Imagine the Guardian newspaper fully committing to increasing Britain’s stockpile of nuclear warheads. It may sound fanciful, but that’s the closest comparison to what happened last week, when the Swedish liberal–left leaning Dagens Nyheter wrote in a leading article:
‘We are going to need a [national] discussion about nuclear weapons. Should the French [nuclear forces] protect the entire continent, or do we need to acquire a nuclear deterrent of our own, perhaps in cooperation with our Nordic neighbours?’
The idea that Sweden – the self-described global apostle of nuclear disarmament – should produce nuclear weapons would have seemed ridiculous not long ago. In fact, when I argued in a column published in Sweden a few months ago that we should resurrect our 1960s nuclear weapons programme, it was considered almost too bizarre to contemplate.
Now though, more and more of Sweden is coming around to my view. A consensus seems to be emerging that the security needs of Sweden – now the most recent and enthusiastic member of the Nato alliance – are best served by some form of nuclear guarantee outside of the traditional Nato reliance on the US atomic umbrella. As one top-level diplomat based in Stockholm says, ‘The question in the debate appears to be not should we, but how can we do it?’
Currently the most popular option, favoured by Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch, is the ‘Euronukes’ model in which Sweden and the EU as a whole shelter under a French or British nuclear umbrella, or perhaps a combined canopy.
The leading alternative, proposed by defence analyst David Carlqvist, involves the Nordics forming a ‘nuclear union’ with a shared atomic arsenal, but without one sovereign decision maker in military matters. This brings to mind the Kalmar Union of the Scandinavian kingdoms, which was dissolved in 1523.
Yet both models are, at best, a temporary solution before the most obvious and sustainable move, which is to dust off once-abandoned plans for Swedish nuclear weapons.
National control of nuclear weapons guarantees Sweden – or any small European country for that matter – protection from having its security compromised by political changes in the major nuclear powers of Britain, France, and in future perhaps even Germany (chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz is ‘rapidly reconsidering’ Berlin’s nuclear posture according to Foreign Policy). In all three states, nationalist and anti-EU parties are on the rise. If they gain power, it would hardly be conducive to any form of European nuclear-sharing arrangement. Even with the ostensibly like-minded Scandis it is conceivable that a rupture over maintaining, let alone using, a joint arsenal of nuclear weapons could be prompted by selfish national considerations.
It was in fact such realism about the inherent instabilities of strategic alliances that shaped Sweden’s Cold War nuclear programme, only fully paused as late as 1968. By that time Sweden – as one of Europe’s most uranium-rich countries – had independently developed the know-how to produce nuclear weapons and constructed (but not completed) several reactors, including one intended for so-called ‘dual use’, primarily producing military plutonium.
Sweden’s first supersonic aircraft Lansen could theoretically deliver tactical nuclear payloads against Soviet-controlled Baltic ports and, had the programme continued into the 1970s, its successor Viggen would have been able to drop strategic nuclear weapons over the Soviet Union directly. Yet due to the very real possibility of a Social Democratic party split over the issue; as well as the military’s cost concerns; and an American promise of a nuclear security guarantee, the plans were shelved.
In 1968, Sweden signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but it could withdraw on the grounds of its ‘supreme interests’ being jeopardised, as the treaty allows. In that scenario, Sweden could rely on its nuclear expertise, uranium resources, and old blueprints to build the bomb.
The main hurdle is the lack of enrichment or reprocessing plants on Swedish soil, but that could be solved through international cooperation – perhaps in exchange for uranium exports. The ‘romantic’ route would of course be to partner with that other blue and yellow state, Ukraine.
Yet a more feasible approach is for France and Britain to openly share tech with Sweden, as rogue suppliers have done with, for example, North Korea in the past. This might even sit comfortably with future nationalist governments in Paris and London who could well be inclined to sell their nuclear secrets and technology, but not extend their nuclear protection to Stockholm.
As for the delivery of any payload, Sweden’s Gripen E is a highly advanced and agile fighter jet. And, as the Financial Times correctly observed on March 12, northern Sweden is home to a ‘rocket base’, currently used to launch satellites.
Who knows what tomorrow may bring. It was once thought unthinkable that Sweden would join Nato. Maybe soon it will be the world’s next nuclear state.
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