Sweden: The Transition From Transatlantic Partner To NATO Ally

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>> HR McMaster: America and other free and open societies face crucial challenges and opportunities abroad that affect security and prosperity at home. This is a series of conversations with guests who bring deep understanding of today's battlegrounds and creative ideas about how to compete, overcome challenges, capitalize on opportunities, and secure a better future.

I am HR McMaster, this is Battlegrounds.

>> Speaker 1: On today's episode of Battlegrounds, our focus is on the country of Sweden, a longtime US partner and pending NATO member. Our guest is Pal Jonson, Minister for Defense since 2022. Jonson joined Sweden's Ministry of Defense as a political advisor in 2006.

He held multiple elected positions in local government, and was selected to Sweden's parliament the Riksdag in 2016. Minister Jonson is a veteran of the Swedish military, he holds a PhD in war studies from King's College London. Indigenous peoples have inhabited Sweden for millennia, from 800 to 1050 AD.

The Vikings used Sweden as a base for expeditions, plunder, and trade that stretched from Greenland to Constantinople. The Swedish Empire reached its apogee under King Gustavus Adolphus, who reigned from 1611 to 1632 and introduced combined arms warfare. Adolphus played a decisive role in the 30 years war until his death at the Battle of Lutzen.

Sweden was a great power in northern Europe and sent settlers to what became the US state of Delaware. However, Sweden lost most of its territory to Denmark, Poland, and Russia in the great Northern War from 1700 to 1721. Modern day Sweden controlled Finland until Russia's victory in the 1808/1809 Russian-Swedish War.

In 1814, Sweden forcefully joined with Norway, that peacefully resolved in 1905. Sweden was neutral in World War II. After the war, Sweden Social Democrats led a series of reforms to create the Swedish Welfare State. In 1974, Sweden adopted a new instrument of government which instituted freely elected parliamentary rule, with the Swedish monarch as a nominal head of state.

Sweden and the United States have a strong history of partnership. Swedish immigrants arrived in 1638 and Sweden recognized US independence in 1783. The United States and Sweden share values and collaborate on global democracy promotion, human rights, and international development. Sweden is one of the world's largest humanitarian aid donors, giving approximately 1% of its gross national product annually.

In 2014, Sweden became an enhanced opportunities partner of NATO. NATO member countries signed Sweden's accession protocol to formally join the alliance in July 2022. We welcome Minister Jonson to discuss European security concerns, NATO, Russia's war in Ukraine, and Sweden's defense technology and innovation.

>> HR McMaster: Pal Jonson, Minister Johnson, welcome, great to have you here at Battlegrounds.

>> Pal Jonson: Thank you so much, it's an honor to be here, it's great to be at Stanford.

>> HR McMaster: Well, thank you for visiting us across a great distance here in California. There's a lot to talk about in a short period of time, so I'm just gonna jump right in.

>> Pal Jonson: Please do.

>> HR McMaster: And you recently had a conference with defense ministers from the Nordic and Baltic states, and there have been some security concerns recently about your cables and pipelines. And can you maybe share with our viewers about that conference what you talked about and decided, but also just your perspective generally on Nordic and Baltic, and maybe even just European security as well.

>> Pal Jonson: I think we're really in an inflection point when it comes to Nordic Baltic cooperation. For the first time ever, we're gonna have the same kind of security arrangement when Finland is already inside NATO and Sweden is on the verge of joining the alliance. And that's gonna be greatly consolidating the whole northern flank of NATO, and it's gonna make us much better equipped to collaborate in the field of security and defense.

So great avenues for deep Nordic Baltic cooperation. I mean, we are the same operation in our area, and I think that's very important that we strengthen and consolidate the northern flank. Now, what we are exposed to is, of course, kinetic threats as well, and we're very concerned with Russia, but also hybrid threats.

And I think that we have some examples of that is Russia's militarization or migration. And that's, of course, Finland right now is in the center of that, but we've seen this before in 2015 as well. And we're also very concerned with what's happening on the sea beds when it comes to protecting critical infrastructure as well.

