In three years, Trump can sit in the White House again

 

In three years, Trump can sit in the White House again

We should plan security based on the law of all-encompassing nonsense

PUBLISHED: LESS THAN 2 HOURS AGO

Aftonbladet's leadership side is independently social democratic.

Photo: AP TT / NTB SCANPIX

LEADER

On Tuesday, Donald Trump publicly asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to dig out all the crap he can find on Joe Biden.

It was in an interview with journalist John Solomon, one of all the conspiracy theorists surrounding Trump, on the right-wing blog JustTheNews.

Already in the 2016 election campaign, he asked Russia to dig for Hillary Clinton's email, something that Putin's intelligence had already done.

On Tuesday, he thus repeated basically the same call.

To the same Putin.

Against the US Government.

In the middle of a burning war.

Are you tired of headlines about Donald Trump?

Then fasten your seat belt, for 2025 he can be president again.

Donald Trump, who is 75 years old, has admittedly not said that he will run in the election, but has more than hinted that this will be the case.

Whether he would win is unclear, but the risk exists, of course, especially as Republicans have changed the electoral laws in many states to get Democrat voters, mostly blacks, off the ballot box.

According to John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser, Vladimir Putin expected the United States to leave NATO if Trump were re-elected.

Imagine the idea that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had taken place against such a background, without credible NATO guarantees to the Baltics, Poland, Slovakia and Romania?

A nightmare.

But 2025 may be in the cards.

When we in Sweden and Finland discuss our security policy, we should probably assume that most things will shit.

The mindset is sometimes called "Murphy's Law" after the American Air Force engineer Edward Murphy. Or "the law of all things inherent nonsense".

In its simplest form, it reads "If something can go wrong, it will go wrong".

So what does a security policy based on "Murphy's Law" look like?

The answer is not as simple as some would like it to be. When the government says that "our military freedom of alliance has served us well", it is true.

We stayed out of the First World War from 1914 to 1918 by being non-aligned while an entire generation of Europe's young men were slaughtered in the trenches and the great empires collapsed.

We stayed out of World War II from 1939 to 1945 through a policy of fox games and skilled diplomacy.

We stayed out of the warmer parts of the Cold War from 1945 to 1989.

None of this was obvious. The right wing was pro-German at the beginning of the 20th century and could have drawn us in on the German side. Even during the Second World War, there were strong forces that wanted to pull with Sweden.

On Aftonbladet's editorial page, then under the control of right-wing extremists, Adolf Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union was praised under the headline "Europe's War of Independence".

After the Second World War, the victorious powers divided Europe into spheres of interest. On paper, the various peoples in a democratic order would have to choose their own path, but Josef Stalin intended to ignore that.

In February 1948, the Czechoslovak communists carried out the Prague Coup. Thus, "democracy" in the East was definitely over.

In the same year, Sweden was offered to join NATO and join the Western bloc.

A big question mark was Finland. It had been part of Tsarist Russia until independence in 1917 and the memories of the Finnish Winter War were not ten years away.

In that situation, would the Soviet Union respect Finland's independence?

Or would Stalin, by force, coup attempt or extortion, try to force Finland into the Eastern bloc?

We still do not know.

Tage Erlander refused to join NATO and both Sweden and Finland instead became militarily non-aligned, at least on paper.

The Soviets held their satellite states in an iron grip. When Hungary wanted to pursue a more independent policy in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Red Army was sent in.

So, when I hear the right wing's contempt for freedom of alliance, I wonder what they would have liked to see instead.

The trenches of the First World War?

The horrors of World War II?

An iron curtain by the Torne River?

I ask, because this could very well have been the option.

After the fall of the wall in 1989, the European security order was in place. Sweden became a partner in NATO in 1994 and a member of the EU in 1995. This too has served us well with peace and an unprecedented development of prosperity in our part of the world.

Until Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

Had we already responded with the sanctions we have now introduced, it might have stayed there. Instead, we tried the same concession policy that the Western powers used in the 1930s to stop Adolf Hitler.

It worked just as bad this time.

After 24 February, the European security order on which our and Finland's military freedom of alliance rests will no longer exist. Something new needs to be created.

So - based on "Murphy's Law".

The most important condition is that Sweden and Finland land in the same assessment, our security is in practice indivisible. The fact that borders on the Baltic Sea, as in Ukraine, could be moved by force is a direct threat to us.

As the situation stands, it is best to keep a cool head. Finland has a border of 1340 kilometers with Russia and Finnish conscripts hold the border to the east. So the dialogue with Helsinki is crucial.

In the coming weeks, it will probably be at its peak. We do not currently know where the analysis and discussion should end up, nor do we know how the war in Ukraine will end.

Regardless of Sweden's and Finland's attitude towards NATO, the EU's future military role will need to be significantly strengthened. The only problem is that the rearmament that is being initiated today in Germany, among other places, will not have an effect in many years' time. Nor are the defense appropriations we ourselves increase today.

So it is urgent to strengthen Europe's own military capability and coordination. If Donald Trump were to win the next presidential election, it could be a matter of time before we are much more alone than today.

NATO is an important discussion to take. But do not forget that the transatlantic link only exists as long as the will does so.