Europe?

Germany is the current power house in Europe and it seems like there are wishes that Sweden should help Greece to help Germany out in the Eurozone. How about investing this money in Britain instead? They are a little short right now.

Checks and Balances?

In the Afterword of The End of History and the Last Man from 2006 I find a possible reason for the 2011 book of Fukuyama called The Origins of Political Order. Fukuyama says that what is missing is a treatise that deals with the political development devoid of economic concerns. My humble question is if this really is possible? Probably as a research project. As Gideon Rachman points out in today’s column the political system needs a fix in the US. Or does it? Isn’t the battle between Republicans and Democrats that is ongoing the cradle of a new solution to the deadlock and America’s problems? Rachman says that left to themself either D or R can solve the problem. The problem seems to be whether the US is going in a European direction or if it is going to become more “American”. The crucial point here is that it can’t do both. The Americans have to decide which they are going to choose. My guess is that the debt crisis in Europe is going to give the Republicans an edge. The Americans are currently feeling out the new multipolar world. Obama’s potential doctrine from Anne-Marie Slaughter with the US as the most connected country that everybody wants to talk to might not have materialized, although I liked the idea. This would mean we are back to balance of power.

I listened to Carl Bildt’s Sommar program on the radio on Sunday. It is interesting to find the only foreign political statement in Swedish media in the entertainment section. Outlining Sweden’s interests he pictured a unified Europe as the vehicle of Sweden. In my current judgment he was a little too optimistic on Europe. Then he painted a grand importance of the Balkans and Afghanistan way out of their importance globally. Towards the end of the program though he said important things like that science is going to solve many of our problems with environment etc. He radiated a positive view on the world and was very nationalistic. He called Swedish the language of honor and heroes. A good foreign minister could thus be excused. It could be contrasted with the American “the land of the free and the home of the brave”. The Swedish is definitely more Hegelian. Freedom is more important than honor and all brave people are not necessarily heroes. If Bildt is more German than Anglo-American, he will become disappointed over that Germany is not going to jeopardize its economy by saving the Euro which is the most probable outcome of the current situation.

What happens if the US pulls out of NATO?

The US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gave a talk recently that has been commented today by Gideon Rachman on his FT.com column. Jan Kallberg also writes on his blog about the change in US preferences "after" the war on terrorism. Kallberg says that nuclear weapons are going to make a comeback.

What we observe now is a US that might lower their defense costs a bit and a Europe that is substantially lowering theirs. China is significantly increasing their costs yearly. This obviously reflects how these different power centers view the global risks and the projection of global power. Although I think that the difference in risk taking within NATO is more severe than the actual amounts the countries are contributing, I am not sure why the European countries downplay military risks in this fashion when the economically booming China is thinking otherwise. China is apparently not content with economical weaponry.

Kallberg argues that what is going to become important is the actual military capability. If the European countries cannot even keep up a fight in Libya for a few weeks, as Gates pointed out, there is no capability. So if NATO falls, Europe will be dangerously alone. A country like Sweden would have problems paying for the benefit of being under the US nuclear umbrella and in practice be without defense. I hate to bring this up in this apparently risk-free era but I simply do not trust Russia.

Tony Blair pointed out the other day that the EU for the sake of power should join the US to defend Western values. He also said that he advocated for an elected EU president to minimize the democratic deficit, although he did not see this as realizable but spoke of it as a goal. The president he discussed should not be above the national heads of states in this case. I think it is statesman-like to speak up for the West in light of the above discussion. It is highly reasonable.

However, reasonable or not it does not seem to reflect what is happening even if the EU could need common views on common problems these days of debt problems and polarity in the future of an ever closer union. Proponents against military matching with the US probably say that we can't do much in Libya or Syria anyhow. The fact remains though that a country that crash Iraq in a matter of days has a different leverage on events given a unified West that is not divided on itself.

Returning to the reason for why Europe does not spend much on military defense, it may be very difficult to invade EU with soldiers. However, if nuclear weapons will be in vogue a country like Iran would want to get some and can thus threaten the EU with severe damage, something the EU might have to act upon. If European countries run out of munitions after a few weeks, it would seem like a coordinated raid to eliminate a nuclear threat from Iran would be highly hypothetical?

The Global Position?

I see that some people claim that they are global liberals or that Sweden is a global country. Is this an escape from the real people "verklighetens folk"? I must admit I feel a little guilty myself but the question is what such a stratification does to a country. The global postion is a little fuzzy.

