This was awkward. Today, when Sweden would have celebrated a grand one-year anniversary of the nation’s NATO membership, the defense alliance is officially KIA – killed in action – and the US has transformed from BFF to enemy.

Last Friday’s debacle in the Oval Office caused the previously massive choruses of praise for the US’s armed capabilities to be replaced by equally massive condemnations. «Everyone» seemed to have an opinion (usually the same one) but few seemed to have seen the exchange of opinions between Zelenskyj, Trump and Vance – and even fewer seemed to have understood any of what actually happened. But the conclusion is simple: the US is now our enemy. Now everyone must join the chorus, and the competition is about shouting the loudest, taking the greatest distance, acting the fastest and using the most powerful indicative.

The last time we saw anything like this was during the Covid hysteria.

SEK 8,800,000,000,000 – plus «unlimited» support

During the past week, the summits have therefore succeeded each other and on Thursday evening, the 27 EU member states agreed on the defense plan that means that 800 billion euros, equivalent to 8.8 trillion Swedish kronor, will be released for European defense.

Eight point eight trillion. Eight point eight million million. SEK 8,800,000,000,000. Plus «unlimited» support for Ukraine. Everything was decided quickly, without discussion, impact statements or support from the people who will bear the costs through cuts, deterioration of living conditions and cost increases. This applies most of all to Sweden and the Swedes, who have already contributed the equivalent of approximately 73.2 billion SEK to Ukraine – because no one believes that Mother Svea has the money stashed away in the mattress, right?

Exactly how heavy a burden will be placed on the shoulders of Swedish taxpayers is still unknown, but dare we guess that Sweden, as usual, aims to be best in class?

But for Sweden, there are still some piquant problems to solve, on the one-year anniversary of NATO membership.

USA: From BFF to enemy

The nation threw itself into NATO with all its might, fully aware that NATO is in practice the USA. A NATO without the USA lacks the ability to deter and fight. Especially at the present time, when Europe has been pouring both money and military equipment over Ukraine for three years.

Already deficient military capabilities have thus been further drained. The process has been due to one thing – and no, it is not that «Ukraine is fighting for us» – but that Europe has relied on massive support from the USA if things became complicated. But now it has become complicated. And when it became complicated, it turned out that that massive support from the US was not forthcoming.

Now suddenly you have not just one enemy, but two. Yes, the «American betrayal» almost surpasses the «full-scale invasion» judging by the indignation of European leaders, and Prime Minister Kristersson’s satisfied winning look when he posed with his then BFF, former US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, has 364 days later been replaced by a clenched seriousness.

– Alone is not strong, Kristersson told Aftonbladet after Thursday’s European defense agreement.

– When our allies also arm themselves, Sweden becomes safer.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, March 7, 2024 and March 6, 2025, respectively. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (cropped).

But for the past week, the US has not been counted as an «ally», but as an enemy. So Sweden’s one-year NATO party has been cancelled and it is likely that a number of information officers and project managers at the Riksdag, the Swedish Defence Headquarters and various military units have had to spend the last few days cancelling cakes and sending last-minute emails about cancelled parades and overflights with American F-16s.

No one knows exactly which NATO Sweden is actually a member of, which (or which) are our enemies and who will come to our aid now that the US is prioritising its own security over that of LGBTQI and climate-certified Europeans.

Thank the hell out of Kristersson that he looks like he has swallowed both one and three lemons.

The DCA agreement gave the US 17 military bases in Sweden

At the same time, Sweden’s «fast-and-fawlty» mentality has not only meant that we have chained ourselves to a defense organization that turned out to be a dead horse. We have also opened up our territory to (our new) Lede Fi: Through the so-called DCA agreement (Defense Cooperation Agreement), Sweden has given the US access to 17 military bases in the country.

Sweden has no insight into what the US does on these bases, what weapons systems are there and what military operations are launched from them. According to the agreement, the US can even launch military attacks with nuclear weapons against third countries from Sweden, without even informing the Swedish government about it.

«The agreement is an important step in deepening practical military cooperation with the US. The agreement strengthens the regional security of both Sweden and our neighboring countries by signaling the US’s commitment and actual presence,» the Swedish Government wrote in its press release when the DCA agreement was presented to the nation in December 2023.

Just over a year later, «the US’s commitment» has gone up in smoke and the Trump administration is considered the enemy of all of Europe, while the US’s «actual presence» is highly tangible. The Swedish National Defense University is raising the proposal to try to cancel the previously important agreement.

Ooops.

Will a war save those in power?

So here we are today, in more or less total defense policy chaos. Who is friend and who is enemy? Who has control of our military bases? And how will the nation and the population be affected by the decisions currently being made by politicians who are flapping around like headless chickens trying to find quick fixes for the problems that are direct results of the headless flapping of recent years?

If there is one thing that the headless have understood, it is that their power is threatened. From within, by populations that are tired of increased crime, increased insecurity, increased living costs, increased censorship and increased surveillance.

NATO, Europe and the European nations are collapsing, and it seems as if it’s time for the oldest trick in the book: If an internal enemy threatens you, then make sure to get yourself an external enemy to direct your aggression against.

Swedish and Norwegian politicians have spent the last few years preparing their nations for what has been portrayed as an inevitable war against Russia. The changed playing field means that Europe must in practice prepare for, at best, a war in which an impoverished Europe will face the Russian bear without the support of the United States. At worst, a two-front war awaits – and Europe rejoices:

«War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.»

We are in the middle of Orwell’s 1984 – and when nothing is certain, at the same time everything is possible. Only one thing is 100 percent certain: Where we will be in a year is impossible to predict. That we can learn from the pictures of the Prime Minister’s smile.