By Jonathan M. Feldman, January 10, 2024; Updated January 11, 2024

Introducing the BS-sequitur

The editorial above, published in Dagens Nyhter (DN, a leading Swedish newspaper), shows clearly the growing formulaic logic of what I will now call the “mis-sequitur.” It is not a just “non-sequitur,” in which b does not logically follow a. Rather, it is a combination of a non-sequitur with a “strawman argument.” In the strawman argument, some irrelevant nonsense is brought up and then deconstructed to make a point. Another good name for the combination of the non-sequitur and the strawman argument might be the “bs-sequitur.” It turns out to be a convenient tool to help terrorize the Swedish population into preparing for the idea of war with Russia. This essay illustrates the discursive tool of the bs-sequitur as a prop for militarism by examining its deployment in Swedish media.

Let us see how this works in practice. In the editorial referenced above, DN writes that “the reactions to [Micael] Bydén’s and [Carl-Oskar] Bohlin’s messages [about the risks of Sweden being at war or potentially so] are absurd.” Bydén is Supreme Commander of the Swedish armed forces. DN writes: “The Civil Defense Minister [Bohlin] did not say ‘there will be war in Sweden,’ but ‘there could be war in Sweden.’ The opposite – it cannot be war in Sweden – would be nonsense.” Here, the editors engage in a clever game which denies how messages signaling possibilities can increase probabilities. The military and elite are signaling a possibility which creates a probability or enhances it, but they ignore or displace this linkage. So, if President Biden were to say, “there could be a nuclear war with Russia,” every sensible person (of which the number is getting smaller by the minute) would understand the emphasis of the possibility as a signal related to a probability.

What DN’s editors do is that they pretend that this discursive game is not what is happening because they feel that to make that argument would weaken the case for (a) the military, (b) Ukraine, and (c) the liberal project of human rights interventions, arms transfers, and Sweden’s sense of moral superiority. The game is attached to deconstructing the Russians as evil incarnate–at least that is my working hypothesis. The Russian’s make it easy to pull this game off, as they do engage in evil bombing of cities and slaughter of civilians. So DN is using and leveraging Russian malfeasance to promote nonsensical arguments. The game DN is playing is that if a mass murderer thinks that two plus two is four or that the earth is round and not flat, then we should doubt those conclusions. What do I mean by “two plus two is four” and that “the earth is round”? I refer to the NATO expansion and U.S. policies that promoted, encouraged or tolerated the set of events leading to a Russian counter-reaction in Ukraine.

Gaslighting the Public

Instead of being honest about the realities in militarist speech and action, DN proceeds to gaslight the audience, by writing: “And since there could be war, and the risk may be the greatest since World War II (this is not a new message either), Sweden must be better prepared.” The gaslighting occurs in two ways, it is over-determined.

As I noted, the first form of gaslighting is to pretend that discussing a possibility does not enhance a probability. For example, if you say to someone you have an argument with that, “I could smack you in the face,” then the listener would correctly view that as a provocation. Not so of course in the editorial discussions of Dagens Nyheter. No, these are sober logicians who do not believe language is anything but a mathematical type equation: emotions and psychology need not apply (except when it involves Russophobia!) The problem is their equation does not work.

The second form of gaslighting is to pretend that the years and months-long preparation for war has not enhanced the very probability and possibility of war that the two distinguished partisans of the military establishment have already been engaged in. It is not that these people now want war. Bydén has long championed militarism so his desire for war as the absence of a preparation for peace is nothing new. In other words, his comments are not something new (as DN suggests), but part of a move by the military to extend its managerial power with fear-mongering rhetoric. The wording is part of a game by the military to enhance its domestic control over discourse and policy in Sweden but is packaged by DN as part of a sober diagnosis, like a doctor telling someone that they have a terrible disease. Rather, it is like a doctor prescribing a medicine linked to a pharmaceutical company that the doctor owns stock in.

If you want war, prepare for war

Does DN understand that (A) “if you want peace, prepare for peace” and (B) “if you want war, prepare for war”? No. They have ZERO such interest in this first concept. They write instead that “the threat of war in Europe does not come from the Swedish defense or NATO” and that “what really reduces the risk of war: that Sweden and the entire Western world are so well-equipped, both militarily and civilly, that an attack would be unprofitable.” This proposition is highly problematic on several grounds, however, which have to be enumerated point-by-point.