As I noted before, the Libya debacle is a case in point. Swedes and Danes share the same base in Italy but do not do the same job and Germany is not doing anything. This is examples of different penetration of the stratification problem.

As a global liberal it is necessary to take a strand for helping the so called rebels in Libya which means you get in trouble supporting Germany's new anti-nuclear line as the path forward for Europe especially when you get 40% of your electricity from nuclear power. Again it is possible to escape as a global liberal with global values but such values are theoretical. They don't exist in reality in a country. I wonder if calling Sweden a global country is not the same as declaring it neutral in all conflicts and keeping one's options open? Saying that we do what the EU does is not true either. We are not even part of the euro-zone.

Then again how homogenous is the global position. Is it the position of global peace? Or the position of global finance? Is it the defunct G20? Jeffrey D. Sachs suggested the world should be divided into self-sustaining regions instead of a G20 mechanism where the regions take care of economical and security questions. Our region would then be the Nordic countries. Some 25m people. Since Norway is not part of the EU and Sweden and Finland not part of NATO we are not even ready to take care of our immediate environment.

With our language education we are part of the Anglo-American culture domain. But apart from security issues, Great Britain and the US are not so close anymore. Germany just took a path that seemed unpalatable for Sweden and thus an ever closer Union does not look potentially good right now, which is what is necessary to save the Euro. You see, neutrality politics becomes tempting again.

Where is the future forming right now? 1523 when Gustaf Vasa got financial help from Lübeck to take back Stokholm from the Danes and then help to organize Sweden saw a development where Holland slowly took over control from Lübeck and thus formed the Western civilization with England during the 16th and 17th centuries. Sweden became on their own then from their benefactor, independence, but did not get part of the real action until later. Are we doing the same mistake today?

The Swedish Independence Day?

2005 they decided to make the 6th of June an official holiday in Sweden. A little nationalism in exchange for a religious holiday called Annandag Pingst.

Gustaf Vasa was crowned on 6th of June 1523 and made Sweden into a unified country. He introduced Protestantism 1527 and 1536 there was a meeting in Uppsala where the religion was formally changed. Gustaf Vasa used this change to enrich himself on behalf of the Catholic Church and paid back debts to the Hansa town Lübeck which had helped him gain power. He used German advisers to reorganize the country between 1538 to 1543 and made Sweden a kingdom based on heredity in 1544.

Gustaf Vasa was not a renaissance man but an organizational genius. Another well-known Swede, a man of the people, that has characterized himself as an unconcerned poet that wanted happy people around him dancing in an opulent nature is Evert Taube, the most famous Swedish troubadour. Gustaf Vasa did leave one important trace the Nordic ski race, the worlds largest, but Evert Taube has left many more. He is the great romanticizer of the Swedish archipelago and it's cult day Midsummer.

I myself have reached a point in my life where I try to figure out who I am and I have realized that Evert Taube gives me some clues. I got some of his songs from iTunes today to refresh my memory. Evert Taube was born on the lighthouse island Vinga not far from where I live and since I spend many summers of my youth in the Göteborg archipelago I definitely feel having roots in the simplicity and frugality of this environment.

However, my father emigrated to the US and became an English Professor in a small Wisconsin town called Menomonie which I visited first time 15 years old. My father and I used to listen to Evert Taube songs in their kitchen and I therefore have feelings of home in the small American town as well. Working almost ten years in Philadelphia later made me indifferent and for non-national reasons I ended up back in the Göteborg archipelago. Politics had not been important in my life.

After having become a new kind of prisoner, with an artificially lowered intellect as the result of some kind of arbitrary judgment, I became very interested in the political history of the US. Today I am probably more American than Swedish. Standing up for freedom and individualism rather than for peace is the most probable discriminator. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not more American than my two American-born children.

Unsustainable?

Something is unsustainable in the West as this word is being used more and more. However, Sweden is currently having a growth of 6,4% during the first quarter 2011 with some of the highest taxes on Earth. It should be mentioned that the OECD ranking of GDP growth in Sweden is going to fall during the upcoming years.

The health care spending in the US is twice as expensive per capita as the one in Sweden and some say that it is on the average not of the same quality, even if the US has the sharpest health care in the world. The Republican Congress is presently not raising the debt ceiling of the nation. Some say that instead of pondering the size of the ceiling they should balance the budget. There seems to be a general consensus that expenditures rather than revenue, or taxes, should be considered.

