handy to have the Swedes on your side
During the height of the Cold War in the 1980's the Americans were forging alliances all across the world, even arming the Mujahideen, the Contras and other anti-Communist guerrillas, literally throwing anything they could at the Soviets and prepping other countries to put up an absolute bitter fight to the end in the case of a Soviet invasion.
However Sweden had remained neutral (even in World War II) but due to it's close proximity with the Soviet Union and it's strategic location towards Europe and the fact it needed to enforce it's neutrality it ended up fielding a large enough nearly entirely self made military.
But unlike it's neighbors (such as Norway) it never joined NATO or even (knowingly) aided any foreign military personnel or equipment, however the United States had put forward a clever psychological operation to convince the Swedish people to have a lot of fear in the imminent threat posed by the Soviet Union, this meant that the Swedish military could be a buffer and serve the interests of the United States and the United Kingdom.
They achieved this by operating (mostly American) submarines in Swedish territorial waters (including in Stockholm harbour) appearing to be hostile and not warning or telling the Swedish government of these certain operations, the close proximity of these patrols and the Swedes believing them to be "enemy" submarines meant that the government had to take more solid measures regarding Sweden's impressive forces to counter the threat of such a present danger.
Not only that but Sweden (along with several other non NATO countries) had stay-behind agents that in the case of the Swedish military being crippled or Sweden invaded would operate large scale insurgency groups making it truly hell for the invading Reds.
Although geographical size and the military comparison would have made it look like readying up Sweden for a war an attempt of holding off a serious Russian force would have looked futile.
Click to enlarge
However the Soviets probably thought the same when they invaded Finland in 1939.
However Sweden had remained neutral (even in World War II) but due to it's close proximity with the Soviet Union and it's strategic location towards Europe and the fact it needed to enforce it's neutrality it ended up fielding a large enough nearly entirely self made military.
But unlike it's neighbors (such as Norway) it never joined NATO or even (knowingly) aided any foreign military personnel or equipment, however the United States had put forward a clever psychological operation to convince the Swedish people to have a lot of fear in the imminent threat posed by the Soviet Union, this meant that the Swedish military could be a buffer and serve the interests of the United States and the United Kingdom.
They achieved this by operating (mostly American) submarines in Swedish territorial waters (including in Stockholm harbour) appearing to be hostile and not warning or telling the Swedish government of these certain operations, the close proximity of these patrols and the Swedes believing them to be "enemy" submarines meant that the government had to take more solid measures regarding Sweden's impressive forces to counter the threat of such a present danger.
Not only that but Sweden (along with several other non NATO countries) had stay-behind agents that in the case of the Swedish military being crippled or Sweden invaded would operate large scale insurgency groups making it truly hell for the invading Reds.
Although geographical size and the military comparison would have made it look like readying up Sweden for a war an attempt of holding off a serious Russian force would have looked futile.
Click to enlarge
However the Soviets probably thought the same when they invaded Finland in 1939.
Labels: cold war, soviet union, sweden, winter war
posted by Paul Iddon @ 8:27 PM
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