'The Flip side' Young Swedes uneasy about joining NATO

SWEDEN: The best thing for the security of Sweden and the Swedish people is to join NATO,” said Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, as she formally confirmed Stockholm’s intention to join the world’s largest military alliance earlier this week. Her announcement heralds the end of Sweden’s 200 years of military neutrality — a security policy the Nordic country has embraced since the 19th century. While a majority of Swedes have voiced support for their country to join NATO amid the war in Ukraine, there are however many young people who are more hesitant.

Some even took to the streets of the Swedish capital this past weekend, condemning the loss of military neutrality as a step which would beget more violence in the world. “Joining NATO will spill more blood because NATO is a war organization and not one working for peace,” Ava Rudberg, 22, the president of the Young Left Party in Sweden who was a part of the protest, told DW. “It is a military alliance which creates more war and we’re keen to maintain peace in Sweden.” Linda Akerström of Svenska Freds- och Skiljedomsföreningen, the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, told DW that many people were angry because neutrality in military conflicts is extensively linked to Swedish identity.

“For a lot of people, this decision is a big change because for all these years, many Swedes have seen themselves as voices which harbor peace around the world. But right now, I believe many feel the decision to join NATO has been a hasty one based on fear,” she said. “Basically, making such a big decision in a very tense situation and to a large extent based on fear is like going to the grocery store when you’re hungry, and we all know that is not a situation where you make good choices. There has not been enough of a debate with both sides represented for such a big decision to be legitimate,” she added.

According to NATO, Sweden formally declared neutrality in military conflicts under the reign of King Karl XIV Johan in 1834. While the country allowed German forces to transit through its territory during World War II, it continued to maintain its neutral stance. While Sweden has played a role in Afghanistan by deploying troops to the country as a part of the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission until the end of May 2021, Alina Engström, an analyst in security policy at the Swedish Defense Research Agency said that already since the 1990s, Sweden has been increasing its interoperability with NATO.

That means the country already adheres to NATO standards. The announcement to now join the alliance was “a small step on the military and operational level,” Engström told DW. She added that “the pros of abandoning the military non-alignment status means Sweden may now be part of NATO’s defense planning and enjoy security guarantees. But the cons of alliance membership lies in Sweden having to be more agile to adjust our security policy and losing some room for manoeuvre in foreign and security policy.”

Yet Lisa Nabo, 27, the president of the youth league of Sweden’s ruling Social Democratic Party, said despite previous cooperation with NATO, officially losing neutrality is an issue that many young Swedes are struggling with.

“My generation, we are in our 20s now. We have no memory of a war in Europe. So this situation that we are in now is very unfamiliar to us and we don’t have the same history with war as many of our neighboring countries who were part of World War II or the war in Yugoslavia,” she told DW.

This article was provided by Deutsche Welle