Sweden has a very long history of neutrality. During the Cold War they tried to appease both superpowers (US and USSR) and stayed fairly neutral, although western leaning. Same goes for Finland. They even bought some soviet technology at the time to appease the soviets.
After the USSR broke into many little independent states there wasn’t really a reason for Sweden to join NATO, since there wasn’t much of a threat to Swedish sovereignty.
Nowadays that’s a different story. Seeing the invasion of Ukraine and all the threats of nuclear war Russia has been making kind of shifted the swedes’ opinion on NATO.
Honestly it’s weird to me that they haven’t been part of NATO all along. What’s the story there?
Sweden has a very long history of neutrality. During the Cold War they tried to appease both superpowers (US and USSR) and stayed fairly neutral, although western leaning. Same goes for Finland. They even bought some soviet technology at the time to appease the soviets.
After the USSR broke into many little independent states there wasn’t really a reason for Sweden to join NATO, since there wasn’t much of a threat to Swedish sovereignty.
Nowadays that’s a different story. Seeing the invasion of Ukraine and all the threats of nuclear war Russia has been making kind of shifted the swedes’ opinion on NATO.