It is safe to say that Swedish oligarch sectors have a first say in the strategic decisions entailing the geopolitical positions of Sweden. Among the most representatives are the arms-export sector and others in the heavy industy, added the MSM and culture monopoles. The two last mentioned are characterized by a profound warmonger behaviour and a dedicated Russophobia. Have these groups something substantial to win, or to lose, in situations of war –both cold and for real? Well, these are the facts: Since the starting in February 2022 of the new phase in the Ukraine war, the Saab group (weapons industry and arms exports) has increased its share-values in 87 percent.
By Prof Marcello Ferrada de Noli.
–Izvestia TV interviewed The Indicter chief-editor, 15 May 2022. This is an extended version of the transcribed interview, texts added for clarification.
IZVESTIA –“What is the main reason why Finland and Sweden are going to enter NATO?”
F. de Noli– From the Swedish side, as appearing in mainstream media reproducing statements by government and military élites, some of the reasons given are a contradiction of terms. For instance:
1
Main newspaper DN gives as reason that a NATO membership will increase Sweden’s national security, in the context of a “perceived” increasing of Russian military aggression in the region. Particularly the repeated old mantra “Russian aggression against Ukraine”, which the Swedish public has heard quotidianly, repeatedly, since the referendum in Crimea 2014. So, provided that, according to the Swedish establishment’s view, the “Russian aggression” has been real and steady and uninterrupted all along in these last eight years, it appears incomprehensible that a 180-degrees turn in the issue NATO-membership pops ups, and with such a high speed, only now. So, the real reason -or constellation of resons– is to be found elsewhere:
a) It could be that the narrow circle of decision-taking Swedish élites, have become victims of their own disinformation. All Swedish media, no exception, push the US narrative about a “weaken” Russia, militarily. That “Russia is losing the war”, that “Ukraine is ‘strategically’ the winner”, etc. These narratives are solidified by the recurrent interventions of high military officers with direct access to the public via the Swedish media. One of them affirms in SvD that “Ukraine has the strategic advantage”. In fact, this is not true, but the opposite.
Any individual following/analysing the first-hand information coming from the front lines of the war, video materials, updated maps which both sides post in Telegram, knows that what CNN, BBC, The Guardian, etc., is misinforming, twisting, deceiving, about the significance of the military developments in the Ukraine war. Predictable and unfortunatelly, those false contents are repeated in the Swedish media by vassal employed journalists whose leaning towards the U.S. military expansionism has been known for years. In addition, Sweden’s MSM exhibits on daily basis a parade of “military experts” (experts in repeating exactly the same CNN ‘Intel’), or by “terrorist” experts, or “Russia experts” such as Martin Kragh… Their contradictions are supine.
Just one example. Four days after that nearly 2,500 Ukrainian military started to surrender in Mariupol –among them the neo-Nazi troops Azov– the Swedish media still refers to that ostensibly military defeat of the Ukrainians, as the “evacuation of the defenders of Mariupol”. They were in fact taken prisoners by the Russian forces! Dozens of videos with hundreds of captured troops shown that, including a brief video interview with the second commander in charge, declaring, “we surrender”.
b) The naive Swedish governance (they admit from time to time during the recent decades, “vi har varit naiva” –we have been naïve– in the undertake of estrategic decusions, like during the massive, not controlled, migrant wave of 2015) have recently stated that they do `right analyses` based in good Intel (kept secret to the public, of course). But it is no secret that Sweden´s Intel is to a relevant degree fed by US Intel –which have obvious interest in channel Sweden to NATO. These sources are in the front line of the fabricating negative narratives about Russian military performance –while they exaggerate and/or plainly invent successful victories of the Ukrainian army. Illustrations are plenty. To this aggregated the poor level of research-academic education, particularly in geopolitical or psychosocial fields, that prevail among Swedish political élites. Which apparently subordinate to “experts” for important decisions about war VS peace. They do exactly the opposite of what Clemencau warned, about “War is too important to be left to the generals”.
c) A third factor to consider is the tradition of opportunism in the decision-making of alignment VS staying “neutral” that Sweden has demonstrated since ages. Analyses often refer the role of Sweden regarding Nazi German during WW2, even if many important episodes of that epoch are not mentioned prominently, such as Nazi troops passing Swedish territory to assist Operation Barbarrosa via the northern flank. (I develop these items in my second book on the Swedish Assange case).
d) Further, a fourth factor is represented by the power in the Swedish decision-making that Swedish oligarchs have in the strategic decisions of Sweden. Which automatically entails the services that Swedish state-institutions provide to the economic-financial groups in power.
I give an example taken from own experience: I remember when MSB (Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency) participated in a SvD article where I was attacked ad hominem, ignominiously, for I simply reproduced on Twitter a publication that criticised Pfizer vaccine trials (that criticism is now vox populi, inside and outside scientific spheres). Then I was publicly accused to be “hired” by Russia to discredit Western vaccines (being Astra Zeneca´s part of it), alleged of doing that to promote the Sputnik vaccine. All the accusations, innuendos, etc., were false. I reported to Swedish mediaombudsmanen (I’ll describe this episode in a separate statement). Well, in that precisely context the Swedish public was warned in the media that MSB was established to protect Sweden´s interests, and that Astra Zeneca was undoubtedly a part of it.
So, it is safe to say that oligarch sectors have a first say in the strategic decisions entailing the geopolitical positions of Sweden. These groups are well defined, but perhaps the most representatives are the pharmaceutical industry, the arms-industry, and the MSM / culture monopoles. These two last mentioned are characterized by a profound warmonger behaviour and a dedicated Russophobia. Have these groups something substantial to win, or to lose, in situations of war –both cold and for real? Well, these are the facts: Since the starting in February 2022 of the new phase in the Ukraine war, the Saab group (weapons industry and arms exports) has increased it position in the shares market in 87 percent.