And we take measures to strengthen our resilience against hybrid threat, but also using NATO and the Joint Expeditionary Force to increase our maritime presence in the Baltic Sea.

>> HR McMaster: Well, you alluded to this transition from defense partner to NATO ally for Sweden and Finland. I do think it just strengthens the alliance tremendously, not just because of the hard defense capabilities, but also the expertise in dealing with hybrid warfare, for example.

I mean, Finland has that center for excellence in hybrid warfare. Can you talk about the transition from strategic partnership to joining NATO and the desire to join NATO and approving that, how that happened? And what your assessment is of where the process is?

>> Pal Jonson: Absolutely, well, of course, the breakout of the war on the 24th February was a defining moment for us, but I think this started earlier.

I always refer to this infamous letters by Foreign Minister Lavrov when in December 2021 was stating there will be no further NATO enlargement and NATO should withdraw all its assets and capabilities, 1997 borders. That blatantly stated that Finland and Sweden would be part of Russia's sphere of influence.

Totally unacceptable, and we wouldn't be free to choose if we would join the alliance. The other thing that made a big impression of us was following Ukraine. And for us it became crystal clear, NATO supports its partners, but it defends its allies. And if you wanna have access to Article V, if you wanna have access to NATO's common defense planning, you better join the alliance.

I think we draw some hard lessons there as well, so right now we are on the verge of joining the alliance. As you might know, we are hopeful that the last two allies also will ratify our applications swiftly. And we think it's good for Sweden and for our security, but we also think it's good for NATO cuz as you said, we have assets and capabilities to make the alliance stronger.

We can provide alliance with strategic debt, we can be staging and basing area for the alliance to make it easier to defend Finland and the Baltic states. So I think also the important work that's going on right now inside NATO, strengthening the regional plans, and we can plug in and play into those regional plans.

>> HR McMaster: Great, can you share with our viewers maybe your assessment of the process? Of course, Turkey has been holding back and gave it to their parliament, and so that's delayed the process. And we have Hungary saying they're not gonna vote until after Turkey votes. Is there anything more that the United States and other nations can do to help speed the process?

Process along.

>> Pal Jonson: Well, I think we've been greatly helped and we feel very welcomed into alliance. And you might know, at Madrid Summit we established an MoU between Sweden, Finland and Turkey, and now we have gone through all those 14 provisions and we adopted new legislation fighting international terrorism.

We have an exchange of information between Sweden and Turkey and we want to join the alliance as quickly as possible. And of course we feel, as I said, very welcomed. Then 29 out of 31 allies ratified Sweden in a record pace actually within four months. That's never happened before, and we're just hoping now the last two allies will do this quickly and swiftly as well.

>> HR McMaster: Mister, you mentioned what a pivotal moment was, the invasion of Ukraine maybe in 2014, the massive reinvasion of Ukraine in 2022. You've been to the front there, you've been to the war seven times. Could you share with us what you and what Sweden are learning from the war and what your assessment is of the war at the moment?

>> Pal Jonson: Just one thing, supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do and it's a smart thing to do, and it's really an investment into our own security as well. I mean supporting Ukraine is about decency and humanity. It's who we are. But it's also about standing up for a rules based international order, and us being a smaller country that rules based international order is very important for us.

We don't want Europe, which might is right and so forth. And I also find that the Ukrainians, they're really the shield against Russian military expansion. So they're protecting Europe right now. Now I mean one of the major conclusions, it might sound trivial, but is the Ukrainian will to fight.

You can provide them with all the technology in the world but if you don't have the will to fight then you gonna be flat footed. But the Ukrainian armed forces will to fight in combination with the resilience of the ukrainian population, I think that's really important. And how do you get that?

Well, you get that by political leadership and you also get it by communication. So that's something we're learning from. Besides from that, I always say that the war is a combination between the first World War and the third World War. Of course this is about trenches and it's about like General Cavoli says, it's about scale, scale, scale.

We haven't seen the.

>> HR McMaster: This supreme allied commander, Europe.

>> Pal Jonson: Absolutely.

>> HR McMaster: Chris Cavoli, my dear friend and an amazing officer.

>> Pal Jonson: He's doing a wonderful job as a secure we're all very fortunate to have him. And he always remind us we haven't been exposed to that in Europe, these volumes, that Russian having maybe 300,000 casualties but then generating another 250,000 shelling, maybe 40,000 shells a day, Ukrainian shelling 10,000.

So this is about scale and volume, and that means also this is a war of warehouses and the war of attrition. So I think one of the conclusions as well is that this is you need a strong defense industrial base, and strong defense industrial base is part of credible deterrence.

Therefore, yes, as in the US, we in Sweden and Europe are working very much on ramping up production. And then of course some of the other observations we've done is of course what gives the Ukrainian side the edge is of course their ability to innovate. And I think of course space base has that crucial role.

Autonomous systems, drones, long range strike capabilities, air defense. And I think those are also some of the lessons that we're gonna be drawing because we're gonna put a new bill to the Swedish parliament already next year. That's one year in advance. But we need to reshape our force posture so we can learn from the war in Ukraine and also change our force posture so we can be a better ally to NATO.

>> HR McMaster: Ministry, you mentioned some of the big lessons, I think, of the word capability and will is what's really critical on both sides. Could you maybe share your assessment of Russia? What do you think of Russia's capability? Well, they've taken massive casualties. It's hard to imagine that they would be as motivated as Ukrainians to defend their land when they have to realize they're inflicting so much harm on innocents there.

And we saw some initial protests in Russia from mothers whose sons are on the front lines. What do you think is happening inside of Russia in terms of Russian will?

>> Pal Jonson: Well, what should happen is some kind of reflection and an acceptance of the fact that this has been a political and military disaster for Russia.

Blatantly, I mean, Russia ended up with Sweden and Finland joining NATO. I always call that the mother of all unintended consequences for Russian strategic thinking, ending up with a 1300 km longer border with NATO. Of course, it's been ramping up defense investments in Europe like never before. I think two thirds of the allies is gonna reach the 2% target for the Washington summit in July.

That would never have happened. Russia, of course, has been exposed to eleven sanction packages and we are determined that Ukraine now belongs inside the EU and NATO and on the battlefield. Of course, the Ukrainian side had taken more than 50% of what Russia before used to control inside Ukraine and they control less than 70%.

And I think still is the Ukrainians who have the initiative in this war. So I think that in that regard, this has been a political and military disaster. Now, what I am concerned with Russia is that Russia has a great appetite for taking political and military risks. It also has a low threshold for the use of military force.

It has shown a degree of resilience in this war, I must say. I mean, they've taken over 300,000 casualties and they keep on going. So I think those are some of the reflections we've been doing in regard to Russia also stated the aim that it will reconstitute itself, going from 1 million soldiers up to 1.5 million soldiers by 2026, establishing a new army corps in Karelia.

So our Russia problem isn't going anywhere. So what we need to do now is speed up defense investment domestically. Sweden, we have doubled our defence budget in five years, and we're above 2% by next year. But we also need to strengthen NATO. I think that secure is doing a great job there with the strengthening the region of pans and also implementing NATO's new force model, putting 300,000 soldiers and naval assets and aerial assets as well for strengthening the deterrence and defense agenda.

>> HR McMaster: Sorry for being so long. No, that was succinct and a great summary. Well, now I'd like to ask you about our will. I know there's some current concerns about American will. We have a razor thin majority in the House of Representatives, and so there are some members there who are skeptical about continued aid to Ukraine, who are holding things up on our end.

I'd like to just mention to our viewers, Sweden has really set an example with just in October a whole new tranche of support for Ukraine. You mentioned you're gonna have another bill pending. Could you maybe share with our viewers your rationale for why it is so important to support Ukraine, but then also your assessment of European will and maybe some concerns you have about US.

