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Swedish Chief of Defense Gen. Sverker Goranson and US Gen. Joseph Dunford at NATO HQ, May 14, 2013 (photo: NATO)

There is an element of farce about the latest submarine hunt in the Stockholm archipelago. A Russian miniature submarine is being pursued by the miniature Swedish navy: 20 years of steady bipartisan cuts to Sweden’s defence budget mean that there is no longer a single helicopter equipped for anti-submarine warfare, and many of the boats involved in the hunt are inflatable. . . .

The incursion has provoked a media frenzy in Stockholm. Whether it will provoke any lasting shift in perception or policy is another matter. Swedish defence policy has long been characterised by double-think and this is the way the public wants it. Sweden is not a member of Nato, and Swedish public opinion remains set against such an open alliance. At the same time, everyone knows which side Sweden would take in a hypothetical war: there has been a long tradition of collaboration in intelligence matters, and its armed forces snuggle as close to Nato as they can; Sweden is represented on more than 150 Nato committees, even if this figure represents only a fraction of Nato’s formidable capacity to deploy committees . . .

In the long run, the logic of Sweden’s geostrategic position makes Nato membership almost inevitable. This incursion, coming so soon after the invasion of the Crimea and Ukraine, should help to make the point clear.