Perhaps it is a little frustrating that the Nordic way does not ring any bells at all in the US. What is perhaps of great interest is why this is so. I have not calculated on this but my gut feeling is that is would not be possible to lower costs and fund a balancing of the US budget. Taxes have to be raised.

So we are talking about cultural differences where Sweden seems to be a posh suburb of the US and that a comparison straight off country by country is not really possible. A surplus country like Sweden also fared better during the financial crisis that highly leveraged deficit countries like the US and the UK.

It would be interesting to know whether the US or Sweden scores best on innovation per capita? I don't have that comparison but if Sweden was to score better there should be an argument for the US following Sweden's lead. However, if the US scores better Sweden have to ask themselves if contributing to the top class innovation of the world is not more important that living poshly. Is living standard more important than contribution to progress?

Swedish weapon export to dictatorships?

There seems to be a move towards blocking Swedish weapon export to dictatorships because the governing parties have a similar view as the social democrats. A while ago I commented on the path that Sweden was to take in positioning themselves internationally. The old peace path seems likely despite a short stint in Libya which the social democrats have been intent to stop.

The free world has weapon production for defending themselves which depends on proficiency in science. This production depends on the sale of certain weapons that are not the cutting edge and that you don't fear yourself. Without this sale your security bill is going to become much higher and the competitiveness of the industry is going to be weaker.

I see nothing wrong in selling arms to dictatorships. However, as I commented on earlier I have problems with partnerships with dictatorships. Blocking sale of weapons when other NATO allies are doing this is an unfortunate moralizing event.

The First Modern Dictatorship

Reading The Origins of Political Order from 2011 by Francis Fukuyama. I'm not through the book yet but Fukuyama describes China in a fashion that makes it very easy to see what situation they are in today.

The first modern dictatorship in the world was apparently the Han dynasty, approximately 200 BC to 200 AD. This state was formed after a period of intense warfare which could have been the reason for why the Chinese decided to leave their kin-ships and accept the loss of freedom that a strong state meant. Since then there has not been any rule of law or accountability for the people in China. Today they are just operating such a state with modern technology. It has always been a lot of people relatively speaking in China, due to the rice that lets more people live on a given lot of land. The Chinese have learned how to manage large populations. Occasionally these empires breaks down, what Fukuyama calls patrimonialisation, ie the core family and extended family takes precedent again.

I have earlier written that I believe that the Chinese and those who they inspire are on a different track that does not lead towards democracy as we speak of it in Europe and the US. Fukuyama's book seems to confirm this suspicion. We therefore probably have to live with suspicious Russians and infamous Chinese to take over our car industry. If we don't drop it instead.

If I was doing research in ethics, I might wonder if it is possible to work in collaboration with the Chinese? If not corporate culture would be too different? It is one thing to buy things from the Chinese and to sell them our goods. However, it would all depend on where Sweden is heading. I haven't seen that poll but it would interest me to know what the Swedes believe is the future governing system on Earth. Europe, by the way, according to Fukuyama, developed socially before they developed politically which is unique and which contributed to our modern liberal democracy. We treasure rule of law and accountability.

A land of peace or a land for peace?

I recently argued that Sweden might return to their old neutrality politics because of their peaceful attitude. In Sweden the US is probably seen as a warring nation. However, here is an interesting statistic.

Sweden feature two important political assassinations. The prime minister Olof Palme in 1986 and the foreign minister Anna Lindh in 2003, both Social Democrats. There are 33 times more people in the US which would mean that we would assume that we would find about 67 political assassinations in the US, all things equal.

The assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King and now Gabrielle Gifford, who is actually showing some vital signs, amount to only four. So, although crime rates are higher in the US, they don't seem to attack their politicians to the same degree.

Midterm elections in the US

Read Johan Norberg's, Swedish intellectual and writer, book on happiness, Den Eviga Matchen om Lyckan, this week-end. I enjoyed the narrative on happiness through the times from Aristotle although I don't share the idea of Norberg's competition between Aristotle and Jesus. He suggests that Thomas Aquinas might have had problems of knowing whether God or Aristotle was the greatest and that this might have contributed to his untimely death. I happen to believe that the unique combination of Christianity and the learning from the Antique was what made Europe. According to Francis Bacon Man should subdue Nature which I believe might have been instrumental along with the notion that this is possible with gun powder, the compass and the movable type.

I believe that it is possible to argue that individualism is supported by the happiness concept though. It is rather self-evident that it is easier to accomodate people's idea of what is valuable by securing for the individual to self-actualize his life. Communitarianism does not really exist because there is no "public mind" it is always and indivudual, a leader, that gives his account of the community wish, followers.

