By Jonathan Michael Feldman, April 7, 2024; Updated April 8, 2024
Source: SVT, Agenda, April 7, 2024.
Today, Swedish Television’s Agenda program had a face off on the role of the EU where Jonas Sjöstedt from the Left Party was opposed by the Christian Democrat’s top EU parliamentary candidate, Alice Teodorescu Måwe. Måwe made these key points: (a) climate politics that hurts workers, consumers, etc. are limited and should be opposed–her comments are related to the problem of a backlash effect; (b) on migration, humanitarian concerns are already constrained by other concerns–her comments are related to the limits of the immigration absorption system; (c) Israel’s invasion of Gaza is related to a terrorist attack by Hamas which also created victims.
Sjöstedt’s comments appeared to take the high road on a) climate politics, b) migration and c) the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. Yet, every single argument by Måwe appears reasonable when formulated as follows. First, on (a), there has been a backlash among some voters on higher gasoline prices, penalties imposed on rural, car-dependent regions, and the scarcity politics of penalizing some people (who also happen to be voters) to advance climate goals. Second, on (b) there have been limits on the effectiveness of migration absorption, so the debate should be about how to improve integration as even Sweden suffers demographic challenges. Third, on (c), it is true that Israel’s militarist campaign, even if disproportionate and carried out in a way that is not justified, was triggered in the short-term by the Hamas terrorist attack.
Scarcity is a key issue relating to the need for enhanced investments in sustainable R&D and clean transitions and increasing the capacity of the integration system. On sustainability, the ability to reduce use of fossil fules without a political backlash costs money. The money can be used to subsidize purchases of electric cars, enhance car pooling options, or promote rural bus or other commuting services. On migration, 15.1% of foreign born Swedes were unemployed in 2023. The Left Party supports the goal of Sweden spending 2% of its GDP on the military by the year 2028, with some in that party arguing for spending even more. Hanna Gunnarsson (V), a Left Party member of the parliamentary defense committee argued that raising taxes will facilitate military budget increases while maintaining social welfare expenditures. The problem with this logic is that more money for defense, enables more more for military bureaucracies, their advertising and political campaigns, and the extension of military managerialism that erodes the welfare state.
The real question is why Sjöstedt is unable to address the scarcity issues which complicate climate politics and ethnic integration and can’t address the cycle of violence which implicates dystopian terrorism and militarism. One reason may be that he has bought into the promises of Swedish militarism, being part of the Left Party faction that supported transferring weapons to Ukraine. Sweden has been involved in military maneuvers on Russia’s borders for many years. Sweden has purchased billions of dollars of Russian oil and aided their war machine. Sweden is now part of the movement of NATO’s eastward expansion. This move was opposed by the Left Party on the surface, but the party still supported a military role for Sweden in Ukraine through arms exports to that country. This decision helped increase Swedish miliary budgets. How? Through the arms transfer, militarism cycle. Stage I: Sweden provokes Russia with arms transfers. Stage II: Russia provokes Sweden in return. Stage III: These two moves help make the case for increased military budgets. Stage IV: The military budget increases, funding for study circles, museums, public media, and various cultural projects decrease. Stage V: Militarism crowds out democracy and builds a scarcity regime.
The legitimation of arms transfers to Ukraine helps legitimate arms exports and the domestic defense production complex in Sweden and thus a primary political force that benefits from the scarcity regime. Sweden has the right to defend itself, but its arms industry has expanded its links to Brazil and India. The Left Party’s decision to approve weapons transfers to Ukraine objectively endorsed this very same defense industry that robs resources from two countries with large scale poverty. In 2021, about 30% of Brazilians lived in poverty. Some argue that India has reduced extreme poverty, but in 2017 a CNN report noted: “About 60% of India’s nearly 1.3 billion people live on less than $3.10 a day, the World Bank’s median poverty line. And 21%, or more than 250 million people, survive on less than $2 a day.” A more recent study even disputes some of India’s poverty reduction claims.
Turning to the third point, Sjöstedt wrote the following in Flamman on November 11, 2023: “Hamas’ terrible acts of terror shook Israel with all the murders and kidnappings. But it also meant the end of an illusion for the Israeli right. For many years it has cultivated the idea that Israel does not need a peace process or negotiations, and that the occupation of Palestinian territories can continue and be expanded with new settlements in the West Bank. The Palestinians were powerless. In Gaza, trapped, poor and isolated behind walls and electronic surveillance. In the West Bank, the Palestinians are left with only fragmented islands of ‘self-rule’ entirely on Israel’s and the settlers’ terms.” This seems reasonable, but Måwe still scored points but implying that Sjöstedt’s position lacked any nuance.
Israel’s decisions are partly dependent on what the US state decides and allows, in contrast to the most dogmatic interpretations of the Israel Lobby. So, in one sense Israel is an appendage of the US warfare state, even if that country has legitimate security needs. Sweden is similarly an appendage of the US warfare state, even if it also has legitimate security needs. The Swedish Left Party was against being an appendage, but they aided this move by not standing firm for a neutral, non-aligned Sweden. So Sweden is very much like Israel and now related to Israel through their alliance to the larger, militarist patron of both countries, i.e. the US.
A TT report quoted in an article in Omni explained how the current Left Party leader, Nooshi Dadgostar believes that it is “madness” that Sweden militarily cooperates with Israel. She argued correctly that placing pressure on Israel would stop the killing in Palestine, although this killing was set off by a cycle of violence which the Omni article does not address. The Left Party was quoted as being “critical of the fact that the Armed Forces signed a contract worth SEK 1.7 billion with the Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems last October” in 2023. The Left Party platform is that “Sweden must break all military cooperation with Israel.” Yet, the party has not been that strong in opposing weapons exports in general, which makes the party’s position something of a contradiction. The contradiction is underlined by Sweden’s cooperation with NATO and the US, which is Israel’s patron. The support Sweden given the US war machine helps free up resources for the US to support Israel. So, the Left Party does not really understand the global character of militarism and their own contributions to it. Although, truth be told, their party has the best positions on this issue in the parliament.
What do migration flows, the ecological crisis, and Israel’s war against Gaza have in common? The migration flows were partially triggered by US wars in the Middle East. The ecological crisis must address the economic and ecological opportunity costs created by military expenditures and agenda setting tied to a focus on the wars against Ukraine and Hamas, the U.S. military and its agenda setting capacity are implicated in all three events. The politics of scarcity caused by militarism is something the Left Party’s arm shipments to Ukraine complicate as does the Left Party’s playing into the hands of US war planners and their NATO expansion plans. The Left Party is not responsible for Israel’s role in Gaza and raise important questions about Israel. Yet, they are de facto aligned with Israel by supporting arms shipments which help NATO and the US war machine tied to Israel.
Sweden should have pursued a neutral, non-aligned path, advocating neutrality with respect to Russia, Ukraine, the United States, and Israel. This would have aided diplomacy and the agenda of a global green new deal. Even if the Left Party intellectually may support such a global green new deal, they have played around with US militarism and its wars of choice, diverting the mobilizing power necessary for systemic ecological change. While the Left Party formally opposed NATO membership, they supported the militarist response to the Russia-Ukraine War, an assist to NATO and thus a diversion from necessary climate politics as well as a devaluation of Sweden’s diplomatic capital.