>> Pal Jonson: Absolutely. Now, listen, we got to get this right. This is a defining challenge for our generation to make sure that it's the Ukrainians, not the Russians, who wins this war. Because if the Russians would win this war, we would have a lot bigger problem than we're having right now.

Of course, Russia would be encouraged to create this European security architecture where might is right. And it will, of course, advance its military assets much closer to central Europe. So this is really about investing into our own security to make sure that we're steady on the support to Ukraine.

And that's also one of the reasons why I'm here in Washington as well, or at least in the United States. I'm going to DC afterwards to meet Congressmen and Senators and express deep appreciation for the US leadership, which you have shown wonderfully since the war broke out. I mean, the things we've been doing together Together in the Ukraine defense contact group.

I think it's been amazing. We've been able to send defense equipment for $80 billion. That's quite a lot. We've been arming 12 army brigades and equipping them. And I think that the Western support in combination with the will to fight on the Ukrainian side and the resilience of the Ukrainian population is what's taking us so far.

And we got to continue that. And we very much appreciate the strong US leadership both inside NATO and supporting Ukraine. And it comes down to investing into our own security. And if we don't get Ukraine rights, I think we will have more problems in the Indo Pacific as well.

>> HR McMaster: Yes, Minister, I think that's such an important point because so many of these conflicts are connected. You have the Iranians who are behind the horrible attacks of October 7, who are selling the Shahed drones and maybe missiles now to Russia. And then of course China will, I think at the very least, act to accelerate the achievement of objectives they want if they think we're preoccupied or wavering and honor support for Ukraine.

You mentioned you're on your way to Washington. And you're gonna meet with Secretary of Defense, Austin, and sign a defense cooperation agreement. Would you mind sharing kind of the outline of that and what you hope to achieve?

>> Pal Jonson: Yeah, yeah, no, we're enthusiastic about this, and this will be a new stage in our bilateral cooperation with the United States.

Sweden now is stepping up its defense investment being above 2%. We're launching a defense innovation initiative and we're getting a DCA in place. And we think that's going to be good for Sweden and the United States because, of course, this is a technical agreement regulating the us presidents and pre-basing and so forth on Swedish territory.

But this is also going to be helping strengthening NATO's posture in the northern region of the alliance as well. So this is going to be another avenue for deepening our bilateral cooperations, which we strongly welcome as well.

>> HR McMaster: And you're here at Silicon Valley for a reason. You're here because, as you mentioned, one of the big lessons of the Ukraine war is the importance of technology integration of new technologies, and really a national security innovation base which Sweden has a very strong defense industry.

What are you hoping to achieve in terms of interactions with this sort of technological innovation ecosystem here in Silicon Valley?

>> Pal Jonson: Sure, and I mean this is a reflection of our bilateral cooperation as well, which already have been very strong. We would never be able to build fighter jets without a strong flow of technology across the Atlantic.

And now one where Sweden and the United States are going from partners to allies, I think that's going to make our cooperation even stronger. So if you look at Sweden in terms of innovation, all this ranks while Sweden ranks number two, number three in the world actually on innovation.

We have a vibrant tech sector and we have companies like Volvo Ericsson, we have a home country of Klarna Spotify and we have Finetec sector, which is quite vibrant for being a smaller country. We have a lot of public expenditures into R and D, which I am as a defense minister, very grateful for.

I think we have the most PhDs per capitas in the engineering sector, for example. And those are great assets because both you and I know that a lot of the future defense technology is actually being developed here in Silicon Valley through the big platforms economy. So what we can do is of course working on spinning in the civilian technology into the defense industrial base.

And Sweden being a country of 10 million, there's no other country can produce fighter aircrafts and submarines and surface combatants and artillery systems. So we think that's a great asset for us, that we can also strengthen NATO and our bilateral cooperation. So we're also, as soon as we're joining NATO, we're going to be part of something called Diana, defense innovation accelerator inside NATO.