Norberg, however, seems to be a little disappointed that the research available from positive psychology is not leading to a development of liberalism. He concludes that Thomas Jefferson was right all along when he claimed that it is the actual pursuit of happiness that matters and not happiness itself. Rather the development of political philosophy since John Rawls seems to have abandoned the happiness of utilitarianism for justice and citizen ship theory. Indeed justice is a core value in positive psychology also believed to be of great importance in the psychology of religion.

What has become then of the religion-like campaign of Obama a couple of years ago. It seems to have been overtaken by another religion-like phenomenon where the Bible has been replaced by the US Constitution. People want America back and this is manifested by reverence of the Constitution as Ginna Lindberg, the US correspondent for the Swedish Radio, pointed out the other day. The Tea Party movement has succeeded in rallying people to the degree that the House of Representatives will fall to the Republicans and perhaps also the Senate as most pundits seem to think.

The reason for this is partly that a gloom, not happiness, has settled over US after the financial crisis. I finally found an article in Foreign Affairs (Nov-Dec 2010) that laid down a more sensible prediction about the future for the US as absolutely quite OK even if the relative power is going down as Asia is rising to the occasion. A lost Midterm election is historically the most likely outcome for the sitting president and most people give Obama the benefit of the doubt. My feeling is that he will return to grace, after all he has leveled out on a 45% approval rating, as the economy is improving because there is no single personality with a strong enough program to challenge him among the Republicans.

It remains to be seen whether a republican House of Representatives is going to affect the Afghanistan war? The Swedes recently made up their mind with a broad consensus position of phasing out the combat mission for a support ditto in 2014 just as Hillary Clinton writes a long article in Foreign Affairs (Nov-Dec 2010) about the need for more diplomacy and development aid. A positive outcome from the Afghanistan mission might however require more combat to maintain a status quo as long as needed for establishing stability which might take some time.

China's next leader will again be an engineer

In Sweden and in the US politicians are rarely engineers whereas Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping, who is likely to take over after Mr Hu in 2012, both are. Engineers make things and calculate things but are not generally known to be social agents. Xi Jinping is not as young either as the current leaders seem to be in the US, Britain and Sweden. One would rather think that lawyers and political scientists, if anything, would make political careers now and then.

Mr Xi ended up on the country side during the Culture Revolution and had to do physical work. With this experience he is probably a person that is all set for at least part of the Western paradigm of developing technology and science. As a Communist Party member since 1979 he is probably steeped in one-party lore, however. There is nothing as refreshing as healthy opposition.

I'm trying to get a feeling for if China will have as a goal the next 15 years or so to catch up with the US economically or if they rather want to develop their country and get rid of all the poverty. After all, it is quite a feat to have gotten rid of so much poverty already as they have. Europe would have to have developed Africa for mobilizing an equal number of people. It would be nice if they incorporated themselves into the world economy by floating their currency as today's column in The Financial Times points out. They are not that poor any longer.

I think this is the problem with China right now. It is difficult to see what they are up to internationally. Will they try to export state capitalism or will they move towards democracy. I can't help thinking about what is required of a Western democratic state. General virtues like courage, law-abidingness, and loyalty. Social virtues like independence, open-mindedness. Economic virtues like work ethic, capacity to delay self-gratification and adaptability to economic and technological change. Political virtues like the capacity to discern and respect the rights of other's, willingness to demand only what can be paid for, ability to evaluate the performance of those in office and a willingness to engage in public discourse.

What they seem to lack most is the ability to question authority which is important for monitoring elected officials and perhaps to elect them in the first place. They might be low on the social virtues as well. The question then is how important this difference is? Will the difference just mean that the Chinese will not reach so high salaries, something that will make state capitalism competitive relative the West?

The Western society evolves thanks to individualism that all the time reaches into the unknown and casts old ways to the side. China has imported a lot of know how over the last decades but will they stagnate relative the West due to lack of individualism? Or has individualism had its day in the history of man and that nowadays "armies" move on each problem like building a computer inexpensively. I don't think so. Focus on the individual with due respect for his or hers collective will still win the day in search for the unknown. While I'm at it, I would also vouch for freedom of thought.

Multiculturalism in Europe?

Muddle through seems to be typically European on important issues such as whether or not the EU should be federal or member states should have the most say. The latest in this debate is apparently that the EU is seeking to secure its own revenue. Perhaps we will come to see the EU against the member states?

