Sweden has declared that it will discuss with NATO leaders plans to speed up the militarization of the 1,000-square-kilometer island of Gotland, widely seen as the most strategic location in the Baltic Sea.
Described by analysts and commentators as a ‘giant aircraft carrier’, Stockholm-administered Gotland lies just 120 miles from the coast of NATO’s Baltic triad of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but also just 230 miles north of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
Its prime location offers enormous advantages in the deployment and control of air and sea traffic in the Baltic Sea, and has been regularly cited by military analysts and Russian media commentators as a highly desirable target.
Sweden maintained a military presence on Gotland during the Cold War, and at its peak housed up to 25,000 soldiers, but in 2005 it was almost completely demilitarized.
Now, with Sweden’s accession to NATO complete, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the prospect of re-arming Gotland was ‘an obvious thing to discuss with our new NATO allies’ as part of a wider ramp-up of military preparedness in the Baltic.
‘Anything to do with the Baltic Sea is so obviously a candidate (for the deployment of military resources),’ Kristersson told the FT in an interview earlier this week.
‘This applies in relation to presence on Gotland, but also in relation to surveillance, in relation to submarine capabilities.’
Russian military analyst and retired navy captain Vasily Dandykin told Russian news channel Sputnik that a remilitarization of Gotland would be seen as a major issue in the halls of the Kremlin.
‘The size of this island makes it possible to put aviation, airfields and naval bases… (to serve) the dream of both the NATO bloc and the Americans to turn the Baltic Sea into a NATO sea… We understand what kind of is a threat,’ said Dandykin.
“In any case, more intensive (Russian) exercises will take place in the Baltic Sea. We must understand that Finland is also already a member of NATO. Therefore, our actions will be sufficient – both from Kaliningrad, where the Baltic Fleet is based, and from the rest of Russia.’
FILE PHOTO: A Swedish JAS 39 Gripen E fighter jet flies over Sweden’s Gotland island in the Baltic Sea, May 11, 2022
City view of Visby on the Swedish island of Gotland
U.S. and Swedish troops evacuate a wounded comrade on a helicopter as they participate in a war simulation in Gotland, Sweden, June 9, 2022
Soldiers from Gotland’s regiment patrol Visby harbor amid heightened tensions between NATO and Russia over Ukraine
Pictured: Two Swedish Airforce JAS-39 Gripen fighters in close formation. Sweden to bring state-of-the-art submarines and a fleet of highly capable Gripen fighter jets to NATO forces
Sweden has not gone to war for more than two centuries and until recently had scaled back its military capabilities to such an extent that its population, so ill-prepared for the possibility of conflict, even developed a term for it: ‘peace damage’ or ‘peace damaged’.
Sweden’s demilitarization of Gotland in 2005 raised alarm among NATO allies, especially the Baltic states, which had only just become members of the alliance a year earlier.
War planners have long struggled to figure out how to prevent these countries from being cut off from their allies if Russian ground troops were to capture the 40-mile Suwalki Gap between Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
If the Kremlin were to gain control of Gotland as well, it would leave Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania sandwiched between mainland Russia to the east, Kaliningrad to the west and another strategic location to the north.
NATO repeatedly called on Stockholm to recognize Gotland’s strategic importance, but the government pressed ahead with its demilitarization and Sweden’s armed forces effectively abandoned their ‘giant aircraft carrier’.
The Baltics’ fears were justified in 2013 when Russia conducted a widely condemned military exercise in which two of Moscow’s Tu-22M3 nuclear bombers, along with an escort of Su-27 fighter jets, performed dummy bombing maneuvers that brought their wings within just 24 miles of the island.
This shock prompted Stockholm to once again embark on a program of steady rearmament, but it was not until Russian tanks and warplanes tore up the Ukrainian border on 24 February 2022 that the militarization of Gotland took off.
The invasion of Ukraine represented a watershed moment in Swedish foreign policy, prompting the government to abandon its two-century-long policy of military neutrality and non-alignment and submit an application to join NATO.
Two years later, Sweden‘s flag was raised at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Monday, cementing the Nordic country’s place as the 32nd member of the security bloc.
A JAS 39 Gripen C/D fighter jet of the Swedish Armed Forces taxis past a US KC-135 Stratotanker military tanker at Lulea-Kallax Airport, Sweden on March 4, 2024 during the NATO Nordic Response 24 military exercise
An amphibious assault demonstration with joint forces from the Swedish, Finnish, Italian and French armies is pictured during the Nordic Response 24 military exercise on March 10, 2024
Nordic Response 24 is part of the larger NATO exercise Steadfast Defender. The exercise involves air, sea and land forces with over 100 combat aircraft, 50 ships and over 20,000 troops practicing defensive maneuvers in cold and harsh weather conditions
Marines in action during an amphibious assault demonstration, part of the Nordic Response 24 military exercise on March 10, 2024, at sea near Sorstraumen, above the Arctic Circle in Norway
“The Russian, brutal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine united Sweden behind the conclusion that full NATO membership is the only reasonable choice,” Kristersson said.
Now the Scandinavian state appears to be fully aware of the Russian threat and has developed a well-trained and well-equipped military that boasts one of the world’s most advanced submarine fleets and a highly capable air force with around 80 Gripen fighter jets.
Swedish forces are now also involved in the Nordic exercises of NATO’s huge military exercise, Steadfast Defender 2024, which will see around 90,000 soldiers take part in massive war games running from January to June.
‘We are humble, but we are also proud. We know that the expectations for Sweden are high, but we also have high expectations for ourselves, Kristersson told reporters earlier this week after his country’s accession to NATO.
‘We will share burdens, responsibilities and risks with our allies.’
The country has worked in close partnership with the security alliance during military exercises over the years, even before joining.
Sweden also meets NATO’s defense spending target of 2% of gross domestic product.
Sweden’s entry into the security alliance last week came days after Germany’s defense minister declared that Putin’s army could launch an attack on allied countries within ‘five to eight years’.
Boris Pistorius said the US, UK and EU ‘hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day… so we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a NATO country one day’.
Pistorius told German magazine Der Tagesspiegel: ‘Our experts expect a period of five to eight years when this could be possible.
“We have to learn to live with danger again and prepare ourselves – militarily, socially and civilly,” he concluded, pointing to an alarming speech by Sweden’s civil defense minister earlier this year, urging citizens to prepare. for the prospect of war.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas believes a Russia-NATO confrontation is even more imminent, giving a timeframe of just three to five years for Europe to prepare for a serious military threat on the alliance’s eastern flank.
And Admiral Rob Bauer, the chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, urged civilians and governments alike to prepare for catastrophic conflict and the grim prospect of being called upon.
‘We must realize that it is not a given that we are at peace. And that is why we (NATO forces) have the plans, that is why we are preparing for a conflict with Russia, Bauer told reporters after a recent meeting of NATO defense chiefs in Brussels.
“But the discussion is much broader. It is also the industrial base and also the people who must understand that they play a role.’