[ptr]

The Swedish government is and was very cautious to not point fingers without having proof. Getting proof is often hard when it comes to submarines. Unless they get beached on your islands...

According to the article you're linking: "'NATO subs never entered Swedish waters without being given approval beforehand,' Weinberger said."

Sweden dropped depth charges on these submarines. You think the Swedish government would invite NATO subs just to drop bombs on them?

[cf141q5325]

The swedish government didnt tell their population which saw dozens of submarines and went in to a panic expecting a soviet invasion.

Again, the whole quote:

>Many military officials and politicians said they had never heard of the NATO exercises.

>``You need some sort of agreement to do a thing like this. But I know nothing of such an agreement,″ said Admiral Per Rudberg, head of the navy from 1978 to 1984.

>Current Defense Minister Bjoern von Sydow said he was surprised, but added, ``I have no reason to question what a former U.S. defense secretary is saying.″

The head of the navy didnt know.

[ptr]

Sweden was already expecting a soviet invasion.

OK, so you're arguing that the government invited NATO without letting the navy know? That sounds incredibly risky. Again, Occam's razor.

[cf141q5325]

It doesnt really matter what I claim, what we know is sufficient and we have that already quoted here.

> Classified documents point to covert US and UK activity. Former US secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger stated that Western submarines operated ‘regularly’ and ‘frequently’ in Swedish waters in order to ‘test’ the Swedish coastal defences, and former British navy minister Sir Keith Speed confirms the existence of such operations. Royal Navy submarine captains admit having carried out top-secret operations in Swedish waters, and that a member of Cabinet signed approval for every single operation

as well as

>Many military officials and politicians said they had never heard of the NATO exercises.

>``You need some sort of agreement to do a thing like this. But I know nothing of such an agreement,″ said Admiral Per Rudberg, head of the navy from 1978 to 1984.

>Current Defense Minister Bjoern von Sydow said he was surprised, but added, ``I have no reason to question what a former U.S. defense secretary is saying.″

To summarize, we know that both the US and the UK have carried out submarine incursions into swedish waters, the US on a "frequent and regular base". We also know, that the head of the Swedish Navy did not know these operations, "to test Swedish costal defenses" took place.

So unless you are arguing the source (which source, AP?) is doctored, I really dont understand what you are trying to do with Occam's razor.

On the implications of these informations: If we are arguing about the effect on the Swedish population as well as on the government, I think it would be fair to summarize the period as Sweden getting more and more nervous with one sub sighting after another. Which at the time was assumed to be soviet subs by the public, leading to an increased fear of a soviet invasion and a more positive view on becoming a NATO member. Sweden is a democracy, the populations view is rather important.

[ptr]

That means that you are in fact arguing that the government invited Nato to invade Sweden without letting the armed forces know. This is incredibly reckless due to the decentralized nature of the command structure -- why would Nato put their crews in harm's way just to test the Swedish reaction? If exposed, the government officials could actually face charges of treason. Would they accept that personal risk, just to test Sweden's readiness...?

Doing these kind of reckless stunts just to get Sweden to side with Nato was definitely not needed. Sweden was already on Nato's side, and everyone knew that.

I can imagine Sweden's friends in Nato were invited from time to time to practice together. But that doesn't exclude a presence from the Soviet union, and we have actual proof (not just people saying things) that the Soviets were in fact in Swedish waters. Deep within a military protection area in a hard-to-navigate archipelago on top of it, and possibly with nuclear warhead torpedos!

Also when you refer to things such as

> Current Defense Minister Bjoern von Sydow said he was surprised, but added, ``I have no reason to question what a former U.S. defense secretary is saying.″

That just means that he can neither refute nor affirm whatever has been said. Ie, he either knows nothing, or can't say anything. The statement gives no information, except that he was personally surprised. A lot of statements from politicians are like this.

I'm signing off on this now. I don't understand your interest in this topic nor why it's so important for you to show that it wasn't the Soviet union. The Soviet union is gone, but they were a real threat back then.

[cf141q5325]

>Doing these kind of reckless stunts just to get Sweden to side with Nato was definitely not needed. Sweden was already on Nato's side, and everyone knew that.

This was Sweden under Olof Palme. They made quite a point of staying neutral and were far from joining the Western Block, let alone NATO. You are making it sound as if they were West Germany.

>That just means that he can neither refute nor affirm whatever has been said.

I agree and wouldnt expect anything else from the current Defense Minister. I would be more interested what the then Defense Minister had to say on the issue.

>That means that you are in fact arguing that the government invited Nato to invade Sweden without letting the armed forces know.

If I had to guess, I would say that the Swedish Government was not informed and the US only said this now to not damage the relationship with the current Swedish government. I would read the comment of the Defense minister the same way. But who knows, maybe some parts of the Swedish Government, having a harder pro NATO stance were involved. But that is a conspiracy theory. But who in the Swedish government knew what is rather irrelevant, as the population of Sweden was confronted with a horde of news reports of Soviet submarines probing the Swedish coastal defenses creating the atmosphere of a dooming Soviet invasion.

>I don't understand your interest in this topic nor why it's so important for you to show that it wasn't the Soviet union

You misunderstand my point, the interesting part is not that the Soviets didnt do it, but that the US and UK manufactured a cold war panic in Sweden, likely to get them to join NATO and drop their neutral stance. Given quite alot of fearmongering in the press yet again, thats a rather important thing to remember. If someone from the Atlantic Bridge tells me that that whale is part of some Russian weapons tests I am a bit skeptic about their motivation. Sure we know Russia does conduct those tests, but we also know that some people really like their anti Russian fearmongering to get people running for cover in the arms of NATO under the command of the big brother overseas. A more sober and realistic reporting would generally be great.

[jacobush]

Whatever was behind it, it didn't matter to local commanders. I know of one incident where a local officer ordered the detonation of a full line of moored mines across a strait. So if it was something there, it was a bad day for them, NATO or Soviet.