The Swedish Kings of Cyberwar
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As a countryman of Sweden, I think it's sad that we've been playing lapdog throughout history. Germany during WW2, and now the US. The article refers to much less publicized occurances, but there's also lesser stories (but important signaling) like the piratebay court cases farce.
Is Russia up next as our masters, when they want to secure their fiber pipeline?
It's in cases like this that I wish that the EU was something better than what it is. If they want to enforce such federal level supremacy, why let the US pressure individual states?
Zero pushback. There's a huge difference between respecting a larger country and aiming for amicable relations vs. being a complete doormat.
And regarding USA today:
Check the democratic peace theory -- democracies don't fight wars with each others. (Not even USA. :-) ) So it is arguably in the Swedish interest to help all democracies be as strong and informed as ever possible.
That said, I doubt the reason Sweden is such a handmaid to US interests was so philosophical, of course. Every country do realpolitik and lies shamelessly about it. We don't know what the US paid (hopefully not just bribes to Swedish politicians, old hatt/mössa style... :-) ).
Edit: These comments really jumps up/down in votes. :-)
Uh? What examples [of deposing democracies then invading when the dictator becomes too oppressive] exist after the cold war?
Edit: Point is, there was a war of influence in the cold war; dictators played Soviet/West against each others for support. E.g. South Korea and Taiwan became democratic after the cold war, to not risk being ostracized.
Also, why the limitation?
The world is slightly different after Kissinger left office (Argentina)... realpolitik is really more of a Euro-Russian thing than a US thing. Although that could change again with the new president.
In Sweden, since that is the subject, we really used to be naive and trust what we were told.
Some of the typical characteristics you saw, all the way back to before written history, is that we are group oriented and do what we were told. This made for a high trust society, which is probably what made the place work.
But no more, the society elites are really destroying this trust now.
That the democratic world supports Saudi A is an extreme example of realpolitik, of course. We need stability in that part of the world.
I would use the word "democracy" pretty loosely when it comes to Iraq.
A consistent insurgency with widespread sectarian violence and much of the Sunni population not taking part in the elections, it was hardly what anybody would deem a "democracy".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Socialist_Ba%27ath_Party_...
>In June 2003, the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority banned the Ba'ath Party, and banned all members of the party's top four tiers from the new government and from public schools and colleges, a move which some criticised for blocking too many experienced people from participating in the new government. Thousands were removed from their positions, including doctors, professors, school teachers and bureaucrats. Many teachers lost their jobs, causing protests and demonstrations at schools and universities.
Did we stop there? No!
We did the same to Libya. And if not for Russia, we'd have completed a trifecta in Syria.
But mainly Putin and his employees seem to think that it was bad to support an uprising to get rid of the previous junta in Libya (and they are probably mostly upset because Gadaffi was a good customer).
And about Syria -- how many tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of civilians have the Assad regime bombed/tortured/etc to death?! That ought to weigh heavily on Obama in the history books.
(Regarding Iraq, I do believe in that it was an honest attempt, but of course it is hard to go to a functional democracy in half a generation. The spectacular failure was extreme, of course...)
From my point of view I would agree that Libya was better off with Gaddafi. Gaddafi was negotiating a surrender with free elections but Hillary Clinton blocked it because she wanted him dead and needed to boost her foreign policy resume. She then bragged about it afterwards. Libya is unlikely to recover in a meaningful way for the duration of the modern islamic uprising - which will be a very long time.
Syria was, is, going to be a massacre either way. We are much much better off to have Assad winning. Obama's support of Al Nusra / ISIS in their fight against Syria / Russia resulted in much greater destruction, suffering and loss of life that what would have happened without Obamas help.
Why the US is pushing so hard for an economic war / proxy war / shooting war with Russia is pretty complex and out of scope for this response. But as Noam Chomsky would say; modern states maintain power either by force or by propaganda. As a democracy we get the propaganda.
To round it out; Iraq was created by the British with the intent of making an easy to control failed state. Hence why their borders make no sense. The British have a long tradition of this and are very good at it. The fact that Iraq failed and keeps failing should be of no surprise to anyone.
Edit: No references in the answer to this, as expected. (I can only blame myself for arguing with what looks like an extra account created to troll people someone don't agree with.)
(At least about modern, mainly international, politics -- what the Brits did before WWII seems quite irrelevant to anything by now.
