In July 2023, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan finally promised to endorse Sweden’s NATO application. The decision came after a long process of bullying an acquiescent Swedish government into pursuing highly illiberal and undemocratic policies, facilitating Turkey’s persecution of dissidents and Kurds. Although the Turkish parliament has yet to formally approve the application, Sweden’s entry into the US-led military alliance now seems inevitable and, with it, a major transformation of Swedish foreign policy is realised.
Sweden’s abandonment of its commitment to ‘neutrality’ (a euphemism I will return to below) is not only of strategic importance to the alliance, but also symbolic of the geopolitical shift emerging in the breakdown of the liberal international order that has dominated the era of globalisation. It epitomises the novel zeitgeist of polarisation, heightened tension and militarised protectionism, as well as of the diminishing significance of peace and democracy in international relations at large. It is a development that can only lead to further escalation while diverting precious time and crucial resources away from the major crises of our time, prioritising rearmament over planetary and human welfare.
Swedish militarism
To many, the swift decision to join NATO may have appeared unexpected, given Sweden’s renowned neutrality and reputation as a ‘moral superpower’, often advocating diplomacy and peace-brokering in international affairs. Notably, the Social Democratic government coming into power in 2014 even proclaimed itself the world’s first government with a ‘feminist’ foreign policy, further polishing the humanist image with which Sweden is generally perceived. Nonetheless, the question of joining NATO was but a matter of time and timing, resolved by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. It forms part and parcel of a strong militaristic vein running deep in the heart of Swedish political history.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing
Viewed in a historical perspective, it becomes clear that Sweden’s reputation as peace-loving humanitarians is wildly misplaced. The Swedish economy has always depended on the export of death and destruction, a tradition stretching far into the history of European imperialism. Via the steel industry, so vital to Sweden’s economic development, we provided the ball and chain with which millions of West Africans were violently dispossessed, kidnapped and shipped to enslavement in the American colonies. During Nazi Germany’s genocidal conquest of Europe, Swedish steel helped fuel Hitler’s rearmament – all behind the veil of ‘neutrality’.
This war profiteering has but amplified with time, not least courtesy of a very powerful arms industry, specialising in the export of high-tech weapon systems. Sweden’s per capita arms exports are among the highest in the world, reaching third behind only Russia and Israel in 2014. Between 2009 and 2019, it ranked ninth globally, with arms exports totalling a staggering 14.3 billion US dollars. Despite regulations stating that arms exports be restricted to democratic states not involved in an active conflict, Sweden has armed the administrations of the US and India as well as dictatorships such as Thailand, fuelling aggressive warfare and domestic oppression of dissidents. Perhaps the most revealing and absurd example of its double standards in international affairs is the brutal conflict in Yemen, where Sweden is one of the biggest contributors of humanitarian aid while simultaneously exporting munitions to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, whose bombings have killed thousands of civilians and deepened the humanitarian crisis. Moreover, because of the unpredictable nature of live conflicts, there is evidence of Swedish-produced weaponry ending up arming groups such as ISIS, Al-Shabaab and the Russian army in Ukraine.
The Military-Industrial Complex: Oligarchic wealth and power
Naturally, NATO membership is a wet dream for the Swedish arms industry, whose prospects of lucrative defence contracts now soar. Unsurprisingly, it seems that negotiations for Swedish membership have involved representatives of the Wallenberg family, an extremely wealthy dynasty dominating Swedish arms manufactures. Interestingly, this touches on a core feature of Sweden’s political economy. Contrary to its reputation as an egalitarian welfare state and despite low levels of income inequality, the Swedish economy is marked by an extreme concentration of wealth – notably, in 2021, Sweden ranked higher than the US as well as India and China on the wealth inequality index. Indeed, the lion’s share of accumulated wealth is concentrated within a small number of dynastic families and groups, who hold a highly influential position in Sweden’s political affairs. This allows the Wallenberg sphere to participate in and benefit from Swedish arms exports, as part of trade packages accompanying arms deals. Further suggesting their role in facilitating Swedish NATO membership, the negotiator appointed by the Swedish government, Social Democrat Oscar Stenström, received a high-level job in the Wallenberg sphere of companies following Turkey’s preliminary approval in July 2023.
Importantly, the arms industry is deeply embedded in the Swedish economy at large, with major firms such as Volvo, Saab and Ericsson producing defence industry components since the 1940s. During the post-war period, the arms industry was a central pillar in the booming economic expansion of the Swedish welfare state. The wave of privatisation and internationalisation ensuing from the global-economic shift emerging in the 1970s further benefited the arms manufacturers, as the Swedish defence industry increasingly moved towards private ownership and subjected to international market dynamics. Because of its embedded position in the Swedish economy, there is largely an elite consensus on the continued development of the arms industry, ranging from the political sphere to non-military businesses and trade unions benefiting from technological offshoots and job creation. Among the political parties, only the Left is explicitly against the export of arms, effectively making it a matter completely void of deliberation or serious scrutiny.
Treading the path of war: Why now? At what cost?
In other words, cast against a long historical background of militarism and given the prominent position of the arms industry, Sweden’s quest for NATO membership should not come as a surprise. Nonetheless, the decision to apply did mark a sharp and definite transformation of Sweden’s external commitment to non-alignment, and will serve to undercut its historically strong position as a peace-broker in international affairs. Thus, the question remains as to the timing of the application: simply put, why now?
