Regarding Sweden and WW II: If Sweden shouldn't have been a "lapdog" -- which side of the war should it have joined? With Norway or with Finland? Not a simple choice, neither now nor at the time.
And regarding USA today:
Check the democratic peace theory -- democracies don't fight wars with each others. (Not even USA. :-) ) So it is arguably in the Swedish interest to help all democracies be as strong and informed as ever possible.
That said, I doubt the reason Sweden is such a handmaid to US interests was so philosophical, of course. Every country do realpolitik and lies shamelessly about it. We don't know what the US paid (hopefully not just bribes to Swedish politicians, old hatt/mössa style... :-) ).
Edit: These comments really jumps up/down in votes. :-)
Sweden always claims to be neutral, but the open secret is that Sweden is protected by NATO in case "someone" = Russia invades. Such protection costs, but since it's a secret, there can be no public debate about the price and if it's worth it.
So each elected government gets to negotiate the protection payment themselves, and the whole reason for the FRA law was to legally increase and secure the amount of sigint that could be collected and handed over to the US. The whole public debate over that got really weird, because the executive branch was SUPER INSISTENT that the law got passed, but couldn't argue for it, because the actual reason was secret.
Does covertly overthrowing a democratically elected government, installing a dictator only to later invade count as two democracies going to war? Otherwise it sounds like a very big loophole and one the US uses all of the time.
Uh? What examples [of deposing democracies then invading when the dictator becomes too oppressive] exist after the cold war?
Edit: Point is, there was a war of influence in the cold war; dictators played Soviet/West against each others for support. E.g. South Korea and Taiwan became democratic after the cold war, to not risk being ostracized.
Yeah, even Reagan (Grenada & Panama) and the Bushes (Panama & Iraq) pretty much installed democracies.
The world is slightly different after Kissinger left office (Argentina)... realpolitik is really more of a Euro-Russian thing than a US thing. Although that could change again with the new president.
You mean the US's middle East policy hasn't been driven by realpolitik? That it was idealistic? Why the has the US propped up so many dictatorships? Saudi Arabia?
I think most people believe their own country's propaganda. :-)
In Sweden, since that is the subject, we really used to be naive and trust what we were told.
Some of the typical characteristics you saw, all the way back to before written history, is that we are group oriented and do what we were told. This made for a high trust society, which is probably what made the place work.
But no more, the society elites are really destroying this trust now.
That the democratic world supports Saudi A is an extreme example of realpolitik, of course. We need stability in that part of the world.
>> Bushes (Panama & Iraq) pretty much installed democracies.
I would use the word "democracy" pretty loosely when it comes to Iraq.
A consistent insurgency with widespread sectarian violence and much of the Sunni population not taking part in the elections, it was hardly what anybody would deem a "democracy".
Not to mention banning the Ba'ath party, which, while it had ruled under a dictator, nonetheless had the support of much of the population, who were disenfranchised as a result.
>In June 2003, the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority banned the Ba'ath Party, and banned all members of the party's top four tiers from the new government and from public schools and colleges, a move which some criticised for blocking too many experienced people from participating in the new government. Thousands were removed from their positions, including doctors, professors, school teachers and bureaucrats. Many teachers lost their jobs, causing protests and demonstrations at schools and universities.
A revolution is scary, the dice are thrown in the air and you have no clue how they fall. It didn't go well in Libya, so far.
But mainly Putin and his employees seem to think that it was bad to support an uprising to get rid of the previous junta in Libya (and they are probably mostly upset because Gadaffi was a good customer).
And about Syria -- how many tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of civilians have the Assad regime bombed/tortured/etc to death?! That ought to weigh heavily on Obama in the history books.
(Regarding Iraq, I do believe in that it was an honest attempt, but of course it is hard to go to a functional democracy in half a generation. The spectacular failure was extreme, of course...)
Revolutions are reasonably predictable, after all, history rhymes.
