Dream image of NATO has guided Sweden's path choice

Dream image of NATO has guided Sweden's path choice

Did the politicians think it was a club for peace-loving democracies?

Of:

Petter Larsson

PUBLISHED: TODAY 12.42

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

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg greet each other

 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg greet each other

Photo: Francois Mori / AP

CULTURE

"There was almost a small competition between different countries about who would ratify Sweden's and Finland's membership applications first," said Foreign Minister Ann Linde in connection with the Social Democrats abandoning the freedom of alliance. She had just met NATO Foreign Ministers and could now convey the good news.

Admittedly, there could be "different tufts on the road that we must make sure to get over", but the message was clear: this is clapped and clear.

This has been the case ever since NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in early March that he was "sure that Sweden and Finland are the two countries in the world that can become members of NATO the fastest".

And now we stand here.

Suddenly, much of what has been good about Swedish politics becomes a problem. That Minister of Defense Peter Hultqvist met with Kurdish freedom fighters. That Sweden has granted asylum to refugees who have fled state repression. That Sweden supports the Kurdish organizations that have defeated the Islamic State's terrorist power and that we refuse to sell weapons to the Turkish military that attacks them.

That one or two pecoralists are swept along in a blinding identity-political frenzy and that the business community's mouthpiece prioritises friendship with a right-wing authoritarian oppressive regime over Kurdish socialists is most embarrassing for themselves. But the fact that the politicians we put in charge of our security see NATO as a club of well-meaning and peace-loving democracies is a real problem.

Did they not see the turkey tuft?

There were warning signs. In 2009, Turkey imposed the condition that Kurdish Roj TV be shut down in Denmark in exchange for the approval of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as Secretary General of NATO. A year later, the TV channel was prosecuted and in 2013 the broadcasting license revoked. In 2019, Turkey demanded that the Kurdish YPG be classified as terrorists and threatened to stop NATO's military plans in the Baltics and Poland.

What intelligence has the government and the parliamentary working group behind the security policy analysis actually been able to take part in?

They have been so focused on quickly pushing Sweden into NATO that they have let their dream image of the military alliance replace reality

In any case, it is clear that no critical views on NATO have found their way into the working group's letter. It claims that the conflict with Russia is "between an authoritarian state of society and the free, open and democratic world". This Legend of the Ring dramaturgy demands the elimination of at least Hungary, Turkey - and a United States that has repeatedly waged a war of aggression and dissolved both international law and the rule of law. Consequently, Turkey is not mentioned at all in the letter.

The working group further points out that "the Russian government has shown that it is prepared to use military force to achieve its political goals in countries that are also further away from Russia, such as Syria".

Yes. But also the United States, France, Great Britain and of course Turkey had troops in Syria.

There are also concerns that Russia has announced that it is now taking the right to strike first with nuclear weapons.

This is the same policy that NATO and the United States have.

I am not writing this to mitigate criticism of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine under international law or to smooth over the threat posed by Russia. Nor to reject the sensible arguments that exist for NATO membership.

But I think it is this kind of tunnel vision that has made the Swedish establishment now seem to be taken to bed by Turkey's demands. They have been so focused on quickly pushing Sweden into NATO that they have let their dream image of the military alliance replace reality.

I would even like to mention the possibility that they would have deliberately kept quiet about the problems, because it would testify that, in a humiliating contempt for the people, they struck soothing blue fumes in the eyes of the citizens on an issue that is life and death.

Of course, right now there is a golden opportunity for NATO members to blackmail Sweden and the US government, which backs Sweden's application. What is surprising about the Turkish demands is possibly that they are performed in public. More discreet wishes would have been easier to secretly meet a suitable time after the application was approved. Now, instead, both parties are locked in by their own domestic opinion.

But I'm afraid this is just a foretaste of the concessions that are expected once we are members. The Security Policy Inquiry from 2016 cautiously states that NATO membership would “restrict Sweden's political and diplomatic scope for action. Belonging to an alliance would be a new break in Swedish foreign policy and another dimension to take into account in the ongoing design of it ”.

This break is already taking shape in the negotiations with Turkey. This weekend, the head of the Inspectorate for Strategic Products indicated that the discussion on NATO membership could mean that it will be free to re-export weapons to our new friend in Ankara.

It must be assumed that other adaptations may involve such things as participation in military operations, trade agreements, development assistance, access to technology and, of course, intelligence information. But in the worst case, also about the kind of services that can not stand the light of day.

In particular, the pressure to meet American interests will be strong. The tracks are scary. By activating Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, the members of the Alliance in 2001 gave the United States free rein to use airspace and airfields to fight al Qaeda. Hundreds of suspects then secretly flew out of European soil and ended up in Guantánamo or in other countries that were less careful with the torture ban. The still non-aligned Sweden assisted with Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed Alzery who were sent to Egypt.

In at least Poland and Romania, the CIA built so-called black sites, where suspects could be secretly imprisoned and tortured.

Much later, Romania's then-president Ion Iliescu explained why this was accepted.

"It was a gesture of goodwill in connection with our entry into NATO .... We did not understand what the United States was doing in that place. To me as president, it seemed like a trifle. We were allies, we fought together in Afghanistan and the Middle East, and when I received a request from our ally for a specific place in Romania, I did not go into details. "

We were allies.

A gesture of benevolence.

We did not put in.

If the government wants to avoid a precedent where Sweden in the future is treated as such a doormat by Turkey, the USA or other member states, it would be a good start to categorically reject all Turkish demands.