Comment, by Ingemar Dörfer

This 750 page study is the official sequence to the 1994 investigation Had there Been a War, SOU 1994:11 that looked at Sweden’s conduct in the Cold War until 1969. The Social Democrats at the time did not want to go beyond 1969; the year Olof Palme had become prime minister. The current study covers the twenty last years of the cold war. Most of the period, 1969-76 and 1982-86, Palme was in power and as a politician he totally dominated Swedish life. Had there been a war punctuated the myth of a strictly neutral Sweden. All defence planning had postulated that resistance was to be maintained until Western help arrived. Informal contacts with high NATO officers were cultivated. Communications were established with military staffs in Norway, Denmark and the US Air Force in Wiesbaden. The naval staffs of Sweden and Denmark planned the joint defence of the Danish straits. Allied bombing of Soviet bases, harbours and communications was assumed, and some Swedish air force runways were hardened for this endeavour. Yet, because of the principle “nothing on paper” it is likely that none of these preparations would have been effective in war time.

Unlike the first study this one has not been authored by a committee but by Rolf Ekeus, a formidable diplomat and Social Democrat, assisted by a small staff of diplomats, military and modern historians. He has been given complete access to virtual all secret and top secret documents in the Swedish government archives including the Prime Minister’s Office, the Foreign and Defence Ministries and the Swedish High Command. On the foreign side the Freedom of Information Act gives good US access before 1973 but Ekeus has interviewed widely in the United States and Russia and even seen Soviet documents pertaining to Sweden from the 1960s. Especially valuable is his analysis of top secret Swedish military planning up till 1985. The result is an impressive comprehensive picture of Swedish high politics, the foundation of much future scholarship and important first cut of the real national security history of the nation at the time.

Ekeus conclusion is that the Warsaw Pact never planned to attack Sweden and NATO never planned to defend it. However, it is quite likely that the Soviet Union planned to attack the nation and certain that the United States for a long time intended to defend it. That defence would probably have been inefficient since no Swedes and very few Americans had knowledge of the intention, since the intentions over time were forgotten and since no contingency plans ever were worked out on the American side. Ekeus also shows that from 1970 Swedish defence planning did not prepare for Western help as part of the conduct of the Swedish war. Before 1970 the armed forces were to resist an invasion until the West came to the rescue. But this assumption rested on common sense and was based on no treaties or agreements.

The study is so interesting since it is the flamboyant active foreign policy of the Palme era that has been in the public eye and also the topic of all studies so far. The robust security policy of the nation has remained closed to scholars and hence been largely unknown to Swedes and the outside world alike. Because the only security threat to the nation was posed by the Soviet Union the main purpose of the policy was to never get into a war with the USSR. All secret war planning assumed that the enemy was the USSR at the same time as the policy was to maintain Swedish neutrality in a war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Once Sweden was attacked in such a war the neutrality was of course broken and Sweden was free to seek help from the West. In studying the deeds rather than the words of the period Ekeus brings out the serious resource consuming side of the security policy; roughly 100 billion dollars spent altogether on defence. Unlike many homespun studies from the period itself Ekeus analysis is conventional Western; no third way SIPRI analysis of world events here!

Much is made of a declassified document “Guidelines for Policy Operations – Sweden, June 1962 produced by the National Security Council and not modified over the next twenty years. In case of an isolated Soviet attack on Sweden the United States is to undertake to come to the assistance of Sweden. It is further to cooperate in peacetime in the field of military intelligence and defence materiel – i.e. technology release for advanced weapons systems components. We know that Sweden sometimes could buy these US weapons before the NATO allies. This cut both ways. The US could veto Swedish sale of jet fighters or delay delivery of US components at will. The study contrasts the document with a parallel document on Finland issued in 1963. Here there is no question of coming to the aid of Finland; on the contrary. Finland was considered to be within the Soviet sphere of influence. The document on Sweden produced during the Kennedy administration gathered dust over the years and was most likely forgotten. The Reagan administration produced 325 National Security Decision Memoranda of which 90 % have been declassified. None of them touched upon Scandinavia. It seems that a new assessment was made in connection with Weinberger´s visit in 1981. Based on the joint US Norwegian study of the High North of 1979 Soviet forces were considered capable to transit Finland but avoid Sweden in an invasion of Northern Norway.

But how safe was Sweden?

Ekeus has found no evidence in the recovered Warsaw Pact documents that Sweden (unlike Denmark) was to be attacked in a war. It seems likely that such planning was done by Moscow alone. The existence of a TVD Northwest, the 6th Army in Petrozavodsk, the 26th Army in Archangelsk and the 30th Army Corps in Viborg all indicated targets in Finland, Norway and Sweden not mentioned in the Warsaw Pact plans. Ekeus´ interview with the legendary Komissarov, Jurij Derjabin, reveals a fundamental suspicion of Swedish deception in her policy of neutrality. “sometimes behind the back of the government”. Sometimes the answers are taken at face value – against all odds Swedish air force officers believe that the Western allies would avoid Swedish air space in a shooting war. Convoluted diplomacy reaches high farce as when Sweden tries to acquire American air defence missiles to shoot down cruise missiles. “American ones? asks Cap Weinberger.

Here is the weakness of this important work. The tone, the mood is off key. Between 1952 and 1987, for one generation no Swedish prime minister was welcomed in the White House while there were ten such visits exchanged between the USSR and Sweden between 1956 and 1988. The showcase of Swedish diplomacy during the second cold war – Common Security – is given less than one page out of 750. Of course, this attempt to exchange nuclear deterrence for “common security” was an intellectual and political non-starter. Together with initiatives on nuclear free zones in Europe, pronouncements on US policy in Central America and above all criticism of the Vietnam war Sweden was one of the most unpopular nations in Washington. Between 1972-74 the US ambassador in Stockholm was withdrawn. The report is glossing over the fact that the Palme government did not understand the seriousness of the situation. A charming Major General is sent over to see his old friends and mend fences. Of course the impact is small on a superpower that constantly has 1 000 generals and admirals on active duty, and increasingly Vietnam veterans to boot. A Washington Embassy report on Deputy Foreign Minister Schori´s visit in 1982 blames temporary temperamental outbursts on the apparent fiasco. No more so than Washington vetoing Schori´s appointment to UN Commissioner in Kosovo twenty-one years later.

Despite numerous reports by the US military attachés in Stockholm on the poor training and equipment of the Swedish Army and its ability to mobilize, it is sanguinely assumed that the basic US trust in Swedish defence remains strong. Much is made of Cap Weinberger´s visit to Sweden in 1981 and his favourable impressions. But in perspective American defence secretaries visit and meet their West European colleagues several times a year while this was the first ever and the only one in twenty years.

In the end Sweden was lucky surviving the cold war whole and free. Under the US nuclear umbrella she could pontificate on the evils of nuclear weapons. Despite the myths created on her independent and successful foreign policy she reluctantly decided to join the European Union. NATO has so far been another matter. Even thoughtful and comprehensive studies as this one tend to perpetuate the idea that the nation was safer than the facts bear out.

INGEMAR DÖRFER ist Research Director at the Swedish Defence Research Agency. The articel has also been published in: Fred och säkerhet. Svensk säkerhetspolitik 1969-89 (Stockholm: Statens offentliga Utredningar, 2002): 108.