Serious Sweden

 I have spent the past week in Sweden as part of the Phil/Steve/Ora project seeking to understand the dynamics between defense agencies (departments/ministries of defense) and militaries in democracies around the world.  I was here in Stockholm last summer for the ERGOMAS meeting, but this trip was more like my visit to Finland last April.  One big difference, besides the weather being far more pleasant, was that I had a very well-wired reservist senior officer act as my fixer.  As a result, I met with a couple of former Ministers of Defence, a recent Supreme Commander (what they call their chief of defense), and several other high level current and former officials.  So, I got what I needed.

Another big difference is, well, the Trumpness of it all.  My fixer kept asking me to give a Canadian perspective on the state of things.  Most hadn't quite realized how serious Canadians are taking the 51st state craziness.  Once I put it into the context of how everyone around here lined up with Denmark over Trump's Greenland threats, they got it.  I did interview a Saab rep as he had previously been in defense, and I suggested that they might still have a chance to sell the Gripen to Canada as it will become very difficult politically for any Canadian leader to ship billions of dollars to the US to buy a plane when the US is increasingly becoming an adversary.

The Swedes understand that Article V of the NATO Treaty, an attack upon one is equal to an attack upon all, is either dead or in a coma while Trump is president.  They get it.  Some suggested that they need to invest more in bilateral ties since the multilateral effort may not work out so well.  

Sweden is serious about this stuff.  During my first day of interviewing, we were interrupted by a regular alarm--every Monday apparently--that, if any other time, would signal an attack (presumably Russian).  The Swedes had been cutting their military for decades and organized it around expeditionary operations (Balkans, Afghanistan, etc), and since 2014, the budget went the other way.  Sweden is now at 2.4% defense spending/gdp and is headed towards 3%.  They went from not having any planes flying on holidays to putting a regiment on Gotland.  They stopped conscription in 2010, and then restarted it, now with women being drafted as well as men.  It is not the full out conscription of the distant past--they only take 10% or so of each cohort.  The struggle is developing enough capacity to train more and more people.

There is much discussion of Total Defence--civil defence, mobilization for war, and all that.  I have been asked by the Canadian media should we do the same.  I scoffed as (a) the old civil defence people are nostalgic about involved bomb shelters that would not shelter folks from nukes, (b) the Russian military threat to Canada is inflated.  The conversation has, of course, turned to civil defence against... US attacks. And again, I am not sure if the expense is worth it.  I am still pretty convinced that the conflict between Canada and US is political and economic and not military.  And I also think that Trump might risk munity (military refusing orders, not a coup) if he tries to use force against Canada.  I think shooting protestors and attacking Canada are far likely to get more resistance than, say, grabbing Panama.

One thing that did rub me a bit the wrong way--lots of references to World War II as if they had taken a side.....  Very strange.

Anyhow, I got a lot out of this week, including freaking out some Swedes about Trump.  I didn't do much tourism as I spent most days interviewing folks, and I had seen stuff last summer.  I did go to a couple of medival kind of restaurants because I needed some silliness.  

Back to Berlin for some interviews there plus a roundtable on whether militaries can help stop democratic backsliding. I am going to have to postpone my plans to do this research later this month in Poland--I don't have my act together.  So, I will probably travel in western Germany to interview a general and see a part of the country I haven't seen thus far.  Much more work to do on this project, and I am lucky that folks are willing to talk about this stuff.  More interesting conversations ahead.

 

DND Extravaganza: Simulations and Unfortunate Realities

 Twas a funky week in Ottawa.  It ended with kids dancing around a maypole in the backyard of the Swedish Ambassador's residence.  But that's not what this post is about.  My Thursday and Friday led me to two different Department of National Defence HQ's for very different albeit CDSN-related purposes.

On Thursday, I met a couple of folks from Valens, an American-based simulation firm, David and Matt, at the entrance to the downtown DND HQ, as they had a grant to do an environmental/climate change simulation.  My role was perhaps translator from American to Canadian and back and forth (disclosure: a rare example of my getting paid as a consultant).   The simulation was of three towns in northern Ontario vying for a new investment by a firm while facing big decisions about the future of the local nuclear power plant and then threat of forest fires.  The Department of National Defence was involved in a couple of ways--whether/how to build a new base while also facing demands for domestic emergency ops.  The four teams really got into it, and the Valens people did a terrific job of handling the moves while making the game engaging and educational.  The light was pretty bright so my pics aren't great, but here's an example of how they reported the various moves:

I bumped into a couple of former NPSIA students including one who took my zoom class during the height of the pandemic.  Glad to see these folks employed and pretty happy with where they are.  

I followed up that session with the CDSN HQ's annual lunch where I gush about how wonderful the team is.  And I mean it.  The team here in Ottawa is small but mighty.  Melissa, who joined me at the start of this adventure, has done such a great job of not just doing the comms stuff (her original role), but managing the rest of the team and engaging our partners and contributors.  Sherry, who handles our accounting/reimbursing stuff as well as our event planning, joined us about a year and a half ago, and my stress level has plummeted.  These two communicate so well together that I really don't put much time into managing the team--a big change from the first few years of CDSN-ing.  Racheal has been our RA for several years now, and will be moving to fieldwork next winter.  She has done a great job of preparing us for the podcasts and for putting together most of our reports.  Morad couldn't make it, but he has been helpful in our reports. Ayshia was been a terrific RA for us and is now moving onto medical school.  Jakob couldn't make it, but his RA work was also great.  A key part of CDSN-ing is working with students, channeling their enthusiasm (some might accuse us of vampirism), connecting them to our network, and maybe providing a bit of professionalization along the way.

On Friday, Melissa and I headed over to the other DND headquarters out in Carling.  It feels like a combo of airport (wide hallways) and university campus (with geese as the primary threat).  We first met our new Visiting Defence Fellow Colonel Nick Roby.  We didn't get a chance to fete our outgoing VDF Brigadier General Marie-Christine Harvey, who did such a great job of co-hosting our French podcast: Conseils de Sécurité. 

We scheduled this meeting because we were already going to be at this HQ for a presentation of research that JC Boucher, Charlotte Duval-Lantoine, Lynne Gouliquer, and I have done on whether scandals about discrimination in the Canadian military affect public trust in the CAF, support for defence spending, and support for friends and family to join the military.  We find, not surprisingly, that, yes, bad news about the military weakens trust, undermines support for defence spending, and discourages recruitment.  This was our second of three presentations to the military: first to the command responsible for culture change, second this week to the military personnel analysis group, and next month to the public affairs folks.  As these folks at DGMPRA are mostly social scientists, they had very good questions to ask about our methods and findings and possible extensions.  We are nearly finished with revising the paper and hope to submit it soon to a civ-mil journal near you.

And to finish off the week, I went to the Nordic Midsommer event at the Swedish Ambassador's residence.  It was the most kid-friendly event at any embassy that I can recall with games, dancing around the maypole to silly songs, and, yes, ice cream and cake.  I bumped into some folks (including one of the former NPSIA students I had met the day before) that I knew and met some new folks (I still suck at big events like these where I am surrounded by strangers).  The sad news is that the Norwegian ambassador died last week.  The Swedish ambassador invoked her spirit and encouraged us to enjoy the festivities as that is what she would have wanted.  So: