Peter Hultqvist: That’s why I broke the promise about NATO

In a new book, « When everything changes » (Medström’s book publisher) that DN has read, he portrays his years in the political hot air. After 20 years of disarmament, the Armed Forces, when Hultqvist took over as Minister of Defense in 2014, consisted of a small professional defense for international efforts.

After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 came the turning point in 2015. There were increased defense appropriations, regiment on Gotland, reintroduced military service and the restart of a national defense.

Sweden would remain military alliance -free, but at the same time the Minister of Defense concluded a whole series of agreements with the United States and other NATO countries on defense cooperation. It came to be called the « Hultqvist doctrine ».

But nowadays is associated Peter Hultqvist mainly with his categorical promise to never join NATO. It was during the Social Democratic Party Congress in November 2021 that he stated with all his pondus:

– There will be no applications as long as we have a Social Democratic government. I will definitely never as long as I am Minister of Defense to participate in such a process. I can guarantee all of you!

But six months later, he stood alongside Magdalena Andersson and announced that the Social Democrats’ party board decided that Sweden would apply for membership in NATO.

Then Russian had Ultimatum, the invasion of Ukraine, Finland’s Nato decision and his own mother Anna Inez affected him. She had come to Sweden from Finland as a war child and called him: « Now you have to join NATO. There is no other way out. We cannot be ourselves! »

In a eavesdropping -safe room at the Ministry of Defense on April 11, 2022, it was « time to deduct the patch ». That’s when Hultqvist accepted the situation and decided Because NATO was the only option.

In the book, Hultqvist devotes just over 20 pages to explain the patch. He quotes the Danish politician Jens Otto Krag: « You have a position until you take another ».

– It can certainly be debated, but I have to stand for how I acted.

Is it something you regret?

– It went too far with the statement at the party congress. Of course, I believed in what I said at that time. It was neither my nor the party’s opinion at the time that we would join NATO. Then we had to change all of the Russian attack on Ukraine.

Congress trusted your message, and then you broke that promise. Can you continue to trust you in the future?

– You cannot go in absurdum in good for each position to apply in the future. Therefore, you do not know how the outside world is changing. It is the risk of definitive statements. We got the greatest war since the Second World War in Europe. Then it is important to be able to make a change if the new situation requires it, replies Peter Hultqvist.

He describes how He received information from the United States that Russia would invade Ukraine in 2022 and was completely convinced of this. So he did not share the military intelligence service assessment that there would be no big attack.

– The problem with Russia is that normal logic does not apply. It must be clear that this is a Russian War War of Ukraine that is part of an empire building. This is a major problem we have to deal with for a very long time, says Peter Hultqvist.

He already warned in the Riksdag in 2008 of an aggressive Russia but also received criticism from his own party mates who felt that he was suffering from « horror ».

– There were they, also in other parties, who thought I exaggerated and told me it. Although they thought I went too far, I got the confidence to become chairman of the Defense Committee, says Peter Hultqvist.

Together with politicians From other parties, Hultqvist participated in 2012 in the Defense Committee’s trip to Moscow. He went from there convinced that Russia was looking for revenge for his lost Soviet empire.

He criticizes Swedish naivety and how Sweden in 2006 invited a notorious Russian band that committed war crime in Chechnya to participate in the Snöflingan exercise in Boden.

But you do not mention in the book that it happened under the Social Democratic government Persson?

– It doesn’t change my view of the snowflake.

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