N.B.: I am using the term oligarch according to the definition in Cambridge Dicctionary: “Oligarch = one of a small group of powerful people who control a country or an industry”. A report [Swedish] describes the “Fifteen finance familiies that govern Sweden“.
Concluding, what I do of the factors mentioned above?
Let´s make the sum of a) poor information / high disinformation about Russia’s potential and military performance, b) a tradition of opportunism, c) economic gains, d) naivety, independent research-academic incapacity, etc. The equation that resulted is:
For the calculations (or miscalculations) of those in power, this is the best opportunity to jump in the NATO carriage. Added that, concomitantly, Russia is “too uptight” in the Ukraine war scenario, to be capable of opposing any real move against Sweden’s NATO-membership decision. Answering to the first question, may be these are the reasons why Sweden is going to enter NATO. In my opinion a huge mistake. And besides, an antidemocratic move (no parliament vote, no referendum) that with the time it will cost dearly to Sweden´s elites. Both in terms of the domestic public reaction, and international prestige.
Who started the aggression war in Ukraine?
I would like to add a comment about a main reason given by the Swedish authorities on the issue NATO-membership: “We do this because of the aggression of Russia in Ukraine”.
To portrait the current situation in Ukraine because of a “Russian aggression” initiative, it is to utterly be contradicting historical facts –as well as logics. For it was NATO, the US, Secretary of state for Eurasian affairs Victoria Neeman, those that engineered, and subsequently managed, the putsch in Ukraine in February 2014. And that was an intervention vividly supported by some EU governments. For instance, Sweden´s foreign minister at that time, Mr Carl Bildt, was a fervent, and public, supporter of the Maidan uprising –together with his Polish counterpart.
I mean these countries were the geopolitical forces that installed in power the Yatsenyuk Junta (also integrated by five ultra-nationalist ministers), which, ensued by the Poroshensko presidency, initiated the genocidal aggression against the Russian ethnic population in Donbass. Who Yatsenyuk had called the “subhuman”. I refer here to the ATO war of 2015, the 15 thousand victims in the Ukrainian aggression against Donbass. Even if we at SWEDHR, based on human-rights and pacifist grounds, would not approve military invasions as replacement of diplomatic negotiations, for me it is obvious that the current war in Ukraine started 2014. It is Russia responding to an aggression, not otherwise.
2
Another contradiction is exemplified by representatives of institutions in the armed forces of Sweden, in this example Mr Albin Aronsson, a national scurity analyst at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, who have recently declared in DN that an actual, current threat of a prospective Russian aggression against Sweden is “deemed as low” –it’s that what they say. On the other hand, they say otherwise that because there is a Russian threat against Sweden, deduced from the “Russian invasion in Ukraine”, we have to get full membership in NATO!
3
They also argued that a “good reason” to be in NATO is that we Swedes would be protected by a powerful nuclear arsenal than the principal NATO countries possesses. But this is so naïve, that becomes scary. For it is a meeting point of stupidity, the incentre of an equilateral triangle made of utterly miscalculation, typical Swedish naivety, and traditional opportunism in geopolitics.
No doubt, at the first presence of NATO ships or aircraft suspected of carrying nuclear weapons, even if only in a “visit” to Sweden’s territory, Russia will discard commitments of a no-nuclear zone in the Baltic. It will deploy it Kaliber and Sarmat and Satan missiles, etc. practically in front of our nose, at 87 sec from Stockholm.
So, what protection is that one?
How will it impact on international relationships between NATO and Russia?
The impact of Sweden entrance to NATO has multiple, serious consequences
- NATO encircling of Russia becomes even closer, consequently, Russia would perceive that as an increase threat to its national security –this judging from the argumentation exposed by the Russian delegations during the failed diplomatic negotiations with NATO and EU particularly between November 2021 and February 2022
- For Sweden this would mean they have to be ready to participate in conflicts that essentially may have nothing to do with their own national scurry interests. This because the art 5 in NATO stipulating the collective response if a member is involved in an armed conflict that would entail military aggression to that country.
People of Sweden and Finland will support entrance in NATO?
This is a very sensitive issue from the point of view of Democracy.
Those deciding is not the Swedish people as such. I mean, not deciding directly. Both in Finland and Sweden it is about a government initiative which thereafter is to be voted in their respective parliaments.
In the case of Sweden, the government has decided this vital matter without a referendum –as it was done when Sweden decided to be member of the European Union. Not even the parliament of Sweden was called to vote on the issue. They just had a debate, no vote. In any case, several members of parliament which now have change thier minds about the NATO membershio issue, wer elected in a diametral different platform, meaning, opposing to NATO entrance. So, it should be a referendum, I have argued. But this is denied by the government.
Now, why is nowadays the opinion shifting in the polls towards a NATO membership?
During the past years, and until the initiation of Russian military operation in Ukraine, there were a steady higher percentage of those rejecting NATO membership compared with those favouring this membership.
Nevertheless, that was in the middle of a relative open debate on the issue, in the media etc.
But after February this year, the unilateral argumentation for the entrance in NATO increased in the Swedish media outlets. On the one hand restrictions were imposed to Russian media, such as RT, thus depriving the public of the other side´s information on what is going on in Ukraine, for instance. But also, from that moment, opinions arguing the negative effects of such measure has been for the most silenced. I give you an example, an analysis I wrote arguing for the necessity of a referendum was not accepted for publication in the Swedish mainstream media, and it was eventually published in a USA-based independent outlet, Consortium News. Thereafter, what the Swedish stream media wished to silence, has been reproduced / translated by several international outlets.
