Sweden is not a great military power. Stockholm adopted a policy of neutrality when\u00a0the Napoleonic Wars<\/a>\u00a0ended in the 19th century. After the end of the Cold War, the Scandinavian country undertook a demilitarization process in which military spending was progressively and drastically reduced, and regiments were dissolved throughout the territory. In 2005 the last Swedish soldiers left Gotland; the island, considered \u201can unsinkable aircraft carrier\u201d by multiple analysts, had ceased to be a strategic priority for Stockholm given the apparent disappearance of the Russian threat. Some countries bordering the Baltic Sea had implored Sweden not to demilitarize Gotland, given the risk of a potential occupation of the island in a lightning offensive by Russian troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everything changed again in 2014, after the Russian annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and the start of fighting in the Donbas region. In the years that followed, Sweden reinstated conscription for men and women, sent a regiment back to Gotland and set up an anti-aircraft defense system on the island \u2014 which is similar in size to Mallorca in Spain or Rhodes in Greece \u2014 and also sent infantry fighting vehicles and Leopard 2 tanks. In January 2022, when more than 100,000 Russian soldiers were awaiting orders on the Ukrainian border, almost 1,000 Swedish soldiers moved to Gotland to reinforce the security of the strategic territory, and shortly thereafter the government announced it was investing 1,600 million Swedish crowns (about $154 million or \u20ac140 million) to expand the military infrastructure on the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Sweden joins NATO, Gotland will become one of the strongholds of the Alliance. In 2017, during a visit, Ben Hodges, then commander of the U.S. army in Europe, stated that \u201cthere is no island in the world with greater strategic importance.\u201d Gotland is less than 186 miles (300 kilometers) from Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave located between Poland and Lithuania that is home to the Russian Baltic Fleet. The waters of this sea are navigable all year round, and more than 1,500 ships use this seaway every day. \u201cWhoever controls Gotland can dominate the air and sea space of the southern Baltic,\u201d declared Magnus Frykvall, the highest authority of the Swedish Army on the island, just over a year ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The incorporation of Gotland into the territory of the Atlantic Alliance will also mean an obvious reinforcement for the defense of Poland and, especially, Lithuania,<\/a> Latvia and Estonia, the most vulnerable allies in the event of an attack from Russia. The integration of Sweden into the military bloc will practically turn the Baltic Sea into a NATO-controlled body of water, unlike during the Cold War, when much of its coasts were in Communist hands (Soviet Union<\/a>, East Germany and Poland). or neutral (Sweden and Finland).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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