And we also, I'm going out to defense innovation unit later on today to learn about the important work that the United States have been doing on this thinking as well.

>> HR McMaster: Great, well, and just one final question. Now, you're very sensitive, as you already mentioned, to the non-military components of national security, competition, economic and technological and so forth.

And part of it is supply chain security. You've mentioned Ericsson, right? What are the two remaining non Chinese fifth generation communications companies? And we're in that situation in large measure due to kind of a form of economic aggression used by the Chinese Communist Party and their status mercantilist economic model.

What else are you learning in terms of supply chain resilience and the need for, we're at the Hoover institution where Milton Friedman was. So we can't say the words industrial policy or the building will shake. But what are your ideas about economic statecraft and what we have to do to be more resilient?

>> Pal Jonson: Very important question. Let me just say the time when we had security policy in one lane and we had economic policy in one lane, I think that's passed. I think that we have learned some hard lessons from both the war in Ukraine when I was talking about security supplies for our defense industrial base, and that being part of deterrence to have a strong industrial base, but also due to the pandemic, we learned that we for decades have been using just in time.

But what we need to think about is also just in case and how we handle those distortions into our supply lines. And we are, of course, taking a lot of measures now inside Sweden, also strengthen our resilience, but also be much more cognizant and aware of some of the unintended consequences of having foreign direct investment from hostile countries into our critical infrastructure.

So we have, of course, been working very hard on that when it comes to the 5G, but also more on a broader general level. And, I mean, this is also part of the hybrid threats that we were talking as well. And therefore, we also established new institutions. Now, like you, we have a national security council who works on whole of government for the first time, and we have a minister for resilience and hybrid threats and total defense and so forth.

So there's many things we need to do in order to make sure that we think about not just in time, but also just in case as well, enhancing our resilience in this era of great power competition.

>> HR McMaster: Great, well, I think we covered a lot of ground in a short period of time.

But what I would like to do is ask you, if any final words for our viewers? I just do want to tell you that it was such a privilege to meet you and the team and the prime minister and your national security advisor. And I was just so impressed by how much energy that you have.

You're all young. You're all, I think, recognizing the nature of these new competitions. And Sweden, of course, has a tremendous military tradition. As a military history professor, of course, I taught about the revolution in combined arms led by Gustavus Adolphus.

>> Pal Jonson: Excellent.

>> HR McMaster: But I'd like just to offer you some final words for our viewers.

Not only United States, we have a really strong, growing international audience as well.

>> Pal Jonson: Absolutely, well, two things. Thank you, HR, for all the work you're doing in advancing the thinking on the Russian military threat, but also being a friend of the Nordics, very much appreciated hosting you in Sweden and meeting you in Helsinki and so forth.

This is very important for us, and it's the reflection of the other point I would like to make. And we come into the alliance with hope, with a level of youthful energy. This is something that I worked for for many decades, Sweden joining NATO. And the reason why is really because when we put our minds to it across the Atlantic, and I think that the great thing with NATO is that it's the only organization 24/7 every day working where you get a lot of smart Europeans and North Americans around the table to grapple with the global security challenges of the day.

And I think that's what strengths in NATO, and that's also why we want to seat at the table, to be able to take responsibility and have an impact on an organization that is very important for our security but also for the security of the whole North Atlantic region.

>> HR McMaster: Great, Minister Paul Johnson, thank you so much.

>> Pal Jonson: Thank you so much.

>> HR McMaster: And helping us learn so much about battlegrounds, critical to building a better future for our nations and the world. So thank you.

>> Pal Jonson: Thank you. It was an honor to be on your podcast.

Thank you.

>> HR McMaster: Thank you.

>> Speaker 1: Battlegrounds is a production of the Hoover Institution, where we generate and promote ideas advancing freedom. For more information about our work, to hear more of our podcasts or view our video content, please visit hoover.org.