From my point of view I would agree that Libya was better off with Gaddafi. Gaddafi was negotiating a surrender with free elections but Hillary Clinton blocked it because she wanted him dead and needed to boost her foreign policy resume. She then bragged about it afterwards. Libya is unlikely to recover in a meaningful way for the duration of the modern islamic uprising - which will be a very long time.
Syria was, is, going to be a massacre either way. We are much much better off to have Assad winning. Obama's support of Al Nusra / ISIS in their fight against Syria / Russia resulted in much greater destruction, suffering and loss of life that what would have happened without Obamas help.
Why the US is pushing so hard for an economic war / proxy war / shooting war with Russia is pretty complex and out of scope for this response. But as Noam Chomsky would say; modern states maintain power either by force or by propaganda. As a democracy we get the propaganda.
To round it out; Iraq was created by the British with the intent of making an easy to control failed state. Hence why their borders make no sense. The British have a long tradition of this and are very good at it. The fact that Iraq failed and keeps failing should be of no surprise to anyone.
I have clearly done none of what you accuse me of. I have never said, or even implied, that Russia is an innocent party. Nor have I suggested that US blunders excuse Russian war crimes.
I consider Russia to be an oppressive, dysfunctional, dictatorial regime. It's citizens are drinking themselves to death with depression.
I am more critical of US policies for the same reason George Orwell focused his writing to be critical of the left; obvious fascism is obvious. You are probably already aware of it so there is little point in me reminding you. Perhaps I could have done a better job in letting you know that I know about Russia and Syrias shortcomings. I assumed that would have been self evident.
I'm an America loving American and consider my belief system to be a mix of Noam Chompsky, Christopher Hitchens, Ron Paul, Bertrand Russell, and Nigel Farage... which is eclectic to say the least
That was yet another long list of extreme claims without references!
Edit: No references in the answer to this, as expected. (I can only blame myself for arguing with what looks like an extra account created to troll people someone don't agree with.)
(At least about modern, mainly international, politics -- what the Brits did before WWII seems quite irrelevant to anything by now.
Edit: WWII started almost 80 years ago for <vulgarity>'s sake, there is some time limit when even people in the Middle East have to stop blaming GB...)
The idea that British pre WWII history is irrelevant betrays your ignorance. Considering that Britain is the most recent world power to collapse, there is much that can be learned from them.
Also consider that we are entering a time that is quite similar to the pre-WWII era. For example; the modern hate speech laws being used against nationalist are making the nationalist more popular not less. This is basically a repeat as to what happened when Weimar Republic (Germany) used similar hate speech laws to jail the Nazis.
Ha ha ha ha, perhaps I have better things to do than provide you with particulars. Especially when my assertions are easily searchable. I'm guessing you're a member of the spoon fed generation.
I comment on topics that interest me and I cycle my account on a regular basis to preserve anonymity - which, for reasons, is important to me.
The idea that time makes someone less deserving of blame is nonsensical. The idea that people should simply get over past wrongs, especially WWII, will only serve to invite repeat abuses.
It is also impractical, as past wrongs are very effective tools for propaganda and thus will be evoked whenever convenient. A good example is China use of the West's involvement in the Opium Wars to stir up anti-western sentiment. Similarly they use the Rape of Nanking to stir up anti-japanese sentiment. This is to lay the groundwork for a future war with the US. These past events are very relevant to our future. And asking them to get over it isn't going to work.
What ought to weigh on your mind and on Obama's are the "many tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of civilians" that the "moderate Islamist" we're supporting have killed and tortured.
And do keep in mind that without the interventions in Libya and Syria, Europe would not be dealing with the immigration crisis it's facing now.
To start with, 30% of the 2015 asylum seekers in Sweden were from Syria -- so that is not really the reason for the flood wave. The politicians opened the gates, it was possible to get to West Europe.
The consensus is that the Assad junta is responsible for much more death/torture than even ISIS. They have the ability to use barrel bombs and artillery on civilians.
> Check the democratic peace theory -- democracies don't fight wars with each others.
The Democratic Peace theory has always been bunk: even when it was formulated, for any definition of democracy restrictive enough for the claim "Democracies don't fight wars with each other", the number of available democracy-democracy pairs is so small compared to thr number of pairs of countries that the expected number of wars between them is, rounded to the nearest integer, zero.