Another muddle through issue is that of multiculturalism vs pure racial delight. Germany is hotly debating how to select one or the other of continuing immigration of skilled labor for the obvious need thereof or if the conclusion of Merkel's comment of a failed multiculturalism attempt will mean end of immigration. Germany is now actually a net emigration country.

In Sweden people seem to debate what Merkel meant with her comment. It is true that Germany have given citizenships based on blood links and prevented Turks from gaining citizenship, sometimes all the way to the third generation. On the other hand, there are 3,000 mosques in Germany. With the Swedish experience where multiculturalism also have failed, if Merkel is right, because we are seeing an anti-foreigner active party entering the Riksdag. So what is Merkel saying when tightening integration probably will not work, since Sweden have tried that? On top of this it seems like the Swedes are more tolerant to foreigners.

Angela Merkel went to Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey for help in ordinating language training for her Turkish speaking prospective Germans. The same Erdogan had given a speech in Germany to 15,000 Turks, in Turkish, where he said that they should not integrate (help is on the way?). Erdogan had however now agreed to language training for Turkish immigrants. A change of hearts? Germany is against Turkish EU membership so this is a possible negotiation point.

In other words Germany is behind in the nation-building of a liberal multicultural state and we should perhaps focus on our own problem to reach the front. What is it that makes people start getting nervous when the foreigner count reaches 5-10%? It is not rational. There is no possible reason to fear that an ethnocultural minority will take over in Sweden, even if the foreigner count doubles. It is also apparently the case that most Western democracies experience that ethnocultural minorities actually benefit from keeping cultural attributes when they integrate rather than demanding total assimilation which is not reasonable to require for all immigrants.

In any case, critics of multiculturalism nowadays apparently claim that the stability of the democracy is threatened. What I have heard from the Sweden Democrats is that they also think there is an economic cost from immigration. In other words they are against foreign aid. People like Will Kymlicka believe that stability is actually enhanced because of minority rights given to ethnocultural minorities. Experience also shows that loyalty to the nation state is not affected negatively by minority rights of the type that does not infringe on standard liberal values.

The language question, raised by Merkel, is interesting from the point of view of the US which perhaps is the country that separates state from ethnicity the most by not having a constitutional national language requirement. Apparently it was arranged from the beginning that English speaking people always where in the majority in each region.

But most people learn the language and still group themselves ethnically based on dual language skills. People get help from other immigrants from the home country and this must mean that they are aided in their integration. Apparently this does not work as well in Europe. People differ in their attitudes. But let us hope that we will not have the same problem in Europe as we had in the 17th century between Protestants and Catholics with the current ethnocultural and religious problems.

All these problems are tightly linked to the position of the woman in the family and the work place. The only party that actively brings up the integrity of the old core family in Sweden now is the Christian Democrats which is in crisis due to being the smallest party in the polls with a falling trend in memberships and voters. I have gotten the feeling, and also from my own experience, that the traditional families are slowly braking up based on other organizational parameters in the current society. This development could have beneficial effects on the integration issue even if the civil society will necessarily take an other blow with unknown consequences from this historical phenomenon.

Why it is not 1935

Well, it seems like Ian Buruma is speculating in the possibility that we are facing a new 1935 situation where the aggression this time is towards the Muslims in his debate article in Dagens Nyheter called Därför hatar frihetens fiender liberalismen or This is why the enemies of freedom hate liberalism today. I must however admit that the non-timely exit of the Sweden Democrats from the sermon prior to the opening of the Swedish Riksdag the other day made me feel for the first time that the problem of alienation towards foreigners is going to really become a problem.

Helle Klein, former political editor at the social democratic paper Aftonbladet and priest, says in her blog that a preacher must take sides as he or she preaches. The general problem with this approach is that the priest then might only speak to half the congregation if she is not the battalion priest. Even if this might not have been the case above where bishop Eva Brunne, a social democrat, made the Sweden Democrats irritated enough to leave because she referred to a meeting the day before where violent left activists had been present. These people regularly harass the Sweden Democrats when they stage meetings on town.

Strangely enough Buruma does not bring up Thilo Sarrazin, the former German central bank board member and social democrat (SPD) that published a book recently that became more popular than the politically correct might have whished. In other words the anti-Muslim ideas are not only a right-wing problem. In fact the Sweden Democratic Party got votes from all parties and can perhaps more correctly be called a party of discontents than far right even if they have troublesome roots in neonazism.

