More Swedish Citizens Have Died For Jihad Than For Hitler

Our new book "Swedes at War 1945-2015" is the first history of the post-WWII volunteers from Sweden in foreign units.

At the end of 2015 I am pondering the fact that since our book Swedes at War 1945-2015 was published this fall yet more Swedish citizens have died for jihad and the latest statistics from Sweden´s security agency Säkerhetspolisen mean that more Swedish citizens have now died for jihad than for Hitler.

As Lennart Westberg and I wrote in our previous and also translated book, 28 Swedes died in the service of Hitler´s Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht (26 in the W-SS + 2 in the Wehrmacht). In late 2015 it became known that about 40 Swedish citizens have died in various groups fighting for jihad in either Syria or Iraq. However, if one looks back at the very first Swedes who died for jihad in different states (not just in Syria and Iraq), as we do in our new book, the total figure today is no doubt above 40. Because already in 1993 Mikael Glinka from Stockholm died for the sake of jihad in Bosnia. In the 1990s there were also Swedish citizens who died in combat in e.g. Chechnya.

So, as 2015 moves fully into history, I wonder why my state and society has been so slow to pick up the implications of jihad. Well, not only jihad, but challenges to our security in general. How was it possible that we scrapped most of our security thinking and military and civil defence capability? To end this last blog post of the year with something positive I could of course add that the current Swedish government in late 2015 decided to bring back Swedish "total defence" planning in some way. But the very late hour and lack of extra funding also weigh heavily.

P.S.
If you are wondering how many Swedish citizens died against Hitler - well, there is no exact figure but it is clear that many more died against than for. In the various Allied convoys (to Liverpool, Murmansk etc) some 900 Swedish seamen died. In addition there were Swedish citizens in US, British, French, Norwegian etc army, navy & air units and approx a hundred were killed in action. For more about the Swedes on the Allied side I again refer to our previous book Swedes at War 1914-1945, also available in English.

Can New Kill Level Trigger New Strategy?

Norwegian UN troops on their way up Sniper Alley in Sarajevo, November 1995. PHOTO: Paalso

Many argued against more western involvement. Resistance was strong within both the US and the UN. But close to three hundred thousand people had been killed. Am I talking about the war in Syria? No, I am talking about another and not that distant war.

In the former Yugoslavia about three hundred thousand people were killed in the fighting between 1991 and 1995. The other day I heard that the total number of killed in Syria has now probably reached three hundred thousand. In other words, the Balkan kill level from 1995 has now been reached in Syria. I do not believe that the 1995 Bosnian intervention is a step-by-step instruction for what should be done now in Syria. But this I do believe: it would be an enormous waste to now not study what brought the war in Bosnia to an end. Some of the bloody Balkan lessons are still relevant. Sure, there are many important differences, not least IS(IS) and the New Cold War. But consider also how many different groups were a part of the Bosnian puzzle and how unstoppable the wars seemed.

One starting point is to pick up and read a copy of To End A War by chief negotiator Richard Holbrooke. This is my simple message to you: read it.

Hard Power, At Any Cost?

71 seconds from last week´s record snap drills in Russia.

Last week´s enormous snap drills in Russia and the news about greater US-Russian involvement in the war in Syria have yet to be reacted upon by the Swedish government, at least openly. While we are waiting for reactions we might consider what Sergei Witte, prime minister of the Russian Empire, said a hundred years ago about the importance of hard power:

In truth, what is it that has essentially upheld Russian statehood? Not only primarily, but exclusively the army. Who created the Russian Empire, transforming the semi-Asiatic Muscovite tsardom into the most influential, most dominant, grandest European power? Only the power of the army's bayonet. The world bowed not to our culture, not to our bureaucratized church, not to our wealth and prosperity. It bowed to our might.

In other words, soft power could never substitute for traditional hard power. The big question now is if anyone in today´s Russian political elite has any other opinion than Sergei Witte?

Second big question: are the costs for obtaining greater hard power in today´s world truly irrelevant? Kazimierz Waliszewski wrote on the essence of Russia: "the readiness and power to ignore the cost in obtaining a desired result". Does this apply just as much today?

What Mattered In 2012

The book of the year, if you ask me.

Looking back at 2012 I would say it again was a year of the rise of Asia and in particular China. As for my own work during this year, North Africa was a major focus.

Judging from recent reports, the world in 2013 will be no less shaped by what takes place in Asia, starting January 1.

The Syrian Civil War may evolve into something much worse. Another serious hotspot is of course Iran, and, as always, there is Israel and North Korea. The latter country is the subject of this year´s strongest book IMHO, Escape From Camp 14 by Blaine Harden. But for some reason I reckon that the East China Sea holds the greatest dangers during 2013.

In case we are fortunate enough that no new major wars break out in 2013 the world may still suffer greatly, perhaps as much as from war, by further inactivity in the field of energy, i.e. by not seriously going for alternative energy sources. Here the US, China and the EU probably hold the largest keys.

Moving away from things of global importance to my own work, in 2012 I was writing mostly on a book about a special forces unit in North Africa, Ghost Patrol. It was released a month ago. I also wrote several articles about more or less recent military history, one which was extra special, as it to a great extent was the result of exciting discoveries in the mountains by some very energetic readers of mine.

Speaking about readers, I only now found this study in English about Swedish volunteers in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, partly based on Swedes at War. Well, in 2013 I will return to the subject of Swedish volunteers, first those in Finland and Norway in 1940, and then, in another book, all over Europe and Asia.

Goodbye 2012 and wishing all my readers a Happy New Year!

UPDATE DEC 30:
When I wrote the above I was not aware of this article re. the worsening security climate China-Japan.

P.S.
But, you may ask, what about a Swedish connection to Escape From Camp 14? Well, although the book makes no reference to Sweden or any other Nordic country, Sweden played a largely unknown role during the first combat phase of the still unfinished Korean War. There was both a Swedish field hospital where everyone wore US uniforms and in addition a handful of Swedish volunteers and many more Swedish Americans in US combat units. More about them in a coming book by me and Lennart Westberg. Although Escape From Camp 14 is not about a soldier but about a man born in a North Korean concentration camp, it does provide valuable insights also into Korean history. In addition, yours truly during four years lived right beside the North Korean embassy in Switzerland. This gave me several opportunities to learn about North Korea. I got to talk with several persons living inside the embassy, especially one Kim. It was, however, not the Kim now ruling North Korea, as he arrived in Switzerland only after I had left the country. Still, I have some idea about the wonderful environment where he spent some of his formative years. I tend to think those years must have done him and the world some kind of good.