Certain, since the wars in the Balkans from the 1990s, the Democratic Peace theory is even less defensible than it was previously.
The US went to war with Mexico. Or, more accurately, Mexico went to war with itself, and the US supported the secession bloc well enough to legally adopt it.
Then the US went to war against its own secession immediately afterward.
Mexico, the United States, and the Confederate States are (were) all democratic republics, and their constituent states are all democratic republics.
And does it have to be a shooting war? Because democracies wage economic wars against each other quite frequently.
>> the number of available democracy-democracy pairs is so small compared to thr number of pairs of countries that the expected number of wars between them is, rounded to the nearest integer, zero.
There are literally dozens of modern democracies that have been free since WWII, how can that be too few "pairs"?
>> Certain, since the wars in the Balkans from the 1990s, the Democratic Peace theory is even less defensible than it was previously.
Uh, Soviet ended 1989. Then the Balkan got free -- and Jugoslavia fell relatively quickly into a civil war. How does that reflect on democracies?
(Are you defining "democracy" as "one free election, no power changes after consecutive free elections is needed"? That is hardly how the term is defined, last I checked either the democracy or the democratic peace theory.)
> There are literally dozens of modern democracies that have been free since WWII, how can that be too few "pairs"?
There's a little under 200 countries now. The number of democracies by any definition that leaves no inter-democracy wars is a small fraction of that (though, yes, in the dozens). The ratio of democracy-democracy dyads to total dyads is smaller (for reasons which should be mathematically obvious) than the ratio of democracies to countries.
> Uh, Soviet ended 1989. Then the Balkan got free -
Uh, Yugoslavia split from the Soviet bloc in 1948, and Tito died in 1980.
I know a lot of scholars count Serbia as a democracy, but it wasn't until 2001. Milosevic was a classic post-soviet Eastern European autocratic strongman. While Serbia had a parliament, electoral fraud was rife.
Milosevic's popular support was likely around 10% at the end. The country was governed by a weird coalition of financial interests that made up a ruling class of a few tens of thousands of people - many ex-communists.
In terms of success as a kleptocrat, Milosevic is only beaten out by Suharto, Marcos and a small number of others - he likely stole in excess of a billion.
That said - the Balkan wars do present another case of democracy v democracy at war as at some points Croatia and Bosnia (the Muslim canton) were at a state of war yet both were democracies (altho also arguably ruled by strongmen).
AGAIN: You claim that Yugoslavia was democratic before the civil war, since you claim that exact Balkan war (?) is a counterexample to the claim that democracies don't wage war.
How many free elections did they have? :-) How many free transfers of power did they have? :-)
(The next point here is that the democratic peace theory didn't say anything about civil wars?)
EDIT: I am NOT going to comment on Dragonwriter's answer to this and for a THIRD TIME ask for references about how Yugoslavia and Serbia are stable democracies that have been doing transfer of power after free elections AT THAT TIME PERIOD. :-( I am disappointed over a 30+K karma account for this bullshit.
I hope that Sweden got a renewal on its lease on the nuclear umbrella, hopefully long enough to increase its own operative military capability. This would be a win for both the US (capable bilateral partner/buffer zone in area) and Sweden (less likely to be strongarmed into uncomfortable positions). Is that too much to dream of?
I think it serves to remember that even though Sweden is tiny compared to the US and NATO, its capability locally during its prime in the 80s was much more than NATO could bring to that theater.
And regarding USA today:
Check the democratic peace theory -- democracies don't fight wars with each others. (Not even USA. :-) ) So it is arguably in the Swedish interest to help all democracies be as strong and informed as ever possible.
That said, I doubt the reason Sweden is such a handmaid to US interests was so philosophical, of course. Every country do realpolitik and lies shamelessly about it. We don't know what the US paid (hopefully not just bribes to Swedish politicians, old hatt/mössa style... :-) ).
Edit: These comments really jumps up/down in votes. :-)