Thread by @MartinKragh1

Sweden’s membership in NATO is the last step in a change process overturning a Baltic security regime which has existed not since 1991, but since 1721. Before this, the Baltic Sea was a Swedish sea, Swedish peace reigned from the Gulf of Finland to Greifswald. Losing the Baltic…

…provinces to Peter the Great changed the security logic of both Sweden and Russia. For Sweden, preserving the Baltic as an open sea was key, a ‘mare liberum’. For Russia, the policy was ‘mare clasum’, the principle that only military vessels of literal states are allowed to…

…navigate the Baltic Sea. To counter this, Sweden always relied on mare liberum principles, meaning that British, French and later US presence was welcome. Russia, obviously, never welcomed this. In the Cold War, this conflict was translated into the logic of the Soviet-NATO…

…relationship. Sweden never abandoned its mare liberum policy. When Moscow spoke about the ‘Sea of Peace’, this was Soviet speak for mare clasum, ie minimising NATO presence in the region. It was the same issue with medium range missiles in the 80s and constant complaints about

US presence. We can expect Moscow to make critical remarks on today’s message. But I am not sure they really see how deep this historical change goes. Swedish policy did not really change today. What has fundamentally died is the Russian mare clasum dream, the idea of Russian…

…hegemony in the Baltic Sea. This process started 30 years ago, and today we had the final confirmation of its completion. Yes, Sweden’s policy of non-alignment is over, but the deeper strategic stakes have been and remained a constant since 1721.