NATO greater threat than Putin

NATO greater threat than Putin 

Åsa Linderborg

 PUBLISHED: JANUARY 15, 2016 

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

 CULTURE 

Åsa Linderborg: Say no to Swedish membership - for the sake of peace and democracy  

DEBATE Democracy in Sweden is under sharp fire. Not that we are heading for dictatorship, but in other, more insidious, ways. 

Politics has become increasingly entrenched through EU membership, and various arrangements linked to neoliberal ideals. An example is the Riksbank, which is "independent" of democracy, a superior expert board that can never be held accountable or voted out. Regardless of which government takes office, the economic policy is largely the same. Now, foreign policy must also be nailed down, through NATO membership, if the bourgeoisie gets what it wants. The process itself is already underway for a long time through the many years of NATO cooperation, which has typically been molded. 

At the beginning of the year, DN Debatt published a call for Swedish NATO membership (7 January). Several of the signatories are ambassadors in active service. Thus, they commit a serious breach of etiquette. 

An ambassador is employed on the citizens' mandate with the task of representing Sweden and Swedish politics. 

A diplomat who believes that the country would feel best from another policy can possibly say it between bow and wall, but writing articles in which one opposes the policy adopted by the government and the Riksdag is outside the job description. 

That the arguments are bottomless lousy does not make things better. 

The NATO friends' parade number reads that a Swedish membership would “create stability in our immediate area ”. It may sound reasonable, but historically, armaments and rattling military alliances have often led to war. The prelude to 1914 is an example. 

The disappearance of the Warsaw Pact in 1991 was therefore a step forward. That NATO did not also walk the path of perdition is as tragic as it is interesting, but we have so far not seen any serious debate as to why If we are to talk about NATO, we must talk about the encirclement of Russia. 

Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has not only survived but also expanded eastward. This is despite the fact that Gorbachev, in connection with the unification of Germany in 1990, received a promise from Bush that such an expansion would not take place. Gorbachev's nervousness was, of course, related to the Russians' horrific experiences of invasions from the West during the 20th century. 

The promise was broken after a few years. 

During and after Clinton, NATO established itself in the Baltics, Poland, Hungary, Romania and several other countries. That the Russians perceive that policy as aggressive would all be understood if it were reverse roles; If Putin builds military bases in Cuba or northern Mexico, it is understood that it is aimed at the United States and that it threatens peace and relaxation. Do the Russians pose a military threat to the West? One can compare military spending for 2014. 

According to the Stockholm International Research Institute (Sipri), the United States then had 34.5 percent of the world's military spending, China 12 percent, Russia 4.8, Saudi Arabia 4.5. But the superiority of the United States is, in fact, even greater than that, given all NATO allies. 

The United States has 700-800 military bases outside its own territory, spread across all continents. Russia has a base in Crimea, some smaller on the Syrian coast, possibly a few in Kazakhstan. It also cooperates with Belarus. That's all. 

And Vladimir Putin Vladimir Putin Photo: AP TT NEWS AGENCY 

there is a huge difference. The truth is that Russia, even after the rearmament of recent years, is a military dwarf compared to the United States. The idea that the Russian government - for some unfathomable reason - would carry out an isolated attack on non-aligned Sweden is simply not serious. No security policy assessor believes in such a scenario. 

The annexation of Crimea in 2014 was contrary to international law and cannot be defended. On the other hand, it can be explained in the light of Western encirclement policy; Russia did not want to hand over the naval base at Sevastopol, where the Black Sea Fleet is located, to NATO. 

Another nonsense argument from the NATO hugs is that "we" with a NATO membership "may be involved in shaping security policy". One does not pretend that it is the United States that controls NATO, and no one else. 

Washington is trying to hide this by giving the presidency to small countries; the public should get the impression that it is the modest Jens Stoltenberg who decides NATO membership means that Sweden will be even more involved in US military foreign policy. 

That is already the case; we are fighting in Afghanistan not for the sake of the Afghans but for the sake of the United States. But membership means that we become even more complicit in the wars and refugee disasters. 

A responsible foreign policy is something else, it is to work for relaxation and disarmament. This presupposes continued freedom of alliance and that we work for an international legal order based on international law.

On the contrary, international law has been undermined. During the United States' many bombing campaigns over the past 20-25 years, the Swedish commentary has considered that international law is outdated and overplayed. (Ironically, they turned 180 degrees when Russia took Crimea and intervened in the civil war in Ukraine. Then suddenly international law got eloquent defenders.) The ambassadors write in DN that NATO is "perhaps history's most successful alliance to date". That is an embarrassing conclusion. In the near future, NATO and the United States have a conclusion in the form of wars of aggression and war crimes that is grotesque. 

As members, we would also become comrades-in-arms with repressive states such as Turkey, Hungary and Poland. In what way is this in Sweden's interest? 

NATO hugs like to forget that NATO is a nuclear alliance. A membership means that Sweden helps to spread the nuclear weapons further, among other things by equipping parts of Sweden with warheads. It would obviously affect Russia's strategic thinking; if Sweden has nuclear weapons, we will be a guaranteed target in the event of a world war. 

The only ones who benefit from a Swedish membership are the arms industry and the military, who want to train and show themselves in sharp situations. And of course those who always hated the independent Palm shapes. "We like the United States, it does not matter what they do, we like them anyway.

" Of course, NATO friends do not seriously believe that Putin would attack the West with nuclear weapons, but they hope that we will be ignorant enough to take such a fictitious threat seriously. Paradoxically, there is an eerie resemblance between Russia and the Western world, including Sweden: both here and there, the media largely lends itself to propagandistic distortions and obscurations of basic facts. 

The hysteria surrounding the submarines is one such example. So far, NATO friends have not been able to present a single argument that can stand the light of day. 

The emperor is as naked as Sven Hedin was in 1912 when he alerted about the Russian in A Warning Word. Even then, there was no real threat from Russia to Sweden. 

Despite all NATO propaganda, we are not as stupid as the Knights of the Shiny Steel want. Six out of ten Swedes do not want us to join NATO, according to a Sifo survey published by Svenska Dagbladet the other day. Resistance has increased rapidly in the past year. 

It is not something we can rest assured in. It was a long time since the will of the people was allowed to prevent the establishment from pushing through its wish list. The fight against NATO is not just about peace but also about democracy.