Alina Polyakova
Hello, I’m Alina Polyakova, President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis. Thank you so much for joining us for this conversation with the former Foreign Minister of Sweden, Her Honor Ann Linde, and thank you so much for joining us.
Ann Linde
Thank you, Alina. My pleasure.
Alina Polyakova
It’s great to have you in Washington. And at a very important moment, I think for the broader US Europe relationship. You were a foreign minister, and a particularly crucial time for the transatlantic alliance, and of course, I’m talking about Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Just looking back at that moment, I was struck with some of your comments that you made at the time talking about the importance of Ukraine. And this is a quote from the speeches you did shortly after the invasion, where you said that standing up for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is essential for the security of Europe as a whole. And the Russian threat to the European security order will persist for a long time to come. And that was the very beginning. And of course, we’re now more than two years in so I was hoping to have you reflect on that moment. If you can go back to February 2022, when the invasion began. What was that moment like? What were the immediate concerns that you had a top of mind that Sweden’s political leadership had at the top of the mind?
Ann Linde
Well, thank you. Let me go back a little bit further, because I was chair of the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and we had a ministerial meeting in Stockholm in December, we had a dinner with all the foreign ministers and both Minister Blinken and Minister Lavrov was there together with more than 50 other ministers, when Russian Minister said we no longer feel that European security order is working for us. And that was quite a shock, because that has been the order that has been the backbone of the security in Europe for decades. And then, shortly thereafter, the Russians sent a letter to all the foreign ministers that they no longer believed that their security was fulfilled with the security, we knew that something was coming. And we knew that something terrible might happen. We saw all the military build up. But we did not believe that they would do a full scale invasion, because they didn’t have enough military equipment to do that. And we didn’t think that Putin would take such a risky and a step that will isolate him from from Europe, and he couldn’t keep Ukraine for so long. Now, he did take that step. And for weeks, we have been following nearly on a daily basis what was happening on the borders and so on. When it happened, we understood that this is a game changer. We need to try to stop Russia from doing this at all costs. And of course, it was a big thing for for the other European and American countries to decide to send weapons. In the case of Sweden, we have been neutral, and the military non aligned for 200 years, that had kept us out of war. Not always in a beautiful way. But it had kept our people safe. Now, we understood that we might change that. And first, we said are we going to send weapons to Ukraine. We haven’t sent weapons to any country in war since 1939, when Finland was attacked by the Soviet Union. So there was so many things that happen, and it was very intense. But we understand the gravity of what was happening immediately.
Alina Polyakova
So you alluded to the neutrality of Sweden for hundreds of years, over 200 years. And of course now Sweden is the newest member of NATO, the biggest multilateral defense military alliances in Europe. Can you talk a little bit about how how did that shift happen not just among Sweden’s political leaders, but also among the public. And now Sweden is one of the biggest supporters of Ukraine contributing I think now over 3.5 billion in support since the beginning of the invasion that’s been consistent through multiple Swedish governments now. But that’s such a profound cultural, historical shift that society has to go through after many wars in which the country in the public could have chosen aside and chose not to. So why this moment? And how did that shift really happen? Can you describe that a little bit more?