Edit: WWII started almost 80 years ago for <vulgarity>'s sake, there is some time limit when even people in the Middle East have to stop blaming GB...)
The idea that British pre WWII history is irrelevant betrays your ignorance. Considering that Britain is the most recent world power to collapse, there is much that can be learned from them.
Also consider that we are entering a time that is quite similar to the pre-WWII era. For example; the modern hate speech laws being used against nationalist are making the nationalist more popular not less. This is basically a repeat as to what happened when Weimar Republic (Germany) used similar hate speech laws to jail the Nazis.
I comment on topics that interest me and I cycle my account on a regular basis to preserve anonymity - which, for reasons, is important to me.
The idea that time makes someone less deserving of blame is nonsensical. The idea that people should simply get over past wrongs, especially WWII, will only serve to invite repeat abuses.
It is also impractical, as past wrongs are very effective tools for propaganda and thus will be evoked whenever convenient. A good example is China use of the West's involvement in the Opium Wars to stir up anti-western sentiment. Similarly they use the Rape of Nanking to stir up anti-japanese sentiment. This is to lay the groundwork for a future war with the US. These past events are very relevant to our future. And asking them to get over it isn't going to work.
Brand new account - check.
Pushing 'Evil US vs Innocent Russia' agenda - check.
Using Syria as a pretext to whitewash Russian war crimes - check.
Welcome, tovaristch.
I consider Russia to be an oppressive, dysfunctional, dictatorial regime. It's citizens are drinking themselves to death with depression.
I am more critical of US policies for the same reason George Orwell focused his writing to be critical of the left; obvious fascism is obvious. You are probably already aware of it so there is little point in me reminding you. Perhaps I could have done a better job in letting you know that I know about Russia and Syrias shortcomings. I assumed that would have been self evident.
I'm an America loving American and consider my belief system to be a mix of Noam Chompsky, Christopher Hitchens, Ron Paul, Bertrand Russell, and Nigel Farage... which is eclectic to say the least
And do keep in mind that without the interventions in Libya and Syria, Europe would not be dealing with the immigration crisis it's facing now.
The consensus is that the Assad junta is responsible for much more death/torture than even ISIS. They have the ability to use barrel bombs and artillery on civilians.
And I do think you know both points above.
So each elected government gets to negotiate the protection payment themselves, and the whole reason for the FRA law was to legally increase and secure the amount of sigint that could be collected and handed over to the US. The whole public debate over that got really weird, because the executive branch was SUPER INSISTENT that the law got passed, but couldn't argue for it, because the actual reason was secret.
The Democratic Peace theory has always been bunk: even when it was formulated, for any definition of democracy restrictive enough for the claim "Democracies don't fight wars with each other", the number of available democracy-democracy pairs is so small compared to thr number of pairs of countries that the expected number of wars between them is, rounded to the nearest integer, zero.
Certain, since the wars in the Balkans from the 1990s, the Democratic Peace theory is even less defensible than it was previously.
There are literally dozens of modern democracies that have been free since WWII, how can that be too few "pairs"?
>> Certain, since the wars in the Balkans from the 1990s, the Democratic Peace theory is even less defensible than it was previously.
Uh, Soviet ended 1989. Then the Balkan got free -- and Jugoslavia fell relatively quickly into a civil war. How does that reflect on democracies?
(Are you defining "democracy" as "one free election, no power changes after consecutive free elections is needed"? That is hardly how the term is defined, last I checked either the democracy or the democratic peace theory.)
There's a little under 200 countries now. The number of democracies by any definition that leaves no inter-democracy wars is a small fraction of that (though, yes, in the dozens). The ratio of democracy-democracy dyads to total dyads is smaller (for reasons which should be mathematically obvious) than the ratio of democracies to countries.
> Uh, Soviet ended 1989. Then the Balkan got free -
Uh, Yugoslavia split from the Soviet bloc in 1948, and Tito died in 1980.
How many free elections did they have? :-) How many free transfers of power did they have? :-)
(The next point here is that the democratic peace theory didn't say anything about civil wars?)
EDIT: I am NOT going to comment on Dragonwriter's answer to this and for a THIRD TIME ask for references about how Yugoslavia and Serbia are stable democracies that have been doing transfer of power after free elections AT THAT TIME PERIOD. :-( I am disappointed over a 30+K karma account for this bullshit.
