Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

I do not agree with what you write here. I live in Sweden and I do not at all feel that we are taking advantage of the american military spendings. We do not take an advantage of the fact that other countries spends more on their armies than we do. We just do what is the logical way to do it for our contry: No real threat no big army.

I do also wonder why you exclude Denmark from your club of socialist countries. Is it because their small army actually helped USA in Iraq and at tries to help the countries spending more than them as good as they can and that that would excuse them from spending that little on their army.

I myself would say that Denmark has an equally good health care as Sweden overall and the same is true with the army size I guess. The difference is then that we in Sweden didn't believe it was alright to invade Iraq as you did. Thats an equally worthy opinion.

You do also state that we wouldn't like an Italian, German or Soviet invasion. Well - no. But we have been invaded no matter what. We are in an union - Sweden, Italy and Germany are all in the European Union who was started to prevent wars between the europeen countries. Do we then fear a Soviet invasion? No - soviet doesn't exist any more and Russia is kind of weak at the moment. If Russia grows strong then maybe we can fear an attack from them here in Sweden but that won't be happening for another 10 years. So why have a big military to defend a country from threats that doesn't exist?

Pelle, you say you "do not at all feel that we are taking advantage of the American military spendings. We do not take an advantage of the fact that other countries spends more on their armies than we do."

I don't think you “took advantage” of us in the sense that Sweden somehow duped the USA into protecting you, but the fact is that the whole world benefited from US defense spending in the Cold War, for half a century (which adds up!). If the US had gone home and played isolationist after WWII, and not engaged the USSR in an arms race, nations such as Sweden (and Denmark) would have had to spend a lot more money on their own defense - or else on Swedish-to-Russian dictionaries.

Again, I am not saying that Sweden or other socialist European nations were complicit in some sort of fraud against America – far from it. You say “We just do what is the logical way to do it for our country,” and I agree. From a pragmatic point of view, Western Europe handled the Cold War very well. While America and Russia squared off, you spent money on lowering your infant mortality, and raising your life expectancy and literacy. Why should you spend a huge percentage of your GDP on defense? The only real threat to Sweden in the last half-century was USSR… and they were no real threat after all, because your nation sat under the NATO umbrella, which was going to be held up by the American taxpayer regardless of Sweden’s defense budget.

Rather than say “No real threat no big army,” I would say, “No big army has been a real threat” since WWII, or really since Napoleon for your country.

I believe there are other reasons why socialism has been so popular and dare I say successful in the Baltic States, but there is definitely a major financial contribution made by not having to defend yourselves from aggressors – a few billion dollars goes a long way, year after year. There’s no denying it.

First I have a feeling that you don't know much about the history of the Nordic countries you mention. The differences between them and the differences of their possitions during WWII and the cold war. Finland lost the war against Soviet and could uniquely keep political independence after the war. Sweden was so called Neutral during the war and after the war, never entering Nato, and concidering nuclear warheads during the fifties, to be able to keep its neutral position. Norway and Denmark were occupied by Germany, and both joined NATO after the war.

The other issue is that If USA would have kept an isolationist policy during the second world war. The ekonomic and political power of USA would not have been as it is today. As the Nordic counties have tried to keep their interests as small countries so has USA tried and rather sucessfully keep its interests in the world. The postwar european reconstruction was good business for USA, and Sweden.
It's difficult to say what kind of world we would have if USA wouldn't have entered the WWII, and many historians point out that the Government had difficulties with entering the war which they saw as a potential. Already during WWII policymakers satt down and drew the sketches of the institutions to come in the new world order after WWII. The bretton woods institutions, IMF, World Bank, WTO (which took some time to create as you know).

Europe, might have largely been under Nazirule, that propably would not have been good for progress. some countries would have been able to keep some autonomy, Sweden and Finland. Or maybe the Soviets would have pushed Nazigermany back att a certain point and we would have had socialist upprisals in France, Spain, Italy. A situation that would have benefitted most workersmovements in Europe. The development of Soviet would have been different. No arms race, maybe there would not have been any cold war, and maybe even Japan would be in the socialist block.
Which ever senario would not have benefitted USA. Strong Japan Germany axis, or strong Soviet with a socialist east asia and Europe. USA didn't enter WWII to Save Asia from Japan and Europe from Germany but it selfinterst in the situation after the war. Most senarios didn't look good for USA and there was a lot to win to enter the war.