Ann Linde
I would say there are two reason why we decided in the government that to keep Swedish people safe, we need to change. And the two main thing was that Russia was invading a completely friendly, neighboring country, that was no threat to Russia at all. And the way that they conducted a war, everybody in the world had seen about Bucha and, and the war crimes and how they were actually targeting civilians and infrastructure in a very, very aggressive way of warfare. I mean, there are rules of war, and they were not following any of them. So that was one thing. The second thing was, of course, Finland, because even if Sweden, many years before, might have had a discussion about NATO membership, we have never been neutral in values, then we would have left Finland out. And Finland has a 1340 kilometres direct border to Russia. Meaning that they are very, of course vulnerable of having a relationship with Russia, and also the threat of Russia. So for many years Finland and Sweden has following each other and have also military cooperation. When this happened, with the full scale innovation, the Finnish people nearly immediately changed from being like 20%, something in favor of NATO to 70-80%. Because they had in their historic memory even leaving in generation, the war in 1931, when Soviet Union invaded Finland, 25,000 Finns died 70,000 children came to Sweden as war children. And that made the people of Finland changed their mind much quicker than Sweden. And then we had a process which was not easy to first in my case, we have to convince my own party, the biggest party in Sweden, the Social Democrats, to say, okay, so we have been able to have a successful security policy for so long, if we’re going to change that. We really need to know what we are doing. We don’t want to play with security for people. We have not seen a military alignment as an issue of ideology or something like that. We have seen it as you know, keeping our country and our people safe. It is a political, NATO is political. It is a military. But we have seen the alignment of NATO membership, mainly as the security issue. Since in the mid 90s, when I was working in the Defense Ministry, we decided to join Partnership for Peace, and to have a close relation with NATO. So that was not the problem. It was this step of actually being a full member, a full active member with no preconditions.
Alina Polyakova
Which is a huge development for the Alliance. Now, of course that Finland joined officially last year and Sweden just recently officially joined. The Alliance is also now 75 years old this year. There’s, I think, a lot of focus on what’s going to happen at the next summit of NATO, which is taking place here in Washington in July. One it’s a big celebration, of course, first and foremost, Sweden, I think, going from being a partner to ally, but also the the enlargement of the Alliance. But I think there’s also a lot of questions about what this historic summit is going to deliver for Ukraine. What would you like to see the summit do and what would your preferred outcomes be and you can speak in a personal capacity not representing the Swedish government?
Ann Linde
No, I think it’s maybe the most important thing is to get a commitment for a long term military support to Ukraine. I mean, it has been too much ad hoc. I mean, the fact that the United States was withholding military aid to Ukraine for six months, has been damaging to Ukraine. Now, nobody could say anything else. And to see the political changes in each election, will maybe change the will, of getting the needed ammunition. And, of course, everybody is hoping for air defense. My party wants Sweden to send fighter planes, for some Sweden.
Alina Polyakova
Some of the most sophisticated fighter planes in the world.
Ann Linde
No, but but but really, and there is proposal from the Secretary General to have at least five year plan with a big budget. And I think that is one of the most important thing to have real unity commitment of sending needed material for long term.
Alina Polyakova
Well, I think we’re all going to be watching very, very closely what the Alliance does. And I think from our perspective here at CEPA, you know, we see it as very important, not just to celebrate the 75 years, but to also have political leaders from NATO member states present a future vision for the Alliance. And that future vision inevitably has to include Ukraine, given the kind of security threat to Europe, that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine means and what it might mean for a future NATO confrontation with Russia, because I don’t think we can rule that out at the current moment, given Mr. Putin’s recent renewed mandate to remain in power for another six years, and his imperial ambitions for Europe, writ large, not just for Ukraine. I want to shift a little bit because one of your I think, most important legacies, when you were a foreign minister, in particular, was to advance I think, what few countries had done in the past, and many have followed since, which is a vision for a feminist foreign policy. Can you talk a little bit about what that means to you, and why that was such an important focus area for you during your time as foreign minister?
