Vladimir II och NATO-optionen
Vladimir Svajtoslavits, även kallad Vladimir den Store, var härskare i Kievska Rus, i praktiken det som då fanns av Ryssland, för alldeles lite på tusen år sen. Vladimir Putin är nu tsar i nästan hela Ryssland, även om Kiev nu inte råkar vara hans huvudstad. Kanske det ändrar sej med tiden…
Det där var väl en dålig liknelse, men just nu slås jag av hur oerhört lika Ryssland i dag är tsarernas Ryssland. Jag läser om ett ungdomsgäng som gjorde en skojig video och höll på att råka illa ut när moralväktarna överföll dem. Men det som räddade gänget var att det hela riskerade bli politik, och då slog ledningen tvärt av kampanjen och sade så ja, så ja, nog skall man väl få ha roligt ändå.
Dels den oerhört starka moralväktar- och kyrkohären, som fått en allt större betydelse. Dels en regim som egentligen inte bryr sig om vad folk håller på med, så länge det inte blir politik. Tsarrryssland var ju inte en förtryckarstat för dem, som inte hade någon åsikt. Mot slutet av 1800-talet var Ryssland och även dess storfurstendöme ett land i stark ekonomisk utveckling, urbanisation, skarpt ökande samhällsklyftor och allt det där som alla andra också höll på med. Det krävdes ett världskrig och total ekonomisk och moralisk bankrutt för att få den regimen störtad. (Det var förresten bankrutten som störtade Sovjet också.)
Det är minsann inte originellt att jämföra Vladimir med tsarerna, det verkar han själv gärna göra, och så länge ekonomin går bra – också nu en moderniseringsvåg på gång, som för dryga hundra år sen – så sitter han säkert stadigt. Nicke Torvalds tror att just ekonomin går åt pipan och sen är Ryssland och vi verkligen illa ute. Bankrutt igen, alltså.
Talar vi om ett nytt världskrig så är vi alla döda – borgaren Strangelove och fursten Vladimir med. Men någon form av sk ’lågintensiv’ konflikt har vi ju nu hela tiden och det är helt tänkbart att den utlöser en bankruttprocess, som slår mycket hårdare mot det ännu ekonomiskt relativt sett outvecklade Ryssland än mot tex Kina eller det trots sitt helgalna politiska system ekonomiskt oerhört mångsidiga USA.
Som svenskarna och finnarna redan för länge sedan insåg, är det inte något NATO-medlemskap som skyddar en då, men det viktiga är att hela tiden prata om NATO så, att berörda parter förstår att man kan ta den firman ända fram till Rysslands gränser, men så länge Ryssland inte hotar allt för mycket kan man hålla sej….poker med ganska små insatser. För Finland verkar det just nu räcka med ordet ’option’ och en kandidat som har lov att spela hela symfonin. (Nicke är för resten den enda av kandidaterna som ens trovärdigt kunde göra det, precis pga hans bakgrunder.)
I think I see that NATO ”poker med ganska små insatser” as a bit more problematic than Anders seems to do. Because there is that matter that public opinions are to some degree made by the media, and as a reader of HBL I do notice that there at least is simply not a single journalist left who would express any reservations about joining NATO. Opinions which would deviate from that line are only to be found in the debatt pages, and whatever HBL is quoting from the Swedish media is ALWAYS very much in favour of joining. Meaning, if there would actually be a political move to really join NATO, would HBL (or some other bourgeois media) be wise enough to try and keep the matter at the ”option level” instead of really taking that step? Or would they rather shrug shoulders (perhaps with a sigh) and applaud the step? Especially if Sweden should join first? And once Finland were in the NATO, would the media try to hinder Finland from being built up into a basis for an attack on Russia? Such a buildup would of course greatly please the USA (and the armament industry there), but they would presumably care rather little about the fate of this otherwise rather uninteresting and unimportant Finland. – Altogether, I think that the ”NATO poker” would demand quite some wisdom, which I unluckily do not see in at least the media. Instead, I see at least in the yellow press the capitalist consideration that it sells really well if one cultivates some conflicts (also with Russia), while in those media which consider themselves as ”seriös” all those tendencies seem to be at work which I was mentioning in connection with borgaren Strangelove.
My view is mainly based on the realisation that the link to NATO has been a fact in Sweden from the start of the alliance – all strategic planning in Sweden as well as the NATO has from sometime just after 1949 been based on that. Finland’s actual NATO-type links also started very soon, ia sending off the Finnish military intelligence data on the Soviet Union in the Stella Polaris operation in 1944 (yeah, sure we all believe that was a private initiative…), assisting Sweden in the MI6/CIA co-operation of sending spies into the Baltic countries already in the early 50s, and was set in stone at the time of the Hornet deals.
I see no actual wisdom, but a lot of inevitability in the present situation. The step has been taken long ago, the poker play is in all involved acting as if it had not been – it is also in Russia’s political interest to avoid having to say out loud that there is a some thousand kms long NATO border in the northwest. Military dispositions seem to be in place as such.
In short: Sweden is a full scale NATO base as is, only it’s army is lousy and has a one-week agreement on help from US troops landing, and northern Finland is an all-party agreed war zone. Or, as one Russian ex-general told his Swedish counterpart: oh, You were to defend in Finnish Lapland at precisely the spot I was to attack…
Jaha, it seems that the military is already playing that poker, seemingly with the necessary wisdom. Is it then so that we have to hope that they will also be wise enough to refuse action if some not-so-wise politician orders them to turn the poker game into real war?
with the necessary wisdom? hmmm…
One can of course think that the term ”wisdom” is a bit grand. Still, I do somehow like the impression that at least the military is aware of the rules of the poker game and also of the real means and possibilities (and also possible aims) of every side involved (as an example, I think here of the fact that the German air force had a very few years ago a bit more than 100 of the highly praised Eurofighter, of which, though, a bit less than 10 were fully fit for action – for which there is the German term ”der Fluch der Technik”). And I prefer such a realistic attitude by far to attitudes as they are not too rarely expressed by ”military experts” in the pages of HBL, or even such attitudes as one can, say, expect them from some polit broiler who might be urging the military to join some Western military adventure ”so that Finland should not lose the friendship of the USA” …