• Sweden has regularly provoked Russia as it prepares for war. So in these operations (A) and (B) have been a zero-sum game. These include long-standing military maneuvers even near the Russian border. Sweden has allied itself with a NATO force that has tried to push up against Russia, even while Eastern European nations claim that all they do is engage in self-defense. After studying Swedish security policy over the years, I have learned what the magic formula is: “Sweden never provokes anyone and never does anything wrong and its policy is always to enhance Swedish defense over and above any other interpretation or consideration.” The corollary is that Russia always provokes, never does anything right, and its policy is always to enhance militarism over and above any other interpretation or consideration. In contrast, a report backed by the European Union found that Georgia was more responsible than Russia for launching the latter country’s war.

• If Sweden’s military build up were sufficient for what military leaders think is sufficient for deterring Russia, they would not need to join NATO. Of course, the editorial lumps in NATO forces as well. But even here the logic breaks down. Why?

Convenient Myths I: Swedish Militarism Can Never Exist and the West Never Helped Russia to Militarize

First, by provoking Russia, Sweden helps devalue the protective force of its military power, because that power is more of a deterrent if Sweden is less provocative to Russia. Yes, the Swedish military aids deterrence. But, Swedish provocations rob or weaken that very same deterrence.

Second, this same principle extends to NATO, particularly the way that stationing more troops in the Baltics will be viewed as enhancing provocation even if framed as a defense against fantasized Russian attacks that will only increase in probability as more troops are put on Russia’s border.

Third, France, Germany and other nations supplied Russia with military weapons and Sweden (and Germany) helped pay for a part of that Russian military with its oil imports, so basically NATO countries and Sweden have helped build up the very military power (Russia’s) that they believe warrants their own build up. In fact, according to Investigate Europe “between 2015 and 2020, at least 10 EU member states have exported a total of €346 million worth of arms to Russia.” France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Finland, Slovakia and Spain – to different extents – have sold ‘military equipment’ to Russia.” It is absurd that NATO countries (and Sweden) both build up the Russian war machine and then claim they are doing great and wonderful things by also building up their own war machines. And if the defense is, “we were stupid then.” My response is if you could be stupid then, “you are also stupid now.”

Convenient Myths II: Extremist-baiting in Journalism is not Post-Truth

• DN argues that “the threat of war in Europe does not, despite what peace movements, left-wing debaters, and right-wing extremists claim, come from the Swedish defense or NATO” and that “NATO is a defense organization, formed to protect democracies from the threat of dictatorships, especially those based in Moscow.”

This claim begs the question of whether NATO has supported illegal wars outside of Europe, as in Libya, an adventure that at one point assisted ISIS. Security analysts who are not in the peace movement, not left-wing, and not-right wing extremists clearly have analyzed how NATO has increased instability and helped trigger Russia’s response (even if it was not justified or ethical). So DN is engaging in a kind of extremism-bating and red-baiting here and also ignoring credible arguments. In fact, the Libya operation took a problem of a dictatorship in Libya and helped generate something far worse than a dictatorship. So DN’s bs-sequitur is rather troubling. Sophisticated critiques of the Libya operation have been made by Alan Kuperman, Horace Campbell, among others.

Relevant studies on the Libya question have been conducted by various groups which don’t match the extremist-baiting categories of DN: The International Crisis Group, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Brookings Institution. Some of these studies are better than others, but one can review the Carnegie Endowment study which argues: “Since the uprisings that spread across the Arab region took hold in Libya in 2011 and forced the removal of longtime ruler Muammar al-Gadhafi, the country’s fortunes have spiraled downwards. Despite an unsustainable system of governance, Gadhafi’s harsh rule had maintained relative stability in a country with a history of tribal division. With the absence of effective institutions and incompetent international intervention by both a NATO coalition and regional neighbors, civil war quickly engulfed the North African state. Since that time, there has been limited coverage and understanding of events inside the country, save for its role in the migration crisis and the influx and growth of ISIS within its borders.“

Convenient Myths III: The West Supported or Sustained Russian Democracy

• DN then goes on to argue that when Russia democratized, NATO shrank. Then Putin became a threat.