Will the unpopularity of Muslims and the fear of Islam lead to fascistic methods to rid Sweden of such believers? I really hope not because as Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish Prime Minister, said in his speech to the Riksdag a few days ago they have contributed to the prosperity of our nation and I would add that they don't have a "home" to go back to in general. There are however methods today that makes the possibility of coerced returns a grim possibility. A risk that could be averted by more transparency into the matter.

Well, it is not 1935 because of the EU. Therefore continued collaboration between the member states is of essence. One question, however, that I wonder if it does not have to be formally addressed is what will happen when some states do much better than others in the EU? Territorial gains are not possible but will aid to other nations lead to something like influence? I guess this is why Germans now feel that they have paid enough. We are facing a development stage in the EU where people are not mature enough for federalization but no mechanisms exist for handling different tracks of development. This could lead to problems.

Member states versus the EU?

It is interesting to note that the only area where the EU has some clout is in economy where they have the Euro and it is in this area where people now start to talk about a "Currency War". Apparently all major players, and a few others, are trying to lower their currencies relative others and most of all people want China to raise theirs to perhaps 20% undervalued renminbi according to The Financial Times.

The meeting between China and the EU the last few days was not a success. Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, in principle asked the EU to stop bothering them about the renminbi. There would be problems in China in terms of stability if all the Chinese companies would be let to go bust if the renminbi was to be raised. These are important matters since the EU is China's largest trade partner. China prefers to deal bilaterally with individual countries though, which is something they can't do with the Euro.

As people that read this blog might have noticed, I'm very interested in what will happen with EU in the future. Will the member states dominate or will things become more "federal". Furthermore, in an article on the euobserver.com site today they discuss that small countries in general are angry with the larger EU countries because they play national games rather than union ones. In other words if Germany push for something this would be inherently wrong, which is of course not true in general.

Drift into oblivion! This is the fate of the EU if they don't federalize according to some people. Others say that they don't see any problems and that the member states will dominate. Would Wen Jiabao have visited if it wasn't for the Euro and how about the American analysis that the Euro would crash if there wasn't a federalization taking place? The editorial of Göteborgs Posten today calls for an entry into the Euro zone for Sweden. Will Sweden and Britain remain on the side of the Continent?

David Cameron, the steward of the ship Britannica, held his first major speech yesterday. The debate in Britain today is very interesting because they have what some would call an existential struggle going on where Cameron tried but failed, according to The Financial Times, to push for what he calls a "Big Society". Apparently he was not asking the Brits for help but rather made a "call to arms". A Debt War, I guess!

The idea of the Big Society is simple. Replace the state with efforts from the civic society but according to The Times it is not the same old small state talk but rather a new form of caring-for-each-other version of the civic society. That makes Cameron a little like a priest of society. His big moment so far is supposed to be as an architect of the coalition with the LibDems. Fredrik Reinfeldt has had bad luck with the financial crisis so far but now faces a more complicated governing situation where his leadership skills will be challenged in a new fashion. Having a better financial situation than his friend in Britain, he still faces the same existential problems in principle.

Britain and Sweden in the world?

The Hindu : Columns / Hasan Suroor : Britain: redefining its global status: "Indeed, there is a growing view that Britain must now abandon its search for a post-Raj role and learn to live by the new world order in which those it once governed are the new masters. But, in refusing to read the writing on the wall, old colonial powers can be like ageing ballerinas who are often reluctant to acknowledge that their glory days are over and time has come for them to leave the stage before push comes to shove."

The columnist in question is giving Britain a beating for having been imperialistic. It is interesting reading. I get a feeling we have enemies out there. However, India and China are developing from partly the same paradigm that was created in England and Scotland during the 17th and 18th centuries. Furthermore, there is a sense that India, in this case, is beating from a position where the full country with all its poverty is in the same shape as Britain's. They are not!

The question is if India and China will be the "new masters"? The West and India is about them same number of people. I think it would be nice of India would develop into an equal partner but its becoming a new master is rather far fetched. The column brings about the question if India and China can rule by dividing? If they can single out country by country and finish them off without the rest of the West reacting? Is NATO hereby getting a new meaning? A new role where economic security would be more in focus?

Hostile attitudes like the one above could act as a unifying agent on the EU and on the trans-Atlantic relationship. Another effect might be just on Britain's choice of junior partner with the US or member of the EU. This choice will have historic meaning. Another fate for the states of Europe might be to end up as the neutral-bent Sweden. Sweden's rhetoric has however been lately rather "we the EU". The word is still out on the effect of the debt crisis. Will it federalize or divide Europe or will EU just muddle through with part of the state affairs in common custody? Will Europe be left alone?

