EN — LARRY ROMANOFF — Sweden, the COVID-19 Darling, Bites the Dust — April 12, 2022

 

 

 

Sweden, the COVID-19 Darling, Bites the Dust

 

By Larry Romanoff, April 12, 2022

 

 

 

"The Swedish approach to the Covid outbreak has been a failure. This is what emerges from the first systematic scientific study on Sweden's strategy in managing the pandemic carried out two years after the first infections, published in Humanities & Social Sciences Communications through Nature.com." (1)

 

‘Totally incomprehensible’: ’Fake officer’ lied his way into Swedish military intel & NATO, hid forged credentials for decade

15 Jan, 2020 17:21

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military patrol in Sweden. FILE PHOTO © Reuters / TT News Agency

A Swedish man with no official training faked his way into the top ranks of Swedish military intelligence, helming sensitive projects before he was posted to NATO and later the Coast Guard. How did this happen?

Poland and Sweden Are Building a “Baltic Ring”

Poland and Sweden Are Building a “Baltic Ring”

By Andrew Korybko

Global Research, March 25, 2018

Oriental Review 23 March 2018

Region: Europe

Theme: Economy, Intelligence

The global trend of connectivity is moving to Northern and Central-Eastern Europe as these regions’ two former Great Powers join forces to deepen their integration with one another and build a new power bloc in the continent.

Poland and Sweden are two of Europe’s oldest Great Powers, though both of them are centuries past their prime and have since seen their influence eclipsed by former competitors such as Russia, Germany, and the UK. The post-Brexit geopolitical reality and Trump’s embrace of his successor’s “Lead From Behind” policy of regional blocs have unexpectedly opened up unprecedented strategic opportunities for these two “has-beens”, and they’re now tacitly cooperating with one another in building a new power bloc in Europe. Sweden – the leader of the “Viking Bloc” of Scandinavian countries and Finland –, is joining forces with Poland – the aspiring hegemon of a “Neo-Commonwealth” that Warsaw wishes will one day rule over the “Three Seas Initiative” – in coordinating the construction of several integrational corridors that will altogether lead to the emergence of a “Baltic Ring”.

A high-speed rail route by the name of “Rail Baltica” is currently being built between Poland and Estonia, whenceforth it might be expanded under the Baltic to Finland through the so-called “Talsinki Tunnel”. Once in the northern nation, existing rail routes could be connected to Sweden via the prospective “Bothnian Corridor”, after which people and freight could link up with Germany through the Swedish-Danish-German rail network that’s already in use. In addition, the German component is already connected with Poland, thereby completing the Baltic Ring. A related element of this developing integrational network is Poland’s planned “Baltic Pipe” that will go through Denmark and bring Norwegian offshore gas to the country. The below map provides a rudimentary glimpse of how this might look if it’s ever completed and fully enters into operation:

It also shouldn’t be forgotten that there are already several ferry services between Sweden and the eastern-southern shore of the Baltic Sea, meaning that the Scandinavian country already has maritime access to the Baltic States and Poland. Because of its sheer demographic and economic size, Germany is clearly a crucial part of the Baltic Ring, but it’s not indispensable in the sense that Swedish-Polish connectivity ventures can still continue without it. Furthermore, these said initiatives are leading to the creation of spheres of influence in Northern and Central-Eastern Europe, whereby Stockholm is once again exerting leadership in its previous imperial realm in the northern part of the Baltic Sea while Warsaw is doing the same along its southern-eastern shoreline.

Finland and Estonia, which are culturally similar nations, can be grouped together as a single strategic entity for the intent of this analysis, and thus might represent a “buffer zone” of sorts, though in a “friendly” way because Poland and Sweden aren’t expected to compete in any traditional manner. In fact, while the “19th-Century Great Power Chessboard” paradigm is veritably in effect today, it doesn’t necessarily take on the same contours as its historical namesake because large-scale conventional warfare between neighboring powers over the “proxy states” between them isn’t anticipated to be a defining element in all cases. Rather, in the instance of Poland and Sweden, these two historically rivaling empires won’t clash, but cooperate, in their shared Baltic Ring space per the logic of contemporary European geopolitics and the win-win zeitgeist of New Silk Road integration.