Growing concern about Russia leads to new defence thinking in Sweden

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Concern about Russia appears to be growing in Sweden, leading to increased behind-the-scenes debate on the country’s security policy line.
      On Wednesday, the head of the Analysis Centre of the Swedish Defence Forces said that a new assessment of the state of Russia is leading to fine-tuning of the focus toward domestic and regional defence.
      Sweden’s present defence philosophy emphasises participation in international missions for building peace, because no immediate threats against Sweden itself have been seen.
     
"The strategic map has changed. We must now analyse what resources are needed here at home, if tension in the north of Europe were to grow", said Colonel Stefan Gustafsson in a recent interview with the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.
      As Gustafsson sees it, Russia’s armed forces have passed their nadir, and Russia is now able to invest more in its military. According to Gustafsson, Russia also has new energy interests to protect in the Barents Sea, and in the Baltic Sea gas pipeline, which is a cause for concern in Sweden.
     
Swedish political leaders are clearly annoyed by public political statements from the military.
      "Sweden’s defence policy is not formulated by Colonel Gustafsson, if I may say so", said Defence Minister Mikael Odenberg to Helsingin Sanomat.
      Odenberg took part in the presentation of the government’s new foreign policy line at the Swedish Parliament on Wednesday.
      "Defence policy is formulated by the [parliamentary] defence committee, the government, and Parliament. There is nothing in the situation in Sweden’s near environment that would be radically different from the situation a year back. Things have been going in the wrong direction in Russia in recent years, but there are no reasons for alarmist reassessments", Odenberg said.
      Foreign Minister Carl Bildt noted in a foreign policy speech made on behalf of the government that development in Russia has taken a few backward steps. He said that the political system and the media atmosphere are not as free as before, human rights continue to be violated in Chechnya, and that the unsolved murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the circumstances surrounding the death of Aleksandr Litvinenko "cast dark shadows".
      Bildt did not want to take an immediate stand on the new assessments from the military. "I have only read what the newspapers have written. I need to examine the situation better", Bildt said to journalists.
     
Sweden adheres to the so-called "defence decision" that came into force in 2004. It is a document that defines the tasks and resources of the country’s defence forces in the coming years.
      On Wednesday a new defence committee, which was set up after the autumn elections, began its work. The committee will ponder a number of issues, including whether or not a new defence decision is needed.
      There has been some discussion brewing as to whether or not Sweden went too far in 2004 when it emphasised participation in international missions at the expense of homeland defence.
      Sweden’s Defence Forces Commander Håkan Syrén also appears to have taken part in the debate, although his tone was more moderate than that of Colonel Gustafsson.
      Syrén said that there is clearly a reason to place more emphasis on security questions in our nearby areas.
      "Northern Europe will have a growing strategic role in energy questions in the coming decades. This will have security policy consequences that need to be carefully analysed. Development in Russia politically and militarily is obviously an important factor that needs to be taken into consideration", Syrén wrote in an e-mail newsletter a week ago.
     
Russia has been prominent in Swedish newspaper headlines in recent weeks because of the Baltic Sea gas pipeline. Many consider it to be an environmental and security policy problem, because protecting it is expected to increase Russian naval activity, and even espionage, near Sweden.
      In an exceptionally sharply-worded comment, Russia’s Ambassador to Sweden, Aleksandr Kadakin dismissed the Swedish debate this week as "idiotic".
      "I cannot imagine what kind of an idiot could have said in a report to a superior that a station for servicing a gas pipeline would be an outpost for espionage against Sweden. If we want surveillance information about Sweden, we have satellites that can read the number plates on every car in Stockholm", Kadakin said in a radio interview.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Putin reiterates opposition to Finnish membership in NATO (2.2.2007)
  Parliamentary Committee notes Russian military activity in Baltic (8.2.2007)

Helsingin Sanomat