Actually, it’s pretty clear from a lot of the “conservative” posters here and a lot of “conservatives” in office and campaigning actually don’t understand how NATO works. Prime example is when someone like Trump thinks that NATO somehow owes us money. Which isn’t how it works at all. But other people have latched onto that too without remotely understanding how the alliance works.
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When was sweden ever involved with previous wars? Sounds to me sweden is just joining so they can continue staying uninvolved. Democrats love costing american lives for foreign countries.
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They sure do.
That makes absolutely no sense. They’ve been able to stay out of wars, and World Wars, including WWII that was happening everywhere around them. You think they have difficulty staying out of wars? They’ve been uninvolved for centuries. So your claim is that they are joining the NATO military alliance so they can continue staying out of wars? How does that make sense?
Do you know why they might have a “very well funded military”?
They will now.
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Because Sweden has historically had a strong military. And they’re making it stronger now through additional funding. Because they’re very concerned about their national security. Hence why they’re joining NATO now.
Hence me saying that the argument that poster made made no sense.
No.
They don’t
For some reason Conservatives love Putin. They only wanna see him get stronger while nato gets weaker. It’s the darndest thing!
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Seems to me most of us want Europe to man up…how does that help Putin?
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That must be it. I’ll defer to your expertise.
Okay. But what is troublesome is that most people who post here have no idea what “man up” is and live in a fantasy world where Europe hasn’t manned up. Are a bunch of them not to NATO’s 2% goal yet, yes, but more are now and the rest have been actively trying to get closer to it. It’s the belief that Europe hasn’t done anything about Ukraine and it’s just been the US when in fact percentage wise and dollar wise Europe is doing more than we are. I know that comes as a surprise because it doesn’t fit the “conservative” narrative. That only America is helping. And that’s ■■■■■■■■■
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Thanks! I appreciate it.
Time for Russia to stop pretending it’s a European country.
It’s a Pacific Asian country that can’t even access the Atlantic without going through a slalom course.
Well they can make it to the Atlantic from their Northern Fleet bases in Kola, but they’re not going to get very far. GIUK line is still there. Don’t see them making it past that.
Looked up the Swedish Military.
Unimpressive.
What’s unimpressive? And you had to look up information on their military after you were disparaging them? That’s not a good sign for how you approach things.
Got to factor in how the Swedes believe in waging war.
They’re disciples of the “people’s war” concept. In peacetime it is very small. They take in just enough professionals to train the next year’s worth of draftees.
If war actually comes to Sweden their goal is to mobilize everyone with any sort of training. They store enough arms to outfit a very large military made up of conscripts. The professionals become officers in the wartime army while the conscripts report to their designated units.
They also go to great lengths to ensure that Sweden itself as a whole will become a massive battlefield. Huge numbers of bunkers, weaponry designed for defensive warfare. The idea is that they want to make an invader bleed heavily for every inch of Swedish territory they take.
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Plus the Swedes don’t operate like a western army anyway. They’ve always been big believers in what Mao called “the people’s war.” Everyone is mobilized, the country is turned into a bloodbath fortress, and you ensure that you are willing to sacrifice more than the invaders. Totally different line of thinking than the US military, where the goal is to fight on someone else’s territory with relatively limited numbers of professionals.
Not to say the US couldn’t do it if we needed to. We certainly could. But it would be ad hoc, with individual units recruiting civilians. The entire Swedish military apparatus is based around the People’s War concept. It’s similar to the Finnish military in that way. Israel combines elements of both force structures.
You run small in peacetime, with your professionals training new conscripts constantly as they are inducted. Then those conscripts go to the reserves but have orders on where they are to go if war is declared. If war happens, everyone is called up and mobilized. People’s War is inherently a defensive war. You plan on fighting on your own territory. Sweden would turn itself into a wasteland if it came down to it. The idea is punish the invader and make them bleed themselves out taking your territory. Everything about the Swedish military is based around that idea.
In the grand scheme of things, they aren’t a good NATO military. NATO operates along US lines, with the offensive prized above everything else. They have equipment to bring to bear but they aren’t structured to fight a NATO style war against Russia.
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