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The Swedish Kings of Cyberwar

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Re: The Swedish Kings of Cyberwar

#41

Post by chinathrow »

lostlogin wrote: post #34
moogly wrote: post #7

It's pretty disheartening to know that the Swedish press won't touch this with a 10-foot pole; they're busy digging/drumming up the "good ole" Russian Scare from the 60s/70s right now amidst the sabre-rattling coming, frankly, largely from the West.

The west hasnt invaded anyone or shot down any airliners though has it?

Well, not or on purpse, a few airlines has indeed been shut down over the time, including "by the west":

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.

Re: The Swedish Kings of Cyberwar

#42

Post by nugator »

robert_foss wrote: post #21

I find the pressure Sweden was exposed to by the US to ram this legislation through making us literally spy on our neighbors appalling. 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…

"... the increased pressure Russia finds itself under (and has to act out against)."

Sounds a bit biased to my Swedish ears.

Re: The Swedish Kings of Cyberwar

#43

Post by henrikschroder »

seppin wrote: post #4
croon wrote: post #3

Interesting read for a variety of reasons. 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…

small countries often play small roles to larger ones, is there a need for the "lapdog" language?

The cablegate diplomatic leaks showed that the relationship between the US government and the Swedish government - regardless of which block is in power - is basically that the US says "Jump!" and the Swedish government asks "How high?".

Zero pushback. There's a huge difference between respecting a larger country and aiming for amicable relations vs. being a complete doormat.

Re: The Swedish Kings of Cyberwar

#44

Post by finid »

kurthr wrote: post #12
berntb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> all the time 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.

Yeah, even Reagan (Grenada & Panama) and the Bushes (Panama & Iraq) pretty much installed democracies. 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 the case of Iraq, I wouldn't call it democracy. We just took a secular state and made it an Islamic state - a very unstable one at that.

Did we stop there? No!

We did the same to Libya. And if not for Russia, we'd have completed a trifecta in Syria.

Re: The Swedish Kings of Cyberwar

#45

Post by henrikschroder »

berntb wrote: post #6
croon wrote: post #3

Interesting read for a variety of reasons. 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…

Regarding Sweden and WW II: If Sweden shouldn't have been a "lapdog" -- which side of the war should it have joined? With Norway or with Finland? Not a simple choice, neither now nor at the time. 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…

Sweden always claims to be neutral, but the open secret is that Sweden is protected by NATO in case "someone" = Russia invades. Such protection costs, but since it's a secret, there can be no public debate about the price and if it's worth it.

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.

Re: The Swedish Kings of Cyberwar

#46

Post by berntb »

finid wrote: post #44
kurthr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, even Reagan (Grenada & Panama) and the Bushes (Panama & Iraq) pretty much installed democracies. 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 the case of Iraq, I wouldn't call it democracy. We just took a secular state and made it an Islamic state - a very unstable one at that. Did we stop there? No! We did the same to Libya. And if not for Russia, we'd have completed a trifecta in Syria.

A revolution is scary, the dice are thrown in the air and you have no clue how they fall. It didn't go well in Libya, so far.

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...)

Re: The Swedish Kings of Cyberwar

#47

Post by dragonwriter »

berntb wrote: post #6
croon wrote: post #3

Interesting read for a variety of reasons. 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…

Regarding Sweden and WW II: If Sweden shouldn't have been a "lapdog" -- which side of the war should it have joined? With Norway or with Finland? Not a simple choice, neither now nor at the time. 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…

> Check the democratic peace theory -- democracies don't fight wars with each others.

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.

Re: The Swedish Kings of Cyberwar

#48

Post by berntb »

dragonwriter wrote: post #47
berntb wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Sweden and WW II: If Sweden shouldn't have been a "lapdog" -- which side of the war should it have joined? With Norway or with Finland? Not a simple choice, neither now nor at the time. 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…

> Check the democratic peace theory -- democracies don't fight wars with each others. 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 be…

>> 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.

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.)

Re: The Swedish Kings of Cyberwar

#49

Post by rqebmm »

jessaustin wrote: post #37
ommunist wrote: post #15

Very funny. Russia is actually gated with the Internet through Sweden and Finland. It is really easy to wage cyberwars, sitting on the supply cable.

Wikipedia suggests it is also connected through Frankfurt and Tokyo.

I guess that makes it unsurprising that Sweden, Germany, and Japan are all pretty valued allies to the US these days.

Re: The Swedish Kings of Cyberwar

#50

Post by berntb »

tormeh wrote: post #18
kurthr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, even Reagan (Grenada & Panama) and the Bushes (Panama & Iraq) pretty much installed democracies. 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.

You mean the US's middle East policy hasn't been driven by realpolitik? That it was idealistic? Why the has the US propped up so many dictatorships? Saudi Arabia?

I think most people believe their own country's propaganda. :-)

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.

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