Vol. 71/No. 22      June 4, 2007

No to Swedish membership in NATO and the NATO Response Force! Swedish troops out of Afghanistan, Kosova, Lebanon, the Congo!

On April 15 the governments of Sweden and Finland announced their intention to join the NATO Response Force (NRF) within the year. NRF is a rapid deployment force of 25,000 troops.

From May 14 to 24 NATO is organizing through the NRF the biggest military exercise held in the Baltic Sea since the end of the Cold War.…The Swedish navy is participating….

The Swedish Armed Forces are right now recruiting personnel to the Nordic Battle Group, a 2,600-man-strong Eropean Union force, set up to be able to intervene militarily within 10 days if so decided….

The Swedish Armed Forces are today participating in the war and occupation of Afghanistan with 330 soldiers, a number that will increase. Sweden is also part of NATO’s operation in Kosova (460 soldiers) and has declared its willingness and intention to be part of a military intervention in Sudan (Darfur), the third largest oil producer in Africa.

The ruling class in Sweden is in the midst of a deepgoing shift in its foreign policy. The previous social democratic government initiated this shift, and there is bipartisan agreement on it. The shift is driven by a deepening capitalist crisis and a changed world political situation. The previous “third road policy,” which meant standing outside military alliances, that served Swedish imperialism so well for many decades, is no longer any good. Now military muscle must also be shown and used. Urban Ahlin, ex-chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in Parliament, expressed it clearly when he motivated the need for Sweden to assume responsibility for the Nordic Battle Group: “If there is a crisis and the EU must intervene, every country will be called on. Those who don’t have their hand in the air will be considered lightweight in all other fields as well.”

The military stranglehold against Russia is being tightened….The imperialists know they must crush the resistance of the workers and restore capitalism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to have a chance to solve their crisis….

The way forward is neither to dream of the old days of “neutrality” nor to line up behind the increased militarization of Swedish imperialism in the hope that “we” then will be strong. Working people in Sweden and the world instead need to build a political leadership that can lead forward along an independent political course in solidarity with each other with the aim of taking power from the ruling capitalist families. A course that Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and the 26 July Movement took in the 1950s and that the Cuban leadership still sticks to.

No to the imperialist encirclement of Russia!

Not one woman, not one man, not one cent to the imperialist armed forces!
 
 
Related articles:
Sweden, Finland governments move toward joining NATO  
 
 
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