The Swedish role in the world?

Tallyho! Hunting for a British role - The Globe and Mail: "It’s been nearly 50 years since U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson whipped up a storm by saying Britain had lost an empire but not yet found a role. Role hunting has been a British sport ever since. Tallyho! goes up the cry, every time they have a new government, and off they gallop, led by the prime minister and the foreign secretary. The fox usually gets away in the end – and Britain sinks back into doing whatever it does."

Timothy Garton Ash complains in his way on the problem for a 60m country to have a say here on Earth as we speak. What does Sweden then have to say in the world with its 9m people, 2% of the population of the EU? Some people in Sweden talks nostalgically about "Stormakts Sverige", the time when Swedish kings like Gustavus Adolphus foraged around in Europe for fame and glory while ruining their country. The king in question died the same year as Baruch Spinoza and John Locke were born, by the way. The Social Democrats in Sweden introduced a pacifistic bent where Sweden represented the World Conscience.

The Social Democrat Ulf Bjereld made his dissertation on something as esoteric as a Swedish Middle East Policy and interestingly the current foreign minister Carl Bildt is fairly in line with the Social Democrats on these issues where he is more American on others as the Turkish question. It is interesting to note, by the way, that Germany's energy company RWE has shown interest in the Russian Turkey avoiding South Stream pipeline negotiated by Gerhard Schröder over the Nabucco ditto, despite a double cost estimate.

Considering Garton Ash's role search above, is it possible for Sweden to find a new path from the World Conscience one of the Social Democrats? I personally find the World Conscience one very unsatisfactory because it disregards power. If you want democracy to reign supreme it's wise to, like Britain, play a role as a firm supporter of the US. I'm surprised Garton Ash is not referring to this role? Carl Bildt is trying a new way in between Britain and Old Sweden: having relationships with powers you might not dislike and still work for democracy in other ways. I guess the power Poles and Swedes don't like is Russia, but as we just discussed, keep a relationship--and let Germany do the power thing.

Stand by your Man, Garton Ash!

State sponsored Ship-to-Gaza flotilla challenges Israel

Skepp fullastade med charlataner - Debatt - Expressen.se: "I likhet med sina medorganisatörer liknar Mankell Hamas terrorister vid antinazistiska motståndsrörelser och Israel vid det nazistiska Tyskland"

Caroline B. Glick, from the Jerusalem Post via Expressen gives an interesting background to the attempt to land 8 ships with aid in Gaza and thus break the blockade Israel is doing on Hamas' criminal ruling of Gaza that in all probability aims to attack Israel anew. Hamas is against the existence of Israel and instead of building a peaceful commune with foreign aid they three years ago started to turn Gaza into a rocket ramp.

This is probably an attempt to generate an international response against Israel like the one after Operation Cast Lead where Israel lost a lot of its political capital although they had the right to defend themselves. There is now, as there was then many Israelis that want the blockade to end. However, as long as the government stands I think they should determine what the best course of action to take on Israel's security is.

According to shiptogaza.se Carl Bildt, the foreign minister of Sweden, and Caroline Ashton, EU's High representative, have supported ending the blockade. Having an opinion is one thing but causing trouble for the Israeli government I guess is another. As Lady Ashton recently visited Gaza, two rockets were fired on Israel one of which killed an Israeli.

It is going to be interesting to see what the impact is of the new National Security Dotrine of the US. Because the US are going to deal with Europe country by country and think the EU can be good for aiding the Eastern European countries. It remains to be seen what influence the opinions of the high representative will have in the future. Peter Wolodarski writes today on DN.se about the importance of EU for the international voice of Sweden. I would not be surprised if the voice of Sweden alone is not more influential than that of Lady Ashton's.

The absolute basis for a foreign policy?

It is with deep worries that I read of the Red-Green change in their foreign policy and it is my sincere hope that the Allians wins the election in September. Based on the information in the media I have discussed the prospects in Afghanistan thoroughly, which might have sounded critical at times, but in the end I back Obama's ambitions for other reasons.

If you want to build a foreign policy, I guess you start out by defining what countries you want to be specially friendly to. People in Sweden seem to be very fast in complaining on the US but they don't dare to say anything negative about Germany or Russia. Especially Germany.

