The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Strategic Win for NATO: Sweden Joins the Ranks || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

By the time you see this, the knot should be tied on Sweden joining NATO. There's still a little arm-twisting that will go on behind the scenes, but most of the heavy lifting is done (and Turkey got the bribe they wanted, sooo everyone's happy). Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/sweden-joins-nato

Hello from Bison Peak in Colorado. I'm at about 12,000 feet right now. Probably going to be staying here for the night. Anyway, by the time you get this message, everything should be pretty official. It looks like the Swedes are going to be joining NATO. At the Vilnius Summit, the Turks, after making a couple outlandish demands, that basically indicated that they were looking for a bribe. Apparently, behind the scenes got the bribe that they were after

and have given a preliminary approval. Now, this is not done until it's done. still have to have the Turkish parliament sign off on ratification, and after that, there is one more obstacle with the Hungarian parliament. Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, has basically been acting as an advanced force for the Russians in NATO and the EU, so there are some complications could arise, but the heavy lifting has been done, and now it's just to require a little bit of light arm twisting to probably make it happen. I have no idea what the bribe is that the Turks demanded and received. But everyone seems.

Seems pretty caucasetic. Things like this happen in Europe all the time. Anyway, so on to the strategic issue. First and foremost, Sweden is the most capable country to join NATO since its formation back in the 1950s, 1952, I believe. You had your initial batch of Atlantic countries, which included, say, Britain and the Netherlands and Canada and the United States. Obviously, those were very capable countries. And then in 1955, West Germany was admitted almost as a subject. state. The Germans were not allowed or issued opinions on strategic issues, and so they basically just served as a bulwark within the allied system until we had reunification in the 1990s. And since then, the countries that have joined, whether it's during the 70s and the 80s with countries like Greece or Spain or Portugal, or in the post-Cold War era, such as Latvia, or Romania,

or Poland, they have definitely fallen into the category of what they like to call security consumers. countries that don't have militaries that are right-sized to their needs and or have extreme geographic vulnerability to potential hostels. Sweden is the first country of note that does not match that pattern. Sweden has been a major industrial military power over a half a millennia, and the reason we don't think of Sweden as a major player is because for the last 300 years, it's been neutral. In a conflict called the Great Northern War three centuries ago, Sweden was the preeminent military power of the entirety of Europe, and almost ended up ruling it all. And it took a coalition of everybody else, including the Russians and the people that we now think of as the Germans,

to break Swedish power in northern Europe. Since then, they have enforced a degree of neutrality on themselves, literally going back centuries. but they are not a normal neutral country. They are armed to the freaking teeth. They are a maritime power, but unlike the United States that has maritime interests in every ocean basin, theirs is entirely focused on the Baltic Sea.

They have arguably the best amphibious military capability outside of the United States and the United Kingdom. And again, it's very, very focused on a very specific geography. And that means that with the Swedes within the NATO family, you get that sort of defense competence, with a cooperation that is very, very focused on one thing and one thing only, and that is Russia. The Swedes have been quietly advocating for positions that will box in the Russians and that will encourage independence and development in places like the Baltic Republics

ever since 1992. Now they're not doing it as a neutral. Now they're doing it a hand in glove. And it's only going to be a matter of time, I would say weeks to months, not years to decades, before Sweden emerges as one of the leading voices. within the alliance itself on pretty much everything that matters as regards to the Ukraine war. That means defense cooperation. That means military procurement. That means pushing for democracy in all of the fringe states. That means hemming in the Russians. That means taking a relatively

forthright position vis-à-vis the Chinese. It is basically, you're looking from an American point of view, as that the best country in the world just joined the network. And unlike countries like say France or Turkey or even the United Kingdom that have their fingers in a lot of pots and so there's always conflicting interests. In the Swedish military, every day you wake up, you prepare for one thing, the war with the Russians. And there is a war with the Russians right now. All right. That's it for me. Everyone take care.