Europe is worried about the threat of Russian aggression. The seizure of the Crimea a few years ago by Russia and the continued fomenting of rebellion in eastern Ukraine are making other countries that border Russia nervous. Russia has been holding major military exercises on its Western border and bragging about how quickly they could take the Baltic states if they wanted to. NATO was created to counter Russian aggression after World War II. Now Russia says that if it got into a land war with NATO in eastern Europe and was losing with conventional weapons, it might resort to its stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons to even the odds.
In the past few years, Russia has been flying nuclear-capable bombers into European countries airspaces without notification or permission. It has been sailing nuclear submarines into other countries territorial waters without notification or permission. Russia has been announcing to the world its intentions to upgrade its nuclear forces. It has even threatened to make non-NATO European nations targets for nuclear missiles if they allow NATO to install radar systems on their territory.
The northeast border of Sweden is only a little over a hundred miles from Russia. The Swedish Institute of International Affairs says that Russia is "using fake news, false documents and disinformation as part of a coordinated campaign to influence public opinion and decision making in the Scandinavian country." They say that Sweden has been the target of "a wide array of active measures" aimed at "hampering its ability to generate public support in pursuing its policies". The report from the Institute went on to say that "we are able to establish intent, dominant narratives, behavioral patterns and strategic goals, where the close correlation between Russian public diplomacy and active measures suggest the operation of a coordinated campaign." The report claims that the main goal of these activities is to keep Sweden out of the NATO and to diminish the role of NATO in the Baltic Region.
The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency has just ordered a survey of three hundred and fifty civilian bunkers on the Baltic Sea Island of Gotland between Sweden and Latvia. Sweden has troops stationed permanently on the island. The shelters are designed to provide protection from nuclear detonations as well as chemical and biological attacks. The shelters on Gotland can only hold thirty-five thousand people although the population of Gotland is sixty thousand. The survey should be done by the end of this year.
Sweden created sixty-five thousand shelters during the Cold War to protect Swedish citizens from the possibility of nuclear war. Now it is building up its military because of the Russian seizure of Crimea. Although Russia sees NATO as its principle adversary in Europe, Sweden, which is not a member of NATO, is concerned about Russian activities and statements. They have sharply increased military spending and the central government has urged local governments to review and improve their civil defenses infrastructure and procedures in preparation for a possible future war. Recently, Sweden reintroduced a military draft for both men and women. The draft was attributed to a "deteriorating security environment in Europe generally and specifically around Sweden.