The NATO-Yugoslavia war was not a civil war, even if it was motivated by one.
Milosevic's popular support was likely around 10% at the end. The country was governed by a weird coalition of financial interests that made up a ruling class of a few tens of thousands of people - many ex-communists.
In terms of success as a kleptocrat, Milosevic is only beaten out by Suharto, Marcos and a small number of others - he likely stole in excess of a billion.
That said - the Balkan wars do present another case of democracy v democracy at war as at some points Croatia and Bosnia (the Muslim canton) were at a state of war yet both were democracies (altho also arguably ruled by strongmen).
Also, Croatia/Bosnia/Serbia were civil wars.
Anyway, how many free elections had Croatia and Bosnia had at that time, to be defined as democratic? :-)
How many peaceful transitions of power had there been at the time (the real gold test)? :-)
If just one reasonably free election is needed, then Hamas in Gaza is a democratic government... :-)
Then the US went to war against its own secession immediately afterward.
Mexico, the United States, and the Confederate States are (were) all democratic republics, and their constituent states are all democratic republics.
And does it have to be a shooting war? Because democracies wage economic wars against each other quite frequently.
Sweden is great in lots of ways, but that attitude in combination with Sweden's often holier-than-thou attitude towards other countries is really hypocritical.
PS. As an aside, I remember when I studied mathematics in Stockholm a few years ago and there were FRA posters for cryptography internships on the wall. It seemed intriguing, if it wasn't for the employer. DS.
Yes, of course! It reminds me of the times when you criticize something (in this case your country) and the other person replies with "then why don't you go somewhere else?". This portrays an adversarial relationship between the populace and the country, much like a consumer<->business, where you vote with your wallet. But I don't want another country to outcompete Sweden, I want Sweden to be better.
But this does also raise another issue I forgot to touch on: How are we supposed to have a (representative) democracy when we first in 2013 [1] find out what the passing of "FRA-lagen" (proposition 2006/07:63) in 2008 was really about?
[1] Translated news originally in DN: http://www.thelocal.se/20131013/50760
Dugin outlines a playbook that is chilling in its real world implications today. For example, he advocates propoganda aimed to have Britian leave the EU, the invasion of the Russian speakung parts of Ukraine, US to become anti-immigrant and isolationist and the ceeding of certain islands bacj to Japan to improve Russian relations and weaken Japan's reliance on the US.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
I've yet to find a complete English translation.
I wouldn't take it to heart. It's a matter of geography. You were caught between a rock and a hard place.
First among them is simply that there's nothing wrong with the data collection in the first place, and that the US/NSA is on your side. I'm rather uninformed about Swedish politics, but a generally positive view of the US is shared almost universally among the European elite. Many have studied in the US, binge-watched The West Wing, or simply see the positive role the US has played in Europe over the last 70 years. The only exceptions I can think of are France and some left-of-left-of-center parties.
Secondly, for someone working on or leading such efforts it's tremendously flattering to be noticed by the NSA. It may seem strange to think such basic emotions could influence policy, but I'm absolutely certain that there are people, from the actual programmers up to and including ministers, who love being invited to whatever the NSA version of WWDC is, and that they can influence policy.
In WW2, what should Sweden have done? Looking from the place that lies between you and Russia, I think the Swedish policy was the wisest it can adopt and it succeeded very well: keep out of the war, keep up the defenses, do not antagonize anyone enough to test those defenses. And I appreciate the support Sweden gave to my country which was actually at war against the clear threat to Sweden, USSR, and and the endgame, against the has-been threat of Germany during Lapland war.
Sweden was at the time threatened with being delisted from a US preferential trade list if it did not comply.
As a result of bowing down to the US, Sweden is now complicit in the crimes of the US. The global spying, the drone killings it leads to, the increased pressure Russia finds itself under (and has to act out against).
Sounds a bit biased to my Swedish ears.
Russia is getting tonnes of flak for basically doing some hacking. They're just a useful distraction from the massive civil rights violations by the US government now people are starting to become less amenable to the "AGAINST TERRORISM!!!" theme.
Uh, the Western democracies have started to do wars in Europe for territory? :-)
After Soviet fell, the NATO forces (and the neutral countries) in Europe melted away; the US/Canadian units in Germany went home and so on. This changed after Russia started to rebuild and do wars.
