Political neutrality defines a nation’s indifference to world affairs around them. Primarily, the neutral nation attempts to rationally navigate the political spectrum, prioritizing its unique national will over conflict and international deceit. Defining features of neutrality include, but are not limited to, abstention from war, and subsequently, the absence of bias for any relevant participant in the ongoing war or conflict. At first, neutrality appears ideal, ennobling the neutral nation with an equitable position to traverse conflict, and evading any potential dissentient towards their political decisions. This narrative casts a dualistic edge on neutrality, inferring its theoretical benefits that are often impossible to achieve. However, this lack of possibility within neutrality, albeit minor, births a sense of instability within national neutrality, portraying it as an unattainable goal yielding adverse effects and impacts. Despite its initial gain, neutrality has also proven to wreak havoc within many political interactions across the world, forcing a nation to eventually surrender its neutrality when placed at the forefront of conflict. Additionally, neutrality infers a lack of national responsibility, conveying the nation’s inattentive contributions to the world stage. Perhaps, political neutrality does not cultivate as much merit as expected, instead forming a foolish enterprise constantly on the precipice of failure.
For centuries, Sweden’s political neutrality has delineated pivotal boundaries within its foreign and domestic government affairs, imbuing a culture of impartiality across almost all areas of national life. Neutrality began after the nation’s detrimental loss of territory during the Napoleonic wars, which characterized Napoleon’s intense drive to power through attempted assertions of dominance over various European states and territories, occurring consistently towards the end of the 19th century. In 1814, Sweden considered their newfound inability to reassert recognition as a world power. Territorial loss proved calamitous for impressions of their strength and government efficiency. Due to the territorial loss, Sweden was unable to reassert its strength and government efficiency on the global stage. Consequently, the nation was forced to revise its political stance, leading to the birth of neutrality as a tactical alternative to its prior international power. In 1834, King Karl XIV John, the reigning monarch at the time, adjudicated neutrality as an official political policy, targeting his novel aims toward the nation’s disengagement from any of the burgeoning conflicts of Russia and Britain. Soon thereafter, neutrality instilled innumerable benefits: repairing the previous absences of Swedish soldiers on the domestic scale, and resolving various international ties that the war had severed. Moreover, public attitudes became heavily directed towards neutrality, crafting an efficient and practical mentality within Swedish culture, eventually leading to its general national credibility and prowess revered in modernity. Initially, neutrality achieved new heights of national development, considered a crucial constituent of Swedish society and politics. However, the rapid benefits of neutrality were eventually sheathed in detriment, due to the inevitable declension embroiled within the policy.
The failure of Swedish neutrality began with the challenges of the Cold War, marking the infamous period of ideological tension in the aftermath of World War II between 1947-1989. Given the extent of American rejection of the Soviet Union’s Communist government, Sweden was faced with the choice between continuing undeterred neutrality or fostering prior relations with the United States. Ultimately, Sweden embarked on an insincere manipulation of its policies, by breaching its preordained parameters of neutrality by preserving a confidential liaison with the U.S. Simply, the government believed that Sweden could not maintain their strength and stability if it were to maintain neutrality, contradicting acutely with their earlier proclamations. Furthermore, the grand appeal of beneficial relations with the U.S. was beyond the restraint of Swedish politicians and thus justified their dispossession of neutral thought. Additionally, propositions of NATO membership had been prevalent since the Cold War, and Sweden’s refusal to join had been crucial for their continued claims of neutrality. Notwithstanding, Sweden continued to deny their failed neutrality until the recent union with NATO on March 7, 2024, granting the nation greater authority to form alliances with other nations for the betterment of international democratic stability. In a speech given by Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tobias Billström, delivered shortly after the nation’s official union with NATO, it was stated that “Sweden’s NATO accession is the culmination of a long farewell to the policy of neutrality and non-alignment,” denoting the union as the conclusion of national neutrality. However, given Sweden’s double standards of neutrality during the Cold War, it may be argued that the nation’s neutrality ended long before, more so a product of its inevitable failures rather than its current and past applications.
Arguably, the greatest dangers of neutrality lie within its idealistic qualities, constantly inferring desirable political possibilities that are often impossible for a nation to achieve. As evident with Sweden’s failed neutral stance, neutrality cannot persist amongst the disparate international relations and conflicts that define the world today. Principally, some level of interference is inevitable from all countries, particularly those with a similar profile to Sweden regarding national resourcefulness, robustness and efficiency. In the face of international conflict, such attributes are highly attractive to help achieve urgent resolution and respective advantages, on the wider scope of global nations and the long-standing interactions between them. Potentially, Sweden’s unique success and productivity may have caused its failure of neutrality, which could offer an outlet of justification for neutrality within a different national profile. Yet, as suggested above, the premise of this success was indeed directly granted by neutrality, forming the origin of its rise alongside subsequent ruination.