When the trans-Atlantic balance is wobbly and Germany challenged the US after the financial crisis, people in Sweden have become even more German. This might have resulted in the shift in Red-Green policy. I have a feeling that the Germanophilia is nothing you talk about, for old historic carefulness reasons sake, which make the policy close in on the old neutrality nerves and kum-ba-yah peace movement instead.

Being for a development of the Club Baltic does not have to mean becoming anti-American. For me anti-Americanism equals being against human progress. The political, scientific and cultural leadership that emanates from across the Atlantic is worth admiring. It is possible to criticize America for this and that but as a country go out and demand that they should change their security doctrine is utterly wrong.

It has become old fashion to bring up the fact that American security thinking has kept Europe in general and Sweden in particular out of trouble from the brutal Soviet Union expansionist rule over the years. Russia is brushing off Stalin as a strongman that conquered Nazi Germany and has reinstated the public worship of armory in motion on that old Red Square. Red from blood of some 40m victims of Stalin's executions.

American scientists have lately made progress in understanding how life is maintained and it should be remembered that Stalin's Soviet Union threw modern biology and genetics in the vast paper bin via Lysenko's ideas. The only science that flourished in the Soviet Union was that of the weapons industry and space, which is closely linked to missile development. I don't see life develop in Russia of today and as I have said it would be a great disappointment if Club Baltic development led to reprisals against human progress.

Yes, it is possible to become a monk and say that there should be peace on Earth. From a global perspective this is however not possible. The bad guys would take over the business. We see this taking place in failing states such as Somalia, North Korea, Afghanistan and God forbid Pakistan. It is necessary to stand tall against such threats. Sweden seems to confront a more important election than I originally thought it would. The difference between an anti-American Sweden and a Sweden that would move too fast into the sustainable society versus a more sensible and balanced Sweden is grand.

Friends of the US?

America is not a country. It is an idea. Said the Irish born Bono of U2. As a friend of the US, I found the following poll interesting. A Gallup Poll demonstrates the response to the question "Do you approve or disapprove of the job performance of the leadership of the United States?"

It turns out that sub-Saharan countries are the most friendly to the US. 80-94% of people approve on the question from about twenty such countries that top the list. It might be fair to say that the US is winning the hearts and minds here against China?

In the group from 21 to 40th place you find Japan, UK, Canada, and Denmark with 66%, 64%, 63% and 61% approval, respectively.

In the group from 41-60th place you find Germany, France and Brazil with 57%, 52% and 48% approval, respectively.

In the group from 61 to 80th place you find Sweden on the 76th position with 42% approval and 27% disapproval together with countries like Czech Republic, Bolivia, Uzbekistan and Nicaragua.

On the last polled position #110 you find Pakistan with 9% approval and 68% disapproval which of course is important in terms of the prospects in the AfPak war. Starting schools in Pakistan to slowly change the opinions must be an uphill endeavour.

It is not strange to find out, like we did yesterday, that the parties half of Sweden supports, the Red-Greens, want to demand that countries in which the US have bases send the troops home.

Dramatizing Europe

EUobserver / Barroso says German calls for treaty change are 'naive': "Referring to the German trade surplus of €134 billion, the commission president asked: 'Does the German public know that nearly 86 percent of these 134 billion, i.e., 115 billion, comes from trade in the EU?'"

This an interesting piece of information, if true, it seems a little high. It seems like this can be interpreted to mean that Germany's export is generating the deficits and debts of Southern Europe? These countries borrow to their public expenses while they consume German products. Now Germany wants these countries to cut their public expenses to be able to maintain their import of German goods? Barroso is against hard measures for Southern Europe.

Another interesting parameter of the debt crisis is that France's finance minister Christine Lagarde and a prominent German economist that I overheard on the Swedish radio says that there is no euro crisis. Because the lowering of the Euro value relative the US dollar and the Chinese renminbe facilitates German export to these countries. China exports more to EU than the US and is apparently worried about decreased competitiveness because of this.

Perhaps Obama that called Merkel that €750bn night for her to make up her mind also was worried that US competitiveness in Europe would go down. The US has longstanding claims on China for running an overvalued currency. Barroso says that the crisis has been good for Germany and I guess this is an additional reason to those delineated in his interview in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung today.

Germany is Sweden's largest export nation and we would not like an euro that falls relative the krona either. However, Sweden would probably benefit from a strong and 'free' Germany that checks Russian power in the North East of Europe. If the moral from the above is that this development now rest on bleeding Southern Europe dry and suffering, causing undue societal unrest and tensions, such a wish might not be optimal.