsson.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Defense Minister Pål Jonsson.
Photo: Magnus Sandberg
The question may seem naive.
But the answer is not crystal clear.
Will nuclear weapons be stored on Swedish territory. Or not?
Sweden's foreign and security policy is currently being rearranged at a hysterical pace. From the freedom of alliance that on paper applied for longer than most of us can count. To a clearly western residence with very strong military ties.
You can think what you want about that, but Russia's ambitions to subjugate more countries have produced that result.
A central question is whether Sweden thereby undertakes to harbor nuclear weapons within our borders. Or if we don't.
In the agreement with NATO, no exceptions are given for the worst weapon of destruction known to man so far. But the government claims that this does not apply to Sweden.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (M) said this in an interview on Sweden's radio last week:
- We are part of NATO in all respects. That is to say, we are involved in all planning and all discussions. It is quite obvious.
- Then, like other Nordic countries, we have said that it is not relevant for Sweden to have either permanent (foreign, editor's note) troops or nuclear weapons on Swedish soil in peacetime.
But what is war and what is peace? The difference is not razor sharp with today's hybrid warfare.
With the membership of the western defense alliance NATO, formed during the Cold War that broke out after the Second World War, Sweden is not the only far-reaching defense agreement included in the patchwork it means to leave the freedom of alliance behind.
Another is a so-called DCA, defense cooperation agreement, an agreement that the USA reportedly has with 178 countries, including Denmark, Norway and Finland. In 80 of them there are American bases. It has no direct connection to NATO but is, in Sweden's case, connected to our membership there.
The preliminary agreement was signed last December in Washington by Defense Minister Pål Jonsson (M) and his American colleague Lloyd Austin and is described by the Swedish government as the end of a process that began in 2016.
The DCA is described both as a standard agreement and as far-reaching. At least the latter is easy to agree with.
The image you get on the retina is that the US gets the right to establish a kind of Guantanamo base, but without prison camps. In short, a series of mini-USAs in the middle of Sweden.
There, American laws must apply to American personnel, their families and civilian employees, they must not be monitored by Säpo. Their cars must have Swedish license plates that cannot be traced. They do not have to pay duty and VAT. US post offices to be established. Including.
Now we are approaching nuclear weapons again. The US must have access to "agreed facilities and areas", i.e. 17 defense centers. In addition, they must have free access to Swedish airspace and water.
But in addition, the US gets the right to freely expand areas and facilities to store weapons and defense equipment. No exceptions are specified. In NATO, the US, France and the UK have nuclear weapons.
The government briefly describes the agreement with the United States as follows. It "concerns, among other things, the conditions for American forces to operate in another country. These include, among other things, questions about the legal status of American personnel, access to base areas, pre-storage of material and rules about tax and customs.
This is how Pål Jonsson answered a question from SVT in December. It was about pre-storage of material that could involve nuclear weapons on Swedish soil:
- We have the same practice that we had linked to our accession process to NATO where we had no formal exceptions in our accession document. But in the bill (the government's proposal, editor's note) it is clearly stated that this is not the case.
But the proposal does not exist yet. The government's proposal is planned for early May. A decision in the Riksdag is expected before the summer. Entry into force in 2024.
Did you become wiser? I argue that contracts are one thing. Decisions in the Riksdag that deviate from it are quite another. Although the tolerance for the latter can be great. The question marks remain.
Footnote: The proposal for an agreement with the USA can be found at regeringen.se. Search on DCA.
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