This analysis fails to understand how NATO expansion preceded Russian attacks on Ukraine, with Ukraine trying to join NATO even prior to 2014. DN ignores how NATO expansion might have helped Putin’s domestic position and aided Russian militarists and nationalists. DN also ignores how the West helped undermine Russian democracy by promoting neo-liberalism and other aspects of that problem which I have written about earlier, which cite a Congressional study published in September 2000. Alfred B. Evans in “The failure of democratization in Russia: A comparative perspective,” Journal of Eurasian Studies, Vol. 2, 2011: 444-45, writes: “As it had been envisioned by US Secretary of State Warren Christopher, privatization in Russia was supposed to create millions of independent property owners and foster the growth of a middle class with a commitment to continued reform…The consequences of the corrupted process of privatization of state assets were enormously damaging for the institutionalization of democracy in Russia.” In addition, The National Security Archive noted on October 4, 2018 the following: “Twenty-five years ago last night in Moscow, Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered tanks and airborne troops to shell and storm the ‘White House,’ the Russian Parliament (Supreme Soviet) building, to suppress the opposition trying to remove him. Declassified documents published today by the National Security Archive include the transcript of U.S. President Bill Clinton’s phone call to Yeltsin the next day to praise him, the memcon in which U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher subsequently told Yeltsin this was ‘superb handling,’ and two State Department cables painting a more complex portrait of the causes of the events.” The U.S. also interfered in Russia’s elections. Scott Shane has described the work of Dov H. Levin who “scoured the historical record for both overt and covert election influence operations” and “found 81 by the United States and 36 by the Soviet Union or Russia between 1946 and 2000, though the Russian count is undoubtedly incomplete.” Others provide a different view of Russia’s interference, but that hardly erases the U.S. role in subverting democracy in Russia noted above.

Convenient Myths IV: Ukraine is Sweden’s First Line of Defense Against Russia

• Then DN turns to one of the leading champions of Swedish militarism, Oscar Jonsson of the Swedish Defense University (and featured on a defense contractor’s YouTube channel), who argues that if “Ukraine were to lose the war, ‘we get a Russia that is politically as hostile to the West but has shifted to a war economy.'”

This is what I call “doubling down,” by “dumbing down.” It is one cascading false premise based on another and then another, etc. First, I do not accept the premise that Russia was not provoked even if Russia is a military thug nation. Even wild dogs can be provoked as I told SVT, before my comments were edited out of their blog. Second, Russia was happy with a post-war consensus of exporting oil and keeping the peace with Europe. The problem was that the USA under Biden and similar politicians there, NATO, and various Eastern European nations did not like the status quo. First, (A) they provoked Russia, then (B) Russia armed or expanded, and now after that cycle of (A) to (B), DN focuses on just (B). Of course they can when they gaslight us about (A), despite leading security scholars in the U.S. arguing elsewise.

DN argues that we need “to maintain support for Ukraine’s defense against the invasion,” failing to understand several things which have been argued about elsewhere, outside the Iron Curtain of Swedish media coverage. First, the US has helped block peace settlements between Russian and Ukraine. If DN thinks that is propaganda, at least let them investigate this question which they don’t seem to take seriously as far as I can tell. Second, what will DN and those in the Swedish Defense University pushing the military line do if Donald J. Trump gets elected and pulls the plug on Ukraine? If everything DN and the militarists said were really true, i.e. Ukraine is the front line of Swedish defense, then they would advocate sending Swedish troops to Ukraine. Why don’t they advocate that? Because they understand that Russia would not like that and it could negatively affect Sweden’s security and weaken the country’s security posture. Yet, DN and the militarists can’t admit that or they sublimate their desire to do that by advocating moving troops to Finland or the Baltics. DN and the militarists are caught in a logical/reality trap. They know it but can’t admit it.

Chutzpah Incorporated

DN needs to learn this Yiddish word: “chutzpah.” Paul Krugman explains: “traditionally defined by the example of the young man who kills his parents, then pleads for mercy because he’s an orphan.” DN tells us we need to prepare much better if there is war and points to weaknesses in healthcare, infrastructure and transportation. This is as we say in the USA, “rich,” meaning its mind-numbing chutzpah. The big military buildups have robbed healthcare, infrastructure and transportation. The opportunity costs of militarism, the weaknesses in these areas, are now used to support militarism. This is another bs-sequitur.