Rather than launching an overwhelming military strike, most European security analysts expect Moscow to continue its current more asymmetric tactics, supporting extremist political parties, conducting periodic cyber attacks and other forms of disruption. For NATO, a much greater focus is on defending the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, once part of the Soviet Union and seen as much more likely targets of Russian aggression, not least because of their geographic proximity and significant Russian-speaking populations.
German, Canadian and British-led battle groups are now based in those countries, joined this month by a hefty U. The Nordic states, too, hope they would not be facing any assault alone. Norway is a long-standing member of NATO, and while Sweden and Finland are not they are now discussing membership and have dramatically increased military and other ties to the alliance. What their preparations at home point to, however, is the largely unspoken nervousness amongst the Nordic and Baltic nations that those arrangements might not prove reliable.
Such worries inevitably intensified with the election of U. President Donald Trump, as well as the rise of far-right parties in Germany, France and elsewhere. The Swedish leaflet states explicitly that any messages of surrender after any invasion should be ignored.
After its defeat in the Great Northern War —21 against the combined forces of Denmark, Poland and Russia, Sweden lost most of its provinces on the other side of the Baltic Sea and was reduced essentially to the same frontiers as present-day Sweden and Finland. As compensation, the French marshal Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, who had been elected heir to the Swedish throne in , succeeded in obtaining Norway, which was forced into a union with Sweden in This union was peacefully dissolved in after many internal disputes.
Eighteenth-century Sweden was characterised by rapid cultural development, partly through close contact with France.
Overseas trade was hard hit by the Napoleonic Wars, which led to general stagnation and economic crisis in Sweden during the early 19th century. In the late 19th century, 90 per cent of the people still earned their livelihoods from agriculture. One consequence was emigration, mainly to North America.
From the midth century to , about 1. After being widowed, Bridget Birgitta in Swedish moved to Rome. In , she was canonised. In , she was proclaimed a patron saint of Europe. Inventor, chemist and benefactor Alfred Nobel received his patent for dynamite in When he died, he had a total of patents. The Nobel Prizes were a bequest from Nobel for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace.
In , he tragically died in a plane crash. Shortly after, he was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The labour movement, whose growth kept pace with industrialisation in the late 19th century, was reformist in outlook after the turn of the 20th century.
The first Social Democrats entered government in Universal suffrage was introduced for men in and for women in Plans for a welfare state were drawn up during the s after the Social Democrats rose to power, and put into effect after World War II. Under Social Democratic leadership, but in close co-operation with the other democratic parties, a series of reforms were carried out in the s and s that together laid the foundations of the Swedish welfare state.
At the same time, there were calls for a modernization of the constitution. A new Instrument of Government was adopted in , stating that all public power is derived from the people, who are to select the members of parliament in free elections. The monarch is still the head of state, but in name only. In , an amendment to the order of succession gave male and female heirs an equal claim to the throne. Accordingly, Crown Princess Victoria is next in line to the throne, not her younger brother, Carl Philip.
Since a short war against Norway in in conjunction with the creation of the union, Sweden has not been involved in any war. Since World War I, Sweden has pursued a policy of non-alignment in peacetime and neutrality in wartime, basing its security on a strong national defense.
The first UN operation involving Swedish troops took place in Suez in The Germans also had real estate investments in Sweden. Germany's war effort depended significantly upon its imports of raw materials and goods from the neutral nations. Sweden's exports of ball-bearings to Germany were vitally important, but were even overshadowed during the early years of the war when Sweden supplied Germany with 40 percent of its iron-ore before imports of iron ore from other European countries reduced this dependency.
Despite the close economic ties to Germany and the transit agreement with Germany, Sweden provided a refugee for those escaping Germany, as well as Soviet, oppression. Most of the Jews from Denmark were smuggled across the Sound into Sweden. Once the tide of battle changed, Sweden was relatively more responsive to Allied pressure to curtail its trade with the Germans.
An Allied-Sweden agreement of September eventually brought about a progressive, substantial curtailment of Swedish commerce with Germany. Under the agreement, the United States and Great Britain agreed to allow an increase in exports to Sweden, including oil and rubber, in exchange for which Sweden agreed to cancel the transit of German military material and troops across Sweden, further reduce iron ore exports, end Swedish naval escorting of German ships in the Baltic, and reduce ball-bearing exports.
During the last half of and the early months of , the United States sought to cripple Germany's ability to continue the war by carrying out a concentrated and costly bombing campaign against ball-bearing production in Germany combined with trade negotiations, including preclusive purchasing arrangements, intended to cut off Swedish ball-bearings to Germany. The United States bombing campaign reduced German ball-bearing production, but German industrial countermeasures and improvisations warded off any serious consequences.
Moreover, the September agreement, while reducing exports of ball-bearings, neglected to impose restrictions on exports of high-quality steel used to manufacture ball-bearings. Thus, by allowing Sweden to provide Germany with ball-bearing steel, it offset the drop in the Swedish export of finished ball-bearings.
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