Edit: This was about the new "sabre rattling". Long, long after the Balkan horrible tragedies. (And I'd really argue if the "West" rattled any sabers there, but it isn't relevant anyway.)
What seems to be happening is that priority is given to projects that benefit certain companies, rather than increasing military capabilities. Investments are made in platforms such as Gripen[1], A26[2], Visby[3], PRIO (licensed SAP system) rather than giving priority to training and maintaining personnel. The mentioned projects are relatively expensive and low volume and there are a lot of people in the armed forces who would rather see the focus shifted from those projects to the armed forces. Unless you're air force or navy and get to play with new toys, I guess. Meanwhile, the army and the amphibious corps are less happy.
It is not likely that we'll see the size needed for quite some time.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A26_submarine [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visby-class_corvette
Also, if Sweden wanted to join tomorrow morning, they would have the application granted after lunch the same day. NATO has been salivating at the thought for decades now, and considering Sweden's military is already running on NATO standards, its officers take all the NATO courses, and the military partakes in all major NATO war games, it's not ridiculous to say that for all intents and purposes, Sweden is basically already a member, just not officially.
The pro-NATO side's argument tends to be that since Sweden's already basically a member, at least it should have voting rights by the merit of being an official member. That's their top argument IMO.
Joining NATO would be a massive provocation towards Russia that I don't think neither Sweden nor the surrounding nation states would benefit from. I'd rather not choose sides in a Second Cold War, since either side in such a conflict would be rather contemptible. Now, it's pretty clear "we" already did, however.
I think you should go look at that map again and think about the strategic value of Sweden vs Switzerland.
Sweden and Turkey can both make naval operations more difficult and expensive for Russia, particularly those operations it might prefer to keep secret. Switzerland isn't exactly a place you might ordinarily want to go through on your way to somewhere else, unless you really like climbing over mountains (or digging under them). Militarily, it's almost always easier to go around Switzerland than through it. So you would only ever attack Switzerland if they, specifically, had something that you wanted, or were threatening your flanks or rear.
Sweden-Denmark, Egypt, Panama, and Turkey, and to lesser extents, Malaysia, Canada, and Spain-Morocco-Gibraltar all preside over strategic bottlenecks to aquatic vessels. They have huge strategic value.
And it is really hard for journalists to write something constructive about the FRA because of the secrecy [1].
[1]: https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2519&ar...
EDIT: The link covers an incident where one of FRA's planes were shot down in 1952. Everything were successfully covered up for more than 50 years, and a lot of the reports are still unavailable. The FRA _really_ likes to not talk about themselves, more so than many other intelligence agencies.
The FRA claims that the now 65 year old reports could still pose a threat to current operations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_inc...
E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 "Iran Air Flight 655 was an Iran Air passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai. On 3 July 1988, the aircraft operating on this route was shot down by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes under the command of William C. Rogers III. "
290 casualties.
> When Bildt was asked at a forum on Internet freedom in 2013 how he reconciled these two views, he explained that Sweden was doing surveillance for a good purpose. “There is a difference between good states and somewhat less good states,” he said.
I think this is from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stDl6ovmwrE
which really sets out a major set of tensions that all of us working in this area must have felt.
So an EU member helps the US hack the EU? Wow. I mean, why is that even necessary? Why not just forward the emails?
Note the qualifier "ISSUE," which would hint that it's not a daily.
For weeklies, editors probably have their print runs prepped for the publishers a few weeks in advance, with some variable slots left ambiguous for flexibility, in case they want to pre-empt a soft story with significant breaking news.
This piece doesn't seem to be a run up of current events, like the latest Trump tweets or whatever active shooter incident du jour. It's really a research piece that probably took several months to compile, edit and sweeten. Figure the broad strokes and the idea of the article were crafted over the summer, maybe.
Here is a competent explanation of how Snowden didn't understand that DITU is an FBI department and not a bulk collection system on internet companies' networks: https://medium.com/@alecmuffett/how-to-talk-about-prism-and-...
PRISM was ran on a budget of $200,000/year.
This may be enough money to put together and maintain a sad-looking web portal that lets you make requests for user data against Google, Apple, and Yahoo's legal compliance departments.
This is by no means enough to do bulk data collection for billions of users. (That was the domain of the other hundred-odd programs that the NSA runs.)
Really? Do you have the numbers to back that up?