UPDATE: Sweden instructs municipalities to prepare for war

RT
Wed, 14 Dec 2016 16:03 UTC

© Soren Andersson / TT News Agency via Reuters

A 160-man combat team from Skaraborg Armoured Regiment trains on the island of Gotland in the Baltic deploy in Visby harbour, Sweden. File photo.

The Swedish government has told municipal authorities to prepare civil defense infrastructure and procedures for a possible war. The move was prompted by Sweden's return to the Cold War-era 'Total Defense Strategy'.

The instruction to ramp up preparedness for an armed conflict was sent to municipal security chiefs by the Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), an authority operating under the Defense Ministry and tasked with civil protection, public safety, emergency management and civil defense.

"This places a high demand on... operational speed, decision making, information sharing, crisis communication, flexibility, robustness and handling secret information," the letter says, according to Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD), as cited by the Local.

The instruction follows the revival of the 'totalförsvarsplaneringen' - or Total Defense Strategy - which states that defending the nation from foreign aggression should involve economic and civilian measures in addition to military ones. The decision, announced in December last year, was explained by a "worsening international situation" and "increased uncertainty in the immediate area."

"What is new is that the security situation in our region has deteriorated and that therefore we must prepare ourselves in terms of war and of conflict. This strategy is not new, we used it during the Cold War and will now strengthen coordination regarding civil defense."

The MSB insists that the preparations do not imply that Sweden is about to go to war.

"There is nothing to indicate that war is likely, but we have the government's mandate to plan for it," MSB spokesman Svante Werger told the newspaper.

Some of the security heads responsible for carrying out the instructions told SvD that the government plan was unrealistic and that they were still not sure how it would be financed.

For several years Sweden has been pointing the finger at Russia to justify higher defense spending, occasionally seeing signs of aggression in issues that have nothing to do with the Russian military.

Comment: Sweden is preparing for something even though for them Russia is low on the radar: Swedish Prime Minister: Russia poses no direct threat to Sweden

Update 12/17/16: The following article from the Telegraph expands upon this story, and how US-inspired social engineering and psy-ops works in their war against Russia.

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"What is new is that the security situation in our neighbourhood has worsened, and that we must therefore make preparations regarding the threat of war and conflict."

The letter said that the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKL) had agreed to oversee the preparations, and would work over the coming year with MSB and the Swedish Armed Forces to work out more details of municipalities' duties.

These include developing a plan to maintain and upgrade emergency bunkers across the country, many of which have been sold or allowed to fall into disrepair.

"Operations centres in bunkers need to continue to be held in ready reserve. In special cases, decommissioning or sale can take place, but first there must be a dialogue between MSB and the local region," the letter warned.

Sweden's government decided to bring back civil defence last year as part of its defence policy for 2016 to 2020.

"There is nothing to suggest that war is likely, but we have been given an order from the government to plan for it," Svante Werger, the press officer for MSB, told the Sydsvenskan newspaper.

The letter has provoked complaints from some municipalities that they have insufficient information on what is required and have not been provided with the necessary funding.

Jonas Hult, head of Safety and Security for the city of Malmö, told Sydsvenskan that the city still had no plans on how to distribute protective masks, vaccines, or petrol, or on how to direct people to bunkers and shelters in the event of an attack.

"Increasing war-readiness costs money, and it's money municipalities do not have," he said. "It's unfortunate that the municipalities have been left in the lurch."

In 2013, the Russian air force conducted a mock nuclear strike against Sweden during war games which saw a contingent of Russian aircraft approach Swedish airspace after crossing the Gulf of Finland.

This was one of several examples of dummy nuclear attacks against Nato and its allies in recent years, according to a Nato report.

War games run by the Rand Corporation, a US defence think tank, have predicted the Russian army could be in the Baltic capitals of Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius in less than three days.

NATO and pathologic think tanks like Rand are just hysteria-making machines that seek to manifest the realities they dream up out of thin air...