To begin with, Sweden has gradually increased its proximity to NATO over the last decades, laying the foundation for full membership. Since the onset of the Cold War, Sweden has managed to navigate the realm of international affairs by maintaining de jure autonomy and non-alignment while in practice allying with the US and, increasingly, NATO. Notably, Sweden has maintained a close collaboration with military and intelligence services of other NATO members, even contributing troops to the NATO-led invasions of Libya, Afghanistan and Bosnia. Particularly since 2014, Sweden has intensified its cooperation with the alliance, hosting several large-scale NATO exercises, to the point of being considered a de-facto member by the organisation’s leadership. This has occurred as part of a broader process of militarisation that Sweden has undertaken in recent years, with mandatory military conscription reintroduced in 2014, and a steadily increasing defence budget rising from just over 1 percent of GDP in 2017 to 1.3 percent in 2021.
On an ideological level, the case for joining NATO has been a work in progress for decades, always with the pretext of Russian aggression in the Baltic area – the most ludicrous among the recurring threat propositions being that Russia is on the verge of invading Gotland, a harmless island on the Eastern coast of the Swedish mainland. This notion has, together with other attempts at framing Russian aggression, consistently been repeated not only by liberal and conservative politicians but also by significant segments of the mainstream press, without gaining the public support necessary to seriously push the question of NATO membership onto the political agenda. However, recent geopolitical developments and a deteriorating security situation in Europe helped NATO proponents turn public opinion around. Against the backdrop of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Russian invasion of Ukraine finally provided the window of opportunity needed to place NATO membership at the heart of the political discourse.
The democratic cost of membership
Moreover, while the application itself was in many aspects predictable, what is surprising is how inherently undemocratic both the decision process and the application process turned out to be.
Despite constituting a fundamental transformation of Swedish foreign policy, the decision to join NATO was pushed through virtually without democratic deliberation. Framing the issue in the language of urgency and necessity, proponents rang the alarm bells so loud as to drown out the voices that were insisting on debate and discussion. It was utterly bizarre: anyone who voiced concerns about the idea of abandoning the principles of neutrality and non-alignment, pointed out NATO’s record of war crimes, or questioned the idea of Russia invading Sweden as a feasible threat, were lamented as pro-Putin propagandists. Thus, in the months following Russia’s invasion, polls showed that public opinion had rapidly changed to support Swedish membership. There was no time for discussion, let alone an official vote – it was time to act. Notably, the application for membership was initiated by a Social Democratic government, which U-turned on its own policy towards Swedish neutrality within a matter of weeks. At last, the centre-left segments of Swedish politics succumbed to the ideological pressures from the hawkish right.
Beyond the lack of public deliberation going into the decision, the application process has come at a steep price as well, sending Swedish democracy down a slippery slope. The urgency with which Sweden sought to join the alliance made it vulnerable to conditions from Erdoğan’s administration, which has refused to approve the application. As a result, the negotiations with Turkey have been slow and painful, not to say embarrassing, for both the Social Democratic and (since the elections in September 2022) Conservative administrations. Erdoğan has pushed his advantageous position to demand deeply undemocratic measures to be taken on the part of Sweden’s government. Above all, this means helping Turkey combat ‘terrorism’, to which end Sweden has promised to harshen its stance on the Kurdish organisations PKK and YPG, and to expedite extraditions of people suspected to be terrorists by Turkey (an activity the Swedish security police has secretly carried out for years), many of which are merely progressive dissidents risking persecution. It has also intensified its collaboration with Turkish intelligence services, as well as tightened its anti-terrorist legislation so as to criminalise activities that promote or support ‘terrorist’ organisations – such as babysitting, making food or transporting people associated with these. Moreover, Sweden has lifted the ban on exporting arms to Turkey, now used to persecute and bomb the people of Kurdistan.
It would have seemed unimaginable only a few years ago – a reputed democracy selling out its own citizens and grovelling to a murderous dictator’s demands, all to join a war club on the ironic pretext of defending itself against another murderous dictator. Yet, sadly, it is a good gauge of the current state and direction of Swedish democracy, presently led by the most nationalist-conservative government Sweden has seen in a century. In the recent budget proposition for 2024, prime minister Ulf Kristersson pledged to exceed the NATO preconditions of devoting 2 per cent of GDP to the military budget, increasing defence spending by over 30 per cent from 2023 and almost doubling the budget of 2020. This occurs in a burgeoning recession and a cost-of-living crisis rapidly deteriorating the quality of life for a growing part of the population, which much like the rest of Europe’s people finds itself clenched between rising interest rates, higher rents and decreasing real wages. In fact, the fiscal commitment to NATO membership appears as a direct trade-off with social and environmental priorities: while promising tax cuts for the rich, the government proposes substantial slashes to welfare spending and climate budgets that effectively place Sweden’s 2030 emission targets out of reach.
A dark horizon
While the Swedish administration prepares for its admission into NATO, the application still faces obstacles both in Turkey and Hungary, continuing to delay their approval. Although Erdoğan finally presented the application to the Turkish parliament last month, it seems as though a definitive decision will be postponed until 2024. Similarly, Viktor Orbán-led Hungary continues to refuse a parliamentary vote on Swedish NATO membership, pushing for Sweden to soften its stance on the condition of Hungary’s democracy. In other words, it remains to be seen what novel intrusions into our democracy the quest for NATO membership will render. However, its eventual realisation will be symbolic for the general development of international relations, increasingly dominated by warmongers and totalitarians. It means the definite loss of a voice that historically, at least symbolically, has advocated for peace and diplomacy.
In a world turning its back on the people and the planet, the role of progressive politics becomes all the more important: to point out new directions and paint alternative futures. Sweden has chosen a dangerous path, joining a criminal war club and betraying the ideals so dear to international peace champions such as Dag Hammarskjöld, Alva Myrdal and Olof Palme. The day Sweden is finally admitted into NATO will be a dark day for the progressives of the world.
Do you want to be informed of DiEM25's actions? Sign up here
