US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristerssonm left and Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom during the NATO ratification ceremony at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., as Sweden formally joins the North Atlantic alliance, on March 7, 2024 -- public domain image
Communists in Sweden and Switzerland are denouncing NATO expansionism and moves away from the traditional stance of alleged neutrality in both countries.
In the case of Sweden, of course, the political establishment used the pretext of the war in Ukraine to actually repudiate neutrality altogether with the country now a full member of the imperialist alliance.
The Communist Party of Sweden (SKP), which has opposed joining NATO vocally and vigourously, released this statement in response to the move:
Today, Sweden’s NATO membership has been formally approved, and Sweden has joined the military organization of Euro-Atlantic imperialism. Even if the process has been fraught with delays, this was unfortunately the expected conclusion.
From the very first day, the Communists have opposed NATO membership because it formalizes Sweden's membership in the world's currently strongest imperialist organization. NATO is the spearhead of Euro-Atlantic imperialism, its bombs have fallen on countless countries, and its soldiers are stationed all over the world to safeguard the interests of the member countries' capital.
Behind the Swedish membership lie the sharpening international contradictions and an aspiration on the part of Swedish capital to align even more closely with, among others, German and American imperialism, with which there is currently a common interest against Russian and Chinese imperialism. Swedish capital cannot itself defend its interests on the international stage but needs help - this is where NATO enters the scene.
As the contradictions within the system sharpen, the risk of a more general war also increases, and if the development is allowed to continue, there is a great risk that war will become a reality. However, it is not inevitable.
In the struggle of the working people, in Sweden and everywhere else in the world, for peace and for a different system that does not inevitably lead to war and poverty, there is also hope. Even if today it may seem hard to reach, we insist that there is only one real solution to the wars and conflicts - workers' power and socialism. Here is hope and here is the future. This is the only alternative.
Therefore, do not mourn - organize!
Meanwhile in Switzerland the Communist Party is raising the alarm about how the Swiss government is looking to manufacture a "threat" in order to undermine that country's historic stance.
An attack “with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles or armed drones” against Switzerland is considered “more probable”. This is stated by the Swiss federal government, which has thus raised the alert level compared to two years ago. The decision is not the result of government assessments, but stems from a study by the Centre for Security Studies (CSS) of the ETH Zurich (Federal Institute of Technology), where there is no lack of “experts” with Atlanticist sympathies who evidently have an exaggerated influence on our ministers.
This reassessment is politically motivated: it serves to justify not only the country's ongoing arms race, but also to push the General Staff of the Swiss Armed Forces to make dangerous strategic choices such as an alternative deployment of conscripts, among other things increasing the risk of sending our young men to foreign war scenarios. Moreover, this new classification of danger will be the excuse to strengthen social control over citizens and opposition parties by the intelligence services.
Creating alarm among the population is an irresponsible political practice, especially if it is a democratic government that does it:
1) First of all, if in the space of two years, ballistic attacks against our country would have become from “improbable” to “more probable” (assuming this is true!) it is because in the meantime the Federal Government has done everything in its power to destroy the credibility of the Swiss neutrality, has sided in the western war against the emerging countries of Eurasia, has adopted unilateral sanctions strictly only against governments that are disliked by the Americans and the European Union, and has sided unabashedly and always obediently with a (non-defensive!) military coalition like NATO. In short: Switzerland's ever-increasing subordination to the interests of the EU, the USA and NATO, also as a result of precise choices of military dependence on their defence systems (from the land-air 'Patriot' to the technologically constrained F-35A), pushes the Swiss Confederation to renounce its sovereignty and to have to blindly follow the diktats of the USA, antagonising half the world.
2) Switzerland is encircled by NATO (Italy, Germany and France are members and Austria is bound by it). Given that the Confederation has been part of the “Partnership for Peace” programme since 1999 and is therefore considered part of NATO's sphere of influence, the probability of a missile attack from neighbouring countries is practically nil. The possibility of a ballistic strike from countries further away remains just as improbable: not only would any missile (but also an armed drone) be intercepted before reaching Switzerland by the rocket shield already in place in Germany (supported by radar in Turkey and with interceptors deployed from Romania to Spain), but above all, it should be remembered that in order to minimise any risk, our country must simply remain neutral, engaging in dialogue with all geopolitical camps, rediscovering an autonomous foreign policy and avoiding supporting predefined military alliances.
Even in the face of these games played by the Atlanticist 'think tanks' operating in our universities and influencing the government and the senior officers of our army, a clear answer must be given by signing the neutrality initiative and inserting this binding principle into the Federal Constitution of Switzerland!