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Sweden, to its immense credit, has acknowledged what the rest of Europe still resists saying aloud: if an adversary can strike you from thousands of kilometres away, you cannot deter them with weapons that can’t reach beyond your own borders.
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Sweden, long admired for its cautious diplomacy and understated pragmatism, is now moving decisively onto the European security stage.
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Stockholm’s new strategy, proposing strike systems with ranges of up to 2,000 km, is not a provocation. It is a sober, overdue recognition that Europe’s deterrent posture must modernise or collapse.
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Predictably, some critics will accuse Sweden of “escalation”, as though investing in the ability to defend one’s territory somehow invites conflict. The argument is as old as pacifism and just as flawed.
In a world where one power routinely launches strikes 1,000 km deep into a sovereign state, the only escalatory act is to remain defenceless.
Europeans must abandon the naïve notion that Russia will be placated by weakness. If anything, it is weakness that tempts Moscow, just as it has throughout its imperial history. A Europe that cannot respond to missile attacks on its own soil — or that must beg the United States for every long-range capability — is a Europe that has ceded its sovereignty without a fight.
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Deterrence only works if the adversary believes you have both the capability and the will to respond. Without long-range strike, Europe has neither. Sweden understands this. Its decision is not merely strategic; it is moral. A nation has a duty to defend its citizens — and defence today requires offensive reach.
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Meanwhile, Polish members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have urged the European Union to respond firmly and jointly to Russian and Belarusian sabotage and repeated violations of EU airspace, during a debate in Strasbourg on Wednesday.
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The discussion followed a recent explosion on a railway line in eastern Poland, which Warsaw has described as an act of Russian-backed sabotage, and a series of incursions by drones launched from Russia into the skies of several member states.
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European Commission Vice-President Roxana Mînzatu said that strengthening Europe’s ability to react to “hybrid threats” is now a priority for the European Commission, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The term “hybrid threats” is used in Brussels for hostile activity that mixes cyberattacks, sabotage, disinformation campaigns and military pressure. Mînzatu noted that in recent weeks drones or aircraft had violated airspace over Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania and Latvia.
“These incidents follow a pattern, they are not an accident. They are part of hybrid warfare,” she told lawmakers.
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Former [Polish] interior minister Mariusz Kamiński of Law and Justice argued that Russia is deliberately trying to create fear and chaos and that this method has been used consistently since Soviet times.
He said Russian special services have for months been organizing “terrorist activities” on EU territory, targeting critical infrastructure such as airports, and warned that “we are one step away from the deaths of our citizens.”
Kamiński said Belarus, under the rule of Alexander Lukashenko, has become a staging ground for Russian intelligence officers and saboteurs, and called for tougher EU measures.
He also proposed that the Commission, together with the European Council, work out a procedure to compensate damage caused by sabotage using frozen Russian assets that were blocked after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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Krzysztof Śmiszek from the Left alliance cited an estimate by Poland’s digital affairs minister Krzysztof Gawkowski that cyberattacks in Poland, including those targeting critical infrastructure, could reach 100,000 this year.
Śmiszek accused the far right in Europe of acting in the Kremlin’s interests, saying that “the Kremlin, as always, uses the mindless and ‘useful idiots,’” using a phrase often applied to people seen as advancing Russia’s agenda inside Western politics.
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On Thursday, on the sidelines of the European Parliament’s plenary session in Strasbourg, the Committee on Security and Defence (SEDE) is due to meet behind closed doors.
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Absolutely as a Dane and brotherly rivalry among us aside, Sweden is an industrial/technological powerhouse way beyond what its size would indicate.
Gotta admit you do have the best pastries 💕 (and a way cooler lifestyle).
Swedish people will work themselves to death before like being 5 minutes late or something. Not my cup of tea but the future is going to ge interesting with sweden in nato now that russia have gone crazy again.
Just the fact that Sweden make their own fighter jets is insane IMO. So maybe those work ethics are paying off?
And yes it is absolutely great that Sweden has joined NATO, even if we need to reinvent NATO without USA, or maybe rather ESPECIALLY if we have to make a new NATO without USA.
Yeah that last point sends shivers down the spine, but Germany and France are waking up so hopefully the future will be okay. Crazy it’s happening though.
I know Scandinavian and Baltic leaders have been kicking EU hard to wake up to the new world reality. Both regarding USA and Russia. I think in EU we mostly agree on the principles, but not quite on the level of emergency of the situation.
Yea, we have been indoctrinated (I guess) since our childhood that war is bad, it’s even the worst thing imaginable. And it is. But the flipside is we’ve become pacifists instead of pro peace/anti war. Sort of.
WW1 & 2 wasn’t something pleasant, and many people see the physical memories of them every day, and people grew up with the horror stories from that time, from first hand stories too. I have a couple bone chilling ones I got either directly or by the grand daughter of etc.
Sweden wasn’t really involved so I can se why they are on the forefront, but the old people are dying off in France, Germany, … so I guess the time is reap for change.
I’m just a little bit concerned about it all, but it seems there is not much we can do.
In this regard I seriously doubt old people are the problem. I grew up in the 70’s when flower power and peace movements were peaking all over the west.
I too thought when Communism failed and the Soviet Union was split up. That we didn’t really need military anymore.
My wife however, claimed I was naive. And I like I suspect many others did when Russia invaded Ukraine, made an instant 180°, recognizing I had been wrong, and indeed had been naive.
Yes we all grew up learning war and military are bad things, even when they are necessary. But now it has become apparent that for Europe to have a strong defense is absolutely still necessary if we want to a world order based on international law, and not the whims of mad dictators.
But I think old people on average have better understanding about the history of war and WW2 and the necessity of defending against evil, because older people were closer to the reality of it, and have lived the history where it either happened or was closer than it ever was until 2022.
I didn’t mean old people were the problem, just that it worked way better when an old person told how Hans lept out of his hole and snatched her away from the RAF bullet storm instead of reading it (my SOs grand mother). Like they were the sane persons not wanting war again. We will not forget it but the younger generation will. Just look how easily the Kremlin recruits for a stupid war, they haven’t had those sane persons (lot of other things and propaganda too for sure).
Your wife? Smart girl.
You could see it with Chechnya (but that was far away) and so on, they never stopped, just needed to reorganise after 1991.
Interesting times.
Edit: the old ones seemed to hate war itself, we, the younger generations hate evil. We’ll see how the next generation pans out.