Ann Linde
Well, thank you very much. The feminist foreign policy that was introduced in Sweden in when we came to power in 2014. Is because we saw that in all foreign policy area, women or girls are being treated in a disadvantaged way compared to men and boys. And if you don’t have a systematic way of looking at it be the security policy development areas trade policy, you don’t see it, and then you cannot change it. So we said we need to look at all those issues, using three R’s, resources, rights, and representation. So everything we do, we see that is women represented in the same way? For example, when it comes to women peace and security, we know that if women are in peace talks, and if women are among those who signed treaties, they are more sustainable. There’s a lot of research on this. Still, it’s less than a third of peace talks, where there are women. And, and also, when it comes to development, cooperation, we know that women and girls are the hardest hit, when it comes to puppetry, when they’re when there are a natural catastrophes and so on. And if you don’t see it, then you don’t put the resources in such a way. One example that I I liked to take is when I was Minister of Trade, we so okay, is there a feminist trade policy? And then it was difficult to see this aggregated data, but we found it when it comes to tariffs and so on between United States and in their trade relation, and we found that a silk blouse for a woman had six times as high tariff as an equivalent blouse or shirt for men, and also sports gear 30% higher tariffs on women’s sport gears than on men with no reason whatsoever. So what we did was to try then to have kind of a manual for trade negotiators to always put in, you know, also a gender perspective. And we did it when when I was chair of OSCE, we did the same thing. We had 15 missions, military missions, 14 led by men, one by woman, and I asked them to do gender analysis. And they say, why should we have a gender analysis for military mission? Well, actually, we have the Center for gender and military missions in Stockholm, it’s not NATO certified. And you could see in situation after situation, if you didn’t have a gender analysis, it was weaken your performance. As one example, they use now, gender and sexual violence as a tool in war. And to weaken the other side, they rape women systematically. That has happened over and over again, there is in one specific African country where rebels were going to places where the women were, there were no gender analysis. So they were no protection for women, they raped the women, not only that, they cut off an ear of the woman. So when she came back, she was kept out of the community here. And everybody knows about Yazidi women, what has happened, and so on. And there are numerous example, how a gender analyzes is actually strengthening you in the mission, and also making it harder for the enemy to use gender based sexual violence as a tool in the war, as a few examples.
Alina Polyakova
That’s fascinating, you know, since Sweden, under your leadership ushered through this policy, and I think this vision that you’re describing, other countries have followed suit as well. And you’re still working on these issues. Now, in your post government role. You know, where do you maybe as a last question, you know, what do you see as the greatest challenges to the kind of I think equity that you’re describing? You know, one is, obviously, more research, more of a gender lens, whether that’s for diplomats or trade negotiators. But where do you see, I think the biggest obstacles to at least, you know, democratic, Western countries, if you will, following suit, because not all of them have?
Ann Linde
Well, I think one of the main reasons why it’s now going backwards is the backlash against feminist and gender issues, not the least here in United States where you have the question of abortion and sexual reproductive rights of women. So the first thing is that you have to make aware that there is a systematic this, the women are systematically being mistreated in all different areas. And if you don’t see it, like in the military, they don’t see it, if they are not making aware of it, then you cannot do anything against it. The thing is that you need to have this aggregated data, it sounds very bureaucratic and boring. But if you don’t know that women are being mistreated in this way are being like I said, with, with the tariffs and trade, you cannot do anything against it. So that’s one thing. And then it’s the word feminism. I mean, the feminist foreign policy in Sweden has been evaluated with the research of Gothenburg University and I liked the headline of the report, it’s “More Than a Label, Not a Revolution.” And it shows they made like 400 interviews and in different countries and embassies and so on. They showed that using the word feminism that is now a red flag for so many in the societies meant that people understood, okay, so there is a change. This is a systematic change. This is about all women. It’s not like one individual woman should go on the top of board of a company or something like that. It’s something that is a for all women and girls that we need to, to address because it’s a problem. And now when when the commission of the situation of women were in United Nation in UN in March, it was one of the biggest events of more than 600 people, there were 19 governments who had whole a part of feminist foreign policy, unfortunately, not Sweden anymore. But they are pushing the events and activities further and further developing the feminist foreign policy. I’m co chairing and being European network about how we are developing feminist foreign policy. And one of our first policy brief will be about feminist defense policy.
Alina Polyakova
Very interesting. I look forward to reading that. Thank you so much for your time and for this wide ranging conversation. Hope to see you back in Washington again and continue this conversation. So Foreign Minister Ann Linde.
Ann Linde
I love to come. Thank you for having me.
Alina Polyakova
It was our pleasure. Thank you.
Thank you so much for tuning into this conversation with the former Foreign Minister of Sweden Ann Linde, follow more conversations like this one on our website as cepa.org, C-E-P-A dot org or on any of the social media that you are on LinkedIn, Instagram X, Blue Sky, and others. Thank you so much for joining us and stay tuned.
