The pacifism and downward spiral in the military capabilities of NATO's 'old Europe' members is understandable. Sheltering under the US umbrella for the Cold War and abandoning force in favour of soft power as part of the European Union, they have left themselves defenceless as geopolitics returns to the world of battalions. One fellow-traveller that traversed this path as far as they could go is Sweden.
In less than fifteen years Sweden has gone from having a national defence force to a security policy based on the assumption that territorial defence is no longer needed. Military resources are only deemed relevant as political markers in distant conflicts and Sweden's territory has become nothing more than a training ground and a shipping station.
This total focus on symbolic international operations may be an international phenomenon, but there has been no more rapid and all-encompassing shift in Sweden's security policy since the end of the country's time as a great power.
The article is focused upon Sweden's international deployments at the expense of national defence. Such calculations acquire renewed significance, as assumptions based upon Russian democracy, falter under the aggressive foreign policy pursued by Putin. The recent call for a ten percent cut in defence expenditure sounds like the final calm before the storm.
Russia will continue to remilitarise and aggress, aided and abetted by co-operative powers within the European Union and in Asia. They may well view the Baltic as their 'sea' with implications for their neighbours. Sweden may face a clear cut choice to acquiesce in their own irrelevance: Finlandisation or perhaps worse; or re-arming to counter this potential threat to their territory and surrounding waters.