Scandinavia reawakens in a post-American world

Hey everyone, Peter Zeihan here coming to you from doubtful sound. And in this next in our series of regional geopolitics in a post American world, I want to talk about Northern Europe, specifically the Scandinavian region. Now, this is an area that has been fractured by history and you got islands, you’ve got peninsulas you’ve got de facto city states. But while they have been powerful in the past, they’ve kind of been sleeping for the last 300 years. And during the Cold War, in the post cold war era, it’s been fractured into a number of different governments. But I think the best way to think about this is not so much a collection of countries, but a family of Vikings are getting to know each other again, the original Vikings were the Danes and Swedes, who basically went off rated and pillaged and founded little trading depots everywhere that they went, and some of those depots eventually rose to become significant countries in themselves. Think of Riga and Latvia or Oslo in Norway or Reykjavik in Iceland. But by the time we get to the modern era, they had been broken into different spheres of influence. In the post cold war environment, however, especially now, with the Ukraine war happening, we’re seeing a changing of fortunes as these countries are rediscovering each other. And we’re already in an environment where a lot of them are considered themselves so familiar, that they already have a lot of joint embassies around the world. But if there’s one thing they’re all concerned about, it’s Russia. Denmark is the last country approaching the Baltic Sea so that if the Russians ever make a bid to get into the open ocean, they go by them. The Norwegians control the northern coastline. So they know the North Point is something they’re responsible for Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania used to be Russian colonies under the Soviet period. And Sweden is a mid sized power that was also at least smashed by Russian power three centuries ago. And only recently it has kind of emerged, or as Finland was both a Swedish territory and, and a Russian territory based on which timeframe you’re looking at. And only really became independent in official sense, in the last decade or so as it’s broken away from its fiscal integration programs, which were basically a way that the Soviets used to crush Finn’s a strategic autonomy. What we’re seeing now is this whole cluster of countries coming back together, all on the same side of the same geopolitical orientation no longer fractured by other powers. With Sweden absolutely being the center weight of all of it, it’s probably best to think of most of these countries not so much as countries, but as cities that just happen to own another swath of territory. So in the case of say, Riga, or Copenhagen, or Oslo, over half, in fact, almost three quarters of the population is in that one city. And the rest of the territory just kind of hangs on Sweden is the exception. I mean, yes, Stockholm is by far the largest, but it actually has a population populated zone in the south, that is agricultural, there are a number of cities going up and down the Baltic Sea coast. And so it is arguably as powerful if not more powerful than all of the others put together. And now that Sweden is emerging from its traditional neutrality, and starting to write its own security policies, it is going to be a major force to be reckoned with a couple of things about this region to keep in mind. Number one, it is very, very naval, because of the Baltic Sea, because of the Gulf of Bothnia. This is a zone that if they’re going to survive, they have to do so in the context of having a powerful navy to keep the temperature rivals at bay. And that means number two, it’s actually fairly easy for them to partner with other powers from out of region, assuming for the moment that those other powers are also naval. Because if they were to partner with, say, the French or the Germans who are primarily land powers, these countries would see themselves overwhelmed. They’re not just they’re just not big enough, Sweden doesn’t even have 10 million people versus say France is roughly 60. The whole region put together can’t add up to a France, much less a Germany. But if you bring in the United Kingdom, you’ve got a very different sort of power dynamic. And the United Kingdom, like the Swedes, like the Danes, like the Estonians really doesn’t want to see a single, large mega power emerge in the Eurasian or the European Space, because that would be a threat to their naval independence. And so the Brits have always gotten along spectacularly with all the Scandinavians. And now that the Swedes and the Finns are ditching neutrality, the partnership between London and these places is very strong. To a lesser degree, the United States is in the same place. Now, the United States overall is looking to slim down its security commitments moving forward. But it doesn’t take a lot of cooperation between the Americans and say, the Finns and the Swedes and the Norwegians in order to achieve some outside outcomes because all of the Scandinavians just want to maintain independence, which means they’re always going to be too degre hostile to anything that happens in Moscow and to a lesser degree continental Europe. That means for a very small price, the United States can really achieve some outsize outcomes working through some very capable partners. So we should start to think of the relationship between the Americans and the Baltics. And the Norwegians and the Scandinavians, however, you want to define the cluster, as very similar to the American relationship with Australia, a powerful creative ally that punches above its weight that’s going to do its own thing for its own reason, but which dovetails with American power moving forward. All right. That’s it for me. Catch you guys next time.